PEP Boys (and Girls)

No rally materialized at the first meeting of the Panel for Educational Policy last night under the reconstituted mayoral control. There was some talk from the Coalition for Public Education (CPE) and GEM but nothing materialized.

There were a cosmetic few changes at the PEP. Joel Klein can no longer be the chairman of the PEP, freeing him to play with his Blackberry all night. David Chang, who has spent his years on the PEP being a bump on a log was "elected" chair.

Javier Hernandez has a report on yesterday's PEP in the Times
Newly Empowered Education Panel, Looking Like the Compliant One of Old

It had been derided as a committee of puppets, a rubber-stamp board with no clear power or purpose. So when word came from Albany over the summer that the Panel for Educational Policy would have greater power over the New York City schools, some thought things might be different.

The old days, however, did not seem far behind at the panel’s first meeting of the school year on Monday: The “ayes” were nearly unanimous, and friction was virtually nonexistent.

When Ed Notes fave Patrick Sullivan surprised everyone by nominating himself for chairman, for a second there was no "second" – until SI rep Joan Correale, who usually kow-tows to the BloomKlein crowd (the SI borough Pres is a Bloomie), figured, "what the hell" and seconded Patrick's nomination. Of course, he lost to Chang as the prearranged plan was executed.

When it came time for the Vice chair, Correale (if my memory is correct) nominated Patrick and was seconded by Bronx borough rep Anna Santos. The BloomKlein crowd then nominated Philip Barry. Patrick asked Barry, incredulously, "Philip, I'm a little surprised since you have only attended 65% of the PEP meetings over the years".

Javier Hernandez writes with tongue firmly planted in cheek:

The mayoral bloc squelched the efforts of Patrick J. Sullivan, a Manhattan parent and frequent critic of Mr. Bloomberg’s policies, to become chairman, and rejected another bid by him for vice chairman.

Instead, the panel elected David C. Chang, the chancellor of the N.Y.U. Polytechnic Institute, as chairman, and Philip A. Berry, a management consultant, as vice chairman. (As of April, Mr. Chang had attended 81 percent of the board’s meetings since 2002, and Mr. Berry 65 percent, one of the lowest rates on the panel.)

Tweed's general counsel Michael Best was chosen as Secretary and will help Chang run the meetings.

Meredith Kolodner from the Daily News was there as the panel approved $250 million in contracts at its first meeting last night. Anna Philips from Gotham Schools, as was Yoav Gonen from the NY Post. But I haven't seen any reports from them yet. [UPDATE: Anna's report- The Panel for Educational Policy returns, its imprint the same]

The emerging star of the evening was the Bronx borough rep's appointee and newbie Anna Santos, who questioned just about everything. She reminded me of Tweed's Chief Parent Engagement Officer Martine Guerrier, who did much the same in her early days on the PEP as the Brooklyn rep. Over the years she faded fast. Hopefully, Anna Santos and Patrick Sullivan will make a great team and give the rest of us two voices on the PEP.

There was a long discussion of contracts and a large group of Koreans who want geographical names of territory taken from Korea by Japan in WWII restored to their Koran names. They had lots of cameras and press with them and great tee-shirts.

Robert Jackson, the City Council education chair came by and said something that has been on my mind for years: how do they hold a monthly open meeting in a space that holds 70 people?
They close the doors not long after the meeting starts. Jackson was incensed and rightly so. On the way in we all had to line up and go through security. I set up my tripod and camera and went to the bathroom. Then the security guard wouldn't let me back in. Thanks to DOE press spokesman Andy Jacob (on my Facebook page along with boss David Cantor), who said looking at my Wave press pass, "Are you a reporter today? You can go in." Sure Andy.

A bunch of parents from a charter school were there to extol the virtues of being given "choice" which according them is everyone's right. As is their right to demand space in public schools. Trying to counter the growing bad publicity charters are getting from GEM's very effective Truth About Charter Schools pamphlet, (we handed out some copies) they kept repeating their mantra that they are public school parents.

Parent leader Kim Irby from District 13 presented an effective alternative to their view, as did GEM and ICE member Gloria Brandon. I pointed out that in most of this country parents do not have choice to spend my tax money on their own little schools, but in fact have the choice of sending their kids to neighborhood schools or pay for private schooling.

It looks like the charter school movement in NYC is organizing a presence at events to stake their claim.

I only had an hour tape for a 3 hour plus meeting so I had to do a lot of juggling and moving and shaking - this place is not only unfriendly for attendees, but for video people– and tried to get as much flavor as I could. I made sure to get Leonie Haimson's two speeches (they tape died just as she finished her 2nd one with Michael Best harassing her as she pointed out how out of compliance they are on class size reduction) and as much of Patrick as I could. I missed a lot of Anna Santos because of a pillar. We have to get her a better seat next time.

As usual, the UFT had practically zero presence. The PEP next meeting will be Oct. 20 at the Petrides School in Staten Island. I'll be washing my hair that evening.


Related:
See Hernandez' report on cuts principals are being forced to make A New Meaning for Cutting Classes


Another sad NY story of a murdered young man
The murder of robotics student Glenn Wright is reported in the NY Times Fatal Stabbing of East Harlem Resident, 21, May Have Stemmed From Mistaken Identity. One of our key FIRST LEGO League planning committee members Kris Bretton coached Glenn and there are a bunch of quotes from Danny Peralta who worked with Glenn. Danny has been working with robotics and otter after school programs at East Harlem Tutorial (and is a great photographer).

I don't want to get on a high horse here. I'll just say that long-time teachers in the inner city see this type of story played so often. Good kids dying for nothing. When one touches you even through 3 degrees of separation, it makes it all the more poignant.

CAPE Press Release: Support Red Hook Public School Sept. 17

In the spring of 2008, the Red Hook community was informed that a charter school would be placed in their longstanding successful school, P.S. 15, The Patrick F. Daly School. After the decision was announced, there was community outrage and then, only then, was a community meeting held for members to share their views. In line with the leadership and vision of both Bloomberg and Klein, the decision to place a charter in P.S. 15 was finalized, regardless of the community’s outrage, a decision seemingly already made. The agreement was that this charter school, PAVE Academy, would be temporarily housed in P.S. 15 for two years. This agreement, by the Department of Education and PAVE’s founder, Spencer Robertson, was stated repeatedly to parents, community members, teachers, the building’s administration and to the union.

In the spring of 2009, only a year into their stay, PAVE announced to the Daily News that they requested an extension to stay in P.S. 15 for up to an additional three years. Again, parents, teachers and community members expressed their outrage and questioned the transparency, due process, and accountability of the Department of Education. According to the DOE, no decisions had yet been made concerning the extension request, but it took pressure by parents and teachers throughout the summer demanding due process to get a fair hearing. That meeting, a District 15 CEC meeting, will take place this Thursday, September 17, 2009 at P.S. 15 in the school’s auditorium.

