Level Playing Fields Are Full of Weeds

Skoolboy over at Eduwonkette's place has an analytical post on education and socio-economic status, one of the issues addressed by the Broader/Bolder approach to ed reform. He starts off with:


skoolboy doesn’t know who was the first to say that the true measure of a society is how it treats its weakest members, but it’s an appealing proposition. All societies have children and adults who vary in their economic, social and cultural status within the society. In virtually every modern society, the more advantaged, as a group, do better than those with lower status, although individuals can rise or fall in relation to their peers. Today’s visit to the Olympics looks at the relationship between a child’s socioeconomic status and proficiency in math and science across countries.


His post made a connection to a fascinating program I saw on PBS yesterday (Wide Angle) on the rigid exam system in China and the pressures on students. When Aaron Brown questioned a defender of the system, she claimed that this was the closest to a level playing field where the child of a peasant has an equal chance with the child of a high government official. Brown was skeptical. "Well," she said, "naturally there are advantages and the peasant may have to be 10 times smarter than the official's child but if he/she is then the playing field is equal."

It's worth checking out just to see her justification at the end of the program. All rote learning all the time and you get weeded out before you reach high school Of course, China invented the examination system over a thousand years ago.

With the US schools, especially in urban poor areas, heading in the same direction, we hear the same claims of a level playing field from the Joel Klein/Al Sharpton Educational Equality Project. What they are really doing is picking off the 10 times smarter kids and pushing them into charter and other privatization situations while leaving the other kids behind in large, overcrowded, under serviced high schools.

Sort of like they weed them out in China in the 8th grade.

Level playing field indeed.

Rubber Room Suit Out - Kaufman Comments

Elizabeth Green writes about the tossing of the rubber room suit by a state judge in today's NY Sun. Jeff Kaufman provides more extensive background on the case by Teachers4Action and comments on the ICE blog. Head over and read Jeff's entire piece. Here are a few excerpts:

Back in January a group of rubber room teachers who called themselves “Teachers4Action” filed an action in Federal District Court against the City and the UFT (the UFT was not originally named but was later included as a necessary party which resulted in the loss of union representation for the charged teachers) in an effort to shut the rubber rooms down. Erin Einhorn of the Daily News reported that “The suit alleges that the rooms are part of a "scheme" to discriminate against experienced teachers and "reduce salaries by forcing teachers to quit or be fired.

Teachers4Action is to be congratulated for having the courage to bring these proceedings. They have clearly been instrumental in maintaining the pressure on the both the UFT and the DOE to help stop the abuse that rubber room teachers are subjected to every day.

While kudos go out to Elizabeth Green of the New York Sun for covering this story it is important to note that Justice Payne did not throw out the case because “there was no evidence that the arbitrators were biased against the teachers.”

While the judge made a side comment about the lack of evidence he never heard any evidence since the case was dismissed because Teachers4Action filed the wrong paper.

We hope they will continue to fight.

Campaign 2012: Pro-Clinton Group Runs Anti-Obama Ad

More on the Clinton undermining of Obama so McCain can win. Told ya so.
(And for anyone who doesn't think the Clintons aren't behind this no matter how much Hillary campaigns for Obama, there's a bridge to nowhere in Alaska I have to sell you.) And remind me of where Randi Weingarten and the UFT/AFT stands on this issue.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Newsmax

A group of Hillary Clinton supporters has bought an ad in an influential Washington, D.C. publication warning against turning the Democratic convention in Denver into what they call a “coronation” of Barack Obama.

The ad states: “If Democratic processes and principles are not respected, then the party will have a much bigger problem – a genuine revolt of more than 18 million voters.”

Another pro-Clinton group, 18 Million Voices, is organizing a march on that day in Denver “and nationwide to support Sen. Clinton and advocate for women’s rights worldwide,” according to its Web site.

Some of the Denver Group’s goals are at odds with those of the Democratic Party, The Hill newspaper reports. It wants an open convention, with Hillary’s name placed in nomination, as well as a genuine roll call vote with Clinton as a legitimate candidate instead of what it calls a “coronation” of Barack Obama.

Clinton backers in Denver will hold signs reading, “Denounce Nobama’s Coronation,” according to the Denver Post.

Read more

Thanks to FL

A Typical Retiree Day- A JOKE

Working people frequently ask retired people what they do to make their days interesting. I have a great example.

The other day my wife and I went downtown and went shopping. We were in a shop for about 5 minutes. When we came out, there was a cop writing out a parking ticket.

We went up to him and said, "Come on man, how about giving a retiree a break?" He ignored us and continued writing the ticket.

So I called him a Nazi bastard and a pig. He glared at me and started writing another ticket for having worn tires. So my wife called him a fascist shithead. He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first. Then he started writing a third ticket.

This went on for about 20 minutes. The more we abused him, the more tickets he wrote. Personally, we didn't care. We came into town by subway.

We try to have a little fun each day now that I am retired. I feel it is important !

Thanks to CS

Warning: Some people took this seriously - especially a certain Unity Caucus cluck.
This is a joke. Anyone who would get into such a confrontation with a cop in a situation like this should be locked up -- for insanity.

Accountability?

Think it costs too much to reduce class size and provide other services to kids and parents in urban school systems? Create a phony one way accountability and standards movement to ignore and disparage small class size while putting the burden of accountability on teachers, schools, students and parents.

Susan Ohanian points to this article by William Greider in The Nation, Aug. 18, 2008:

Read this important article in the context of what the corporate politicos--Republicans and Democrats--have done to attack, demean, and deprofessionalize teachers--in the name of accountability.

