AFT Drops Hammer on Dearborn Federation of School Employees

If I could Photoshop guess whose face you'd see?

Randi must think she is Lincoln after the Fort Sumpter attack. Are you surprised that our wonderful national union leaders in the AFT would resort to goon tactics when questions of secession arise within a local?

These AFT people showed up at 1107 Washington , the DFSE office on Monday, July 22 at 9:00 a.m. demanding the keys, files, passwords, home addresses, and everything else!!!!!  They were asked to leave and refused. The Dearborn Police were called and they asked them to leave. The AFT told the police they were not leaving. The police escorted the AFT reps to the sidewalk and told them not to come back without a Court Order.   Before AFT left, they unplugged our computers.

Are you surprised that our wonderful national union leaders in the AFT would resort to goon tactics when questions of secession arise within a local? (I've always said that if an opposition ever won a close election in NYC Unity would never turn over the keys to 52 Broadway. They would go to the AFT to protest the election.)

But I do have mixed feelings about locals that want to leave the AFT. I'd rather see them stay and battle. Imagine of the FMPR's 40,000 members had remained to join with other anti-ed deformers?

Mike Antonucci of EIA has tracked these AFT invasions for years and even though Mike has an anti-union bent he is often the only one to report on these events and Ed Notes has picked up on them.

Here is one report we did:

Ed Notes Online: Puerto Rican Teachers Union (FMPR) and the AFT

Feb 24, 2008

The FMPR has successfully fought government attempts to squash the voice of teachers and community in decision-making in Puerto Rico's school system. The FMPR effectively seceded in 2006 from American Federation of 

And another:

Ed Notes Online: Labor Dept. Rules Randi Take Over of Nurses ...

Aug 25, 2010

Last year we reported on how Randi Weingarten sent in the AFT goons to invade the offices of a nurses local in Portland Oregon after they held a meeting to discuss disaffiliation from the AFT (see below for links). We had ...

Here is Mike's July 30 report which I had sitting in draft version and forgot to post.

AFT Troops Topple Another Local Affiliate

Written By: Mike Antonucci - Jul• 30•13

Let’s face it, the National Education Association is a bunch of amateurs when it comes to dropping the hammer on an uppity affiliate. The national office of the American Federation of Teachers simply won’t tolerate any talk of local affiliates abandoning the reservation and making their own way.
AFT has a long tradition of staging a coup de  main in locals that disaffiliated, or even tried to disaffiliate. The union failed to crush an uprising in Puerto Rico, but it still employed the same tactics against the Colorado Federation of Public Employees and the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals. In the latter case, the U.S. Department of Labor declared AFT’s actions unlawful. And moot.

The latest target of AFT’s wrath is the Dearborn Federation of School Employees (DFSE), a 900-member education support employee local in Michigan. AFT claims in a civil suit against DFSE that the union president conducted a disaffiliation vote in April without following the by-laws. According to the Detroit News, AFT “held an evidentiary hearing June 14 and placed the local under temporary trusteeship.”

“The incumbent officers aren’t prepared to comply with AFT orders. … They want to hang on as long as they can,” said AFT attorney Bruce Miller. “We want them to relinquish their office, AFT will take over the local and restore democratic practices and pull together the warring factions. All of the votes were against getting out of the AFT.”

As you might imagine, those incumbent officers have a different tale to tell. In an open letter to members, DFSE president Sharon Korhonen and five other union officers describe an out-of-control national affiliate:

No one is taking this union over. Do not listen to lies. These AFT people showed up at 1107 Washington , the DFSE office on Monday, July 22 at 9:00 a.m. demanding the keys, files, passwords, home addresses, and everything else!!!!! They were asked to leave and refused. The Dearborn Police were called and they asked them to leave. The AFT told the police they were not leaving. The police escorted the AFT reps to the sidewalk and told them not to come back without a Court Order. Before AFT left, they unplugged our computers.

…If AFT’s sole interest is to ensure the well being of the DFSE members, they have an odd way of doing it. On the accusations of three members, AFT has attempted to take over the office, send the office help home, disconnect the computers and take over your union dues. They have limited the actions of our lawyer and frozen our money, making it impossible to pay utilities, rent and HFCC scholarships, among other obligations.

Membership involvement does “continue to be a hallmark of a strong union,” and that is why we are relying on your active participation to create a stronger DFSE. Let’s take off the gloves and get in this fight. AFT’s actions by their statement, has been instigated by three disgruntled members. Didn’t think in this country you could seize control and force a new election when three members are unhappy with the outcome of the last election. Dictators gain power when people don’t think and don’t seek the truth.