Communities across the city share in the plight of the P.S. 15, Red Hook Community. We have seen community schools across the city forced to building share with charters, have their resources drained, their space limited and their programs negatively impacted. Now beginning to emerge, we are seeing charters put in extensions to stay and further expand into buildings after already announcing an end date for their temporary stay as part of the presentation to, and agreement with, the school communities. Interestingly, the extensions seem to aim to afford these charters free space until the end of their five year state evaluations, even though five years of space was not what was originally requested.

The lack of transparency and due process is an outrage to our democracy and defiles the success and importance of our community public schools. There is no accountability, no one to hold the Mayor’s administration to any kind of agreement or standard because they have a clear agenda and they intend to execute it: close down half of the number of public schools and double the number of charter schools by the end of their third term. What is even more disturbing; they are propagating this agenda on the backs of successful public schools that have served their communities for years. P.S. 15, The Patrick F. Daly School, whose namesake lost his life serving the children of Red Hook seventeen years ago, is an AAA school being unfairly and forcefully pushed out by a charter school that has no success record, is staffed with uncertified and inexperienced educators, and whose students are largely bused in from outside of the school community. Last year, out of P.S. 15’s Prekindergarten graduating class, only two families chose to send their two children to PAVE. The housing of PAVE Academy in P.S. 15 is not serving the best interest of the children in Red Hook, and it has no place in Red Hook’s community public school.

The Bloomberg Administration paints the charter school movement as a way to service children whom public schools have failed while promoting and developing innovative programming. This is cynical and disingenuous. The charter school movement drains school community resources, sets up a system of privilege and subordination, divides communities, and disenfranchises citizens from a truly democratic system that was intended to listen to them and represent them, not impose an authoritative agenda on them. If this charter school movement was really about what was best for children, we would not see building sharing formulas that treat children as numbers and deny them the space to run enrichment and intervention programming. We would not see campus policies that sanction public school principals for not coming to agreements on space usage, while doing nothing to hold charter school leaders accountable to the same standard. We would not see due process skirted and phony meetings held. We would not see successful schools being squeezed out by charters, especially when those charters are not primarily servicing the students from that school and community.

Please join the Red Hook community, its families and teachers, as we fight to protect P.S. 15, The Patrick F. Daly School, and community schools across the city. Public education is the pillar of our democracy; it must be protected and preserved. We should be supporting and using our successful public schools as models, not overextending them and negatively impacting their programming. We should fix our public schools that are not working, not propagate a privatization agenda.

capeducation@gmail.com

District 15, CEC, Community Education Council Meeting

Topic: Schools housed in public schools, PAVE Academy’s extension to continue to be housed in P.S. 15

Thursday, September 17, 2009, 7:00 P.M.

P.S. 15 School Auditorium

###

The Truth About Social Promotion

This was posted by Leonie Haimson at the NYC Public School Parent blog on August 10 when the mayor again played politics with the lives of children.

With tonight's Panel for Educational Policy due to vote on the extension of grade retention to the 4th and 6th grades, today is a good day to repost. Hopefully some people will sign up for 2 minutes tonight to emphasize some of the points Leonie makes.

As part of the Grassroots Education Movement's "The Truth About...." series of brochures, we may pamphletize (okay, so I made up a word) this post. Or include the concepts in a pamphlet on high stakes tests.

[Section added after posting
I know, I know. Many teachers want to be able to hold kids back when they deem it necessary. I do think there are times it is necessary. But that decision should not be based on some politician looking to make points. The blanket policy imposes policy from without but should be in the hands of the teachers and school administrators. What happened to school and principal empowerment? As a teacher I even resented my principal's takeover of this policy for her own political ends - holding kids back en masse as a way to game the high stakes tests so as to make the school look better. But gaming the test is what this is all about.]

Some myths and open lies about social promotion:

• Bloomklein ended social promotion (see credit recovery and drive-by diplomas)
• Children benefit from being held back (dropout rates rise)
• Research shows it works (BloomKlein cannot site one single research supported study)

The Mayor commits educational malpractice, once again

by Leonie Haimson

Today, the mayor announced he would extend his grade retention policies to 4th and 6th grades -- meaning that all NYC students through 8th grade would now face being held back on the basis of a single test score. According to Gotham Schools,

Asked about researchers’ claims that retention policies can raise the dropout rate, Bloomberg said he was “speechless,” adding, “It’s pretty hard to argue that it does not work.” Klein said that since 2004, when the DOE ended social promotion for third graders, support for its end has been “unanimous.”

In fact, the consensus among experts is overwhelmingly negative -- that grade retention hurts rather than helps students and leads to higher dropout rates. When the City Council held hearings the first time the Mayor proposed this policy, they could not find a single education researcher who supported it.

Yet the mayor and Klein manage to inhabit their own universe of spin; reminiscent to the manner in which Karl Rove described the Bush administration:

We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.

See the 2004 letter, signed by over 100 academics, heads of organizations, and experts on testing from throughout the nation, in opposition to the mayor's policy, when he first proposed 3rd grade retention, explaining:

"All of the major educational research and testing organizations oppose using test results as the sole criterion for advancement or retention, since judging a particular student on the basis of a single exam is an inherently unreliable and an unfair measure of his or her actual level of achievement. ...Harcourt and CTB McGraw Hill, the two largest companies that produce standardized tests...are on record opposing the use of their tests as the exclusive criterion for decisions about retention, because they can never be a reliable and/or complete measure of what students may or may not know."

Among the letter’s signers were Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, renowned pediatrician and author of numerous works on child care and development, Robert Tobias, former head of Division of Assessment and Accountability for the Board of Education and now Director of the Center for Research on Teaching and Learning at NYU, and Dr. Ernest House, who did the independent evaluation of New York City’s failed “Gates” retention program in the 1980’s.

Other signers included four past presidents of the American Education Research Association, the nation’s premier organization of educational researchers, as well as three members and the study director of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Appropriate Use of Educational Testing, and two members of the Board on Testing and Assessment of the National Research Council.

According to Dr. Shane Jimerson, professor of Child and Adolescent Development at the University of California, Santa Barbara and author of over twenty publications on the subject of retention,

“The continued use of grade retention constitutes educational malpractice. It is the responsibility of educators to provide interventions that are effective in promoting academic success, yet research examining the effectiveness of retention reveals lower achievement, more behavior problems, and higher dropout rates among retained students. It is particularly disconcerting that a disproportionate number of students of ethnic minority and low income backgrounds are retained. Moreover, children’s experience of being held back is highly stressful; surveys indicate that by sixth grade, students report that only the loss of a parent and going blind is more stressful. “

The second time the DOE pushed through this policy, for 5th grade retention, Klein agreed to commission an independent research study of the results. RAND has been analyzing the data since 2005 and has produced several interim reports which the public has not been allowed to see, as reported in a chapter in our book, NYC Schools Under Bloomberg and Klein: What Parents, Teachers and Policymakers Need to Know, by Patrick Sullivan, member of the Panel for Educational Policy:

"....the reports contained the results of extensive surveys with elementary school principals, summer school administrators, and Academic Intervention Services (AIS) specialists. Summer school leaders were coping with the latest DOE reorganization and complained they could not get any specific information on the students assigned to their programs. AIS leaders found that small class sizes were the most effective tool to help struggling students but less than a third of at-risk children had access to smaller classes. Principals felt the retention policy relied too much on standardized tests and was damaging to student self-esteem. Most troubling of all: none of these findings had been made public."

