Reviewing "American Teacher": Ed Deform Wolf in Sheep's Clothing?

Last update: Saturday, Sept. 24, 9pm - 

I'm reprinting this review from May since "American Teacher" is premiering at NBC's Education Nation on Sunday with Jamie Fidler on the panel. Brian Jones and I will be in the press section to report back, maybe with some live blogging.

Make sure to read comment 2 from Caroline with a little more information on one of the teachers featured.

See Saturday NY Times article on Jamie Fidler.

A film whose main focus is on paying teachers more money as a solution to the educational crisis. A film purporting to be apolitical is actually very political by what it leaves out. Class size anyone?

What could be wrong with a movie featuring wonderful stories of four dedicated, overworked, underpaid teachers with interesting personal stories and attractive personalities, one of whom I know personally? And while focusing on paying teachers more money?

Jamie Fidler

Plenty. 

I went up to Brandeis for the press conference opposing Harlem Success invasion of that school yesterday but couldn't stay for the hearing because a friend gave me a ticket to American Teacher, narrated by Matt Damon. I also know Jamie Fidler, one of the four teachers and the co-chapter leader at PS 261 in Brooklyn. We reconnected after many years at the May 12 rally where she and people from her school marched with the NYCORE/GEM/Teachers Unite group. (More on Jamie later.) 

I expected this movie to be a weapon on our side in the war against teachers right along side our own Grassroots Education Movement's Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman, which seems to be resonating with teachers and parents because addressed the political issues head on. 

Don't get me wrong. There was also things I liked about the movie. The ridiculous comments on FOX attacking teachers got a good laugh.

The teachers featured were fabulous, especially the teacher from Texas, Brooklyn's Jamie Fidler and the African-American teacher from San Francisco who left teaching to go into real estate. Their stories were compelling. The Harvard grad who went to teach at TEP for $125 grand was the only one who didn't share any of her personal story so I was a bit turned off. She did not seem to exhibit much of a sense of humor, which all the others seemed to have. My guess is that she wasn't long for teaching at that low salary and TEP may have saved her - for now. 

I may be prejudiced, but I think Jamie, who was pregnant throughout most of the filming, was the star of the movie with her humanity, openness, humor and wonderful personality. One of the good things about the film was how it dealt with the choices Jamie had to make. I loved the bit how her prep gotten eaten away on a phone call to the DOE to get info on her leave. And the breast feeding pump story brought the house down.


An effective teacher? No mention of high stakes tests and their impact
From the opening moments of American Teacher my friend and I were seething over the repeated term used by ed deformers: an effective teacher. The film barely touched on the issue of what makes an effective teacher (though Jamie does raise the question of how we can judge) while ignoring the fact that "effective teacher" is a code word for results on standardized tests. In fact, the very idea that high stakes tests even exist or have made most teachers' lives miserable is totally ignored. How do you make a movie called "American Teacher" in these times without talking about high stakes testing and the impact test prep and threats of closing schools and charter schools are having on their psyches?


An immediate warning sign went up when the the first people you see in the film are Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, President Obama and the Hoover Institution's Eric Hanushek, all leaders of the ed deform movement. At least Linda Darling-Hammond is there to lend a bit of balance on the pundit side of the ledger.

And presenting Zeke Vanderhoek as a hero (on the post-screening panel) who pays teachers at his TEP charter school $125 grand is enough to make you gag. Vanderhoek was featured on 60 Minutes (Ed Notes link) trashing the union and LIFO. (See Leonie Haimson's Zeke Vanderhoek, relentless self-promoter.)

The teacher in the film who left her school in New Jersey to teach at TEP, which so far has had dismal results even with all that high-priced "talent," was filmed in her old school. She has been at TEP for two years. Since the film makes so much of her leaving, I would have liked to have seen her at her new school. Vanderhoek said he could pay all that money by eliminating much of the out of classroom personnel public schools have, joking the teachers change the rolls of toilet paper. It sounded like it was close to that. We would have liked to see more of what teachers have to do for that money. It might lead some to prefer driving a forklift.


Blurb from the San Francisco Film Festival:

 As the debate over the state of America’s public school system rages on, one thing everyone (including President Obama) agrees on is the need for great teachers. Yet, while research proves that teachers are the most important school factor in a child’s future success, America’s teachers are so woefully underpaid that almost a third must divide their time between a second job in order to make a living. Chronicling the stories of four teachers in different areas of the country, American Teacher reveals the frustrating realities of today’s educators, the difficulty of attracting talented new teachers and why so many of our best teachers choose to leave the profession altogether. One of the very few black teachers at Leadership High School in San Francisco, Jonathan Dearman, loved his job, and his students adored him. But his inability to support his family led him to pursue a new career and left his students devastated by his departure. An elementary school teacher in New Jersey, Rhena is fresh out of Harvard and personifies the smart, young teacher anyone would want for their kids. But even her strong commitment to her students ultimately gets pushed aside when weighed against her own financial needs. Their stories are disheartening, but this wake-up call to our system’s failings also looks at possibilities for reform. Can we re-value teaching in the United States and turn it into a prestigious, financially attractive and competitive profession? With almost half of American teachers leaving the field in the next five years, now is the time to find out.

—Joanne Parsont 

In fact, as our filmed response to WFS makes clear more than once, the only two in school factors that research has proven to have a positive impact on student learning is class size and teacher experience. So seeing a fuzzy fact stated so early in American Teacher got us off to a bad start. My pal and I were already nudging each other 5 minutes into the movie. Hanushek goes through the bullshit rigmarole about how an effective teacher can affect the lifetime earning salary of the students and we see all that cash flying around the screen. In fact studies have shown low class size has a bigger effect on future earnings than which particular teacher a student has.

Texas teacher Erik Benner - as described in this review: "Teacher, football coach, and fork-lift operator Erik Benner is underpaid, over-extended, and in foreclosure (62 percent of teachers have a second job, teachers are priced out of housing markets in 32 cities)" makes much less money than Jamie Fidler though he is teaching longer. Guess what? Jamie's union helped get her that salary. Benner teachers in Texas. 'Nuff said. At the post screening, one of the producers said they purposely left the union out of the movie. I'm sure. Would they have gotten the funding they received if they made the very important point that unionized teachers are paid much more money? To pretend the two issues are not connected is disingenuous if not openly dishonest.

Time and again we hear the words "teacher excellence" and "teacher effectiveness", ed deform buzzwords. What is lurking behind the call to pay teachers more? Do they mean all teachers? I was wondering if the real point of the movie is that only certain - "effective" teachers - should be paid more.