It looks like this will be hashed out in county court. I suggest that local affiliates with a notion about leaving AFT plan accordingly.

Here is the complete DFSE letter posted at http://dfse4750.net/

Letter to DSFE members

July 25, 2013

To All DFSE Members,

This is in response to a letter that was sent to many of you, including former DFSE members currently working at HFCC. You have the right to know what is not true.

No one is taking this union over. Do not listen to lies. These AFT people showed up at 1107 Washington , the DFSE office on Monday, July 22 at 9:00 a.m. demanding the keys, files, passwords, home addresses, and everything else!!!!!  They were asked to leave and refused. The Dearborn Police were called and they asked them to leave. The AFT told the police they were not leaving. The police escorted the AFT reps to the sidewalk and told them not to come back without a Court Order.   Before AFT left, they unplugged our computers.

There was never retaliation against any union members. According to our Constitution, Article XXVII, section 12, Any member of the Executive Board accused of malfeasance, misfeasance, or nonfeasance shall be suspended from the Executive Board pending trial. Two members of the DFSE Executive board were charged by other members, not the president.

The allegations of repeated attempts to disaffiliate from AFT stems from the April issue of the Forward which was to provide space for both sides. The “Con” side was written by a para pro and the AFT representative, Ginger, was asked to write the “Pro” side. Publication deadlines were extended twice for the AFT rep, yet no arguments were submitted.

Any real hearings on decisions that would affect the direction of the local were addressed at monthly union meetings. No one was stopped from speaking, including members of the Executive Board. The allegation that erroneous information was sent is one concerning a court case dropped by AFT, which could have been about our 3% illegally taken from us in 2010. AFT was asked for clarification before the e-mail was sent. No call back, no clarification was given. No response. We attached a copy of the Court Order showing the case was withdrawn. AFT provided nothing.

If AFT’s sole interest is to ensure the well being of the DFSE members, they have an odd way of doing it. On the accusations of three members, AFT has attempted to take over the office, send the office help home, disconnect the computers and take over your union dues.. They have limited the actions of our lawyer and frozen our money, making it impossible to pay utilities, rent and HFCC scholarships, among other obligations.

Membership involvement does “continue to be a hallmark of a strong union,” and that is why we are relying on your active participation to create a stronger DFSE. Let’s take off the gloves and get in this fight. AFT’s actions by their statement, has been instigated by three disgruntled members. Didn’t think in this country you could seize control and force a new election when three members are unhappy with the outcome of the last election. Dictators gain power when people don’t think and don’t seek the truth...AFT is going around to different buildings telling partial truths and avoiding questions by saying that they DON’T know what their lawyers are doing and what the “show cause hearing” is about.

The” AFT Team” that are going around having meetings with members, talk about lost, missing funds, even though an independent CPA has audited the DFSE books each and every year with no irregularities, missing, lost or stolen funds. Independent CPAs are required by law to include such findings in their reports. Financial reports are given at every meeting. Reports have been redesigned many times to provide the membership the information they requested. Audits were done by a CPA and available at each union meeting. An official copy has never been passed out to members, but is always available for viewing.

A Union to be effective must stand together for the GOOD OF ALL MEMBERS, not any one person or any one group’s interest. Your Union has always demonstrated its ability to defend its members to the fullest and will defend the members and the majority against this and all atrocities.

This Union, as it has always done, will continue to tell it’s members the truth, answer all questions and give the members answers to all the rumors. If you have any questions, or hear any rumors call the DFSE office at 313-274-5900 for the truth.

E4E Slammed in Minnesota by PEJAM

The new strategy is to convince the public that teachers really do want the corporate reforms, but that it is actually their own unions that are keeping them silent.  It is a devious approach that can pit new teachers against veteran teachers.  These newer groups receiving money from Gates, the Waltons, and other corporate foundations are started and led, by mostly TFA alumni, and recruit heavily among TFA corp members and other younger teachers.... (PEJAM)

DFER tried this tactic trying to claim E4E had the voice of NYC teachers ( Joe Williams' DFER Propaganda Laugh Riot ...) while pointing out that few voted in the election and one fifth of those who did vote did not do so for Unity, trying to give the impression they were E4E types while neglecting to mention it was MORE, as anti-E4E as you can get, that garnered those votes.