Greider writes:

Talk about warped priorities! The government puts up $29 billion as a "sweetener" for JP Morgan but can only come up with $4 billion for Cleveland, Detroit and other urban ruins. Even the mortgage-relief bill is a tepid gesture. It basically asks, but does not compel, the bankers to act kindlier toward millions of defaulting families.

A generation of conservative propaganda, arguing that markets make wiser decisions than government, has been destroyed by these events. The interventions amount to socialism, American style, in which the government decides which private enterprises are "too big to fail." Trouble is, it was the government itself that created most of these mastodons--including the all-purpose banking conglomerates. The mega-banks arose in the 1990s, when a Democratic President and Republican Congress repealed the New Deal-era Glass-Steagall Act, which prevented commercial banks from blending their business with investment banking. That combination was the source of incestuous self-dealing and fraudulent stock valuations that led directly to the Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed.

The central bank tipped its monetary policy hard in one direction--favoring capital over labor, creditors over debtors, finance over the real economy--and held it there for roughly twenty-five years. On one side, it targeted wages and restrained economic growth to make sure workers could not bargain for higher compensation in slack labor markets. On the other side, it stripped away or refused to enforce prudential regulations that restrained the excesses of banking and finance.

The only force capable of making a stand were the unions. Yet we have seen in our own UFT and AFT that they are part and parcel of this process. Have you heard one word from Randi Weingarten pointing to the disparity of the money spent for wars and bailouts compared to a true package of urban education reform? Thus, her calls for community schools without making the money connections, are just words.

But there is a long-time precedent in predecessor Al Shanker, who in 1975 used teacher pension funds to bail out the city as 15,000 teachers were laid off in a devastated the school system for over a decade with schools being left in disrepair with some closed and sold on the cheap (think they would be useful in today's overcrowded situation.) And the Tier 3 and 4 pension systems too.

Shanker followed up with Act II in the 80's when he allied with a very anti-labor business community to create the very phony accountability and standards movement that has led to today's devastation of urban public schools.

I expect capitalists in the business community to function the way they do. Just as I expect Joel Klein and Mike Bloomberg to go after teachers and the union. But the "cooperative" and "collaborative" role unions, in particular the AFT/UFT tough liberals, have played when they should have been the last line of resistance, is what has helped make all their dreams come true.

Shameless Plug:
Read Vera Pavone's and my New Politics review of Albert Shanker: Tough Liberal

Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon - Review by Vera Pavone and Norman Scott in New Politics

New Politics web site
The review has not been posted at the NP site yet but you can get it at the Indepent Community of Educators web site.
Get the pdf
http://www.ice-uft.org/ruthlessneocon.pdf

Exporting NYC's Education "Miracle": Buyer Beware!

"As class sizes remain maxed out, dynamic teachers continue to depart the system in droves, and student dropout rates remain static, reality does not match the Bloomberg-Klein rhetoric."

Dan Brown in the Huffington Post.

Why Didn't The UFT Demand An Independent Investigation For Alleged Teacher Misconduct...

... Asks Chaz's School Daze.

Chaz writes:

The UFT spin machine is at it again as they proclaim in their propaganda rag, The New York Teacher, about how they won a great victory for the "rubber room" teachers. I have already commented on this phony UFT victory here. However, what was wanted by all teachers was a truly independent investigation procedure. Presently, all investigations are done by SCI, OSI, and the principal. In all cases the investigators either work for and are paid by the DOE. They assume that the teacher is guilty and their job is to get enough evidence to embellish, pervert, or to change the information to substantiate the alleged misconduct.

At a June 2006 Executive Board meeting, ICE EB member Jeff Kaufman asked the UFT to do exactly what Chaz asks for by hiring paralegals and investigators to look at the evidence before DOE investigators and principals with vendettas begin their machinations.

Randi Weingarten ridiculed his proposal. Imagine the costs! What would those do to the patronage mill? How would they be able to spend millions of dollars sending 1000 Unity Caucus members on junkets to NYSUT and AFT conventions? If money were spent on giving teachers charged a chance at a fair shake how would Unity be able to create enough union jobs to satisfy the desire of Unity members to get out of their schools?

This was just one event at Executive Board meetings that so grated on Unity Caucus and led to the co-endorsement of New Action so they could replace the ICE/TJC reps.

When it comes to teachers charged, UFT policy is to let sleeping dogs lie. If the member makes no noise and goes like sheep to the slaugher, so be it. That was why we started bringing rubber room people to Ex. Bd meetings to make the wheel squeak.

Jeff wrote about the issue on the ICE blog in June '06:

When I was in the rubber room last year a member told me “his story” about an allegedly forged medical note. It appeared that after the teacher spoke up about the number of special ed student in his class (he worked in District 75) he was injured by an autistic student. He went to the doctor, who according to the eventual allegations, filled out a note which the teacher changed. The teacher claimed that the note was changed by the doctor. The doctor divulged the teacher’s medical records to DOE investigators which indicated that the note had a different (later) date than the records.

I asked the teacher what contact he had with the doctor and he told me he was specifically told not to talk to him. Did the NYSUT attorney send an investigator or make any attempt to contact the doctor or in any way investigate the matter?

Recently, a NYSUT attorney amazingly told me that there are no investigators and that the attorneys are overwhelmed with cases to provide the defense that our members need.

This might explain why, at a recent 3020a hearing I attended I was not subpoenaed nor had contact with the NYSUT attorney until the night before my testimony.