Class size ignored
I also was perturbed when Damon stated a list of things we have tried that haven't worked and included class size as one of them. If they had allowed questions after the panel I was going to ask for a vote of teachers in the audience if they think class size reduction was the major issue in their working conditions. I bet most hands would have shot up. While the movie claims that low wages are the reason most people leave (it does include lack of respect and support) many teachers would say a lot of the problems would be ameliorated if they had smaller class sizes - and many site the large classes as a factor in their leaving. I mean, you might be willing to keep working for a lower salary if the job were more satisfying and class size is often the bomb. To its credit the movie does include a comment that failures in school leadership is as large a factor as anything else. Broad Leadership academy grads, anyone?

Doing the Finland dance while ignoring unions
Two of the people involved in the film wrote an op ed in the NY Times on April 30 that many people initially cheered. They said:

The consulting firm McKinsey recently examined how we might attract and retain a talented teaching force. The study compared the treatment of teachers here and in the three countries that perform best on standardized tests: Finland, Singapore and South Korea.
Turns out these countries have an entirely different approach to the profession. First, the governments in these countries recruit top graduates to the profession. (We don’t.) In Finland and Singapore they pay for training. (We don’t.) In terms of purchasing power, South Korea pays teachers on average 250 percent of what we do.

And most of all, they trust their teachers. They are rightly seen as the solution, not the problem, and when improvement is needed, the school receives support and development, not punishment. Accordingly, turnover in these countries is startlingly low: In South Korea, it’s 1 percent per year. In Finland, it’s 2 percent. In Singapore, 3 percent.

Ahhh, Finland, the little nation that could. Lauded in American Teacher, Waiting for Superman and our movie. Except that we are the only ones to point out that teachers in Finland are almost totally unionized and their union has been in the lead in fighting for the very reforms that are so praised in ed deform movies.

Our movie points out that the 5 states with the lowest level of union activity - in the south of course (and including Texas) had the poorest results on the SAT/ACT scores.

I did love the statement by 2007 New York State teacher of the year Marguerite Rizzo who said "People think teaching is about liking kids or getting summers off--they don't understand the intellectual rigor involved in teaching students in a way that they'll understand." I totally agree but would extend the intellectual rigor description to figuring out a seating plan or where kids should stand on line. I used to spend hour pouring over these issues.

The panel discussion afterward was so-so but when Jamie Fidler took the microphone towards the end I was anticipating something interesting. She said she had become politically active and urged people to get involved in the fight. She didn't get into details but we all know what she was talking about even if the filmmakers didn't.

On the way out I stopped to say hello to Rizzo and raised a few of the issues I talked about above, also telling her about my involvement with the Inconvenient Truth Behind... film. She said she had heard about it, I think she said from Randi Weingarten. I gagged. I told her Randi and I were not exactly on the same side and handed her a dvd of our film.

Also on the way out we were handed a flier titled: Take Action to Honor and Reward Effective Teachers with 4 things you can do to improve working conditions and salaries for teachers. Supporting the work of their unions was not on the list.

We were all invited to a party afterwards but I knew it would turn into a battleground. Besides, my companions had to teach today. So we went out looking for a place to get coffee and dessert – searching for a nice piece of strudel looked like a better deal. I ended up with a scone but it was better than getting ed deform agita.


See another review of the movie here:


Afterburn: Jamie Fidler
I go to know Jamie when she threw herself and her school into the 2005 contract fight. Jamie contacted me on the recommendation of her dad who was a teacher and featured prominently in the film. He had heard of Ed Notes or ICE and had my contact info. Jamie and others in her school formed Brooklyn Teachers for a Fair Contract. We joined together to leaflet entire areas of north Brooklyn urging a "NO" vote on that disastrous contract. Jamie joined me as a UFT Executive Board meeting to check out what was going on. When we rallied at the October 2005 Delegate Assembly followed by a rally at UFT headquarters a few weeks later, she was there with her colleagues. 

Soon after the contract battle was lost we fell out of touch. I heard she had gotten married and had a baby from my contacts at PS 261 (they have a robotics team. ) Recently, I found out she was the co-chapter leader at the school and was working with Teachers Unite. When I saw her at the May 12 rally it was just like old times. One can never go wrong working with Jamie Fidler. One of the major successes of the film is how clearly that point is made.

GEM High-Stakes Testing Committee Meeting – Monday, September 26, 5-7PM

Bulletin from the Grassroots Education Movement

The next GEM high-stakes testing committee meeting is this Monday, September 26th at 5pm at the CUNY Graduate Center, room 5414. Please bring ID. We will be planning a launch of the Change the Stakes campaign in October, but we need to plan that together! We hope you will join us.

You may know that a petition in support of opt out has been launched for New York State, written by someone upstate. Sign if you haven’t already! http://signon.org/sign/opting-out-of-high-stakes-4?source=s.tw&r_by=233445

As the “national insanity” that is high stakes testing continues, we must continue to work to expose the use of high stakes testing as a cancer that is destroying real learning and thinking in our schools. As we all know, every child deserves an opportunity to think creatively, talk about ideas, and have time in their day devoted to art, music and science. Unfortunately, students who struggle to pass such tests, many of whom don’t speak English or traditional English in the home, are then subject to the treacherous test-obsessed changes that we all know too well. This is a racist practice that is serving to increase the divide between the schooling of those who are privileged enough to be born in a household that speaks traditional English and those who do not.

And of course the second layer is not just the individual impact on individual students, but the fact that these tests are then used to shut down schools and dismantle pillars of community, with the goal of privatizing education in mind. Again, a racist practice that is without question disproportionately impacting communities of color. We must struggle against these inequities, for our very well-being as human beings and the health of our society both depend on it. We hope you will join us on Monday!

There are 454 elementary schools in Chicago. Only 13 have volunteered to participate in the longer school day experiment

This is the first of a series of posts on the situation in Chicago. To bring you up to speed. If you haven't been reading NYC Educator check out. Rahmbo Demands More Work for Less Pay

And George Schmidt's Chicago-based Substance for extensive reporting.