Yes, E4E facing increasing failure in every venue has to keep jumping to other states like bedbugs to try to remain viable. They have to find ways to spend those bucks ($3 million recently from Bill Gates, who might as well dig a trench and throw his money into it.)

I spoke to some people from LA in Chicago this past weekend and they are also dealing with E4E and have opened up a dialogue with them, viewing most of the teachers involved as naive and misguided and hoping to bring some enlightment to them. Good luck. The leadership will never let anyone get near their rank and file -- one reason they no longer seem to be holding open -- or any - meetings here in NYC -- we often stood outside and handed out leaflets as to what they were all about.

PEJAM points to "reporter" Beth Hawkins hawking E4E -- playing the role Gotham plays here I guess.

Here is the full post from PEJAM:

Public Education Justice Alliance of Minnesota(PEJAM) pejamn.blogspot.com

E4E: The Sheep Clothing for Corporate...

The neoliberals, corporate foundations, billionaires, and others looking to privatize our public schools work hard to sell their actions as that of local grassroots organizations whose only concerns are for the children, especially poor, urban, and minority children.  These astroturf groups have worked their way into every state, including Minnesota.  We have the well-financed MinnCAN and Students First among others, but in their efforts the corporate reformers keep running into the public school teachers and their unions who actually do care about ALL children.

These corporate "reformers" have long realized that if they are going to privatize the public schools, they must eliminate the the voice of the teachers, and the unions that protect their right to speak in defense of their students.  The "reformers" have had a great deal of success, convincing both Republican and Democratic politicians to pass legislation that weakens teacher unions and public education.  The push-back, however, has been growing steadily.  Led by rank-and-file members who have demanded more action from their own union leadership or have taken over the leadership as C.O.R.E. did in Chicago, teachers are calling out the corporate reformers for what they are - privatizers and union-busters.

The corporate reformers are feeling the heat, but they will not go away quietly.  A new strategy has evolved in recent years with the help of the "happy-face" of the corporate reformers - Teach for America (TFA).

The new strategy is to convince the public that teachers really do want the corporate reforms, but that it is actually their own unions that are keeping them silent.  It is a devious approach that can pit new teachers against veteran teachers.  These newer groups receiving money from Gates, the Waltons, and other corporate foundations are started and led, by mostly TFA alumni, and recruit heavily among TFA corp members and other younger teachers.

In many cities, it is Teach Plus that has taken on this role.  It's stated goal is "to engage early career teachers in rebuilding their profession to better meet the needs of students and the incoming generation of teachers."  Here in Minnesota, Educators for Excellence (E4E) is the group leading the effort to hide the union-busting/privatization agenda behind "real teachers."  This past week, E4E officially launched in Minnesota, following a typical corporate product launch strategy.

MythPost
Beth Hawkins, the "education reporter" for MinnPost and one of the Twin Cities biggest cheerleaders for the corporate take-over of public education, is now trumpeting Educators 4 Excellence (E4E) and their claim to offer teachers "a bigger voice in education policy."  Hawkins presents E4E and its members empathetically, as idealistic teachers who have been marginalized in education policy decisions and ignored by unresponsive teachers unions.

Hawkins and MinnPost are helping Madeline Edison, now the full-time Executive Director of Minnesota's E4E, with the corporate style rollout of the "new" reform group.  They are selling a movement that is not only not needed, but in fact is detrimental to public education.  MinnPost published three "news" stories about E4E in four days (See here, here, and here).  MinnPost is an on-line "newspaper" run by Joel Kramer, father of Minnesota's first family of corporate education reform and the former owner of the daily newspaper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune.  The Star Tribune probably would have covered the E4E "news" itself, had it not been so busy shilling for E4E's older sibling of corporate education reform - Teach for America (TFA) - (see here, here, and here).

Launch of a Corporate Product
Launching a new product, or in this case an organization, is not done with a single press release, or event.  "Reform" groups like E4E use the same marketing strategies of their financiers.  David Lavenda, a product strategy and marketing executive offers some advice for a successful product launch on FastCompany.com, including the following:

Start early. Don’t expect reporters to write about you when you want. Get a head start and begin preparing long before you plan to launch. A rolling launch is a great way to keep the conversation going.

Get partners involved. Channel and marketing partners who have a financial stake in the success of the launch are natural allies. The more people that are talking about the release, the better chances it will get pickup.  