The only way we, as a Union, tolerate this misrepresentation of our members is because we don’t really care about these members. Just remember, however, the next rubber room reassignment might be for you!

Jeff's full post.

2012: A Presidential Odyssey

by David B.

John Merrow, NCLB - and Randi Too

Last week we posted on the clear bias of John Merrow who chaired a loaded on line conference on NCLB which included few if any people who taught for more than 10 minutes.

But AFT/UFT President Randi Weingarten was on the panel to defend teacher interests - ha, ha, ha - see one of her quotes below.

Susan Ohanian in her daily Outrages put up quotes from some of the participants.

________________________
Ohanian Comment:
I post a few snippets from this discussion on NCLB, narrated by PBS's John Merrow, Education Correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and President of Learning Matters Incorporated, as a warning. Should you wish to inflict more damage on your psyche, the url for the complete discussion is below.
http://newtalk.org/2008/08/do-we-need-a-basic-rewrite-of.php

Note how Merrow sets the tone: Any talk of abandoning No Child Left Behind is foolish. . . . So nobody who advocates ending NCLB is invited to the table. No grassroots activist was invited. "Activists" by definition in this atmosphere have ties to places like the Manhattan Institute, Hoover Institution, and the American Enterprise Institute. As I’ve been pointing out incessantly, those who come close to saying "dump NCLB" do so only as part of their strident calls for national standards and a national test.

But don't miss these [Merrow] gems:

NCLB as the vehicle for "beaming sunshine" down on public schools.

We as a nation have no aversion to national standards; we set them for everything from food to cars to toys. Why not national standards for all students in reading and math?

[L]et me throw into the mix Education Sector's finding–that we spend 15 cents of every $100 education dollars on NCLB testing. I know from conversations with the folks who make kitty litter, flea powder and other Hartz pet products that it spends at least 10 times that much testing its products.

I am struck by the wisdom of Achieve, Eli Broad [who funds Merrow] and others who talk about 'Common Standards,’ perhaps recognizing that 'national' and 'federal' are widely confused concepts and red flags to many Americans.

Count how many times panelists proclaim, "I agree with Checker/Chester [Finn].
______________________

Here is Randi's namby pamby quote:

Randi Weingarten, newly elected President American Federation of Teachers (AFT); a lawyer and active member of the Democratic National Committee

"John Merrow is right: Helping all kids achieve, particularly kids at risk, was always the main goal of federal education law. NCLB correctly set high standards, but it over-emphasized testing and sanctions at the expense of helping all kids achieve. . . . It's great that Achieve has been able to find a way to move toward national standards by working with the states and moving the consensus outwards, rather than starting at the top and moving down. Their work shows it's doable and I'd like to see more of it, more states, more subjects."

Does Weingarten want NCLB eliminated or modified? Where exactly does she stand? Which direction is the wind blowing? And there's too much testing? Randi made sure to jump into the photo when Bloomberg/Klein got the Broad prize, bragged about high test scores in the NYC test all the time system and agreed to a merit pay scheme based on test scores.

If anyone finds more fun Randi quotes at the site, send them along. I've had enough.

Susan O has a selection of comments from classroom teachers.

Lynn: I got through about 15 responses in this discussion before I got bored. Mainly because these folks keep saying the same thing in different ways. I have two questions for these participants: Have you ever taught in a K-12 public school classroom? If so, how long has it been since you were there? If any of these people have never had K-12 experience, I'm not particularly interested in what they have to say. The only real experts in a discussion like this are current and recently former teachers.

John Thompson: John [Merrow], I'm frustrated by your opening questions. I've always admired your work, but they sound like a "bait and switch." You started with an endorsement of NCLB, but shouldn't the question be about NCLB-type accountability. If I heard correctly, most panelists challenged national test-driven accountability. You said that we spend 15 cents of every $100 on testing, but isn't that the problem with NCLB I? Its another example of "Fire! Ready. Aim." Then when you started off today with the issue of National Standards, you started us off on the path that gave us NCLB. The next step is "better tools, curricula, and instruction stategies." No! That's not the only way!

Read Susan's full treatment http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_outrages.html?id=3492

And Then There's THIS

If you doubt the post below this on Hill in '12, check out the Huffington Post reports on Clinton campaign internal memos to be printed in Atlantic Monthly.

Leaked Clinton Camp Memos: Paint Obama As Foreign

A Shill for Hill in '12

To Hillaryites, the Democratic Convention is all about the 2012 presidency

With the death of Bernie Mac yesterday, the dearth in comedy is made up by Michelle Cottle, a senior editor at The New Republic, in today's NY Times. Her op ed urges the Democrats to enter Hillary Clinton's name for presidential nomination which would precipitate a roll-call that would prove embarrassing for Obama and result in damaging his already fragile campaign against John McCain.

The roll-call campaign caused an incredulous Matt Lauer took a few minutes from the Olympics the other day to say, "What are they doing?" Not many are willing to say it, but this is not about so-called respect or closure for Hillary's supporters. It is about running Hillary for president against John McCain or whoever in 2012. The more Obama is damaged, the better the chance for a hoped for 1972 McGovern like disaster, thus executing the prime directive – getting Hillary elected as president.

Even Cottle admits that,

"Nearly everyone in the Democratic Party seems to think that officially entering Hillary Clinton’s name into a roll-call vote for the presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention would be a dangerous show of disunity.

It’s true that having America watch as some portion of Mrs. Clinton’s 1,640 pledged delegates thumb their noses at BarackObama would disrupt the party’s vision of a carefully scripted Denver love-in." [Emphasis mine]

Ya think?