Emanuel's media Blitzkreig against Chicago Teachers Union fails as only 13 schools go with 'Longer School Day'... Brizard team gets an 'F' on 'Longer School Day' campaign... As schools enter fourth week, Brizard's 'team' sports a Won-Lost record that makes Cubs hundreds-year World Champs

Here is the Chicago Teacher Union Press release:

http://www.ctunet.com/blog/115-elementary-schools-ignore-cash-incentives-and-threats-and-vote-no-to-waiver

[Press Release] 115 elementary schools ignore cash incentives and threats and vote “no” to waiver

09/23/2011

Teachers express concerns as CPS Implements its Ill-Planned “Longer School Days”


CHICAGO - A confidential school-by-school analysis conducted by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) reveals that teachers and other classroom professionals at 115 elementary schools voted down the longer school day waiver ballot proposed by the school board.

“These results demonstrate that most union members clearly favor taking the appropriate time necessary to carefully plan for delivering the rich and broad curriculum that our students deserve,” said CTU President Karen GJ Lewis. “This longer school day initiative is just another experiment in a long line of experiments over the last two decades.”

There is no strong evidence indicating that student achievement will rise if the school year is lengthened. CTU maintains it is the quality not the quantity of instruction that matters.
CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard’s “longer school day,” initiative is a rebranding of a similar program offered by the Daley administration, then called “Additional Learning Opportunities (ALO).” On August 25, 2010 the Board of Education approved Resolution 10-0825-RS3 which authorized CPS to increase student learning hours in designated schools by requiring students to attend a mandatory 90 additional minutes per day for five days per week, or as otherwise scheduled. At the time Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley said the ALO program costs were expected to exceed $10 million. To date, the Board has not provided taxpayers or educators with an assessment of the extended learning time experiment.

Ever since CPS began its recent aggressive public relations campaign to force schools to endorse its longer school day ideology, CTU phones have been flooded with calls from concerned teachers who said they had “received no training or in-service as to how the 90 additional minutes were to be used,” according to one grievance report.
At Henry H. Nash Elementary School, 4837 W. Erie Street, though CTU attorneys declared the vote null-and-void because a school bus driver was asked to break a tie of 14 to 14 in favor of the extended day, the K-thru-8 campus will go to an extended schedule from 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. After school programs could see children as young as seven walking home in the winter months well after 6:00 p.m.
Another complaint from Mann Elementary noted: “…(the principal) held a meeting to discuss the possibility of doing a waiver vote. Teachers in attendance agreed to do an informal inquiry. No written plan was submitted for us to study…. We all voted no.”

The waiver process was flawed from the start. Elementary school educators complained of intimidation, coercion and threats of layoffs or school closures if they did not vote in favor of a longer school day. Principals were promised a one-time $150,000 gift to their school if they convinced staff to void parts of their current 2007-2012 labor contract to enact longer work hours this year.

Only teachers were promised a one-time, non-pensionable stipend of 2 percent of the average teacher salary or roughly $1,250 before taxes, among other bribes and incentives. Other school employees receive nothing. CPS has made no guarantees on how it intends to fund and staff all of the city’s elementary schools when the longer school day becomes mandate next year. Even though its longer school day theory will cost upwards of $100 million system-wide, the Board continues to lay-off qualified teachers citing budget concerns.

“Rather than sit down with educators who spend all their work time focused on improving our students’ education, the Board of Education decided to implement a flawed, political process,” said CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey. “CPS has essentially given schools a popular slogan and told them to figure it out on their own. Unless there is a comprehensive, well-thought-out academic and funding plan—you will see our 200,000-plus elementary students doing the same things like mindless test prep—but only longer.”

The campaign to implement an ill-planned longer school day, school-by-school, comes on the heels of other attacks on teachers. In June, the Board denied unionized employees their guaranteed contractual 4 percent cost of living increase. After slashing teacher pay, it then raised the CEO’s salary and offered lucrative increases and benefits to other CPS executives totaling millions of dollars.

“Our teachers are dedicated public servants: they educate our kids, watch over their safety and often pay for school supplies out of their own money,” Lewis said. “All we want is the support to do our jobs well, and appropriate compensation. Targeting teachers in this way sends the wrong message and will hurt our students in the end.”

There are 454 elementary schools in Chicago. Only 13 have volunteered to participate in the longer school day experiment. At least 115 CPS elementary schools have taken “informal straw polls” or waiver votes in which teachers voted against the extended day. The remaining schools met the program with silence and indifference. A formal complaint filed with the Illinois Education Labor Relations Board will be heard in mid-October.

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

E4E: 3000 Members, 2900 Don't Show - Walcott And Crew Appearance at E4E Event Failed to Bring Out Troops

UPDATED: Saturday, Sept. 24, 12:30AM

An embarrassed Sydney Morris blamed "transportation issues" for the low turnout.

Even at a E4E event w/ Walcott, only 15% teachers think that DOE listens to their concerns? Wow. That shows how pissed off teachers are. ....Leonie Haimson

DFER was late getting E4E transport support

See report from a GEMer who attended the Walcott at the end of this post.


I've been staying away from the E4E story due to the work SBS has been doing, most notably his breakdown of their financials: Educators4Excellence Structure And Financials Reve...  Really a must read. (See more SBS E4E reports listed in the Afterburn.)


The partnership between Tweed and E4E reached new heights when Chancellor Dennis Walcott brought his entire top team to meet with E4E on September 19 in an attempt to breathe life into an organization that despite an infusion of money paying for 5 full-time organizers cannot seem to get traction after its initial splash despite enormous media coverage (which I chronicle below).

Now we have been tracking E4E's events all summer and have seen planned events canceled due to lack of interest. Their Sept. 14 event morphed into the Sept. 19 event and despite all the advertising, only a hundred people showed up. Which means 2900 of their supposed 3000 members did not show. And even amongst that hundred a few were from GEM there to check out what Walcott had to say (see report below). An embarrassed Sydney Morris passed off the low attendance as due to "transportation issues." Yeah, DFER forgot to order the helicopters.

There is no question E4E has been hurt by the number of their members who were denied tenure or had tenure extended (Ruben Brosbe for the 2nd straight year.) E4E supposedly advocated for rigor in tenure judgments, something which Real Reformers would also support. But the decisions this past year were so blatantly politically motivated in many cases  with principals demonstrating to superiors how "rigorous" they were or superintendents ordering principals to not grant tenure. In one strong E4E school, just about every teacher was not given tenure and the Supt told them it was because the school got an "F."

E4E has a large team to organize but is apparently hitting a wall. Maybe they can tap into the new teachers - until they don't get tenure. You can "follow the E4E team on Twitter! Evan, Sydney, Ryan, Tori, and Beth travel the city, meet with teachers, report back from schools, and give you a glimpse of what we're up to. We'll also live-tweet E4E-hosted events if you can't make them and want to follow along."

