The Hits Keep Comin' by Norm Scott in The Wave

May 28, 2010

[Ed Note: Headline links not active]

Peruse the newspapers, listserves, blogs and other internet sources and not an hour goes by without some new piece of education related news (mostly awful). I've got to get some sleep. Here are just a few headlines and my comments:

Charter Schools’ Big Success? Accounting Tricks, Shady Land Deals, and Skimming Off the Top

What else do you expect? One thing I know, State Senator Malcolm Smith's scandalous Peninsula Prep charter, along with all his other scandals, has smoked him out and into social service work. Vying for the Nobel Peace Prize, he is personally going around pulling up the pants of gang bangers.

Charter School Scandals

A blog chronicling the daily influx of skullduggery from Oakland parent activist Sharon Higgins. Sharon is kept very busy these days. http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com

Big profit in building charter schools

Gee, do you see all those expensive ads running attacking the teachers union for calling for some greater oversight over charters? They smack of the kind of desperate spending of people who fear they will be stopped from making a lot of money if they don't get the cap lifted.

District 1: Choice, confusion & charter schools/Red Hook parents push to toss PAVE charter school

Yes, parents are confused but some are pushing back

Rochester looks to N.Y.C. for mayoral control lesson

Mayor Duffy wants to be Bloomie and be a dictator over the schools, with lots of parents and teachers fighting him tooth and nail. But now he can be Cuomo's boy Friday as Lt. Governor. And we know what happened with the last Lt. Governor. With so many governors vaporizing and Cuomo's arrogance, practice saying, "Governor Duffy."

Are ELL Students Underrepresented in NYC Charter Schools?

Is the earth round?

Why the Charter Cap Bill Should Not Become Law by Leonie Haimson and Mona Davids

Leonie and Magnificent Mona. The good guys ride to the rescue

Sol Stern Calls for End of Cash Bonuses Based on Test Scores to Reduce Layoffs

Sol suggests why not try to save $35 million and apply it to reducing layoffs? Because at Tweed it's all about market-based ideology, not education.

Just Say No to the Race to the Top

Diane Ravitch says, "It might better be called the Race to Nowhere, or as some have dubbed it, the Race to the Trough or the Dash to the Cash."

Teacher Evaluation Deal Sparks Ire

Another sweetheart deal to get teachers judged based on student test scores made by the UFT to make life wonderful for teachers. The UFT claims a great victory. "They wanted to judge by 50%. We cut it to 40%." Wowy.

New Teacher Evaluation Passes Assembly

One NYC teacher blogger said: A sad day for education; 40% of teacher evaluations are now tied to test scores; Welcome to all test prep all the time; The new normal for public education; Public education will look like the Gulf of Mexico when they got done with it.

AFT Claims NYT Mag Included Made Up Quote

Did you read Steve Brill's hatchet job on teachers in the Sunday Times, a wholly owned subsidiary of BloomKlein, Ltd? AFT President Randi Weingarten, the great enabler, is crying about something Brill said she said she says she didn't say. Who cares?

City Gets $5 Million To Hire New Teachers...even as they get ready to lay off 6,400 teachers:

Yep, makes sense in Bloomtown. Bloomberg's rubber stamp PEP passed it last week with only 3 votes against, including our own Queens rep Dmytro Fedkowskyj. Way to go, Dmytro!

UFT at PEP Meeting: Oh The Irony

The UFT leadership cried about the lack of democracy on the PEP, which ignores what the public has to say. Come to a few UFT delegate assemblies and executive board meetings to see the model for ignoring what people have to say.

1,983 teachers received layoff notices while Teach for America returns to Detroit schools

When Arne Duncan asked Diane Ravitch, "What are we going to do about Detroit?" she responded with, "Give it to KIPP [the charter school chain.] He laughed. Hey, it's Detroit. You can't give it away.

More Scrutiny for Charter Schools in Debate Over Expansion

Finally, the NY Times has jumped into the fray. The NY State Ed Department is the monitor for charter schools. Ho, ho, ho. Merry Christmas.

Here is a piece about NYSED I put up on my blog:

Some parents have been chronicling the corrupt NY State Department of Education and its ugly parent the NY State Board of Regents too, headed by Bloomberg friend and neighbor Meryl Tisch, who also has Joel Klein over for Passover to ask the 4 questions, one of which is always: Why is this reorganization different from all the other reorganizations that came before it? UFT Pres Michael Mulgrew loves Meryl and spent a good chunk of time at the last Delegate Assembly singing her praises because she "knows education," which makes sense since she spent 10 minutes teaching pre-k at an exclusive Hebrew school about a hundred years ago.

Recruitment Poster for Charter School: Hey Kid, Wanna Make a Hundred Bucks?

A photo of a poster on a 3rd floor wall at a charter based at IS 126 in Williamsburg/Greenpoint was being passed around by parents and community groups as outrage grows. The Believe charter group is offering a $100 bounty to any student who can recruit someone for the school who will stay for one term. Can you BELIEVE this? They make the poor kid who recruits some sucker wait an entire semester before collecting his 100 bucks. They must have electronic force fields keeping them in. (I know more than a few parents who have been there, done that and left.) What happened to all those waiting lists to get into charters that they are so desperate they have to bribe kids with a hundred bucks to get recruits? For a hundred bucks I'll enroll there myself.

A Busy Day: A Reporter, Old Friends, GEM Meets

Updated

Given the schlep from Rockaway, I try to schedule multiple events when I go into the city. Yesterday (Wednesday) turned out to be a busy day indeed.

Meet a reporter at Starbucks
First up was a meeting with a reporter from a major paper. I love it when reporters ask the right questions and are willing to probe. It could be phony but there seemed to be genuine enthusiasm as I told tales of the ATR wine and cheese rally (reporter wanted to see my videos) and other stories. Not that I expect any article from the press to reflect the depth of the discussion (we very rarely get to see what lies underneath in these articles), but at least I got a sense that the reporter "gets it." I figured it would take about 15 minutes for boredom to set in but we did 45 minutes and I was asked to meet again. If an article appears I'll talk more about it.

Lunch (my favorite thing)
Then it was off to Bar Pitti to meet old UFT war horses Merry Tucker and Bruce Markens. Bruce has always been a hero to people in the opposition because he was the only non-Unity district rep who consistently stood up to his Unity hack bosses – for over a decade. Of course that was the days when district reps were elected (by the chapter leaders in the district, mostly Unity anyway, but at least a semblance of democracy). Randi finally pulled the plug on DR elections in 2002 - and Bruce's consistently getting elected through the 90's as Manhattan HS DR was a major reason. Full disclosure: I had announced my candidacy for DR in my District in the spring of 2002. In my interview with Tom Pappas, Bob Astrowsky and Michelle Bodden I said I wouldn't retire - that caused almost as big a laugh as when I pulled out copies of Ed Notes as an example of my work as a union activist. The guy they chose used to brag how he pulled Ed Notes out of mailboxes. He's still there. Ask teachers in the District if they feel represented. Actually, in the long run, having a DR responsible to the leadership instead of the members works against the leaders, but that's a story for another time.