Cottle needs to come up with some rationale to cover up the real intention.

But finding a constructive way for Mrs. Clinton’s seriously aggrieved loyalists to channel their anger and disappointment could wind up being the path of less destruction for Mr. Obama’s campaign. Plus, it’s the right thing to do.

OMG. The ole "right thing to do" ploy, words that have often been found missing from the vocabulary of the Clintons. Think maybe the right thing to do is to do everything possible to get Democrat elected?

But Cottle continues, "More than a few of Mrs. Clinton’s devotees, including plenty headed to Denver this month, are in need of catharsis and a bit of closure."

Ahh! the old C&C - Catharsis and Closure. So what if the venting leads to Bush 3. Well, actually, that is the point, isn't it?

More. "She was a victim of sexism, that the historic nature of her candidacy was callously dismissed in all the hullabaloo over the historic nature of Mr. Obama’s, and on and on and on. Some of these allegations ring truer than others."

Hey Michelle, exactly which allegations ring truer than others?

But many of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters believe them intensely enough to want to make trouble for Mr. Obama. Discouraging Mrs. Clinton’s name from being entered into a roll-call vote would give her legions yet one more opportunity to feel that their candidate had been snubbed. Giving them the chance to see their beloved candidate honored in a highly public forum could, just maybe, help release a little steam from the pressure cooker. Beyond that, there could be other, more direct benefits for Mr. Obama’s candidacy. A roll-call vote for Mrs. Clinton could help Mr. Obama look magnanimous instead of messianic.

Fair or not, the man has earned himself a reputation as arrogant.

Arrogant and messianic. What's worse? A&M or Catharsis and Closure?
Let's make sure to get in a shot at Obama that could have come right from the McCain campaign. Or Karl Rove.

Yes, we would all be reminded of how close the Democratic race for president was when, on the convention floor, delegation after delegation rose to cast its votes. (A few die-hards for Mrs. Clinton might even get mouthy.)

Bet they will. The more mouthy, the better to start the Hill in '12 campaign.

In February I wrote:

[Randi's] plan being to use a national forum [as AFT President] to help Hillary get elected. Ooops! Actually, if Obama is the candidate and loses to McCain, Hillary becomes very viable in 2012, so think long-term. Who do you think the Weingarten/Clinton forces will really be rooting for?) An Obama loss and AFT HQ becomes Hillary Central.

We've been chronicling the ties that bind the UFT/AFT to the Clintons. Is there any doubt that, Randi Weingarten, our leader who is a super delegate, will support this roll call move, though look for carefully parsed language (probably written by Hillary/Randi common advisor Howard Wolfson) that will enable Randi to wiggle out of the mess when the shit hits the fan and McCain wins.

But of course they will paint the reasons as not due to the actions of Clinton supporters but to Obama's failures as a candidate.


In March I posted this:

Is Clinton Strategy Designed to Undermine Obama Chances to Win?

If Obama gets the nomination and loses to McCain, Hillary gets to say "I told you so" and becomes the instant candidate for 2012. At the time, I read the piece to my wife, upon which she, basically a Hillary supporter at the time, said "WHY? HOW COULD THEY WANT McCAIN?" I responded because for the Clintons and their supporters it is about them, not the party. I told her we would be watching the true level of enthusiasm Randi Weingarten and the AFT/UFT have for Obama – oh, there will be lots of surface stuff, but with Randi's star so hitched to Hillary, an Obama win, leaving Hillary in Siberia, would not be part of the plan.

Maureen Dowd ("Hillary or Nobody") raised this same point in March:

Even some Clinton loyalists are wondering aloud if the win-at-all-costs strategy of Hillary and Bill — which continued Tuesday when Hillary tried to drag Rev. Wright back into the spotlight — is designed to rough up Obama so badly and leave the party so riven that Obama will lose in November to John McCain.

If McCain only served one term, Hillary would have one last shot. On Election Day in 2012, she’d be 65.

Why else would Hillary suggest that McCain would be a better commander in chief than Obama, and why else would Bill imply that Obama was less patriotic — and attended by more static — than McCain?

Why else would Phil Singer, a Hillary spokesman, say in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday that Obama was trying to disenfranchise the voters of Florida and Michigan. “When it comes to voting, Senator Obama has turned the audacity of hope into the audacity of nope,” he said, adding, “There’s a basic reality here, which is we could have avoided the entire George W. Bush presidency if we had counted votes in Florida.” So is Singer making the case that Obama is as anti-democratic as W. was when he snatched Florida from Al Gore?

Some top Democrats are increasingly worried that the Clintons’ divide-and-conquer strategy is nihilistic: Hillary or no democrat.

(Or, as one Democrat described it to ABC’s Jake Tapper: Hillary is going for “the Tonya Harding option” — if she can’t get the gold, kneecap her rival.)

I'm not the only one out there on this. The other day I came across this:

Hillary Plots, Eyes 2012 Bid

From Inside Cover
August 1, 2008

by Rick Pedraza

With hopes of being chosen as Barack Obama’s vice-presidential running mate dashed, Hillary Clinton has begun the process of carving out her political future.

The New York Post reports Clinton met earlier this week at a secret ladies-only dinner in Washington to discuss where she can go from here.

After learning she would address the Democratic National Convention on its second night – traditionally not the night the vice presidential nominee would speak – Clinton reportedly gathered her female posse together to discuss a possible White House run in 2012.

The entire piece is here.