Have fun, kiddies.

E4E/Tweed partnership
It has been clear that E4E works closely with Tweed. Uncle Joel gave them a nice pop, which E4E bragged about, showing just how out of touch they are given that Klein is almost universally despised in the schools by both teachers and principals alike. Some people are getting involved with E4E, looking at it as a career track entry into the world of Tweed. Or maybe figuring that DFER and Gates will take care of Sydney and Evan in some big way and they hope to go along for the ride.

I even stopped by after the GEM meeting around the corner and saw Walcott walking down 5th Ave. shaking his head and reading his Blackberry. Walcott had been hassled over the cheating issue, apparently by Philip Nobile and had a sour look on his face.

I got into the lobby as Sydney and her green tee-shirted crew (they look like bugs) were ushering people up to the 9th floor for breakout sessions with a Deputy Supt whose name I didn't get and David Weiner (a former Brooklyn awful principal who went to Philly and then escaped the equally awful Supt Arlene Ackerman who has just been fired). Weiner on his first day on the job on May 12 held one of his first meetings with Sydney and Evan (I put the brains of the outfit first), showing just how deep the Tweed/E4E partnership is. Expect Tweed to "urge" principals to allow E4E organizers into the schools as a way to undermine the union at the school level. WARNING: WITNESS CHICAGO.

I was wearing my press pass. "No press allowed. We want to have an honest conversation about education," said Sydney. "As opposed to the usual dishonest conversation you generally have," I said. I tried to scam a tee-shirt because I too want to attract bees but you have to leave a pint of blood. I could have stayed around to join them in the bar afterwards but looking at all that green was giving me a headache.


Media Loves E4E while blacking out GEM, NYCORE, Teachers Unite and New Teacher Underground

There has been much hype by the anti-teacher/ed deform media trying to push Educators 4 Excellence as a legitimate group representing teachers when in fact the main role E4E is to play is to undermine LIFO. Here is one example of the propaganda they push

Our amazing E4E summer intern Claire Goebel writes about how Last In, First Out policy hurts schools in Minnesota.

[I collated a bunch of recent articles at Norms Notes: Articles Pumping Life Into E4E and Other Groups].

E4E bragged about being mentioned in an Ed Week article mostly about SOS, which E4E totally ignored since SOS was aimed at Ed Deform. But even in an article with a sea of Real Reformers being talked about like Anthony Cody, Nancy Flanagan, and Sabrina Stephens-Shupe, the reporter felt he had to bring in a the faux E4E:

Meanwhile, a new nonprofit group in New York City, Educators 4 Excellence, seeks to give teachers more voice in policy debates, but its agenda parts company in some ways with the Save Our Schools march. For example, the group backs tying teacher pay in part to test scores. It also calls for ending “last hired, first fired” teacher-layoffs policies. More than 2,600 New York teachers have backed the group’s “declaration” of beliefs, said Sydney J. Morris, the co-founder and a former teacher. Her group receives financial backing from the Gates Foundation and other philanthropies. (Gates has been a funder of Education Week’s nonprofit parent corporation.)

Note the last point about Bill Gates funding Ed Week. Is that part of the contract? You have to mention E4E in every way possible? And sure, how many of those "backing" E4E are just spies like me? They certainly didn't seem interested in hearing Walcott.

Recently Ed Week did another report on E4E, a report for which I was interviewed but not one word of what I said made it into print.

Education Week examines E4E as a group providing an independent voice for educators, interviewing co-founders Evan and Sydney about the importance of teachers being included in policy discussions.

When I asked the reporter how come all the attention to E4E while groups with bigger outreach despite not being funded like NYCORE and GEM that actually have done real reform organizing are ignored, I was told that E4E influenced policy in the NY State teacher evaluation debate. I pointed out that a: these people are no longer teachers and b: they are funded by Gates and DFER and it is THEY who influenced policy with their outreach and money and are just using E4E as a front group and are trying to pump them up (which the reporter seemed to be falling for) even though they are a paper tiger.

I pointed out that E4E had to cancel events this summer due to lack of interest while New Teacher Underground attracted from 20-40 people every Thursday this past summer to their events.

The Ed Week article talks about other groups in urban areas that are similar to E4E. Los Angeles-based NewTLA is a caucus in LA that has bragged about the influence it had in the recent union election in LA that resulted in defeat for Julie Washington, the favored candidate. My sources in LA indicate they are way over valuing their influence but the media loves groups like this that are capable of pushing ed deform values from within. Look for code like: we must hang on to our talented young teachers. No interest in hanging on to talented old teachers.

Other groups mentioned are Teacher Plus, with branches in many cities and "New Millennium Initiative, in which local networks of teachers work to make their voices heard on topics of local interest, such as the implementation of new state laws. Support from a variety of private national and local foundations, including the Joyce Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Denver-based Rose Community Foundation, have helped in the transition. (The Joyce Foundation underwrites coverage of improvements to the teaching profession in Education Week, and the Gates Foundation provides grant support to Editorial Projects in Education, the newspaper’s parent company.)

Ooops! There goes that nasty little funding issue for Ed Week again.

There were other reports during the summer. I was clued into them by this post from Educational Intelligence Agency's Mike Antonucci, which warned about them getting too ecstatic:

We’d All Love to See the Plan

On the pages of Time, Andrew Rotherham examines the various reform-minded groups that have sprung up within the ranks of the big-city teachers’ unions. Sarah Rosenberg at The Quick and the Ed follows suit. Rotherham calls them “insurgents” while Rosenberg refers to “a revolution.” While I applaud any publicly stated diversity of thought within NEA and AFT, I am considerably less sanguine about the prospects of major internal reform. There are two problems. One is that in any corporate culture radical changes in direction are frowned upon, if not suppressed. In unions, whose very hallmark is solidarity, this reluctance to entertain unorthodox thought is ratcheted up several levels. The relative electoral success of NewTLA is remarkable, but such victories don’t usually result in further gains in subsequent elections. I admit we are operating in extraordinary times, so maybe things will be different and I’ll be surprised.
Second, everyone is an insurgent until he or she achieves power. If you think this is an easy transition, ask Karen Lewis in Chicago. Or ask Bob Chase how that new unionism thing worked out for him. The teacher union reform field is littered with the bodies of those who sought to alter the union’s primary mission – protecting teachers – and found themselves ousted in favor of challengers who promised to get tough with administrators.
You say you want a revolution? Well, you know…

I know Mike is a leading ed deformer, but you gotta love him. His mistakes here are to actually give credit to NEWTLA for electoral success (they endorsed people who were not NEWTLA and claimed credit for people who won) and equate Real Reformer Lewis with with deform groups like E4E. Lewis just came out of 30 years teaching high school chemistry to take over the Chicago Teachers Union.