You can imagine that the DR story gave the reporter quite a kick.

But back to lunch. Delightful. Merry (who used to schlep around the Bronx with me distributing Ed Notes) and Bruce have done some travelling and it is always fun to catch up. After lunch, Merry was off to see her mom, a well-known activist who was married to Steve Zelluck). Barbara Zelluck, who I don't know, is seriously ill. We wish her well. I am forever thankful to Merry for introducing me to Lisa North and Gloria Brandman, amazing ICE and GEM activists.

Bruce and I walked uptown to CUNY where the GEM meeting was taking place talking union politics. (We are major wonks.) He has so many great stories and so much knowledge and history, I keep bugging him to do a debriefing on camera to leave a record of Unity perfidy.

GEM meeting
I went up to the air conditioned GEM meeting (what a great crew) which was very vigorous with lots of great reports from schools and news of the picnic at Prospect Park this Saturday to make posters for the schoolwide informational pickets on June 4. We also had some good discussions, especially on the new teacher evaluation system. Tilden Chapter Leader John Lawhead gave a mesmerizing analysis of the agreement, which I thankfully taped and will put it up in a day or two. Wonderful stuff.

We also had a good and heated discussion as to whether we work to get the UFT to act or give up on them. I'm in the latter group and pushed my Vichy analogy, but there are other points of view, which we will explore in some forums on the UFT, maybe this summer.

UPDATED: Recruitment Poster for Charter School: Hey Kid, Wanna Make a Hundred Bucks?

UPDATED:

Jenny Medina picked up this story after I sent her the photo after I read her very good piece on charter school scams and the need for more scrutiny that appeared Wednesday. She published an excellent piece on the Wanted Poster at the NY Times City Room blog, also yesterday. See below for her story (and she gave Ed Notes a good pop).

For background, I have lots of contacts who sent me the picture and story as I worked my whole career in District 14 and spent my last years in the system doing tech support work at a number of schools, IS 126 included. That is the school where you may recall the same charter invaded the school library and the teacher made a you tube about it that got some notoriety. See Dismantling the IS 126 Library. Rumors are that the teacher was put in the rubber room as punishment.

Sources are saying that as a result of our exposure and the Medina story (followed up by the Post and News) the DOE may be looking to punish the people (grilling the gang at 126?) who revealed the story while ignoring the school's attempt to bribe the kids. Also see Caroline Granan comment about similar stuff at KIPP in San Francisco.

When I visited KIPP San Francisco Bay Academy, there were posters plastered all over the school offering prizes (Gap and Old Navy gift cards) to get new families to apply. I think someone is being naive to think that’s novel. And that’s at KIPP, where (all chorus together) “all KIPP schools have long waiting lists,” according to Paul Tough in your very own newspaper.

Ahhh. Those waiting lists. I hear that just about anyone who wants into a charter who meets the smell test (no ELL, Special ed, parent signs pledge to give pint of blood every day, etc) can get in.

And some charter school teaching buddies are telling me that getting and keeping good teachers is getting tougher and tougher and they're even trying to lure teachers away from each other. Wait 'till the cap is lifted. It will be the wild west. But demand even in a down economic market may drive some salaries higher. However, I get loads of teachers looking for jobs contacting me and all of them are desperate to get into a public school and look at charters as a last resort. Yes, the young do think of pensions and health care and the stability of seniority protections that a public school teaching career can bring- at least until the UFT sells that out too.

By the way, over the past few months I and Susan Ohanian have received some "lovely" notes from this particular charter school operator (and buddies), some of which I will share with you real soon.

Click on the pic to read




This photo of a poster on a 3rd floor wall at a charter based at IS 126 in Williamsburg/Greenpoint was being passed around by parents and community groups as outrage grows.

Can you BELIEVE this? They make the poor kid who recruits some sucker wait an entire semester before collecting his 100 bucks. They must have electronic force fields keeping them in. (I know more than a few parents who have been there, done that and left.)

What happened to all those waiting lists to get into charters that they are so desperate they have to bribe kids with a hundred bucks to get recruits?

For a hundred bucks I'll enroll there myself.

Students at $100 a Head?

Jennifer Medina

A sign in a charter high school offers one way to build up enrollment.

We know about schemes to pay students for high marks. And we’ve written about some of the marketing tactics schools are using to attract families. But one charter high school in Williamsburg is taking a step further – offering a $100 reward to any student who recruits another teenager to attend the school.

Last night we were sent a photo purporting to show a sign posted on the third floor of Public School 126 at 424 Leonard Street, which houses the Williamsburg Charter High School as well as its two spinoffs, Believe Northside Charter High School and Believe Southside Charter High School.

Evoking the old “Wanted” posters of the Wild West, the flyer asks for help to “recruit students who you feel would benefit from the exceptional opportunity to attend Believe Schools in all grades.” It promises $100 for each student recruited, provided they enroll and “remain for at least one term with us!” (The same picture also turned up Tuesday night on Education Notes Online.)

Jacqui Lipson, a spokeswoman for the schools, declined to comment but did not deny that the sign was up.

Charter school advocates typically boast about how far demand outpaces supply for seats in charter schools. Just last month, the New York City Charter School Center announced that more than 55,000 students had applied for 11,000 seats in charter schools.

Ms. Lipson also declined to say how many students applied to each of the three schools this year, directing the question to the city’s Education Department. We’ve asked and will post the answer as soon as we receive it.

Chicago: Thousands rally against the school budget cuts

From the CORE blog. How delicious right in the belly of the ed deform beast. Huberman is Duncan's replacement.

Thousands rally against the school budget cuts.

Huberman, Daley, and the CPS are in for a fight when 30,000 members are united.

In a display of unity that is uncommon in an election season, all five caucuses of the CTU came together to march against Huberman’s threats of ballooning class sizes to 35 and major cuts to educational programs. Koco, Teachers for Social Justice, Pilsen Alliance, Blocks Together, and other GEM partners organized students, parents, and community members to march in unity with the Union teachers who are integral members of their communities.

CORE Presidential candidate Karen Lewis talking to young people at rally.

One police officer on duty estimated 5,000 protesters, making this one of the largest educational protests in decades.