E4E-Minnesota has been rolling out its launch for well over a year.  It had its origins in a group with another combination of letters and numbers - E3MN, which stood for Empowering Educators for Equity MN.  E3MN began in early 2012, and its first Facebook Event was a meeting with the co-founders of Educators 4 Excellence.

The groups E3MN identity appears to have been a place-holder as the group built it's E4E brand.  They focused on connecting with "marketing partners" by building alliances with other corporate reformers.  The second Facebook Event they hosted in June of 2012 was a happy hour meet-and-greet with MinnCAN.

In addition to building a core group with mostly TFA teachers and partnering with other corporate reformers, the group needed to build a local financial base and Minnesota has its share of corporate philanthropists.  In September of 2012, The Robins, Kaplan, Miller, and Ciresi Foundation for Children awarded E3MN a grant of $17,500.  The foundation's website explains that the grant was to 

"support the expansion of Empowering Educators for Equity (E3MN) to impact student success through teacher organizing and leadership for systemic legislative and contractual changes."

Michael Ciresi, is a famous local lawyer who ran twice for the DFL nomination for U.S. Senate, but lost.  The Foundation that bears his name, and he leads, has become the major supporter of local corporate education reforms.  E4E received the grant from his foundation because they promote an agenda that helps to dismantle teachers' unions, thereby opening the door to the free market...and closing the door on public schools.

"Liberal" Slight of Hand
Ciresi is similar to many Democratic (DFL in Minnesota) politicians and party activists, in that he claims to favor a liberal or progressive political agenda, but more often follows a corporate agenda.  E4E leaders, and presumably many of its members follow this same approach, at least in regard to education.  E4E, like the "reformers" who claim the Civil Rights mantle, does not just focus on dismantling teachers' unions, but also claims to promote a "progressive" agenda.  This is "reformer" slight of hand, a distraction from the real work of E4E.

In Beth Hawkins propaganda piece published last Tuesday, she helps E4E's new Executive Director, Madaline Edison, sell the idea that focusing on "hot button" contractual/union issues "misses the point."  Sydney Morris, the national co-founder and co-CEO of E4E, claims the aim of the organization is "to give teachers a greater voice in making policy on many issues."

Following another element of launching a new product E4E and MinnPost "put the focus on the people not the product."  Hawkins introduces us to a number of E4E teachers who want to speak up for their students on issues beyond the classroom.  They mistakenly believe, however, that E4E will empower them to do that.  Members quoted in the article speak about the fight for immigrations issues and need for early childhood education.  Edison, who has never been a member of the teachers' union, suggested that the unions weren't dealing with these issues and that's why they needed to create E3MN (E4E).

With this claim, E4E accepts and perpetuates the neoliberal myth of unions as greedy and self-interested.  Social justice has long been a part of union work.  Teachers' unions have certainly made mistakes and at times have been on the wrong side of social justice issues, but unions have actively worked for social and racial justice through most of there history.

Another E4E member in Hawkins article talks about her strong family union background and how she wanted to "wear red" in solidarity when union teachers in Chicago went on strike.  Despite her union upbringing, she describes the union contact as "that’s where all the power just goes away."  Beth Hawkins supports this twisted statement by describing the Minneapolis teachers' union contract as "notoriously complicated."

The third E4E story in MinnPost last week was written by James Kindle.   He was a part of the first group of TFA corp members in Minnesota in 2009.  To his credit, he has remained in the classroom.  However, he also portrays the teachers' contract as a barrier to his "autonomy" as a teacher and his ability to speak out for social justice.

Kindle lets us know that he is the son and grandson of teachers, and like his mother, he wants to be able to look back on his teaching career and say, "Oh, yeah. I enjoyed every day."  Unfortunately, if Kindle and E4E (and TFA) are successful in their corporate reform efforts, most teachers will not have much of a career on which to reflect.  Without committed teachers organized in strong unions, the profession will be filled with under-trained temporary workers.

This is how the conservatives have taken the upper hand with regard to education policy.  Many self-proclaimed liberals/progressives, who were once the ardent defenders of a strong, democratic system of public schools, have accepted the argument that the "free market" actually serves the public good and does so in an equitable way.  Making matters even worse, these so called liberals have accepted the idea that unions and collective bargaining protections are relics of the past. 

The Corporate Reformers and their Agenda
Focusing on "hot-button" issues such as tenure, seniority rights, and teacher evaluations, "misses the mark" according to Madaline Edison.  E4E wants teachers and the public to see these issues as part of a larger "progressive" agenda.  Edison, Kindle, and the other E4E leaders fail to see, or refuse to admit that this is a front for the neoliberal agenda.  Their work will weaken the unions they claim to value and strip teachers of their voices they claim to be empowering.  They are helping to privatize our public schools.