Oh, and it you doubt the above and want to point to the Hillary/Obama unity event or the fact that Hillary will campaign for Obama, think:

...pay campaign debt so campaign '12 can begin.
...make it look like you really want Obama to win even though the Clinton campaign said time and again that he can't.

And if you believed this all along, then you wouldn't want to touch the VP with a 10 foot pole, so I see any of that talk as part of the distraction - see, he dissed us again?


Other sources:

Clinton Backers Plan Rules and Bylaws Protest

The Gothic Politics of Hillary Clinton

Hillary's $6.4 Million is a Wise Investment, for 2012

Huffington Post

This is not really a case, as some have suggested, of throwing good money after bad.
Hillary Clinton's decision to dump another $6.4 million into her lifeless campaign actually makes an odd and devious kind of sense. Because for her the end game is no longer November, it's 2012.

Next: Why I think Obama won't win. Not because of narcissism (oh, that was Edwards.) Or messianic tendencies. Or arrogance. Can you guess the reason? Triple DUH if you can't.

Postscript: I do not write this as an Obama supporter and am still 50-50 about voting 3rd party. But for true Democratic party people to support the roll call vote, it is shameful.

Green Dot’s Empty Promise

Read it here. I'm thinking that parent choice to the ed reform free marketeers only means they have a choice to leave if they no like. Otherwise they have no say in a dictatorial system. Contrast that to the suburbs where parents have no school choice but do elect school boards and vote on school budgets, in addition to a whole lot more input that the urban "free choice" dicatorships.

And then there's the UFT partnership with Green Dot.

I'll connect more (green) dots later.

Parking Permits for Teachers

Elizabeth Green reports in the NY Sun that NYC principals have to decide which teachers will be getting the precious parking permits, which have been drastically cut by Bloomberg.

Ed Notes News is reporting that these permits will be allocated to the teachers who get the best scores on standardized tests. Not only will classroom teachers be motivated to work harder, there is the added benefit that they will be able to use all of their time and energy for test prep, not for driving around looking for the very few legal spots that exist. And of course out of classroom teachers and those who teach non testing Grades PreK -2 will either have to take public transport or walk to work. And that will serve to reduce global warming.

The UFT hailed this as a great victory. "They wanted to eliminate all permits but we drew a line in the sand," said a spokesperson for the UFT. "We are forming a bi-partisan committee to spend the year studying whether to ask for the right to deduct the costs of parking tickets from taxes. Expect a report in June 2009."

Thanks to Jeff, Loretta and Gloria

Tenure Uncovered

Tenure is a much misunderstood concept and the fact that the concept is under attack as a major cause of the so-called achievement gap is part of the business community and the Educational Equality Project's focus on the teacher as the problem.

Historically, tenure came into existence before teacher unions existed as a way to protect educators and education from political interference. And to give people the right to a defense. It was not designed to protect the incompetent and there have always been tools available to administrators to remove teachers. The length of the process has been under attack even though much of that has been due to the other factors (like few hearing officers.) For some good history, read "Blackboard Unions: The Aft and the Nea, 1900-1980" by Marjorie Murphy.)


An excellent discussion on tenure occurred a few days ago at the NYC Public School Parent list serve, which also includes teachers. That teachers and parents were involved is of some interest.

Note the point in Leonie Haimson's comment where she compares teachers in public and private schools, where there is not tenure, yet there are poor teachers there too. Leonie should know as she has children in both.

Leonie also points to the fact that tenure exists all around the nation - yet it doesn't seem to be under attack in the suburbs. This exposes the fault line in the anti-tenure argument as part of the attack on teacher unions.

The discussion was sparked by an article in The Chief, which pointed to the big rise in the numbers denied from 66 in 2006/7 to 164 in 2007/8 and the numbers extended for probation from 115 in 06/07 to 246 in 07/08.

Principals Tighten the Reins on Tenure, Deny It to 164 Teachers

New Department of Education figures have revealed that the denial of Teacher tenure more than doubled compared to last year, as Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein continue to push for stricter evaluations of Teachers up for long-term job security.

Still, 93% received tenure from principals under BloomKlein. So how will they blame teachers in the future when their own principals gave them tenure?

I’ll start in the middle of the debate where Jeff Kaufman (ICE), who was a NYC policeman and a lawyer before becoming a teacher, responds to Leonie's comment with the crucial point that there is another agenda going on.

While I don’t disagree about concentrating on issues of smaller class size and reducing the impact on high stakes tests the issue of tenure, unfortunately, due to political considerations, needs to be periodically addressed. Having worked for a few City agencies I don’t understand how tenure is singled out for teachers as such a “hot button issue” except that there is another agenda going on.

I have not heard any cries of the ruination of our other City departments because the line workers, for the most part, have tenure. Police Officers, Firefighters, Sanitation Workers and hundreds of other titles have probationary terms and tenure (only teachers call it that) which require that poor performers be granted hearings so that city officials must prove that they lack the skills necessary to carry out the job. A police officer who makes no arrests, goes out sick all of the time, has no summonses and whose response time is totally inadequate can be dismissed, not because his commanding officer doesn’t like him, but because he doesn’t perform his job satisfactorily.

It is amazing to me, as a teacher and parent of school children, that principals and some parents can “tell” if a teacher is any good just by their reputation. I have been in schools where the principal does not observe teachers and bases his or her opinion about the teacher’s performance on walks through the hall and the chatter of other staff members.

Teachers shouldn’t have to defend tenure any more than other public employees. If there is a problem a supervisor should be taking affirmative steps to correct it. Unfortunately there is little accountability in this area.