Initially, CORE planned to organize the rally with their GEM partners, but realized that this was an event that would be bigger than a caucus, and made a resolution at the May House of Delegates meeting for the event to be a Union event; a show of unity against Huberman and Daley. Although it was a political risk to organize members to an all-caucus event while on the campaign trail, CORE made it a priority to build this event, and it paid off.

This is exactly the kind of Unionism that CORE wants and the membership deserves.

Letter from CORE Presidential Candidate Karen Lewis:

Dear Teachers, PSRPs, clinicians, and supporters,

Tuesday May 25, 2010 will go down in history as the beginning of a new way.

We had thousands of people in the streets telling Huberman “No” to 35 in a class, “NO” to cuts in programs and “NO” to balancing their budgets on the backs of educators and students. What made this possible was that members of all five caucuses came together to show unity. I would like to thank all the members of PACT, CSDU and SEA for running campaigns that focused on the pressing issues we all face. We appreciate the expressions of support we have received from the leadership and membership of those caucuses. It is an honor to be among people who care passionately about the direction this Union must take.

As I rode back on the bus a parent said to me, “…And this is just the beginning.”

She was absolutely right.

In solidarity,

Karen Lewis

CORE Candidate for CTU President

National Board Certified Teacher

Dee Does NYSED

The NY State Ed Department is the monitor for charter schools. Ho, ho, ho. Merry Christmas. Finally, the NY Times has jumped into the fray today with an article by Medina and Confessore:
More Scrutiny for Charter Schools in Debate Over Expansion.

Dee Alpert certainly seems to know where the bodies are buried at the corrupt NY State Department of Education and the ugly parent the NY State Board of Regents too, headed by Bloomberg friend and neighbor Meryl Tisch, who also has Joel over for Passover to ask the 4 questions, one of which is always: Why is this reorganization different from all the other reorganizations that came before it?

UFT Pres Michael Mulgrew loves Meryl and spent a good chunk of the last Delegate Assembly singing her praises because she "knows education," which makes sense since she spent 10 minutes teaching pre-k in an exclusive Hebrew school about a hundred years ago. Well, I'll just let Dee go and tear 'em up in these 2 posts to the nycednews listserve (and if you're not on it, what are you waiting for?)

Examination of the agendas and committee materials for the Board of Regents shows why Tisch is crazed, reportedly, to get RttT money, no matter what it takes to do so.

NYSED's budget has been seriously cut by the Governor - to the point that it's merging offices and divisions to save money and avoid vacancies it can't fill due to retirements, etc. Several months ago one major office reported that due to budget constraints already in place at that time, it appeared NYSED wouldn't be able to do the minimal level of monitoring work the feds required in order to maintain eligibility for large federal grant programs. The proposed budget makes the staff cuts far worse.

It's getting to the point where NYSED might have to fire its legendary patronage and no-show employees and officials and just keep people on staff who actually did cognizable work. This is, of course, a fate worse than death to an agency which exists at the whim of the NYS Legislature, a/k/a Sheldon Silver. There was even talk of cutting down on its incredibly extensive program of farming out work to consortia of colleges, universities, BOCES and public school districts instead of doing the work with in-house staff, thus decreasing its reknowned "schmear factor" exponentially. It's also famous for using outside consultants - very pricey ones - far more than necessary - ergo the $1,000 per day early childhood consultant it included in its RttT Round One application. I'd love to know who that consultant is - I assume it's someone who's very ... well-connected.

Rest easy. NYSED has discontinued its practice of putting the staffing of its Audit Office on its web site. We can safely assume that, as always, it has made a policy decision to cut auditors ... first and foremost ... and leave NY school operations to the tender mercies of their collective officialdom.

As far as RttT money being constrained in terms of what it can be used for - relax! USDOE found that NYSED totally mishandled its Reading First grant and gave money to districts which shouldn't have gotten these funds according to NYSED's own RF grant proposal. Then the NYC Comptroller found that the NYCDOE wasted at least 10% of its RF grant on an "unusable" RF web site; paid teachers who were mostly unqualified to be RF staff, and couldn't account properly for at least 50% of its RF funds which didn't go toward paying staff salaries. What did USDOE do about this appalling state of affairs? Nothing at all, of course. What should it have done? Required NYSED (and specifically the NYCDOE) return a fat chunk of their RF grants to USDOE for redistribution to states and districts which would use them properly.

USDOE OIG audits and NYS Single Audits have reported consistently that NYSED doesn't actually audit or verify what districts do with their federal grant funds. So relax! No matter what NYSED puts in its RttT grant application, and no matter what USDOE approves in that application, NYSED is going to tell districts that they can use RttT monies any darn way they want, and if all they want is to use it to stop teacher layoffs, then that's what NYSED will let them do. Of course, they'll have to lie and misreport re what they've done with the money, but NYSED won't audit or verify, nor will it instruct districts' outside auditors to do so. We'll find out that RttT funds were misspent when a new batch of USDOE OIG audits are issued, probably around 2014.

Of course, it may mean that NYSED is able to show no objective positive student outcomes for the $700 million in RttT funds it receives ... but that's nothing new. Even Tisch has been quoted as saying that NYSED spends all this money and doesn't get anything good to show for it. Plus ca change ...

Dee Alpert


As usual, the NYCDOE misrepresents and, where that doesn't suffice, flat out lies.

The NYSED web site shows that the NYCDOE itself is quite late in submitting its outside audits. It also reported several months ago that the "big" outside audit of the NYCDOE's largest federally funded programs had significant negative findings.

Under federal law and regulations, when any district - NYCDOE, charter school - gets negative outside audit findings, NYSED has the responsibility for insuring that negative audit findings are corrected satisfactorily. The last USDOE OIG audit of NYSED's functioning in this area reported - as did prior reports spanning decades - that NYSED does absolutely nothing to insure that where outside audits disclose fiscal and/or programmatic irregularities, these are corrected. Nothing. In fact, the USDOE OIG found that federal funds which NYSED distributes to districts (school districts and charters alike) are very much at risk of "fraud, waste and misappropriation."

When the NYS Comptroller does a different kind of audit on public school districts and BOCES, only NYSED has the legal authority to insure that appropriate steps are taken to correct negative audit findings. Comptroller follow up audits this past year have uniformly shown that NYSED, in fact, has not insured that corrections were made and important negative findings from prior full audits were repeated.

This isn't a "robust" system. It's a dead one - as dead for public school districts as it is for charter schools. The audit issue re charters is far more complex and nuanced than anyone involved in the tiff wants to fess up to publicly.

They're all playing with your heads and praying that you don't figure out what the real issue is re charter audits v. public school district audits, which has absolutely nothing to do with what's bruted about.

Dee Alpert

What Are You Doing May 29th and June 4th?