One interesting real reformer new union leader who is being ignored is Milwaukee's Bob Peterson who founded "Rethinking Schools," the most progressive teacher journal in the nation. I got to hang with Bob in Chicago and at SOS this summer and here is a guy who just came out of a 5th grade class and is now running a big-city union (NEA unfortunately or we could really give Randi agitta).  I should also point to a young-gen teacher activist in Chicago - Kristine Mayle - who went from 4th grade special ed teacher to chief financial officer of the Chicago Teachers Union.

These real reform reformers are the ones that should be getting the press - if the press was not tilted. Just note how the local press, which all know about our movie simply ignores it. Yesterday when Brian Lehrer mentioned WFS and branded its counter film as the closed ed deform "American Teachers" Beth Fertig who I spoke to extensively about our movie could very easily have said, "actually there is really a counter film to WFS produced by local teachers and parents." But she didn't.

==========================
Here is a report from a GEMer who attended the Walcott event but not the breakouts.

The E4E event on September 19, was held at the CUNY graduate center and immediately upon entering I was greeted by overly friendly people. When I said I taught in the South Bronx the young woman responded by saying that was the “territory” she covered when she taught. They audience was mostly young and white and numbered a little over one hundred.

Sydney welcomed everyone and for the teachers in the audience she displayed a lovely power point agenda. We would learn what is E4E; event and conversations norms, “Please stay respectful and solutions oriented in your comments”; the chancellor would speak; the chancellor would hear from us; there will be break out sessions and lastly we would continue this conversation at the bar listed on our break out session cards.

In a barely ten minute speech, the chancellor did nothing but continue the legacy of his predecessor. He began his speech saying his goal when he started was to lower the rhetoric and in five months he succeeded with the exception of last week with the incident in Staten Island. He talked about the first days of school, his plan for the extra day of staff development and the teacher who amazed him on the first day while at a school in the Bronx. He stated that he would continue to work with mediocre schools but that the DOE would continue to do what its been doing with failing schools. He said that what we’ve done with high schools with the Gates funding is great. Things are off the charts now. He said he would be coming out with a number of vision statements over the next 3 months. He believes his greatest challenge is the size of the system. That a lot of reform can take place in 6 months and he is not here to enforce the status quo.

In the next segment, questions were on the big screen with answer choices. Only current teachers were given clickers to respond. After the teacher responses were shown the chancellor would give his answer and speak about the topic.

The first question asked which out of 4 issues should be the biggest for the year. The choices were; principal/teacher evaluations, teacher pay structure, potential layoffs, and tenure. I missed the teacher response; Walcott said principal/teacher evaluation was his number one issue. Regarding tenure he said, “no one should be guaranteed a job for life”.

Asked if they were very well informed, somewhat informed or uniformed regarding the new teacher evaluation system, 55% said they were somewhat informed. Evan ? said “that’s pretty good” and Walcott said “yeah”.

Teachers were asked if we should be compensated based only on seniority or credits accumulated, only on effectiveness in the classroom or both measures. Overwhelmingly the teachers responded both measures. Walcott stated that teacher pay should be measured by some metric.

64% of teachers said they agree that tenure should be a meaningful milestone based on a fair and rigorous assessment. Although 63% responded that they were uninformed regarding the DOE’s changes to tenure guidelines.

Teachers were asked if they felt the DOE was aware of their concerns and if they DOE actively listens to those concerns. 38% responded they somewhat disagreed and 19% strongly disagreed. 28% remained neutral and 15% somewhat agreed. Walcott asked how can we better listen and communicate.

The next question had “helpful” suggestions for the DOE to better communicate with teachers. 12% of teachers said regular town hall meetings, 6% said webinars, 14% said survey teachers and 67% said all of the above. In response to Walcott’s query teachers said districts would be a manageable town hall meeting. Walcott said webinars were possible but surveys are costly and time consuming.

The chancellor then answered 5 questions written on index cards by audience members. Responding to a question regarding how to compensate teachers, Walcott said that he believes in alternative compensation and that David (Weiner) was recruited for this purpose, to determine different ways to compensate teachers. Walcott then said he did not have to worry about a job he would be there for two and a half years.

The chancellor got a bit testy when asked a question about cheating on the regents exams and the finding that so many tests were scored 65. He said New York City is not Atlanta and the Regents has always had a policy if a grade falls in the 60-64 range to go back over the exam which is why there were so many tests at 65. He quoted an audit by Bill Thompson in 2009 that found no evidence of cheating. When pressed further on the question Walcott responded, “I’m trying to be nice”. He then turned it over to Shael Suransky.

Afterburn:
More links to SBS articles on E4E

• E4E's Evan Stone Yet Again Exposes Himself
• E4E Captain Of Chaos Natalie Harrington Writes An ...
• BREAKING NEWS!!!! God Saves E4E Crew!
• Hypocrisy Alert! E4E Is Reaching Out For An Outrea...

MisEducation Nation -Sept. 27 - The Real Reform Panel - Ravitch, Haimson, Jones

Check out the NBC Education Shmation panels full of ed deformers. On Tuesday there will be an alternative event. OK. Noguera has one foot in ed deform - but this should be a lively event. I hope to tape.

FAIR Event

September 27, 2011

New York City

MisEducation Nation:
Corporate Media and Corporate Education Reform

NBC is staging its second annual "Education Nation" summit at the end of September--a series of events and broadcasts bankrolled by the corporate interests and foundations aligned with the so-called "education reform" movement.

Corporate media coverage of education policy tends to hew closely to the "reform" agenda: promoting charter schools and vouchers, embracing relentless testing and other "accountability" measures, and attacking teachers' unions for standing in the way of progress.

What would a more reasonable conversation about public education look like?

On September 27, join FAIR and four of the most dynamic and thoughtful education experts and activists in the country for a FREE discussion about how the media mangle the debate over public schools.

The panelists:

-Diane Ravitch
Author, NYU Research Professor of Education

-Pedro Noguera
NYU Professor of Education

-Brian Jones
Teacher-Activist

-Leonie Haimson
Executive Director, Class Size Matters

Moderator: Laura Flanders, Author/Journalist

September 27, 2011
7:00 PM
School of the Future Auditorium
127 East 22nd Street (between Park and Lexington)
New York, NY 10010

CO-SPONSORS: Class Size Matters, WBAI 99.5 FM, Grassroots Education Movement, Parents Across America, Rethinking Schools

Night Notes: Justin Arrest in Wall St. Occupation/ Protest Budget Cuts Weds.