Parent Eugene Falik:

I think that Jeff has hit the nail on the head.

It is not possible to have incompetent teachers in a school without incompetent or lazy administrators.

It reminds me of a meeting that the Far Rockaway postmaster had with members of the community. There were all manner of complaints, and comparisons of conditions in the Rockaways to the Five Towns (nearby area of Nassau), as well as other areas of the city. The postmaster explained that all of the employees sent to work for him were stupid and / or lazy. All of the good workers were sent elsewhere! Possible? Perhaps, but not likely. Most of those present blamed management.

And keep in mind, Mayor Bloomberg has said that we should judge him by the results in the schools. I believe that we should take him at his word. It certainly will not be a favorable judgment in my opinion.

Eugene Falik


The above comments were to some extent sparked by parent Ellen Bilofsky:

Despite my strong support for teachers' rights, dare I say that this might not be such a bad thing? I would say that for both my kids, poor teachers was the biggest problem in their high school years. Of course, it's a complex issue, and tenure is only a small part of it. At the end of the article, Randi mentions the support given to new teachers so that they can become excellent teachers. Being able to get rid of tenured teachers who are simply burnt out (we have examples of teachers who were literally almost comatose in the classroom) is a big issue. Shortages of teachers in certain subjects is a big part of the problem, since a teacher can't be dismissed if there is no one to replace him/her.

Ellen


Leonie Haimson’s response to Ellen’s comment.

A bunch of different issues are being debated and I think confused here:

1- I believe that too few NYC teachers are denied tenure, when you look at the statistics. Why that is, I have no idea; whether the problem is lazy principals or the system of tenure itself.

2- Once teachers have tenure, it is very difficult to get rid of them, even for poor performance. I have heard that there are ways to “counsel” them out of the profession but don’t know how often that is done. Yet there are good reasons for giving tenure.

3- For one thing, teacher tenure exists in most if not all districts throughout the country; eliminating tenure in NYC alone would not only be highly unrealistic; it would further disadvantage NYC schools, by giving a powerful disincentive for anyone who would like to teach here.

4- I also imagine that many principals would unfairly base the decision to eliminate a teacher on low test scores or even retaliate against teachers for personal reasons – after looking at the situation with the rubber room, etc.

5- NYC principals now have additional incentives to get rid of experienced teachers any way they can, and if there was no tenure, would be firing them left and right, as they have to pay for their higher salaries out of the schools’ discretionary budget. This is a perverse incentive that Tweed has built into their “fair funding system” which is highly destructive.

6- I have had children in public schools and in private schools; the quality of teaching has varied just as much in private schools, where there is no tenure. In fact, some of my daughter’s worst teachers were at her private school. What was far superior were not her teachers per se, but the smaller classes, arts programs and extra-curriculars, facilities, and the underlying attitude that all students should get maximum help and be exposed to as many activities as possible, in order to reach their highest potential in all areas.

7- If we really want to improve teacher quality and effectiveness in NYC, the best way is not to get rid of the tenure system, but to support all teachers and kids so that they can be more successful, by reducing class size, and also put less emphasis on test scores and more emphasis on non- academic areas and activities like the arts.

8- Smaller classes and a smaller working load will also likely diminish teacher attrition, which is extremely high in NYC and results in a far less experienced teaching force, which also means a less effective one, compared to other school districts throughout the state.

9- I believe but cannot prove that class size reduction would also diminish teacher “burn out.” How would you feel if you had year after year of 150 students or more, that you could only get to know a few of them, and reach so few?

10- This is true even at elite public schools like Stuy. If you’d like more info on this, read Frank McCourt’s book about teaching at Stuy, in which he talked about wanting to toss all his students’ assignments into a trash bin. Here is an excerpt from Teaching Man:

“If you asked all the students in your five classes to write 350 words each then you had 175 multiplied by 350 and that was 43, 750 words you had to read, correct, evaluate and grade on evenings and weekends. That’s if you were wise enough to give them only one assignment per week. You had to correct misspellings, faulty grammar, poor structure, transitions, sloppiness in general. You had to make suggestions on content and write a general comment explaining your grade. …If you gave each paper a bare five minutes you’d spend, on this one set of papers, 14 hours and 35 minutes. That would amount to more than two teaching days, and the end of the weekend…that’s the life of the HS English teacher.”

It’s no wonder he retired early. And he was thought of as one of the best teachers there!

Leonie Haimson

Fringe NYC Opening Day Today

Volunteeering at the Fringe Festival is one of my favorite activities. Hundreds of shows downtown, all for $15 a piece. Get a free ticket for each 2 hours you give them. A lot of fun meeting profesional and amateur performers from around the nation. And you can see a bunch of shows each day.

		BENEFITS!

In This Issue:

OPENING DAY!

	• FringeNYC BENEFITS! 8 cent beer TODAY!		• FringeNYTeasers
	• FringeNYC BENEFITS! A truly "Fringetastic" offer from Theatermania.com!
	• FringeNYC Benefits! Buy our stuff!

FringeNYC BENEFITS! 8 cent beer TODAY!

FringeNYC brings you exclusive benefits and special offers through our partners at 8coupons.com. Enjoy 8-cent beer TODAY at Wicked Willy's on 149 Bleeker Street in Greenwich Village! It's not a typo, that's really Miller beer for 8 cents each! Click here to get this and all other exclusive 8coupons OCHO LOCO (8-cent) deals!

FringeNYC BENEFITS! A truly "Fringetastic" offer from Theatermania.com!