GET INVOLVED IN THE BATTLE FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION.
COME TO THE GEM MEETING: Weds. May 26th, CUNY, 4:30 - 34th st and 5th ave. Bring id.

I hear a whole lot of griping going on. Over BloomKlein or the lack of action by the UFT. Or what action they do take is more PR than real. As the rise of CORE in Chicago shows, it is possible to start taking action at the grassroots level.

So even if it is only you, join this growing movement on June 4th by holding an informational picket. This is not the usual UFT one shot deal, but part of a building process within the school communities.

GET ACTIVATED! Troops are needed at the barricades. In the future we need people to go to school closing and charter co-location hearings. Speak. Take pictures. Write a report for the blogs. If you are waiting for the UFT to do something, you will be left at the station as the train pulls away. See the ICE blog for a report on the hypocrisy of the UFT at the PEP in Queens last week (UFT at PEP MEETING: OH THE IRONY.)

Also - come out to the picnic and sign-making on Saturday May 29th. Here is the announcement from NYCORE:

June 4th Eng


June 4th is going to be a day of protests at many schools around the city against the budget cuts and layoffs. Some school are picketing before or after school that day.

Others are giving out buttons and stickers to faculty, staff and families to wear in protest of the cuts and proposed layoffs. There will be informational fliers to give out too.

In preparation we are inviting all parents, students, community members and school workers
to join NYCoRE in Prospect Park on May 29, 1-5 pm to make signs, snack, play and meet great people!

Come all day, for a couple hours or just stop by. Bring your friends, families and students!
We need lots of signs for the upcoming protests.

We will be near the 11th and 15th street entrances to the park off of Prospect Park West.
Nearest train station is the 15th street stop on the F train. Also close to the 4th ave/9th street
stop on the F, R and G trains.

Here is a map of where we will be.
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=New+York&ll=40.661792,-73.977159&spn=0.004615,0.009506&z=17

If you cant find us call: 646 354 9362

If you're interested in coming, want more info about the day, or are interested in finding
out more about June 4th and how to get your school involved email: sam@nycore.org

Let us know so we can plan material amounts.

Attached are fliers in English and Spanish.

We've intentionally left the school info part blank so you can easily type right into it to
personalize it for your own school.


Download pdf: English: http://www.scribd.com/doc/31924007
Spanish: http://www.scribd.com/full/31923984?access_key=key-5sdh4xvlwvylnq663cv

Is the UFT About to Blink on Lifting Charter School Cap?

The dominoes continue to fall as the UFT backpedals on every issue from rubber rooms to teacher evaluations based on test scores and now the lifting of the charter school cap. The NY Post reports:

The odds of reaching an agreement to lift the cap on charter schools improved markedly after negotiators made "major progress" in resolving two controversial issues, a source close to the talks said yesterday. City, state and union negotiators have discussed creating an advisory council that would assess the impact of sharing space with traditional public schools. But the task force would not have the power to block a charter school from moving into a building. City, state and union negotiators have discussed creating an advisory council that would assess the impact of sharing space with traditional public schools. But the task force would not have the power to block a charter school from moving into a building.

Duhhh! That's the ticket, another advisory committee. Leonie Haimson asks: "How many impotent advisory councils do we already have, whose “advice” the administration totally ignores? 32 CECs and the CCHS. How many more do we need? Zero."


Another issue the union seems to be backtracking on is the for-profit charter operator issue. The Post says,

There are three such firms that operate about 10 percent of charter schools in the state. The teachers union has called for a ban on for-profit firms running the publicly funded, but privately managed, charter schools. One idea floated would cap the number of schools run by for-profit firms [my emphasis].

That's another ticket. Cap 'em, double entendre intended. For the time being. We know how the ed deformers work. Get the charter cap lifted by agreeing to limit for profits and then just go and do what they want anyway. By the way, the way around this is to count each block of schools as one. Thus Victory greedy blood suckers could have 10 schools but count them all as one. Watch a battle emerge to get this wrinkle in once they get their pound of flesh.

Don't miss this knock-down:

Leonie Haimson vs. James Merriman

Event: Leonie will debate James Merriman of NYC Charter Center
Start Time: Thursday, May 27 at 8:00pm
End Time: Thursday, May 27 at 9:00pm
Where: A bar called 49 Grove, at the corner of Bleecker Street.

To see more details and RSVP, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/n/?event.php&eid=119482558092106&mid=262699eG218ef608G4ddfec3G7&n_m=norscot%40aol.com

Leonie had some further comments on her listserve. Isn't it great to have parent activists stand up for the right things while our own union lays down and dies?

By now, you probably have been seeing lots of ads on TV and flooding the internet from Education Reform Now, a group which is pushing to raise the charter cap in NY State and to eliminate seniority protections for teachers.

On its website, ERN claims to be a "coalition of parents, teachers and education advocates" but is really a bunch of deep-pocketed hedge-fund operators.

In their "Race to the Top" ads, ERN is spreading disinformation; imploring parents and others to "send a message to Albany,” implying that if the State lifts the cap on charters, we will get enough federal funds to prevent the need for budget cuts to our schools, and the threatened loss of thousands of teaching positions. In an oped written for Crain’s, James Merriman of the Charter Center wrote the following:

“Across New York state, school districts are so strapped for cash they're doing the unthinkable—laying off teachers and cutting core programs that directly affect student learning. At the same time, the federal government is offering New York $700 million in education funding for agreeing to reforms that have the potential to raise student achievement and offset devastating budget cuts.”

This is simply untrue.

As Kathleen Grimm, DOE Deputy Chancellor, admitted to the City Council a week ago, and the federal government has confirmed several times over, these funds CANNOT be used to offset budget cuts, prevent teacher layoffs or cuts to afterschool programs, but in Grimm’s words are “very restrictive.”

Indeed, they can only be used for a very narrow set of policies, including teacher evaluation and merit pay based on test scores, more data gathering, etc. – few of which would actually improve the quality of our children’s education.

And what are the so called “common sense education reforms”? The charter school lobby is spending millions to try to persuade the Legislature to radically expand the number of charters, while insisting that the State Comptroller be barred from auditing charter schools' use of public funds, preventing parents from having a say in their co-locations in public school buildings, and insisting that profit-making operations continue to be able to make a buck off our kids.

I urge you not to fall for their pro-privatization propaganda.

Already, the city plans to spend $545 million next year on charters, more than the $493 million in cuts planned from our public school budgets. We simply cannot afford to lose any more money from the classroom. Given how our schools are bleeding, the proposal to expand spending on charters is outrageous.

(To see a list of charter schools that are applying for next year, and who could be coming into your district soon if the cap is lifted, check out
New Charter School Applicants to SUNY-CSI, Summer 2010 and New Charter School Applicants to NYCDOE, Summer 2010)

The Assembly will be considering raising the charter cap this week.