Now, as Patrick points out in Gotham Schools,

"When we voted on the 8th grade retention policy last year they said the release date for the RAND study was August 2009. Now it is “sometime this fall”. Would that happen to be “sometime after the election this fall?” What are they hiding?"

According to the DOE spokesperson, " Preliminary results of the RAND study, which looks at the performance of third and fifth graders affected by the Mayor’s promotion policy over time and will include data from the 2008-2009 school year, were delivered to the Department of Education last year...."

If Bloomberg and Klein were really so convinced that their retention policies have been successful, they should be obligated to release the RAND findings before the vote of the Panel to approve their extension to even more children.

Jeff Kaufman on ATR Wrinkle

From JW's Email listserve:

The ATR pool, with the so-called hiring freeze, is actually being used to fill hard to staff schools. As my old school closes the excessed teachers are being transferred to schools that could not attract open market applicants and still have vacancies. The ATRs will be given full schedules and look like they are appointed but the principal still has the ability to have the teacher reassigned without resorting to 3020a charges. When the principal finds an ATR that he/she likes they can appoint. Until that time the ATR remains on the original schools table of organization and is paid by central.

Jeff

My naive, really facetious, question is:
With some class sizes being large, why not make use of the ATRs to.....never mind!

Too logical, but more important, using them in a rational way would undercut the political nature of the closing schools/ATR creation issue that BloomKlein use to create a public call for the firing of these people after one year.

Related:
NY Post's Susan Edelman's decent story in ATRs

Three Events This Week

Monday Sept 14: First PEP (bogus NYC board of Ed) meeting at Tweed, 6pm. Sign up for speaking time at 5:30. There will be lots of people there for a number of reasons. CPE Coalition for Public Education) and some GEM people (handing out and possibly speaking) The Truth About Charters, people addressing social promotion since the new policy will be voted on and no-bid contracts. Ed Notes will be there to take some video.

Wed Sept 16: The UFT has changed the chapter leader meeting into a delegate assembly (these never take place in Sept) to discuss contract demands. That means they are getting close or going through the motions of getting an agreement between Randi and the mayor ratified. 4:15 at 52 Broadway.

Thurs. Sept 17: CEC dist 15 meets at The Patrick Daley School (PS 15) in Red Hook over the PAVE charter school attempt to extend its stay - they say they couldn't find other space but in reality always had their eyes on that building. They even lied about the number of students they have as a way to get more space. The DOE backs PAVE in every shenanigans they pull. We will be there to take some video.

Bloomberg Race Pandering on School Funding Bounces Back

Mayor distorts school funding for black audiences

The history of the BloomKlein administration is littered with mistruths and misdirections. The debate over school funding has seen these characters at their worst.

It has always been commonly accepted that the whiter school districts had higher payrolls because they attracted and held onto their senior teachers who made much more money. (Aside: the immense gap between teacher salaries at the top and I won't say bottom, but let's say the 5th-10th year career teacher is shameful.)

Aside from teacher salaries, the poorer neighborhood schools received more money from the state and the feds (Title I). Not nearly enough to close any gaps, achievement or not. But anecdotes did come in about class sizes being lower in these schools and more services delivered.

When I first started teaching in 1967, a prep period gap was instituted, where elementary school teachers received 5 preps a week in Title I school, while the teachers in white schools only had 2 preps a week (Title I middle schools teachers also had 2 or 3 less teaching periods). With the extra preps, there was a need for lots more teachers to cover these preps. So there were certainly lots more teaching bodies in the poorer neighborhoods, even if the average salary was lower. (The prep period gap was equalized, in the late 70's I believe.)

Maybe they expected teachers in Staten Island to have a mass exodus to central Brooklyn so they could get those 3 extra periods off. Didn't happen. Here's some news: teaching in many of these schools is damn hard.

My friends who did transfer to white schools - and it took many years - found a country club attitude and teaching so immensely easier. They called it "white glove" teaching. The biggest issue for them was the level of parental interference. For so many years they had lamented the lack of parental involvement. Watch out what you wish for. They saw active PTAs that raised money galore. And the gifts they received. I remember my mother, an immigrant who had never gone to school and was barely literate, spending an enormous amount of time worrying about the Christmas gift to give my teachers, thinking my entire future depended on her making the right choice.


When Joel Klein became Chancellor he railed against the UFT contract's seniority rules as being the biggest block to progress in the schools. He claimed the UFT seniority transfer rule drained good (senior) teachers out of schools in poor neighborhoods. There were about 600 of these transfers a year, a relative drop in the bucket, but this opening salvo on teacher unions was used for a long time. It was bogus.

The second attack on the UFT transfer rule was that principals in the better neighborhood were forced to accept these senior teachers, who in this attack were now considered dregs instead of those good senior teachers deserting the poor neighborhoods so they could be closer to home. (Don't think that housing end educational issues are not interrelated.) Of course this line of attack totally contradicted the first line of attack.

Unfortunately, Randi Weingarten bought into both of them and the 2005 contract sunk seniority in favor of open market. This is capitalism, isn't it boys and girls? And these are neoliberals who do not believe in restrictions in the market place.

In fact, many schools under the old system managed to keep positions hidden from these awful/wonderful senior teacher looking to transfer. By the way, they had to put down 5 choices and if they didn't like the school they were assigned to they could not reapply for 2 years.

Those of us who taught in high need schools for many years were given some kind of double seniority and still had trouble. They used to wonder how they could keep getting turned down for Staten Island, yet saw enough young teachers in the SI schools to make them wonder what was going on. It was called nepotism and who you know.

After BloomKlein got Randi to scrap seniority, the next line of attack was to go after the very same senior teachers with high salaries - remember them? - the ones Klein claimed in his first attack were so necessary to the poor school districts. They did this with the fair funding formula, where schools for the first time would be charged for their teacher salaries, giving the totally empowered principals (when it comes to teacher matters - again, thanks Randi) an incentive to get rid of the high salaried people.

Then came the mass closing of schools and the current ATR crisis. But they and the UFT will figure out a way to deal with this annoyance.

Erin Einhorn's Daily News article, "Critics of Mayor Bloomberg say he panders to black voters on school issues" touches on this issue:

Mayor Bloomberg tells black voters he wiped out political favoritism that gave "white" schools more money than "minority" schools - but education experts say his facts are sloppy. Even a deputy mayor admits his comments go too far. "He may have overstated it to emphasize the point that a lot of schools in poorer communities did not get as much as they should," Dennis Walcott said.