To become a member of E4E, teachers must sign the organization's "Declaration of Teacher's Principles and Beliefs."  A third of this declaration is dedicated to "Restore[ing] Professionalism to Education."  According to the document this is done through teacher evaluations that include "value-added student achievement data" (value-added measure - VAM), weakening tenure, and eliminating "last-in-first-out" (seniority rights).  The document also contends that we can recruit, retain, and support "the highest quality teachers" by implementing "performance-based pay" (merit pay).

These are the positions of the corporate reformers.  To argue these "reforms" will empower teachers, "give them a voice," and/or "autonomy" is naive at best.  Merit pay is not a new idea as educational historian, Diane Ravitch, has pointed out.  It is professionally insulting, divisive, and it does not work, especially in a profession that thrives on collaboration.  Not only has merit pay not worked, Daniel Pink demonstrates that merit pay, in fact, produces worse results!

Value-added is another failed experiment.  Despite repeated research demonstrating the inability of VAM to measure a teacher's performance, corporate reformers continue to argue it will separate bad teachers from good, and good teachers from great.  What VAM actually does is promote more teaching to tests, and penalizes teachers who are willing to take risks.

Attacks on tenure and seniority are at the heart of the "reformer's" efforts and central to organizations like E4E.  Tenure is depicted as "lifetime job security," something that makes it "impossible" to fire under-performing teachers.  Tenure does not guarantee a job.  It guarantees due process, if you are threatened with disciplinary action, including termination.  It requires that administrators demonstrate "just cause" for disciplinary action or termination, and in Minnesota, state statue identifies five areas that can lead to termination at the end of a contract year (see Subdivision 9).  Minnesota state statute also lays out reasons for immediate termination of a teacher (see Subdivision 13)

Tenure in Minnesota is only achieved after a three-year probationary period.  During this time, the district can terminate a teacher contract without cause.  What tenure grants is relatively small, but important power.  It enables teachers to disagree with administration and express that disagreement with less fear of repercussions.  This is one of the few things that does in fact "give teachers voice," and this is what E4E wants to weaken or eliminate.

Seniority works in concert with tenure to protect teachers from arbitrary loss of employment.  In addition to termination due to reasons listed in statute, a teacher can also find themselves unemployed if the school district needs to layoff teachers due to declining enrollment and/or a decline in funds.  Requiring layoffs be done in reverse seniority order or "last-in-first-out" (LIFO), prevents administrators from discriminating with regard to layoffs.  In other words, they cannot layoff a teacher as a way around the due process guaranteed with tenure.  Again, E4E want to eliminate seniority (some argue for making it "one of a number of factors" in determining layoffs), but any weakening of seniority creates a way around the due process guaranteed with tenure.

Losing tenure and/or seniority protections would silence teachers.  This is the exact opposite of what E4E claims as its main goal.  All of these attacks on teachers and our unions are empowered by a misguided faith in meritocracy.  Young teachers are told they are being hurt by more senior teachers being "protected" even when they are "less competent."  They are led to believe that administrators, with standardized test scores, can objectively distinguish between teachers who are competent and teachers who excel.

Those who are truly concerned with ensuring that teachers have a voice and are able to speak up for their students, should stand with the teachers' unions.  Work to get rid of testing and "accountability" regimes that are really about dismantling public education, and defend tenure and seniority.  Then we can work together on behalf of all students, for racial and social justice.

Teachers and the public need to understand the real agenda of Educators 4 Excellence (E4E) and expose this group for what they really are - the sheep's clothing for the corporate education reform wolves.


Posted by: Rob Panning-Miller

Additional information on the origins of E4E's national organization can be found here:

http://raginghorse.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/educators4excellencebrought-to-you-by-the-insidious-arm-of-the-disgustingly-rich/

Matt Damon Still a Save Our Schools Superstar

This week Jeb Bush, a shameless supporter of these destructive corporate reform policies, had the audacity to criticize Matt Damon for choosing not to subject his children to the test-driven, standardized public education Bush has helped create.