Call your Assemblymember today, and ask him or her to restore full funding to the education budget, and not to raise the charter cap unless there are rigorous protections for taxpayer and parent rights; including for the CECs to have the authority to approve all co-locations.

Find your state legislators at http://nymap.elections.state.ny.us/nysboe/; for the Assembly, the toll free no. is 1-877-255-9417 and press 3.

I have also heard from several PTAs that they have received emails from an employee working for ERN; asking if she can talk at your PTA meeting, send a message to parents, or post a link to their online petition about their campaign to “Keep Great Teachers.”

Of course, we all want to keep great teachers; and the best way to do so is to fight against the threatened budget cuts to our schools. But by undermining seniority protections, this group is out to further undermine public education by weakening the professional status of the teaching profession; so that our schools are confronted with a revolving door of inexperienced (read: cheaper) teachers.

The reality is that there are only two objective, quantifiable factors that research has clearly linked to more effective teaching; teacher experience and smaller classes.

Unfortunately, this administration and their buddies on Wall St. – none of whom have their own children in NYC public schools -- are doing everything they can to undermine our kids’ access to both of these critical factors

Thanks,

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters

Preparing Teachers in Your School For UFT Officials Invasion

I'm receiving emails that the invasion of UFT officials to spin the teacher evaluation agreement (under the guise of talking about the budget cuts) is beginning.

I know the drill. They will come and talk and talk and talk, maybe leaving 5 or less minutes for questions. Don't let them get away with it.

Prepare the people in your school by handing out a list of questions based on some of the issues raised below.

Ask them why delegates, the exec bd and the membership no longer get to vote on contract modifications.

Make 'em sweat for their money.

The UFT is now soliciting opinions on Teacher Eval Agreement....

...and chapter leader John Elfrank responds

1. NEGATIVE: It’s a foot in the door for using Standardized Tests and Merit Pay.


2. NEGATIVE: The new system claims to eliminate what the UFT describes as a totally subjective system. Yet, seven of the eight criteria are the same. The UFT says the addition of an eighth criterion (test scores) changes everything. Can’t we find less subjective criteria other than standardized test scores? It’s gonna count for 40%! The UFT says it “limits the influence of state tests on teacher performance evaluations”, it actually INTRODUCES state tests into teacher performance evaluation. Anything less than 100% is a “limit”.


3. NEGATIVE: Since there’s still much that has to be “negotiated” the agreement will only lose some of what appeal it does have. For example, 40 of the eval will be test scores% for starters.


4. NEGATIVE: There are no specifics about how peer review would work, how test scores will be used.


5. NEGATIVE: The contract is NOT enforced now regarding Art. 8, so why should we assume the UFT will enforce what is in our best interests regarding this agreement? For example, if the UFT doesn’t want a “gotcha” system, why doesn’t it challenge the informal observations put in our files and used to U rate us? Read Teaching for the 21st Century… You’d never know it was meant to apply to our members. It was supposed to eliminate the “gotcha” observation.


6. NEGATIVE: Lead Teacher wannabes will compete with their colleagues, not cooperate. After all, it’s who ranks at the top that will get the lead teacher gig.


7. POSITIVE: is that if negations fail the old system remains in place, as would be expected with a contract.


8. POSITIVE: Growth model assessment seems to be the best model if you have to go with standardized testing.


9. POSITIVE: Teacher improvement plan looks like it will be specific and transparent. Again, depending upon what is negotiated.


These negotiations need to take place in full view of the membership in order to invite member feedback. Secret negotiations are only meant to keep the membership in the dark .

BOTTOM LINE: Teaching to the test will take on a new urgency. Gone will be creative pedagogy. Close the Teacher Centers, they’ll be a waste of money. We will all be in the test prep business.


John Elfrank-Dana
UFT Chapter Leader
Murry Bergtraum High School

Under Assault said...

NEGATIVE: No parity. Some teachers will be judged on tests, others not. (They'll use as yet unspecified other kinds of rubrics for them.)

NEGATIVE: What about people like Guidance Counsellors? Are they going to rate them on how well the kids keep their appointments? That's about a useful as any of these other criteria in difficult learning environments.

Leonie posted these thoughts:

After year one, all teachers in all grades will be subject to these value-added assessments; implying that there will have to be new state tests as well as new local tests in all subjects and all grades.

o Year one: 20 percent student growth on state assessments or comparable measures for teachers in the common branch subjects or ELA and Math in grades four to eight only, and 20 percent other locally selected measures that are rigorous and comparable across classrooms;

o Subsequent years before Regents approval of a value-added model: 20 percent student growth on state assessments or comparable measures for all teachers, and 20 percent other locally selected measures that are rigorous and comparable across classrooms;

Art, music anyone?

I would expect that all these new tests, as well as teacher time (or State time) scoring them, in every grade and subject, will cost far more than the $700 million that is the maximum amount that NY State could get from RTTT.

I also love the following:

. The regulations adopted pursuant to this section shall be developed in consultation with an advisory committee consisting of representatives of teachers, principals, superintendents of schools, school boards, school district and board of cooperative educational services officials and other interested parties.

Once again, parents are omitted from being mentioned among the key stakeholder groups to have any voice in this system.

After all, it’s only our kids.

Wonder if charter schools will be subject to the same regime.

And Leonie raises these questions the UFT should have raised, but didn't:

The Times article does not say whether the test score component will be based upon one year or several years value-added.

One year’s increases or decreases in test scores are statistically meaningless at the school level; as shown by the volatility of the NYC school grading system; and they are even more unreliable at the classroom level.

Not to mention the complexities of attempting to control for all the demographic and school factors outside a teacher’s control, such as peer group factors, class size, overcrowding, special needs population, and the student’s pre-determined course of learning, based on all their previous years’ educational experiences. (As the class size research shows, smaller classes in the early grades lead not only to greater gains in those years, but a whole different trajectory of learning in future years.)

All of which explains why the National Academy of Sciences has said emphatically that basing teacher evaluations on value-added test scores is not ready for prime time.


What is clear from the NY Times article is that NYC public school students will be subjected to yet an additional set of “local tests”; which will mean millions of dollars to develop these new tests, millions of student hours spent taking them, and millions of teacher hours in scoring them.

In addition, I predict that the DOE will want to give these new local tests both at the beginning of the school year and the end, to sharpen up their “value-added” per teacher component.

And most likely, more NY teachers will even more try to flee from classrooms and schools with high-needs students, the exact opposite of what the federal government, state and city say they are trying to achieve.

Wouldn’t you?

More testing, less learning.

Why Seniority?