I'll close with this comment from Rob Caloras, a parent leader in Bayside Queens, a majority white district, posted to the NYCEducationNews listserve:

...based on my experiences in District 26, the article accurately reflects the funding situation. Mayor Mike's claims to minority audiences have offended many in D26 as inappropriate class and race based baiting. Our schools receive very little money other than the student allotments. There have been through the years extra money given to our schools through various State programs, for example the Talented and Gifted program. This program brought, at most 250 thousand to the District. Through other such small programs, our District has obtained enough money to have a dance program at a school or an arts program or an enrichment program. But, this money is peanuts.

As the article reflects, the lion share of the budgets at middle class school, like those in D26, go toward paying teacher salaries. Had the weighted funding plan of Klein gone through without a hold harmless amount-which kept teacher salaries covered regardless of the new allocations-our schools would have had to fire many teachers. The hold harmless money merely kept in place pre-existing allocations for teacher salaries. To do otherwise would have been grossly unfair to our students and teachers.

Teachers making 80 thousand and up-a large portion of D26 teachers-would not have found many schools willing to hire them as principals sought to reduce budget pressure by hiring teachers without as many years in the system. For over ten years I have heard from non-D26 parent leaders that I am lucky to be in such a rich school district. I have always responded that our schools receive considerably less money per student than just about every other school. I have yet to see proof that refutes this, yet, ten years later, the misperception continues.

Are We Close to a Contract?

UFT Changes Sept 16 Chapter Leader Meeting into a Delegate Assembly

The usually somnolent early September chapter leader meeting has been converted into a Delegate Assembly to discuss contract demands. Is it possible that a contract will be handed out 10 minutes before the meeting and people will be asked to vote on it? This is the usual modus operendi of the UFT. But with the million member Unity Caucus dominated negotiating committee having met a few times and having some of the members (at least the non-Unity Caucus ones) kept in the dark about this DA, all balls are in the air.

Many people believe that the entire committee was a sham from day one and that Randi had negotiated a contract before she left on August 1. One thing was clear: the UFT folding on any opposition to mayoral control, term limits, and staying neutral in the mayoral race is part of the factoring in the contract.

Here is the UFT announcement, which asks chapter leaders to report on over sized classes. One thing we can bet our pensions on is the sure bet there will be no class size relief in the contract.

Special DA to discuss contract demands

The first Delegate Assembly of the year, Wednesday, Sept. 16, starting at 4:15 p.m. at 52 Broadway, will be devoted to discussing the UFT’s demands in the current negotiations for our new contract. All delegates are encouraged to attend. Chapter leaders should report to their district rep at the DA how many oversized classes in each grade they have in their schools (see To Do item on class size grievances for further details).

Candi is Dandy in DC But Will Rhee Have All the Glee?

Bill Turque in the Washington Post reports:

Rhee, Union May Be Close to Deal

While making it appear that Rhee has backed off on some of her more radical proposals, we in fact see this as a win-win for her due to this provision:

Under a proposed "mutual consent" provision, principals would have more power to pick and choose teachers. Teachers who failed to find new assignments would have three options. They could remain on the payroll for a year, accepting at least two spot assignments as substitutes or tutors or in some other support role. If they can't find a permanent job after a year, they would be fired. Teachers could also choose to take a $25,000 buyout or, if they have at least 20 years' service to the city school system, retire with full benefits.

This is the Chicago model of getting rid of ATRs after one year. What needs to be understood here is that Rhee will find reasons to close as many schools as necessary to create large numbers of ATRs who will be gone in a year.

This is what BloomKlein want for NYC where there are still over 1600 ATRs. With a UFT/DOE contract imminent, people will be looking for some kind of wedge that will be disguised as something innocuous in the contract that will allow them to cut into the ATR pool. Maybe a buyout offer of some kind this time.

Some people at the ICE meeting yesterday thought Bloomberg is focused on getting elected and will wait to try to get the hammer out in two years, at which point the charter school movement will be beginning to have a greater impact and the UFT will be even weaker than it is today. There might even be an agreement (under the table) that the UFT will back off on stopping the growth of charters. One idea floated is that even if the charter cap is not lifted, charters under a management group will be counted as one. Thus the 5 KIPP schools and the 4 Evil Moskowitz schools would count against the cap as 2 schools. Then it's Katy bar the door.

Turque gives a shout out to our favorite DC teacher, Candi Peterson, who has revealed provisions of the supposedly secret talks on her blog, The Washington Teacher. (I borrowed Candi's hangman graphic.)

The proposals have triggered new tensions within the union's leadership. Executive Vice President Nathan Saunders, a longtime critic of Parker's, said the proposals all but eliminate job security for teachers.

"This contract looks to be another approach to diminishing teachers' employment rights," Saunders said.

Peterson's decision to publish draft documents from the contract negotiations drew an unusual public rebuke from Parker, who sent a letter and a voice mail message to members denouncing her for having "maliciously undermined" the confidentiality of the talks.

Peterson, who said she is not bound by any confidentiality agreement, said teachers have grown frustrated with the lack of information available about the protracted negotiations.

"He's promised to tell members about the contract, but he never follows through," she said.

Of course, Randi Weingarten and the AFT have been up to their ears in these negotiations, tutoring Parker with their hand crafted best selling manual "Slick Sellout Tactics for Union Leaders: Or how to sell a sellout to your membership while making it look like a great victory."

How does this relate to us here in NYC? The UFT 3 million member negotiating committee, by estimates 75% dominated by Unity Caucus members (who don't advertise their ties) has a cone of silence over it, so that even the two ICE people who are on the committee cannot talk about what is going on so we as a caucus can take action to forestall the sellout aspects of the contract. As you will read in my upcoming post, there is a possibility we there may be a contract voted on this Wednesday. Back later.

Related

Accountable Talk also deals with this item

Obama Calls for Public Option in Healtcare While Undercutting Public Option in Education

If you've been following the Obama/Duncan support for the Ed Deform plan, the headline pretty much says it all.

But you might want to check Diane Ravitch's first post of the school year at Bridging Differences, where she in The Start of an Interesting and Dangerous School Year she says:

Nationally, the most important event was the release of the federal government’s regulations for the “Race to the Top.” Those regulations made clear that the Obama administration has fully aligned itself with the edu-entrepreneurs who favor market-based reforms. As I predicted on this blog, President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are now the spear carriers for the GOP's education policies of choice and accountability. An odd development, don’t you think? The Department of Education dangles nearly $5 billion before the states, but only if they agree to remove the caps on charter schools and any restrictions on using student test scores to evaluate teachers.

What is extraordinary about these regulations is that they have no credible basis in research.

Nine Eleven, UPDATED

I guess this is a day of reminiscence.

On 9/10 I had a melanoma removed from my side. It wasn't a serious operation. It was at Northshore hospital, with anesthesia that put me out, but I walked out around noon, woozy but standing. The surgeon, a Korean woman who looked to be around 12 years old, told me to stay home the rest of the week. But at that point I was working out of an the District 14 Multimedia office at PS 84 in Williamsburg and didn't have to teach, so I went in, still a little spacey, on that beautiful Tuesday. My partner, Maria, suggested we go to breakfast at a place on Bedford Ave.