Jeb Bush and ed deformers are afraid of Matt Damon. Following up on NYC Educator's great post on Matt Damon (Who's Afraid of Matt Damon?) the other day, this from SOS:

     

 

        To most Americans, Matt Damon is a Hollywood celebrity and superstar. But to Save Our Schools supporters Matt Damon is a very different kind of hero. In the summer of 2011, he put the filming of his new movie, "Elysium" on hold and flew overnight to Washington, DC to address the thousands of teachers, students, and families assembled in the sweltering heat for the Save Our Schools rally. In his Speech he told the crowd of the many contributions that his own well-rounded, enriching, public school education made to his future personal and professional success. He decried the damage being done to public schools by the corporate based reforms of high stakes testing and standardization and promised to "have our backs" in the fight ahead. His words energized and inspired the crowd and gave us hope that our plight to save public education would not go unnoticed.

Since 2011, the damage of corporate driven reform policies has been further compounded by the widespread closing of neighborhood public schools in many cities, rampant privatization of public education by for-profit charter operators, and the Race-to-the-Top mandates that tie teacher evaluation to high stakes tests. Common Core Standards are ushering in a standardized national curriculum that is impervious to the individual needs of children, the wishes of families, and the professional judgment of teachers. A "new generation" of national assessments has been initiated and funded by corporate giants, and threatens to suck the remaining sparks of creativity and imagination out of our nation's classrooms despite the valiant efforts of teachers.

This week Jeb Bush, a shameless supporter of these destructive corporate reform policies, had the audacity to criticize Matt Damon for choosing not to subject his children to the test-driven, standardized public education Bush has helped create. In a cynical twist of reality, Bush accused Damon of supporting "choice" for his family but not for the rest of the country. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The kind of "school-choice" touted by Bush (and his many bi-partisan allies) offers nothing but a phony solution for parents whose neighborhood schools have been financially decimated or closed and whose kids are forced to travel across cities (and gang lines) to attend school. "School-choice" reformers know that school vouchers don't come close to buying a ticket into the kind of private schools their own kids attend. They also know that privately-managed charter schools (not parents) have all the "choice" when it comes to providing an education to children who are low-performing, those who have special needs, or those who are learning English as a second language. Reformers know that parents aren't the ones choosing to hire non-unionized, underprepared "instant" teachers, and they're certainly not choosing to warehouse our poorest children in scandalously overcrowded classrooms.

The kind of "choice" Matt Damon and his mother, Early Childhood Educator Nancy Carlsson-Paige support is entirely different from the type advocated by corporate funded politicians like Jeb Bush. It is the choice we must make as a nation to provide all our children with great public schools right in their own neighborhoods. It is the choice to ensure that public schools have small class sizes, enriching individualized and age-appropriate curriculum, professional career educators in every classroom, authentic and meaningful on-going assessment, and a wide range of community support services to offset the effects of poverty afflicting an astounding 20% of our nation's children. It is the choice to furnish schools with fully stocked libraries that spark the love of reading, to offer meaningful professional development options for teachers, and to build partnerships between schools and families to ensure that we serve the needs of all our children, not just the privileged and more able. Once we succeed in making these choices, the dilemma that Damon and so many parents face will dissolve.

So, is Matt Damon still a Save Our Schools superstar? You bet! And so are the growing numbers of parents "opting out" of high stakes tests, teachers who are boycotting tests and resisting one-size-fits-all national standards, and students who are beginning to make their opposition heard. 

Save Our Schools invites all supporters of public education to join us on August 24^th as we participate in the 50th Anniversary March on Washington. Our banner will remind the nation that "Public Education is a Civil Right." We know that Matt Damon agrees.

Another Blogger Slams Eva's Success Academy Charter Scam

Owen Davis at The Commonal follows up on Gary Rubinstein's analysis of the Eva Moskowitz charter scam which we reported on the other day: Rubinstein: Success Academy Scores Based on High Attrition Plus Other Factors.

Davis takes Gary's work a bit further:

It’s true that Success owes its success to more than just general student attrition. But Rubinstein only examined the overall numbers. When you look at specific student demographics, even more troubling patterns emerge. I’ve been dissecting the student data of prominent NYC charters since Democracy Prep and I sparred over its unmistakable pattern of steadily losing students with disabilities and students learning English. (They promised a “debunking” of my post. I’ll assume it’s still forthcoming.)
At Success, the pattern is similar, if not more stark. Not only do its classes contain disproportionately few students with disabilities and English language learners (ELLs), but their numbers almost invariably decrease with each passing year. This should have no uncertain effect on test scores.

 I actually get hot thinking about a slam at the arrogant Democracy Prep crowd which for some reason annoy me even more than Eva's crew. (I admit to having had some great discussions with some Success parents and officials -- we have been sparring for so many years.) Democracy Prep recently pushed out a program for GED students.