Things are heating up all over the place. We had a fruitful conference call with the ATRs tonight. Next step will be some kind of meeting in October, especially given this report:

NEWS: Union open to turnaround plan that cuts teachers based on merit

Posted: 20 Sep 2011 04:28 PM PDT

For the first time, the city teachers union could allow teachers to be removed from schools based on merit rather than seniority, a union official close to the negotiations said today.



This just came in:

Dear GEM,

Just some more evidence.  Today was the ATR fair and there were no high school social studies positions available in Queens.  Well, this went up on craigslist this evening.  Why didn’t this principal come to the job fair?

Civic Leadership Academy seeks a US History teacher!

---

Date: 2011-09-20, 3:27PM EDT
Reply to: mailto:teachingjobs@newvisions.org?subject=Civic%20Leadership%20Academy%20seeks%20a%20US%20History%20teacher!&body=%0A%0Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fnewyork.craigslist.org%2Fque%2Fedu%2F2608638121.html%0A ^{[Errors when replying to ads?]}

---

In partnership with New Visions for Public Schools, the Civic Leadership Academy is seeking a high school US History teachers to begin as soon as possible. Please only apply if you currently hold valid New York State Certification in Social Studies. Experience teaching US History preferred.

To learn more about the Civic Leadership Academy, please visit http://www.claqueens.org/ and http://schools.nyc.gov/SchoolPortals/24/Q293/default.htm.

If you are interested in teaching at the Civic Leadership Academy, please e-mail teachingjobs@newvisions.org with your resume and cover letter attached. We will follow up with you as soon as possible. Please only apply if you currently hold New York State Certification in Social Studies.

See great videos of Justin Weides arrest for doing nothing and the genesis of the Wall St. Occupation by Jaisal Noor.

Justin Weides arrested and held for 5 hours

Hi friends,
Some of you may have heard that I was arrested today at Zuccotti Park today during the #OcupyWallStreet peaceful encampment. Here's video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M186KXT3jE

I did not resist arrest, was detained for about 5 hours and was not charged with any crime. And I'm OK and back in action here :) And I would love to see you at our peaceful encampment!
Follow us on twitter: @OccupyWallStNYC

Love and peaceful change,
Justin

For people who would like more information, On Saturday I shot and edited this video about how Occupy Wall Street started  -----Jaisal Noor




---------------------
 Join us on Wed. to protest the budget cuts and class sizes at your school!

Join us at rally this Wednesday, to protest the severe budget cuts to our schools, the increases class sizes, and the loss of valuable programs.  

Come and fight for your child's right  to receive a quality education!

Class sizes in many schools are far worse than I have ever heard– despite the city’s legal obligation to reduce them – and are now above 30 in many schools, even in the early grades.   It is really outrageous how the state and the city have failed our kids. 

When: Wednesday, Sept. 21st @ 12:00 P.M

Where: DOE headquarters, Tweed Courthouse, 52 Chambers St.

(take the 4, 5, 6, N & R to City Hall- BK Bridge, or 1, A/C to Chambers St.)

Who: parents and outraged citizens. Co-sponsored by: Class Size Matters, Alliance for Quality Education, NYC Coalition for Educational Justice, NYC Parents Union, African American Clergy and Elected Officials, Charity B.C. of Christ,  Cody Cares, Churches United to Save and Heal, Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition, New York Divinity School, and Mirabal Sisters.

A flyer is to the right that you can post or distribute in your school. 

Let me know if you have a story to tell at the rally about how the cuts have affected your child’s school by emailing me at leonie@att.net
 

Please also complete our survey if you haven’t already at www.bit.ly/class-size-survey

AQE also has a survey you can ask your principal to fill out at www.surveymonkey.com/s/nycschools 

===========
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Evening Extracts: UFT Responds to ATR Pressure - Will Hold Meeting

We GEMers were at the Brooklyn ATR job fair at the Brooklyn Museum. Poor tourists who came from all over only to find the museum closed. This is breaking news - I gotta go for the ATR conf call. Back later.

9-20-11 Brooklyn Museum "Job Fair" for ATRs

Hundreds lined up for another day of futility and humiliation at the mandatory DOE job fair at the Brooklyn Museum where few will land jobs.

ATRs without specific assignments for the year from Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island were mandated to attend.

The ATR attendees were a majority of older higher paid experienced teachers.  Again, the majority were Black and Latino.

Abandoned by the DOE and the UFT leadership, with this summer's agreement,

unassigned ATRs will in October become wandering substitutes who will be sent every week to different schools. Many expressed anger and fear that the untenable situations created by this new ATR substitute arrangement could force many into quitting.

All of us need to demand:

• Seniority transfer rights with guaranteed jobs for all experienced teachers. (a UFT contract right prior to 2005)
• Tenure rights protection for all NYC teachers.
• Fair tenure granting processes for all.
• LIFO (Last In First Out) protections.

Experienced quality higher paid teachers are essential to successful community schools

and must be defended.  Tomorrow any one of us can become the ATR excessed teacher 

as the City closes more schools and converts into privatized charters.

Organize to fight back. 

Attend our ATR - GEM committee meetings.

Angel Gonzalez

 UFT Calls Borough ATR Meetings

Bronx: Oct. 3
Brooklyn: Oct. 4
After resisting calls to organize ATRs the UFT has succumbed to pressure and has called for an Oct. 4 meeting. See below the fold for the letter. That doesn't mean they will really organize them. Or give them representation. Or really answer their questions other than to say, "You're lucky you have a job!" What they will do is tell them how things are better in NYC than in Washington or Chicago.
-------------

CEC 14 Meeting

Sept. 15

Hi Norm,

The meeting tonight was probably one of the best we've had.  There were folks there from the five affected schools in D 14.  Parents spoke.  Teachers spoke.  Principals spoke.  Reps from Diana Reyna's office spoke as well as Evelyn Cruz from Nydia Velasquez's office.  CBO people spoke.  Every educational issue was touched upon: bringing the message into  the communities to the parents in understandable languagen not DOE jargon;  why charters are being put into communities of color; the under funding and under resourcing of public schools; class size; saying the DOE encourages outreach to communities, but does not fund programs such as Pre-K so schools can build and grow, stating emphatically that our district does not need or want Success Academies and Eva Moskowitz with her over $300,000 salary; how charters do not service special needs students and English Language learners and how these students are taken in and back to the public schools among many others.