We were just finishing breakfast when the waiter came over with the check and said a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I figured it was something like a small plane that lost its way. Soon after he told us a second plane had hit the building. My first reaction was that they had collided with each other first. "No. It's terrorists," said Maria. I laughed.

We walked the two blocks to the East River and watched the smoke stream out of the buildings. "My God, I think people are jumping," Maria said. I didn't believe her. I don't know how she saw that because I didn't. Of course, she was right.

We watched for a while and she suggested I go back to the office and grab a video camera. It took me some time to get it set up. On the way back to the river, people on the roofs started screaming, "It fell down." When I got there a few minutes later, there was only a puff of smoke where the building had been.

I shot about 5 minutes of video but just couldn't go on. (I still have it somewhere, but have never looked at it.) We went back to the office to watch it on TV. One of the teachers' husbands worked around there and she hadn't heard from him directly, though one of his co-workers told her (before the building came down) he was all right but had gone down to watch. Of course she was extremely upset, but had to try to hide it with a group of special ed kids in front of her.

It was clear the other one was going to come down too. I couldn't watch and went back to my office. About 1PM I was out in the hall when I saw the teacher's husband, who had walked all the way over the bridge, come down the hall. She ran out of her room and they just hugged and hugged.

I drove home that afternoon. The Belt Parkway was empty. And I mean empty. It seemed that it was closed as I saw no cars. And this was around 4pm. I was flipping the radio dial to get as much information as I could, but still spent the most time on my favorite station, WFAN, where Mike Francesa did as good a coverage as was possible for hours. I was feeling real tired and woozy from the operation and hit the sheets when I got home in a semi dreamlike state, still not sure if I had come out of my operation yet.

Update:

Francesa is talking about it now. I forgot that Dog wasn't there. Mike was on the air until later in the evening, with Charles McCord there with him most of the time. Now my memory is coming back about why that coverage was so good between the two of them. They both brought so much to the table, with Mike making many guesses about what was going on using his intuition and intelligence. He also talked about his trip home where he didn't see one car on the road.

I remember meeting a first year teaching fellow a few months later. Her school faced the city and when moving her class they could see the towers burning. Having recently gone through a traumatic personal experience, that sight froze her and she freaked and panicked. This was the first few days of the school year. The administration at her school was always notoriously oppressive and came down on her. Hard. They took away her class and gave it to another fellow and it just about ended her career as a teacher, though she hung on at the school as a sub for the rest of the year.

While I'm updating, I want to make a point about the relevance of that day to our history in comparison to other events in history. I was moved in recent trips to London at what it must have been like in the blitz in WWII. This went on for a long time, sometimes every night with lots of people dying, mostly civilian. How does that play compared to nine eleven?

There are lots of factors in why that one day had such an impact. Maybe it was because it was one day. Imagine if there were a 9/11 every day for years? No one day would stick out. Or maybe just the nature of the act and what was behind it, though the terror of Hitler's war machine was not light stuff. But every time 9/11 comes up I can't help reviewing walking the streets of London trying to imagine the terror of the bombers coming every night. America has never experienced anything like it and should try to keep things in perspective.

Goldstein Tells a Tale of Two High Schools

At Gotham Schools' Community Center, Francis Lewis HS chapter leader Arthur Goldstein compares his school to underutilized Jamaica HS, whose chapter leader is James Eterno (ICE/TJC candidate to run against Mulgrew for UFT president). James has done some amazing work at Jamaica as chapter leader in trying to defend the school from the DOE onslaught. He organized a large group of parents and teachers to a PEP meeting that certainly made a point.

But Jamaica is prime meat to be squeezed out of existence to make way for small schools and charter schools in central Queens. So don't expect anything rational. This is all about political ideology, not education. When Francis Lewis tops 10,000 students and are running 'till 1AM they will also declare Francis Lewis an impact school and start steering students to the 10 small schools at Jamaica. But not the ELA and special ed students as these schools will not have the resources to handle them.

The UFT and the Gates Project to Evaluate Teachers

The UFT attempt to portray Bill Gates as some benevolent force just looking to find an innocent way to evaluate teachers is one of the great misleads in a sea of UFT/AFT/Unity Caucus obfuscations.

Mulgrew's response to a complaint from a teacher is priceless:

As you have so rightly stated public education is under attack but more importantly to me our profession is under attack.

He then goes on to say:

As for the Gates foundation they are funding the project but please don't confuse them with chancellor. When Gates finished the small school project they determined that it was not a success and that curriculum and school supports were more important than a school structure which was very ethical considering that the small school movement originated with them.

You mean the same Bill Gates who is one of the leading forces in undermining public education? Some think the union leadership is just stupid. Not so. They know exactly what they are doing. They soften the membership up and weaken their defenses to allow the virus into the ranks.

By the way, guess who also embraced the small school movement despite repeated attempts by Ed Notes, ICE and TJC to discuss the important aspect of undermining and closing the large comprehensive high schools? Your corporate friendly UFT. No mea culpas from the UFT on this one. Or any other of the ocean of disasters they have supported, including one of the mothers of all – allowing the use of high stakes test data to judge teacher performance.

There have been some interesting comments on our post "Teacher Evaluations: Bill Gates and the Unity/UFT,...".

Witness Melody, who seems to agree with Ed Notes on most issues:

"I think the UFT is right on this one. The teacher measurement & accountability issue is a train coming down the track, and I don't think laying our bodies down in front of it is a realistic option, because we WILL get run over."

The big problem with the neoliberal agenda when it comes to education is that it wants accountability on the cheap...

Melody doesn't really understand the full measure of the neoliberalism free market/government is bad philosophy, led by Bill Gates and his money. Gates, by the way, complains about the pubic school monopoly and calls for choice in schools while making his money by running the Microsoft monopoly and doing everything he could to deny choice in operating systems, browsers, data bases, spreadsheets, etc. And by the way, there's a great fortune to be made for Microsoft in the large urban school systems the Gates foundation supports. Check how many Gates supported schools have Apple computers (not based on any real knowledge like most conjectures here, but on my own paranoiac instincts.)

Anon responded to Melody (read all responses at the original post):

Re: the train analogy... In general, ICE and other opposition groups advocate fighting, which I would argue is the opposite of laying bodies down in front of an oncoming train.

It should be obvious to EVERYONE that there are massive problems with our union participating in a study funded by the Gates Foundation. The UFT’s position should be that, for a myriad of obvious reasons, we should not be using ANY student data to measure teachers. And once again, not only has the leadership capitulated to the idea of these measurements, but they are actively supporting the Gates Foundation's CONTROL of the measurement system!

It is extremely naïve to think that teachers will be allowed in ANY way to influence the results of a study sponsored by a private company with a vested interest in the privatization of education. If you read Mulgrew's letter carefully, the "participation" he asks from teachers amounts to nothing more than allowing them to be the subjects of the study. Nowhere does he mention any kind of input from the participating teachers. Instead, "Gates-funded researchers" will be "collect[ing] information about their teaching from a broad variety of sources." It seems, from this letter, that the teachers and the UFT leadership will have zero control over how students will be tested, let alone how the results are used – and the UFT leadership is perfectly fine with that.