But how much fun is it to see Eva jump so far ahead that there will be intense scrutiny? Even her usual trolls have toned it down.

Owen concludes with:

What’s sad about this is how unsurprising it’s become. High-achieving charters, with no exceptions that I’ve found, enroll fewer needy students, witness substantial attrition of these students, or both. These patterns could reflect some implicit policy, or they could result from the extraordinary behavioral demands charters impose on students. The proximate cause doesn’t matter so much when it comes to test scores, though. Scores resting on high-needs student attrition shouldn’t withstand even the mildest scrutiny, yet they garner unreserved praise from the likes of Mayor Bloomberg and the Post. 
It’s just an added irony that one of Moskowitz’s Success expansions literally pushed at-risk students out of an existing school.
I need not dwell on how disturbing all this is. Any notion of success should be predicated on serving the neediest students right alongside those who make “no excuses.” Anything less is reprehensible.

Read it all, with charts:
http://commonal.tumblr.com/post/58209601458/harlem-success-academy-charter-and-attrition

Neo-liberalism and Ed Deform and Krugman on Rand Paul's "Better Dead than Fed"

Ed Deform's connection to neo-liberalism can be defined in one dirty word: CHOICE

CORE in Chicago began with 8 people reading Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" to try to make sense of what was being done to the schools because so much of it didn't make sense educationally or even rationally, the idea of a grander privatization conspiracy began to make sense. In fact, the only thing that made sense.

Paul Krugman nailed Rand Paul and others of his ilk to the wall in Monday's column, Milton Friedman, Unperson. Some people connect Friedman to the emergence of neoliberalism (see Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine - movie is here) and thus, ed deform which is based on NL.

Krugman doesn't use the term "neoliberal" but has referred to the concept of "shock doctrine" in a 2011 column on Wisconsin's assault on unions where he does give Klein her dibs:

The story of the privatization-obsessed Coalition Provisional Authority [in Iraq] was the centerpiece of Naomi Klein’s best-selling book “The Shock Doctrine,” which argued that it was part of a broader pattern. From Chile in the 1970s onward, she suggested, right-wing ideologues have exploited crises to push through an agenda that has nothing to do with resolving those crises, and everything to do with imposing their vision of a harsher, more unequal, less democratic society. Which brings us to Wisconsin 2011, where the shock doctrine is on full display.

Remember, CORE in Chicago began with 8 people reading Klein's book to try to make sense of what was being done to the schools because so much of it didn't make any sense educationally, the idea of a grander privatization conspiracy began to make sense. In fact, the only thing that made sense.

Before I go on with Krugman's discussion of Milton Friedman, who called for the end of a public school system, I want to point to a thought I've been having: that basically we are seeing that many Republicans and Democrats are ideologically neo-liberals. Obama, the Clintons and so are in many ways are our union leaders, with Randi Weingarten leading the pack. In other words, you won't see UFT/AFT leaders placing the blame where it is due but instead putting it on individuals: Joel Klein, Bloomberg etc instead of educating the membership as what is really happening so they can be better equipped to defend themselves.

[By the way - look at handing principals unfettered power over the staff and Tweed's often non-intervention no matter how abusive the principal is, as the mini form of neo-liberalism.]

Here is some more info on neo-liberalism, a different animal from what is viewed as "left" leaning liberals in this country.

In the U.S. political liberalism has been a strategy to prevent social conflict. It is presented to poor and working people as progressive compared to conservative or Rightwing. Economic liberalism is different. Conservative politicians who say they hate "liberals" -- meaning the political type -- have no real problem with economic liberalism, including neoliberalism.
"Neo" means we are talking about a new kind of liberalism. So what was the old kind? The liberal school of economics became famous in Europe when Adam Smith, an Scottish economist, published a book in 1776 called THE WEALTH OF NATIONS. He and others advocated the abolition of government intervention in economic matters. No restrictions on manufacturing, no barriers to commerce, no tariffs, he said; free trade was the best way for a nation's economy to develop. Such ideas were "liberal" in the sense of no controls. This application of individualism encouraged "free" enterprise," "free" competition -- which came to mean, free for the capitalists to make huge profits as they wished.

See Afterburn for more tenets of neoliberalism and you will recognize so much of ed deform policy.

Now, back to Krugman's piece where he contrasts the libertarianism of Rand Paul with Milton Friedman, actually making Friedman look rational.