Join Theatermania's Gold Club and SAVE 10% PLUS receive a pair of tickets to [title of show]! [title of show] kicks off the new Broadway season. This original musical is written by Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell and directed by Michael Beresse. [title of show] on Broadway stars the musical's original cast -- Jeff Bowen, Hunter Bell, Susan Blackwell, Heidi Blickenstaff and musical director Larry Pressgrove. AND - for each new member who joins The Gold Club in August, Theatermania will make a contribution in support of FringeNYC! Click here to take advantage of this Theatermania FringeNYC Benefit!

FringeNYC Benefits! Buy our stuff!

All of the beautiful furniture at FringeCENTRAL has been donated by CB2 - a new destination from Crate and Barrel that dials up the fun. Smart designs, clever materials. Neat stuff, cool colors. A unique mix of ever-changing modern furnishings, entertaining dinnerware and barware, and witty accessories. This year, through a special partnership, CB2 SoHo (451 Broadway) has donated all of the furnishings for FringeCENTRAL. FringeNYC patrons who visit FringeCENTRAL will be able purchase furnishings at an increasingly reduced rate and tag them for pick-up on Saturday, August 23rd OR take their chances and attending the "cash and carry" sale on Saturday, August 23rd and Sunday, August 24th. Why not come to FringeCENTRAL and pick up a program guide and test out our chairs, tables, bar stools, and couches?

FringeNYTeasers

FringeNYTeasers are to FringeNYC what trailers are to the movies. Can't decide which FringeNYC shows to see? Come check our our FringeNYTeasers - five minute excerpts of shows. THIS WEEKEND - TEASERS at FringeCENTRAL: Watch a preview in our comfy cafe area and then buy your tickets on the spot! Saturday, August 9th 12:30 - 2:00 Sunday, August 10th 12:30 - 2:00 LUNCHTIME TEASERS at FringeCENTRAL (the Brown Bag Series). Bring your lunch and enjoy some free entertainment! Wednesday, August 13th 12:30 - 1:30 Thursday, August 14th 12:30 - 1:30 Friday, August 15th 12:30 - 1:30 FringeAL FRESCO Teasers at South Street Seaport: Have some fun in the sun and get a sneak peek at the shows that are a part of FringeNYC! Sunday, August 10th 3pm - 5pm Saturday, August 16th 3pm - 5pm Sunday, August 17th 3pm - 5pm

Thank you for your support of FringeNYC!

John Merrow Cover Blown

It's nice to see how John Merrow is increasingly blowing his cover as a supposed "honest" commentator on education.

Merrow chaired an online conference this week on what to do about NCLB. Lots of familiar faces: Sol Stern, Randi, Ravitch, Cerf, Finn, Hess (American Enterprise Institute) and lots of others- Alexander Russo's TWIE has pics of them here.

Russo said, "These folks are talking about what to do with NCLB here. Let me know if they say anything new or interesting." Sorry Alexander.

My comment at TWIE:

Can anyone find a real teacher - someone who has taught in an urban school for more than a few minutes - in this group? The lack of teacher voices and ideas for solutions is one of the real problems in education reform.

....which was followed by this anonymous comment

...and that is a whole lot of white people

Hey, Merrow could have invited Al Sharpton and the whole gang of black people who signed onto the Education Equality Project – Fenty, Booker, Watts, etc.

I had a little debate at Russo's place with (classroom teacher- how refreshing) John Thompson, someone who I agree with 90% of the time. But at the time, we disagreed on Merrow, who Thompon looked at as an honest broker. He seems to have changed his mind. The other day he posted this comment at TWIE:

The blogosphere works again, and again I stand corrected. Until now, I was glad you cited my previous discussion with Norm where I defended John Merrow. But Merrow's attending that shindig to push that agenda with that crowd. I would like to hear Merrow or any other progressive explain how they can countenance Michelle Rhee's behavior. That Washington Post article you cited today about her intrusion into the D.C. bargaining process was huge. What is it about "good faith" that she finds so objectionable? How can they be so sure that they are right that they use any means to reach their ends? What is next, Pinkerton spies? Oh yeah, they already tried that on Diane Ravitch in NYC.

While in Colorado, maybe someone could take Merrow on a side trip to Ludlow. Come to think of it, didn't the mine owner down there also get praised for being progressive and wasn't he also certain of the justice of his cause?

Maybe I'm naive. Maybe we need to go back to "Which Side Are You On?"

Boy, I wish I could say stuff like this as well as John.

Fred Klonsky at Prea Prez also jumped in (Who is Missing?)

Sherman Dorn takes a break from his vacation from blogging to ask this question:

I promised not to comment on anything during my two-week break, but the NewTalk NCLBfest made me wonder who’s missing from this debate. Your observations in the comments are most welcome.

The obvious answer: A classroom teacher.

Plus, the panel John Merrow does select is so tilted right it threatens to fall off the edge of the earth. Merrow used to care about what went on in classrooms. But he seems to have turned into a shill for the Rhee/Klein crowd these days.

YES!

Back in May I wrote this commentary

John Merrow - Only an Idiot...

...would overlook Merrow's one-sided coverage of education on the News Hour With Jim Lehrer after he wrote a teacher union bashing op ed in the Wall St. Journal.

I could say only an idiot would write, "Only an idiot would overlook student performance, be it dismal or outstanding" and then go on to talk about the narrowest form of assessment possible while ignoring all the other assessments of student "performance" - how about attendance? how about functioning effectively in a social setting? - what's the matter, John, too hard to figure all this stuff out for a supposed "expert" on education.