Clearly, the main purpose of this study is to deal with the revealing fact that the majority of students in charter schools are performing equal to or worse than other New York City public school students on standardized tests. This must be humiliating for the privatization effort, because they are part of the same agenda that touts these tests as accurate measures of student achievement. If not for this fact, if kids in charters were doing as well or better than kids in other schools, you can bet that the Gates Foundation would be holding up the results of the ridiculous standardized tests we have now as "proof" that their schools (and their teachers) work better, and they would have no reason to even consider alternative methods of measuring teacher ability. Instead of exposing the charter school scam and supporting its own teachers, the UFT leadership embraces it.

I am not the tiniest bit surprised that the Unity caucus came on here and implied that their opposition is just a small group of petty teachers. Their goal is to make those who demand that they actually [gasp!] defend the membership feel that they are small in number and isolated. Ignore this particular tactic of theirs. It’s old, tired, and smacks of desperation… they know they’re fooling fewer and fewer people every day.

PS 123 Rally Update...and more

The protest/rally for 6:30 AM this morning is still on. For background read our report from the other day: Separate and Unequal Schools in NYC: Rally at PS 123 on First Day of School but the 3:30 follow-up event may not happen. I've got some family obligations today so I will be somewhat out of touch but Angel Gonzalez is back from organizing GEM branches throughout Italy and will be there to take some video and hang out afterwards. Angel doesn't Tweet or Twitter (that vegan diet, you know) so we will have to get updates later in the day. I am going to the Met game tonight - unfortunately - so will be out of the loop. Maybe they'll post updates from Angel on the scoreboard.

If you've been following the story here and at the GEM blog all summer, you are aware of the aggressive nature with which Eva (now officially being dubbed 'Evil') Moskowitz' people run roughshod over people. I don't have time to gather all the resources in this post but just do a search for PS 123 and PS 241.

GEM has been working with other groups to try to bring all the schools wanting to resist the invasion by charter schools into their buildings together. One of the focal points has been Moskowitz' Harlem Success Academy schools such as those at PS 241 and 123. If you read one piece, read this one from "Shocked in Harlem," a teacher at PS 241 about the impossible chaos of trying to get ready for the new school year in a school invaded by Moskowitz. SHOCKED IN HARLEM AT EVA MOSKOWITZ, HSA EXCESS

Teachers at PS 123 faced the same chaos, with halls loaded with stuff moved out by Harlem Success. Check out some of the videos I posted in the sidebar for more on this issue from early July when Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer toured the school (mayoral candidate Tony Avella also came up that day).

Were Teachers at PS 123 Told to Go Home?

Supposedly the UFT district rep told teachers to go home yesterday after teachers were trying to move things around to get ready for the first day of school today. Rumor is that a teacher got hurt and had to go to the emergency room. UFT president Mulgrew was called. One would expect him to be there today. But with the UFT having taken over space in two charter schools themselves in East NY, Brooklyn, they cannot claim any moral high ground and can only expect the massive HSA publicity machine to attack them with the consequent fawning NYC ed press quoting them widely.

Brooklyn Charter Invasion Resistance

Meanwhile, things are beginning to heat up in Brooklyn where CAPE (Concerned Educators for Public Education) is organizing around the charter school issue. Some GEMers will be going to a meeting with them this week and we will report on the activities over there. See their press release from our post in July.

I'll add updates to this post as they come in.

Report from PS 160 in Coop City

Here are some comments from parents at PS 160x

GEM you were right. Equality Charter School lied about only being at PS160 for 2 years. They said it at all the hearings and the DOE said they will only be there for 2 years. Now the Equality principal told the Co-op City Times yesterday, September 5,

"School administrators have been told by the DOE that there is a probability that the school will be moved to a new location within the next few years as the student body expands by one grade each year."

They LIED. You were right. They lied about leaving in two years. They're not ever gonna leave. They're gonna push out 160 students and take over. Their classrooms were also painted and their entire section refurbished!!! Please tell the parents. The truth is out. We need you to come back to our school and fight with us against privatization and pushing our children out of their own schools.

Which led to this response:

Anonymous, I like your enthusiasm. I am one of the parents who spoke out about this charter school being housed at PS 160. I must say that this upcoming school year will be a challenging one at PS 160. My advice to you as a parent is that if you see anything that you feel in your heart is not right report it to the Parent coordinator or the Principal immediately. It is our responsibility as parents to look out for our children. When there is an announcement about the PTA meetings and things of that nature, please attend. This will be the only way to stay informed and fight for your child/children’s education. Furthermore, just to speak about the article in the newspaper. What I want to know is how they are going to handle their students who are late or truant? The Prinicpal mentioned that the students who arrive after 9:00am will enter thru the front of the building. We as parents of PS 160 children age 5-11 years old...must demand that the Equality School Administrators send an "official employee" and not another "responsible student" to come down to the main lobby where Mrs. Cox will be seated and pick up the “late” student and make sure that they get placed in their respective class room. Their students must not be allowed to "freely" room the halls of our two floors. We must think to be PRO-ACTIVE and not be Reactive.

No school is safe

Here is a partial list of public schools being invaded:

PS 15K, PS 38M, IS 45M, PS 123M, PS 150K, PS 160X, PS 175M, PS 185M, PS 188M, PS 194M, IS 195M, PS 241M, PS 242M, PS 375M, PS 385X, HS 695M and many more.

Which schools will be next?

Principal gets around hiring freeze on ATRs

Changing the subject....but not really, since the ATR, rubber room, closing schools, charter school issues all connect to the free market neoliberal agenda....I received this note from a teacher at a large high school:

They found a way to hire teachers other than ATRs in my school. I don't want to post it on my blog, but others need to be aware this is going on. There is no hiring freeze on special education. They are getting the new teachers double certification and hiring them for the special ed department and then farming them out to math to teach. If this is going on in my school, it is going on throughout the city. One ATR in my school has been given a full program for a person on leave, but the school will not hire her full time.

Teacher Letter on New Yorker's Biased Aricle on Rubber Rooms

Laura Castro does a pretty good job here exposing the biased New Yorker articles on the rubber room and ATRs. Paul Simms wrote a biased follow-up commentary on Steve Brill's original article, which Ed Notes critiqued , Laura mentions the point about the ease with which the rubber room could be emptied if Klein only hired enough arbitrators, something the biased press doesn't raise and if they do, they accept Klein's "union obstructionism" argument. "Could this be because Bloomberg wants a wedge issue in his showdown with the union" Laura asks? It's more than a wedge. Klein loves the runner rooms, which are his creation, intentionally, so he could get articles like Brill's to create outrage . He'd rather spend that money as an investment in anti-teacher PR. And it works like a charm. Of course the fact that many people in rubber rooms are exonerated or are there for reasons such an argument with the principal gets buried in the avalanche. The union, afraid of attacks - and they get attacked anyway for doing little - does not make even close to as good as stand as Laura does.