I've been asked to write an article addressing the seniority issue. In various conversations I've had, it is a more complex issue than appears on the surface to hard and fast unionists. I am on deadline so if you have some ideas leave them in the comments section or email me.

A supposition: say we can show in some empirical way - that 10 and 20 year teachers similarly capable, knowledgeable, effective - we know that means test scores to the ed deformers - but we may define effective any way WE want. We gain nothing in teaching ability in choosing between these teachers. The NY Times seemed to be saying this a few weeks ago. Now I can honestly say that I can see little if any difference in all my years between 10 and 20 yr teachers. As a matter of fact, the 20 year person might be getting a bit tired or burnt or cynical. Both have tenure. But there is a big difference in salary. Use 22 years and we have a 100g teacher vs a - I'm not sure what a 10 yr teacher makes now - they have reached the top step but longevity raises havn't kicked in yet - but there is as big difference.

In the business world it is clear - you dump the 22 year old and keep the 10 year person.

Makes sense. "Yippee" goes the 10 year person. But then he begins to think. "What happens to me in 12 years?" Even in the business world is there a social cost for all the people knowing they will be kilt off as they age? Hmmm. Maybe it is not so good to earn so much more. Double hmmm. Maybe if we figured a way to close that gap instead of giving raises the way we do, we might address that issue. I'm not advocating anything, just thinking out loud.

Reminds me of that Twilight Zone episode where the planet was so crowded each person had only the spot they were standing on. Someone had to go whenever some younger person was ready to stand in their spot.

That may be the ultimate ed deform plan. When teachers reach 30, kill them off.


Some interesting questions:

To what extent does the private sector operate under seniority? More than people would think I expect.

What about the community control advocates who would want to balance teaching staffs in a way that may bump up against seniority rules?

What about the loss of teachers of color under the ed deform ("civil rights") onslaught? How do we redress that balance? We know that in NYC certainly that the bulk of newer teachers are white so that would not be an issue when it came to layoffs but say they recruited a mass of teachers of color and layoffs did come? Theoretical issue for now I know. Some of this touches on what happened in 1968 when the community demanded the ability to hire and fire teachers irregardless of seniority. The resisters battling the ed deformers comprise defenders of union work rules AND people calling for local control of schools. Some of these issues will need some in depth discussions to resolve.

How does the tenure issue affect the seniority question or can we separate them for this discussion?

Preliminary Election Results Show CORE to be in Runoff Election June 11th

Here is CORE's press release on the Chicago union elections, which win or lose in the runoff for CORE, is a cataclysmic event in teacher unionism with national implications - the AFT/UFT Weingarten/Mulgrew sellout policies have pushed teachers up against the wall. We'll be back later with some prelim analysis.

Read updates from George Schmidt at Substance:

Norm

_________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________ CONTACT: Karen Lewis CORE CTU Presidential Candidate FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 22, 2010 CORE Media Relations Liz Brown Kenzo Shibata Preliminary Election Results Show CORE to be in Runoff Election June 11th In a five-way race for the leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union, a run-off on June 11, 2010 appears likely between the Caucus of Rank-and-file Educators (CORE), headed by CORE Presidential Candidate Karen Lewis and the incumbent party UPC. At the time of this release, the preliminary vote count stands at UPC 31.9%, CORE 30%, PACT 15.1%, CSDU 6.8% and SEA 5.6%. "What this election shows us is that teachers and PSRPs are fed up. CORE's success is we are a big-tent, grass-roots group led democratically from the bottom up. That was why CORE began in the first place - to activate and energize all members in running the Union. It also turned out to be a winning campaign strategy. I sincerely thank all of our supporters for their tireless work and dedication to our shared cause," said Karen Lewis. Throughout the campaign, CORE has called for an end to business as usual, transparency from both the CTU and Chicago Public Schools, and a unified effort to improve Chicago's public schools among its natural allies - teachers, students, parents and community members. "CORE invites all caucuses and Union members to join us to reinvigorate rank-and-file members and wake up the sleeping giant that is the Chicago Teachers Union. Now is the time to end UPC's decades long control of our Union that has been a disservice to members," said Lewis. This breakdown does not take in account the 35 ballot boxes that were not picked up from their respective schools. # # # CORE, the Caucus of Rank-and-file Educators, is a reform caucus of the Chicago Teachers Union that represents teachers and the students and families they serve. Meeting and Celebration Open to all those who support CORE in the June 11th Runoff Election CORE Slate 2010: Michael Brunson, Karen Lewis, Jesse Sharkey, and Kristine Mayle Monday, May 24th 2010 4:00-6:00 PM Letter Carriers Hall 3850 South Wabash Food will be provided. We will be raising funds, so please bring your checkbook.

What if they had a union and nobody joined?

Bringing Choice and Accountability to the UFT:
A Teacher Calls for End to Agency Shop


Generally people view the concept of an agency shop where everyone pays union dues whether they join the union or not as being a positive thing for union organizing and I've never been in favor of calling for its elimination. But there seems to be a level of frustration over the lack of accountability within the UFT where the top-down leadership controls just about every single aspect of the union, including the make believe opposition, New Action which owes the 8 Exec bd seats to Unity support. A hundred % of the members of the Ex bd were Unity endorsed in the recent election.

There was a thought that years ago when district reps were elected by chapter leaders in their districts there was a greater level of accountabilty. All DR's elected were Unity (except Manhattan HS rep Bruce Markens who had a lot of support from the Manhattan high school chapter leaders) because most chapter leaders were Unity. So I never thought that when Randi killed the elections in 2002 that it would make much difference. But it seems it has and more than a few chapter leaders have complained that the responsiveness of the union is worse than ever.

The recent letter circulating about dropping out of COPE (UNTIL WE GET A VOTE, SAY NO TO COPE!) is a sign of that frustration.

Other signs are the increasing calls for quitting the union, complaints about spending a thousand bucks a year in dues, calls to look for other unions to represent us. That is a big pipe dream since the most active opposition people in the UFT have rejected any moves in that direction.

This email from a long-time chapter leader, a strong union guy, made me sit up and take notice:

To move the education reforms, one simply has to allow teachers to not belong to the union --- in more than name only. ie not even agency fee payers. I can guarantee if that comes to pass, the leadership will be very much attuned to serving the membership as more than cannon fodder.

I don't see this coming to pass because the political forces want to keep the UFT strong at the top because it is an entity they can deal with them. The anarchy of a splintered union would not be a good thing for the ed deform crew either. Think about the former Soviet Union breakup and its aftermath. Do you feel safer today or back then? Same with the powers that be. They feel safer with a union they can not only deal with but that works to dampen and control militancy. In other words, the BloomKleins and the Daley/Duncans in Chicago need Unity and the UCP caucuses as much as they would like unions to give them a totally free hand. But these sell-out leaders must show the members something. Yet the BloomKleins keep taking and outraging the members.