It is no surprise Murdoch's Wall Street Journal gives him a platform. What's next? The NY Post?

Merrow's Learning Matters is funded by Annenberg, Gates, Broad, Kellogg - the usual suspects in the phony ed reform movement.

AND OF COURSE,
Check Eduwonkette's take: Who Slipped a Mickey in John Merrow's Kool-Aid?

The Ties That Bind

In recent posts we have tied what looks like the unlikely combination of Randi Weingarten and Joel Klein, who on the surface seem to have so much to disagree about.

But sometimes, there are ties that bind. The key is to follow the Clinton connection.

In a post back in December (Triangulation - Clintonism as a Model for UFT Policy) we speculated that there has been a merger between the Clintons and the UFT/AFT.

This is a given when you follow the bouncing ball of a union/Clinton relationship that goes way back to the Shanker years of the early to mid-80's when Al Shanker and the Clintons established an ed reform partnership.

Joel Klein's relationship to the Clintons has been given less scrutiny, but is also a strong one.

David B came up with this item from a Jan. '94 Time magazine article:

As their somewhat wonky way of celebrating New Year's, President Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton and their daughter Chelsea joined about a thousand other people on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, for the "Renaissance Weekend," an annual gathering the Clintons have attended for a decade, at which successful liberal yuppies talk about policy and personal growth and make contacts.

Hillary's Favorite Activity: Hanging out with friends, including FDIC nominee Ricki Tigert, attorney Renee Ring, and Patsy Davis, wife of lawyer Joel Klein, who replaced Vince Foster.


According to Wikipedia, Klein's current wife Nicole Seligman, is an attorney who "appeared with Clinton when he testified before the grand jury in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and she spoke on his behalf before the Senate at the impeachment trial.

Klein was the U.S. Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division in the Clinton administration.

Points of View in Today's Ed News

Numbers, stats mean nothing when you tell half the story.

Leonie Haimson comments on this NY Times piece, August 5, 2008

In this account, the paper of record does not appear to be quite accurate.

Excerpt: “Last fall, City Comptroller William C. Thompson, a likely mayoral candidate, issued an audit showing that in a sampling of schools, several crimes that were recorded in school records were never reported to the state or the police.”

Several crimes? The audit found that in the ten sampled schools, 414 – or 21 percent – of 1,996 incidents went unreported – including a rape.

Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum said,
"My office, as well as the City and State Comptroller offices, have found chronic under reporting of school safety incidents by the Department of Education and city schools. I applaud the Mayor, the Chancellor, and Commissioner for their work reducing crime in schools, but I would ask: What has been done in the past year to address the problem of chronic under reporting and the questionable school safety data that results from it?"

Our report documenting the chronic under reporting of crime stats is here: http://www.pubadvocate.nyc.gov/news/safety_report_021507.html



Where n0-bid contracts dare to go:
The NYCDOE signed a five-year, $12.5 million no-bid contract with Dr. Levine and his organization in 2003.

NY Times
Accusations of Sex Abuse Trail Doctor


If you can't beat 'em, bribe 'em

Washington Post:
Teacher Lobbying Raises Union's Ire
Educators Hired to Sway Colleagues To Back Rhee's Salary, Bonus Plan

A community group that supports D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's proposed salary and bonus package for teachers has hired a small group of instructors at $1,000 a week to lobby colleagues for the plan, drawing accusations from union leaders of interference with the collective bargaining process. Read more...
Thanks to Philissa Cramer at Gotham Schools for this item.


Turning lemmons into lemmonade
Teacher choice money is cut from $260 to $150. The UFT says that's a victory.

"I've just received an email from the UFT stating that Teachers' Choice funds have been reduced from $260 to $150." NYC Educator has a few more teacher choice words.

Where are the Edwize commentators bragging about this one?


Achievement gap, ashmievement gap
The controversy over whether the Klein/Bloomberg package has dented the achievement gap in NYC goes on with Elizabeth Green's piece in yesterday's NY Sun.

Eduwonkette led the parade with a series of articles. The latest, An Unchanged NYC Achievement Gap Hits the Papers (Plus, Joel Klein's Postmodernist Turn! is here, but head over and read them all.

Kelly Vaughan comments at Gotham Schools, Joel Klein doesn’t believe in statistical significance?!
For the few who don't know, Kelly has moved from 8 years of teaching to the other side of the fence as ed reporter and commentator. Teacher turned reporter seems to becoming a trend with all the bloggers out there and that is a very good thing. Smart reporters like Elizabeth Green have tapped into that source.

The Magnificent Five Amigos

Update

The Amazing Randi video at Pseudointellectualism

Why has Randi Weingarten been added to the Education Equality Project amigos when she has endorsed the Bigger, Bolder agenda with her acceptance speech at the AFT convention?

We recently pointed to the "Weingarten contradiction" when she wanted credit for cooperating with the "reforms" pushed down the throats of the NYC school system by Joel Klein.

Remember how she stood on the stage when they got the Broad Prize for pushing EEP ideas?

And she stood next to them when they had a bragfest for getting high scores that everyone in NYC knows are not real.

And signed onto a bonus/merit pay plan for teachers based on high test scores while out of the other side of her mouth she laments how high stakes testing curriculum doesn't address the needs of the whole child.

Those of you outside of NYC unfamiliar with Weingarten's "I want to have my cake and eat it approach" will be seeing a lot more of that in years to come. Try not to choke on it as we have.

Photoshopping by DB