Dear Editors,

Paul Simms article "The Rubber Room" in this week's New Yorker zeroes in on what appears to be an Achilles heal for the teachers' union, but fails to ask important questions. It thereby exhibits disturbing bias. For example, if the "rubber room" is a disgrace, why doesn't the city spend additional money hiring arbitrators, so cases don't wait years to be concluded? And why not give rubber room teachers desk jobs as in other cities? Could this be because Bloomberg wants a wedge issue in his showdown with the union? Simms never asks. (Not until the last page, in fact, do we hear that the 600 teachers accused of incompetence or malfeasance are in a system of 87,300 teachers - the largest school system in the country.)

The salient issue here is not the so-called rubber room, however, or even the union, but that the article pushes the overall Bloomberg/Klien agenda without consulting progressive educators for a different perspective. Simms appears to scoff at Democratic lawmakers in Albany for not renewing mayoral control of the schools more quickly, and apparently accepts without question the Bloomberg administration line on student achievement and improved graduation rates. Nowhere in the article is it mentioned that there have been serious concerns that mayoral control has left parents out of the educational equation. Nor does the article mention testimony by Ann Cook (Performance Assessment Standards Consortium) at the mayoral control hearings in Albany that, alarmingly, students of color have been dropping out of public school at a higher rate under Bloomberg/Klein.

Simms' article concludes by touting Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's decision to deprive states of stimulus money if their schools do not attach teachers' pay to their students' standardized test scores, and laments that New York may loose money on this account. Yet the article never questions the popular dogma that continual testing of children is the answer to good education. (If standardized testing is really so conducive to learning, why is it, one wonders, that students in New York's elite private schools, whose graduates grace the halls of Ivy League colleges, don't take city or state tests – not even the Regents??)

I hope that The New Yorker will balance this article with one that probes the issues of education from a more progressive point of view. This would include investigating the issue of standardized testing by interviewing some of the country's leading progressive educators – like Linda Darling Hammond, reputedly on Obama's short list for Secretary of Education, or Ann Cook of New York's own Performance Assessment Standards Consortium. As an educator, I challenge The New Yorker to bring to light some of the successful alternatives to standardized testing right here in New York's schools and to ask whether the educational dogmas de jour adhered to by Bloomberg/Klein, and even Duncan, really serve our children.

Sincerely,

Laura Castro

Brooklyn, NY 11218

Separate and Unequal Schools in NYC: Rally at PS 123 on First Day of School

This the first in a series, with a focus on the tactics of Eva Moskowitz and her Harlem Success Academy machine.

Join our Protest!
Eva Moskowitz and Her Charter School Must Go!
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009
6:30am in the Morning! (and at 3:30PM)
West 141st Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard (8th Avenue)
For more information please contact William Hargraves (718) 812-1102.

Click to enlarge. Pdf available on request.


Here is an email from Mark Torres of the Coalition for Public Education:

Support on the struggle being waged by students, parents, staff, administrators and community of P.S. 123 in Harlem. they have been fighting theft of space and many other injustices perpetrated by Eva Moskowitz and the Bloom/Klein dictatorship.

The P.S. 123 community has worked hard, for over a year, to reach out and resolve problems forced upon them by the charter school invasion of their building. However, Eva Moskowitz and the Bloom/Klein dictatorship have not resolved any problems and are only concerned about pushing more and more private charter schools into public school buildings.

P.S. 123 is now ready to stand up for all public schools in our city and they need our help.

Please support P.S. 123 and defend our public school system.

Teacher Evaluations: Bill Gates and the Unity/UFT, Perfect Together

I'm just getting to the issue of that study on teacher evaluation being sponsored by Bill Gates in partnership with the UFT. At the bottom of it all is the neoliberal agenda.

We're certainly not surprised that they are in bed together. Bringing business practices to the classroom is part of the neoliberal agenda. And coming up with a way to measure teachers - for the purpose of weeding out certain types, like the ones who teach humanism and democratic principles instead od test prep - is a basic tenet. Neoliberals see democracy as an alien concept. Thus schools need dictators. As do unions.

We've been connecting the UFT to the neoliberals for a generation, especially since Al Shanker signed onto it in the mid-70's when the budget cuts hit deeply into the ranks, followed by his jumping on board the Business Roundtable's "independent" study, A Nation at Risk.

Unity Caucus is trying to play this as somehow being good for teachers. "Let's have a seat at the table." Just like the UFT/AFT had at the origins of NCLB. Nice job.

James Eterno put up an informal poll on the ICE blog, How Should Teachers be Evaluated?

There have been 25 comments so far. A Unity flack is wondering why James doesn't sign up. "Try it before you criticize Unity all the time." These cloying games by Unity ignore the basic fact: They are the enemy. Of course Ed Notes and ICE and so many other teacher blogs see through the games they play.

Unity flacks and the leadership play the bait and switch game as cover for the real agenda. New UFT President Michael Mulgrew responded to a teacher:

Almost all of the "reform" ideas that are being discussed both here in NYC and nationally are ideas that are brought from people who are outside of the classroom. I felt it was imperative that we engage in research that truly looked at what happens inside of a classroom and worked with teachers as the main part of the research. It is a way that allows us to control what happens in our profession instead of waiting for those on the outside to pound us with their ideas when they have never walked in our shoes. [The full letter from the teacher and his full response is below.]

Does anyone think the UFT/Unity Caucus leadership represents what happens inside a classroom?

Mulgrew's original letter to teachers claimed the study was "being conducted by independent third-party researchers." Sure. Just like The New Teacher Project's attacks on ATRs were viewed by the NY Times as "independent" studies. I'll bet someone has a dog in the race. And I bet there's some Gates money going to flow to some elements at the UFT. I mean, where could Gates buy a better partner to peddle his junk?

Mulgrew also said:
we all recognize that the work of teachers must be measured in ways that are fair and valid. Nationally, current measures of teaching rarely take into account the full range of what teachers do (no single measure really can), or the context in which they teach. The Measures of Effective Teaching project, on the other hand, begins right in the classroom and will explore an array of teacher measures: video observations, surveys, and student growth. It will compare these measures to each other, and to nationally recognized standards, and it will look at their inter-relatedness. It will be informed by actual teacher practice.

Measured, Mike? What if we measured the performance of the UFT leadership over the past decade? What the UFT is covering for here is the concept that we need ways to measure teachers quantitatively. A major plank of the neoliberal agenda to privatize education is to quantify students and teachers. Do we see this occurring with other jobs? Police/fire/ lawyers/ doctors/politicians? Imagine saying that we will never bring down crime rates until we improve the performance of the cops? Or cut the number of fires unless we get higher quality firemen? Or win a war without better soldiers? Why not set up charter police stations and alternative military? Wouldn't the war go better if there was some competition? Shouldn't Afgans have some choice in the army they get to come into their villages? Shouldn't they be able to chose from competing organizations as to which missile get to kill their children? Come on, they need choice.