The DOE representative could not get out of her robotic answer box.  She spoke to me before we left about the Pre-K need at our school which the DOE has ignored.  She said she was taking notes.  I reminded her that she had to be sure to read them.  She also said someone would come to the school to look at the situation.  We'll see.

Before we left we got into conversation with Tessa Wilson, CEC 14 president.  I gave her a copy of the film and she was delighted.  She had heard about it and said she definitely wanted to see it and possibly have a community viewing.

Morning Commentary - September 20, 2011

Hot topics: 
Occupation of Wall Street

CLASS WARFARE

Teachers strike in Tacoma - no time now - google it.


Chicago longer day story (I'm working on it.) Read Schmidt at Substance - see bottom of my blog roll -

---------------------
Lois Weiner's presentation at the GEM meeting was powerful. Even the fairly sophisticated audience seemed blown away. Video should be up by tonight. It's an hour but you will really see what neo-liberalism is all about.
 --------------------
Follow up to my piece on Elizabeth Green and her class size clap-trap article in NY Mag:
In case you missed this comment:

She [Green] pretty much repeated all the cliches, all of which by the way are factually incorrect. The sort of piece that you would expect from someone who knows nothing and is too lazy  to do any research.

More class size clap-trap? Watch this video; the DOE plans to send 2^nd graders in crowded class of 36  out of their zoned school to another school, rather than hire another teacher to reduce class size; outrageous.

http://www.ny1.com/content/news_beats/education/147475/fears-of-overcrowded-classes-are-reality-for-brooklyn-elementary-school.

Thank goodness NY1 reporter Lindsay Christ doesn't view the class size issue as clap-trap.

-----------------

I headed over to CUNY for the E4E Walcott appearance after the GEM meeting last night but ran into Walcott walking alone on the street, his head buried in his Blackberry. Sydney and crew were moving people upstairs to the 9th floor where they had the Kool-aid stashed. I had my press pass Sydney stopped me - "no press," she said  - "we want to have an honest conversation about education." - 'As opposed to the dishonest conversations you usually have," I said.
--------------------
Did someone win the Broad prize yet? Who really cares? Maybe chief of ed deform Broad can throw another million bucks at the UFT charter school.

---------------------
Well, I got my apology from Netflix' - er Quikster - or quipster - CEO Reed Hastings - and major ed deform supporter - Reed Hastings. People are tailing it out of Netflix so fast there is a fire hazard. I will give the streaming service a shot for a few months. Reed co-wrote a piece with Arne Duncan, Susan Ohanian linked and commented:

A Digital Promise to Our Nation's Children

Ohanian Comment: Nearly 15 million children in the United States -- 21% of all children -- live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level --$22,050 a year for a family of four. And our federal politicos make them a digital promise.
From the National Center on Children in Poverty:

Most of these children have parents who work, but low wages and unstable employment leave their families struggling to make ends meet. Poverty can impede children’s ability to learn and contribute to social, emotional, and behavioral problems. Poverty also can contribute to poor health and mental health. Risks are greatest for children who experience poverty when they are young and/or experience deep and persistent poverty.

Research is clear that poverty is the single greatest threat to children's well-being. But effective public policies -- to make work pay for low-income parents and to provide high-quality early care and learning experiences for their children – can make a difference. Investments in the most vulnerable children are also critical. [emphasis added]

So research is clear that poverty is the single greatest threat to children's well being, and Arne Duncan declares, "Give them videogame graphics." And he declares worse. Insisting that learning is sequential, he declares that a computer will automatically deliver the curriculum a second grader needs next.

As to Digital Promise, if you want to see a video in which Arne's lips don't synchonize with his words, go here. If you want to see the board of directors of this "independent 501(c)(3), created through Section 802 of the federal Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008," go here.

 ---------
More from Susan:
When Free Trips Overlap with Commercial Purposes
Michael Winerip
New York Times
2011-09-19
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1076
Winerip gives us a hard-hitting column on Parson's junkets.

Education Points of View
Susan Ohanian, commentary
FAIR and New York Times
2011-09-19
http://susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=1072
In case you hadn't already noticed, the New York Times reveals its true colors about education.

Getting teacher evaluation right
Valerie  Strauss & Linda Darling-Hammond & others
Washington Post Answer Sheet
2011-09-15
http://susanohanian.org/show_research.php?id=439
Will any other journalist in the country print this information?
===========
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

The Work of Robert Rendo

by Robert Rendo, who holds copyright but gives permission to reproduce--as long as it's used to further the fight against ed deform.

Gotham Schools Elizabeth Green Shows True Colors on Class Size Issue

She [Green] pretty much repeated all the cliches, all of which by the way are factually incorrect. The sort of piece that you would expect from someone who knows nothing and is too lazy  to do any research.   --comment on the piece below

To me the dividing line between ed deformers and real reformers is where you stand on class size.
I've considered Elizabeth Green an ed deformer for quite a while. And I'm not just talking about her love for anyone connected to E4E. See Ed Notes: (The Insidious Nature of Green's Sunday Times Article)

Note this in her Sept. 11 article in NY Mag - Class-Size Claptrap - interesting title:

"Because what is the only way to reduce class sizes? To hire union-dues-paying teachers!"

Is that the ONLY way? Charter schools brag about lower class sizes without union teachers. Is that the answer? Hire cheap teachers?

And this:

"But cutting class sizes doesn’t always produce better outcomes—especially not when hastily imposed size caps compel the hiring of inexperienced teachers [word for word from the ed deform manual]. And there are many other factors, including teacher quality [how about naming even one factor beyond the ed deform one - like the scary P word - poverty], that affect results."

Amazing! Where is the concern for hiring inexperienced TEACH FOR AMERICA Teachers? I get it. They are from "good' schools - supposedly.

And what about this "results" stuff? We know that means test scores. I view results as my being able to spend some quality time with each child in my class to talk about things and help with the issues so many of our children face. Anyone knows that lower class size gives teachers that opportunity. But to deformers like Green they boil it down to "kids throwing things."

NYC Educator brilliantly takes the person running Gotham Schools to task subtle but one-sided reporting. It is so good I have to cross-post:

Is Half a Story Better than None?

I'm fascinated by this article in NY Mag, and the more I think about it, the more I change my mind why that is. At first blush, I thought it did a good job of encapsulating both sides of class size. But on closer examination, it kind of paints class-size advocates as fanatics, while offering little or nothing in the way of why we believe as we do. On the other hand, it portrays the other side fairly well--reasonable class sizes cost too much, and union is bad.