Let's get this thing straight though. As long as the opposition can only pull 9% of the vote, there is no pressure on the leaders and all calls for accountability and internal union reform will be laughed at. It will take some action on the part of the people screaming about the how bad the union is. I keep telling them to stop moaning and organize. If they don't have an idea how to do that then start coming to GEM meetings. Just sitting back and waiting for someone else to do something will just leave them there sitting.

A prime example is the CORE group in Chicago which is just 2 years old and has done some wild organizing and can now contend for power in the union. I know these guys and they have thrown their lives into the effort. Any less than that here in NYC will leave Unity in power for a millenium, agency shop, COPE dues or not.


The future? One of the things I concentrated on over the last 3 years was working with younger teachers and for the first time I saw some early stages of interest and activism. No matter how bad things looked with the election, I found some hopeful signs of a CORE-like group forming here in NYC. I felt this was more important over the long run than the short term election results. These people will hopefully become the future leaders of the opposition as more and more people in the ICE crew (I can't speak for TJC) take a more supportive and mentoring role, sort of like what George Schmidt and Substance has done with CORE in Chicago.

Putting BloomKlein on the Couch

Here is a very interesting analysis by Dee Alpert on the NYCEd listserve.


You need to understand the Bloomberg/Klein mentality. And this is not a "hedge fund guys" thing - it long preceded their entry into the NYC public education system politics.

Bloomberg and Klein are into the "let managers manage and then hold them accountable for the results of their work" schtick. They believe that managers, to the fullest extent possible, should be given total (and I do mean total, including them backing up folks who ignore laws and the NYS and federal constitutions) authority and discretion to run their shops, period. Every principal the captain of his or her own ship. And wherever possible, this authority would extend to allowing the ship captain to hold a sailor (a/k/a teacher or other school employee) guilty of treason in a captain's kangaroo court trial, and then sentencing the traitor to being thrown overboard. Period. Modern version - breaking tenure; firing 'em.

They figure that the best captains will show their true colors and run ships that shine where all others have failed and that these will then be able to be used as models ("take up to scale") for other less creative or skilled principals. They assume that these principals will be able to hire the best people, given the model they want to operate, and train and supervise the ones they are forced to hire or retain, and come up with results in ... the top 10%, let's say, of all principals in the system who have students with the same overall "metrics" (translation - SES). And then they'll get these super-principals to train the better of the remainder in their models and skills. At the same time, they wish to be able to force the bottom 10% of principals out of the system.

Doesn't work given the very complex tangle of laws, regulations and union contracts which actually exist out there. And what's anathema to the Bloomberg/Klein "captain of the ship" model is that the captains - the principals - themselves belong to a union and thus have heavy, enforceable job retention rights.

Bloomberg and Klein want to turn the entire NYCDOE into a true "employment at will" system, which is what governs private business in NYS with a few anti-discrimination law restrictions, and then be able to fire the bottom 10% of administrators and teachers every few years until they hit nirvana and ... hey, presto! ALL the incompetents are gone and this is the best of all possible worlds.

I could give about 85 reasons (other than laws, regulations and the NYS and United States constitutions) why this absolutely cannot work in the NYC and NYS public school industries, but that doesn't matter because the guys are pretending that it can and it will. What they don't do, because it might undermine their pretty pie charts and graphs re outcomes of their new-fangled management systems, is insure that everyone involved understands that they better not fudge the numbers ... or else. There is no "or else." So they keep pushing for further and further iterations of their management model and look aside when principals (and others) game and manipulate the system and then ... well ... along comes NAEP, or the SATs, and their progress suddenly starts looking like crap. Which it is.

This has zero to do with hedge funds. To some extent, it's a desperate grasp at straws by folks who've looked around the country and decided that the regular American public education system is not, if left to its own devices and allowed to follow its own imperatives, actually capable of improving outcomes for the kids whom these folks proclaimedly care about the most - children of color, non-home English speakers and the poor. (Kids w/disabilities tend to be left out of this discussion ... and for all the wrong reasons, but that's just my schtick and I doubt anyone will ever care enough about these kids to attend.) They simply figure that since the system - the American public education industry - has been given gazillions of extra federal dollars since Lyndon Johnson's first antipoverty programs - and has accomplished precious little in terms of objective positive improvement - they'll have to try to set up some system outside the regular public education industry and see if that can either work in and of itself or spur the remainder of the public education system to improve its work and outcomes for the kids.

If you think hedge fund guys (let's get real - you mean profit-making capitalists; hedge funds are a very small corner of that world) are trying to make a fortune off charter schools, I suggest you take a long hard look at the huge profit making corporations - textbook publishers; program publishers; consulting firms of all colors and stripes) who already make a goddamn fortune off the public school industry right now. What are you arguing about - that it's not the same old-same old crowd looking to make money off American children's educations? That new boys are pushing their way in and trying to get a share of the old buck that public school districts and state ed. depts. have previously distributed to their pals in the "regular" profit-off-public-education crowd?

Fact is, most of the folks you're complaining about used to donate to programs which supported regular public schools. What happened was that they looked at what their donations did and ... realized that they didn't do very much good for the children, and thus they decided to change their paradigm for donating.

What you're dealing with re the Bloomberg/Klein "principal-as-captain-of-his-ship" schtick is a pure fantasy-ridden desire to return to 19th century capitalism, before unions were legalized, and that's about it. It's a nice fantasy, closed in half-witted modern management garb, but ... it's just plain old pre-union rugged-individualism capitalism.

What are you going to do? They don't like the 21st century and weren't really happy about the 20th, either. Their mantra is fantasy. You don't kill this kind of nonsense by screaming "hedge fund bad boys" at them (and it's not accurate, anyway). You kill them, figuratively, by taking down their reputations in public - and often - by getting the real numbers showing that their schtick is just that ... and that their mantra does not work. Make it so that when someone says "Bloomberg" or "Klein" and "competent management" in the same paragraph, everyone around the table starts to snicker and one guy over at the other end of the table mutters "you've GOT to be kidding" not so quietly under his breath.

Dee Alpert

Let's Discuss Teacher Union Response to Ed Deform

I often get asked about the motivation and behavior of the UFT/AFT and even the NEA, which comes off as as a bit more in opposition to the assault on teachers, their unions and public education.

It may seem funny to those who know of him, but I had a bit of this conversation with NYC Charter honcho Jim Merriman when I ran into him at the Duncan fest in Brownsville the other day. (If I get a chance I'll get into more of this conversation where the two of us seem to agree on a bunch of surprising things.)