Here are a few words from the introduction to a book sent to me by former teacher Louis Bedrock: Capitalizing on Disaster: Taking and Breaking Public Schools by Kenneth J. Saltman:

In education, neoliberalism has taken hold with tremendous force, remaking educational common sense and pushing forward the privatization and deregulation agendas....the shift to business language and logic can be understood through the extent to which neoliberal ideals have succeeded in taking over educational debates...

The "TINA" thesis (There is No Alternative to the Market) that has come to dominate politics throughout much of the world has infected educational thought as omnipresent market terms such as accountability, choice, efficiency, competition, monopoly, and performance [outcomes] frame educational debates. Nebulous terms borrowed from the business world, such as achievement, excellence, and best practices, conceal ongoing struggles over competing values, visions, and ideological debates. (Achieve what? Excel at what? Best practices for whom? And says who?)

The only questions left on reform agendas appear to be how to best enforce knowledge and curriculum conducive to individual upward mobility within the economy [education only has the goal of preparing for jobs, not as productive citizens in a democratic society - something neoliberals really abhor] and national economic competition as it contributes to a corporately managed model of globalization as perceived from the perspective of business.

This dominant...view of education is propagated by.. Thomas Friedman...and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation...[add Broad and a horde of others.]

Saltman bases his book on Naomi Klein's "Disaster Capitalism" but focuses on education as he lays out the nuts and bolts of it in his intro and then zooms in on 3 examples: New Orleans, Iraq and Chicago. I will post more as I read more.

Now, I've said it time and again that the only force capable of organizing resistance to these attacks are the teacher unions. And they've punted.

Why does the UFT go along with the people who have been aiming the blame darts at the very people the UFT is supposed to represent? There are a few explanations, which we'll get into another time in depth. But for now I will list two reasons: 1) the UFT basically agrees with neoliberalism and 2) what I often refer to as the "Vichy mentality" - if we don't cooperate with the Nazis they will destroy all of France, especially Paris, so we cooperate with the idea of preserving what we can." I am not equating this to cooperating with Nazis, but as a way of thinking the UFT engages in. For a while they called it the New Unionism - we'll cooperate with management - or Randi's favorite word, "collaboration." Pretty interesting since collaborators in WWII got their hair sheared off - or worse.

Here is the letter from teacher (T) to Randi, who forwarded it to Mulgrew, followed by Mulgrew's response, followed by an excellent post by Marjorie Stamberg.

Randi

I was wondering why the UFT is collaborating with the Bill Gates foundation in collecting data on how to establish an effective teacher. Over the past few years all in the name of educational reform, Bill Gates has undermined public education by opening up charter schools, he even went as far as opening up charter schools in public school spaces essentially taking over the school and displacing public school teachers. So with the growing number of schools being closed and then reorganized and ATR and senior teachers being harassed, it's no wonder why a growing number of teachers are becoming disenfranchised and only see our union as a dues collecting machine.

T

There are many good reasons but I have referred your email to the new President, Michael Mulgrew. -Randi

Mulgrew response:

Thank you for sending your concerns. As you have so rightly stated public education is under attack but more importantly to me our profession is under attack. The research project that we are entering into is one that starts and ends inside of the classroom. Almost all of the "reform" ideas that are being discussed both here in NYC and nationally are ideas that are brought from people who are outside of the classroom. I felt it was imperative that we engage in research that truly looked at what happens inside of a classroom and worked with teachers as the main part of the research. It is a way that allows us to control what happens in our profession instead of waiting for those on the outside to pound us with their ideas when they have never walked in our shoes. As for the Gates foundation they are funding the project but please don't confuse them with chancellor. When Gates finished the small school project they determined that it was not a success and that curriculum and school supports were more important than a school structure which was very ethical considering that the small school movement originated with them.

Thanks again,
Michael

Marjorie Stamberg lays out the position many of us are taking:
Greasing the skids: UFT participation in a teacher evaluation studyMarjorie Stamberg to ICE-Mail listserve:

Any "teacher measurement project" funded by the Gates foundation should start ringing alarm bells. What on earth is the UFT doing participating in this "study," as UFT president Mike Mulgrew just announced?

The UFT's "participation" reminds me of the" time-motion" study guy coming to the factory assembly line, and you're asked to help him out as he measures arm movements and clocks your bathroom breaks so they can use it for speed-up. No way.

What makes an effective teacher? We do not accept the premise that individually evaluating teachers' "techniques" is relevant to improving education. The whole emphasis on "teacher evaluation", tied to students' test scores, is part of the corporatization of American education.

The UFT Teachers Center is an excellent resource that works with teachers to be more effective in the classroom. They do some excellent PD, workshops, cooperative modeling and team-teaching. This is NOT what the Gates foundation study is about.

We need good professional development, and we are committed to teachers' lifelong learning, and use of the most modern technology and methodology in the classroom. But that is very different from what is going on here.

The education "business" aims to "cut costs" in the classroom. Beginning in the 1980s, nationwide the education budget as a percentage of the GNP was sharply reduced. These corporate chiefs wanted to get more bang for their buck. This means attacks on teacher tenure, getting rid of senior teachers to drive salaries down to the level of teaching fellows. It means, not "spending time" in the classroom on enrichment activities, on general topics, reading, discussion that goes anywhere except how to pass standardized tests so kids can be useful for the employers. Now, it means the proliferation of charter schools which by getting rid of union contracts sharply increase teacher time, and regulated salary increases.

How do you "measure" a good science teacher? I've seen superb science teachers teaching high school kids in the Bronx, without a science lab, without the most minimal equipment, standing up on a chair in the hallway and dropping a ball to demonstrate gravity! If you want to measure what makes a good science teacher, how about giving him or her a decent science lab and then comparing the results before and after? If you want to help kids learn, have decent equipment in every high school, smart boards in every classroom, give every student access to computers that don't belong in a junkyards.

Coming from Mike Mulgrew, as with Randi, this offer to "collaborate" on a "teacher measurement" paid survey is typical of how they now operate. Instead of just saying "no", and opposing something outright, they cooperate with it and try to "make the best of a bad situation." Then we're stuck with the bad situation, and they say, "Well, it could have been worse."

The same thing happened when seniority transfers was given up in 2005. Instead of holding on, they traded it for a raise and the result ...... up to 2,000 teachers now in the Absent Teacher Reserve.

The answer is a union leadership that demands massive new investment in school facilities, training, and resources. Can't do it because of the economic crisis? Wrong, this is exactly when they ought to be investing. They find trillions to "rescue" the banks. Right now, a quarter of NYC schools don't have gyms, and 70 percent don't meet state requirements for hours of physical education' Of all schools in the Bronx, 22 percent don't have outdoor physical education activities at all?

Where are the art and music teachers? In the ATR pool or on the unemployment line.

Related
The Labor Notes article on organizing charters in Chicago posted on Norms Notes.