I've taught classes of 15, 25, and 35, and I can tell you there's a world of difference in what you can accomplish. Folks like Bloomberg, Klein and Obama place their kids in private schools with class sizes below 15, but have no problem advocating larger class sizes for our children. In fact, those who administrate schools ought to be required to patronize them, rather than utilizing them as experiments for Bill Gates and the other billionaires who want to tell us how our kids should be treated. The article states class sizes in higher grades may go higher than 27--that's absurd. In my school there are dozens of classes over 34, the UFT contractual limit, and plenty right at 34. This is what happens when you eliminate 10% of working teachers via attrition and hope for the best.

Meanwhile, I hope in vain publications like New York will offer its readers the full story. It's ridiculous those of us in the field, those of us who know from firsthand experience what class size means to call it a "red herring." I'd like to see people who write such things control 35 teenagers at a time and tell me it doesn't matter.

Finally, there's this conclusion:

As it happens, there are people in the city Department of Education working on open-minded, teacher-friendly methods of improving training and evaluation. And, obviously, not all rank-and-file teachers are opposed to structural changes. The problem is that the people who are in charge still believe that school reform is war. And nothing much about New York City education is going to change while that remains the case. 

I'm curious who these people are, and why they're working on "open-minded, teacher-friendly methods of improving training and evaluation." After all, there is a state agreement that mandates any such method be negotiated with the UFT.

Furthermore, since Bloomberg took office, I have seen nothing open-minded or teacher friendly. I have grown used to broken promises, not the least of which entails the billion dollars the DOE took to reduce class size--after which it went up every year. The DOE is engaged in releasing scores it specifically promised not to release. And studies suggest that "value-added" has no validity whatsoever. The last few lines make sense to me, but if it's true they're waging war on us, how on earth are we supposed to believe they're open-minded and teacher friendly? Do people really think teachers can be that stupid?

To say that not all rank and file teachers are opposed to structural changes is easy, but what precisely do these changes entail? We need to know before making judgments. Not all of us are taking money from Bill Gates and promoting corporate-friendly nonsense.

What we need, desperately, is a press that's willing to dig for the truth, a press that will not grant credibility to nonsensical "reforms" simply because billionaires say they're a good idea, a press that will challenge the status quo. I'm sure there are plenty of reporters quite capable of this, and I know a few that rise to the occasion.

Regrettably, those who depend on New York magazine for info are far from getting the full story here.

Here is Green's New Yorker piece:

Monday – Dueling Orgs: GEM Real Reformers With Weiner vs. E4E Ed Deformers With Walcott

This post will be added to later since I am in no shape to complete it after a late Saturday night at Steely Dan - and what a concert it was but after getting to bed near 2pm and up at 6:30, there isn't much left. However this one has been in my mind for some time and I wanted to get started.

Dennis Walcott attempts to take E4E off life support!

Where will you be Monday? Weiner or Walcott? Real Reform or Ed Deform?

If there was one event you should go to, that is the GEM meeting with Lois Weiner as the guest speaker to demonstrate that there is major interest in Real Reform vs the Ed Deform being pushed by E4E and its guest speaker Dennis Walcott. Let's get an audience that can hold its own.

Today, dueling meetings between GEM and E4E will be taking place an hour and a block apart.

The Real Reformers of GEM will be holding their monthly meeting at 5PM at the Community Church of NY (40 East 35 St, between Madison and Park) with Lois Weiner as the speaker talking about the global assault on teachers and their unions (which is the title of her book). I saw Lois do her presentation years ago and it was an AHA moment where she ties in shock doctrine on educators world wide. What I like about it is how the UFT/AFT leadership narrow misleading of the members by blaming Klein or Bloomberg for the issues we face is exposed.  See the top of the side panel for Lois' powerpoint and some news of her speech in LA. Also the post below this for the formal announcement.

We really want your bodies at the GEM meeting: a) because we love you b) because you will walk out with the tools in your head to argue down all those conservative anti-teacher family yokels you have to deal with - maybe even next week at Rosh Hashonnah dinner and c) to demo that real groups like GEM can draw people.

At 6:30 or so, Ed Deformers E4E will be meeting at CUNY just down the block with Ed Deformer in Chief Dennis Walcott, who is trying to pump up the dying group that cannot survive without infusions of cash from outside agencies to support their staff of 5 and their offices. Naturally, the pro ed deform media has seized on E4E and other so-called teacher reform groups to pump up the empty balloon.

I'll get into the articles on E4E later in the day in this post or in a separate one. Why do I say they are a faux organization? Their numbers of so-called members which is a national list is stagnant. I know this because loads of people signed their pledge just to be on the mailing list. South Bronx School did a bit of analysis of the numbers:

Three thousand? So how many of these are NYC teachers? If all 3,000 are NYC teachers that gives E4E .03947368% of all teachers in NYC that support E4E. Now considering that I have signed up twice, many others have so how is this a movement? The E4E Facebook page shows just 1,828 friends. So even if these are all NYC teachers, which they are not, that shows a percentage of .02471053%. E4E is just a steamroller.

E4E got slammed when so many of their so-called supporters were denied tenure or had their tenure extended, many on unfair grounds. See Jeff Kaufman's report on how E4Eers at his school had tenure denied for bogus reasons. How did they feel about the organization whose pledge to make tenure much harder to obtain they signed?

E4E even had to cancel a few events this summer for lack of interest.

They had a Sept. 14 event planned but that disappeared too, replaced by the Walcott event on Sept. 19, the same day and at the same location (CUNY) where GEM usually meets (though we're not meeting there this time). I'm betting they get the auditorium which costs some serious money – unless there was some pressure applied to give them the space. But why should E4E worry - they have sugar daddies.

The media black out real groups like GEM, NYCORE, Teachers Unite, and New Teacher Underground while humping Faux "teacher" group E4E.

When a reporter who was doing a story on E4E called me for comment I raised the issue of how an organization funded by DFER and Bill Gates gets credence while real organizations organizing within basically the same pool – newer teachers to teachers with about a dozen years in the system – gets blacked out. The response was a lame, "E4E has influenced policy, referencing the teacher evaluation law they like to take credit for. I practically leaped over the phone: "Are you saying you actually believe THEY influenced policy and not DFER and Gates and the rest of the ed deformers who are using them as a front group to undermine the union from within?"

MORE LATER

===================

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.