The answer is complex, requiring historical context and a deep political analysis. The simple answer is that union leaders' main mantra is to hold onto power at all costs. But it does go deeper. My other simple answer is that fighting back is just not part of their DNA. But then we have to drill down to find out why.

People in ICE and GEM have been talking about a forum that will drill, baby, drill into this issue. Maybe sometime in June. In the meantime, here is a section of a long article by LA teacher Gillian Russom (who I met in LA this past summer.) The article, Obama’s neoliberal agenda for education, is from the International Socialist Review. (You can read it in full here: http://isreview.org/issues/71/feat-neoliberaleducation.shtml)

Gillian covers a lot of ground. I extracted a section on the behavior of the teachers unions vis a vis the attack on public ed. She concludes with:

in the absence of our own grassroots, democratic vision of school transformation (that also protects and extends union rights), these union leaders just end up picking and choosing which aspects of the top-down reform agenda to get on board with.

This is a start but I still feel we need to drill deeper.


Responses by teachers’ unions

National leaders of the AFT and NEA have accepted many of the assumptions of the neoliberal attack. “We finally have an education president,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten, following Obama’s first education speech that stressed “performance pay” and charter schools. “We really embrace the fact that he’s talked about both shared responsibility and making sure there is a voice for teachers, something that was totally lacking in the last eight years.” 39

In response to the same speech, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel said, “President Obama always says he will do it with educators, not to them. That is a wonderful feeling, for the president of the United States to acknowledge and respect the professional knowledge and skills that those educators bring to every job in the school.”40

Both unions initially voiced their support of RTTT. Weingarten said of the program, “The Department of Education worked hard to strike the right balance between what it takes to get system-wide improvement for schools and kids, and how to measure that improvement.”41 And Van Roekel said, “While NEA disagrees with some of the details surrounding the RTTT initiative, this is an unprecedented opportunity to make a lasting impact on student achievement, the teaching profession, and public education.”42

Weingarten has been supporting forms of merit pay and charter schools for years. When she was president of New York City’s United Federation of Teachers (UFT) from 1998 to 2009, the UFT opened two of its own charter schools and partnered with Green Dot to run a third where teachers are under separate contracts from the rest of the UFT. In October 2007, the UFT implemented “performance” bonuses for teachers at schools that improved their test scores.

Now, Weingarten is touting the new contract for New Haven teachers as “a model or a template” for the rest of the country. The contract implements performance bonuses for schools that improve their test scores; gives the school district the right to shut down and reconstitute low-performing schools as charters; and makes it easier for the district to fire teachers after a 120-day “improvement period.” New Haven teachers approved the contract by an overwhelming vote of 842 to 39.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the AFT “recently issued a batch of innovation grants to districts that are tying teacher pay to performance,” and the NEA “is taking similar steps to encourage tougher evaluations and to loosen seniority systems, moves that Mr. Duncan called ‘monumental breakthroughs.’”43

The NEA, which had largely refrained from criticizing Obama, did issue a critical statement after the release of the Blueprint:

We were expecting to see a much broader effort to truly transform public education for kids. Instead, the accountability system… still relies on standardized tests to identify winners and losers. We were expecting more funding stability to enable states to meet higher expectations. Instead, the “blueprint” requires states to compete for critical resources, setting up another winners-and-losers scenario. We were expecting school turnaround efforts to be research-based and fully collaborative. Instead, we see too much top-down scapegoating of teachers and not enough collaboration.

Nevertheless, the NEA has not put forward a clear strategy on how to shift education policy.

For the AFT, Weingarten has issued a strategy piece entitled, “A New Path Forward.”44 Her proposal for fixing public education contains four elements: 1) a new, more fair, and “expedient” process of teacher evaluation and for dealing with ineffective teachers; 2) a new fair and faster system of due process for teachers accused of misconduct; 3) giving teachers the “tools, time, and trust” to succeed; and 4) creating a trusting partnership between labor and management.

Although the document purports to challenge teacher scapegoating, Weingarten’s first two recommendations accept the logic that individual classroom teachers are what’s standing in the way of quality education. The piece makes no mention of the decimation of school funding nationwide. Most importantly, “A New Path Forward” stresses collaboration with politicians and school districts at a time when we need to be mounting a serious fight against them for funding and democracy.

Why aren’t the national unions taking a more aggressive approach to fight Obama’s anti-union agenda? Obviously, their close ties with Obama and the Democrats are a major factor. Moreover, it has been a long time since teachers’ unions in the U.S. waged any large-scale struggle for our rights, and there is the perception that the Obama agenda has such broad support that it would be impossible to challenge—so if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

In addition, the national unions’ approach is based on an underlying recognition that people are fed up with our public schools. Yet in the absence of our own grassroots, democratic vision of school transformation (that also protects and extends union rights), these union leaders just end up picking and choosing which aspects of the top-down reform agenda to get on board with.
--------------

In this section Gillian offers some ideas for the future which dovetails with some of the concepts we have been talking about here in NYC. Her point about the unease between left activists who ignore radical school reform movements and the distrust by radical/progressive reformers of union activists has been echoed here at times where ICE and TJC represent the former and NYCORE the latter. One of the ideas behind the formation of Teachers Unite was Sally Lee's attempt to bring these 2 movements closer. Some members of ICE and TJC worked with Sally over the past few years on various projects. GEM over the past year has turned out to be the place where some fusion with NYCORE and other groups has taken place. Lately we have started looking at joint projects with the Coalition for Public Education, a broad based group has roots in some communities.


Grassroots, democratic reform versus top-down, corporate reform

We also need to be deeply involved in putting forward our own vision and concrete plans for transforming our own schools. The left within the teachers’ unions has always fought back against cuts, but for the most part has been hesitant to get involved in reform projects to transform individual schools. We have been clear about what we are against, but much less clear about what we are for.

At the same time, radical education reformers whose focus is creating alternative school models have mostly been working at a distance from the teachers’ unions, which they see as uninterested in questions of school transformation.

If our goal is to build a mass movement for public education, radicals in the teachers’ unions need to reclaim the terrain of education visionaries and combine it with our struggle for school funding and stronger union rights. We need to be part of the small struggles to improve schools in the here and now, because these will help build the community coalitions and power to fight for the massive increase in resources that we need. Of course, meaningful, progressive school reform is unsustainable without adequate funding—and that struggle must continue. But developing a vision for the changes we want to see at each school can bring more teachers, students, and parents into our struggle and lend urgency to the fight for more resources.

In other words, we need a dual strategy to confront the dual attack of budget cuts and top-down reform. Progressive teachers in several cities have formed organizations to take on this challenge: The Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators in Chicago, the Grassroots Education Movement in New York City, Educators for a Democratic Union in San Francisco, and Progressive Educators for Action in Los Angeles.