August 11, 2013

Milton Friedman, Unperson

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Recently Senator Rand Paul, potential presidential candidate and self-proclaimed expert on monetary issues, sat down for an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. It didn’t go too well. For example, Mr. Paul talked about America running “a trillion-dollar deficit every year”; actually, the deficit is projected to be only $642 billion in 2013, and it’s falling fast.

But the most interesting moment may have been when Mr. Paul was asked whom he would choose, ideally, to head the Federal Reserve and he suggested Milton Friedman — “he’s not an Austrian, but he would be better than what we have.” The interviewer then gently informed him that Friedman — who would have been 101 years old if he were still alive — is, in fact, dead. O.K., said Mr. Paul, “Let’s just go with dead, because then you probably really wouldn’t have much of a functioning Federal Reserve.” 

OK, we've established Rand Paul is an idiot. But Krugman does some interesting analysis of where the right wing Republican nut jobs have gone:

What ever happened to Friedman’s role as a free-market icon? The answer to that question says a lot about what has happened to modern conservatism. For Friedman, who used to be the ultimate avatar of conservative economics, has essentially disappeared from right-wing discourse. Oh, he gets name-checked now and then — but only for his political polemics, never for his monetary theories. Instead, Rand Paul turns to the “Austrian” view of thinkers like Friedrich Hayek — a view Friedman once described as an “atrophied and rigid caricature” — while Paul Ryan, the G.O.P.’s de facto intellectual leader, gets his monetary economics from Ayn Rand, or more precisely from fictional characters in “Atlas Shrugged.”

How did that happen? Friedman, it turns out, was too nuanced and realist a figure for the modern right, which doesn’t do nuance and rejects reality, which has a well-known liberal bias.One way to think about Friedman is that he was the man who tried to save free-market ideology from itself, by offering an answer to the obvious question: “If free markets are so great, how come we have depressions?”

Until he came along, the answer of most conservative economists was basically that depressions served a necessary function and should simply be endured. Hayek, for example, argued that “we may perhaps prevent a crisis by checking expansion in time,” but “we can do nothing to get out of it before its natural end, once it has come.” Such dismal answers drove many economists into the arms of John Maynard Keynes.

Friedman, however, gave a different answer. He was willing to give a little ground, and admit that government action was indeed necessary to prevent depressions. But the required government action, he insisted, was of a very narrow kind: all you needed was an appropriately active Federal Reserve. In particular, he argued that the Fed could have prevented the Great Depression — with no need for new government programs — if only it had acted to save failing banks and pumped enough reserves into the banking system to prevent a sharp decline in the money supply.

This was, as I said, a move toward realism (although it looks wrong in the light of recent experience). But realism has no place in today’s Republican Party: both Mr. Paul and Mr. Ryan have furiously attacked Ben Bernanke for responding to the 2008 financial crisis by doing exactly what Friedman said the Fed should have done in the 1930s — advice he repeated to the Bank of Japan in 2000. “There is nothing more insidious that a country can do to its citizens,” Mr. Ryan lectured Mr. Bernanke, “than debase its currency.”

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of debasing currencies: one of Friedman’s most enduring pieces of straight economic analysis was his 1953 argument in favor of flexible exchange rates, in which he argued that countries finding themselves with excessively high wages and prices relative to their trading partners — like the nations of southern Europe today — would be better served by devaluing their currencies than by enduring years of high unemployment “until the deflation has run its sorry course.” Again, there’s no room for that kind of pragmatism in a party in which many members hanker for a return to the gold standard.

Now, I don’t want to put Friedman on a pedestal. In fact, I’d argue that the experience of the past 15 years, first in Japan and now across the Western world, shows that Keynes was right and Friedman was wrong about the ability of unaided monetary policy to fight depressions. The truth is that we need a more activist government than Friedman was willing to countenance.

The point, however, is that modern conservatism has moved so far to the right that it no longer has room for even small concessions to reality. Friedman tried to save free-market conservatism from itself — but the ideologues who now dominate the G.O.P. are beyond saving.

When Krugman says, "The truth is that we need a more activist government than Friedman was willing to countenance," he is talking about economic intervention. The education community has seen the disaster capitalism of an activist federal, state and local government and I wish Krugman would one day give his attention to that. The common core has put both the anti-ed deform real reformers and the ultra-right anti-government wing-nuts (Glenn Beck) on the same side.

If Krugman could untangle that know he should get another Nobel Prize.

AFTERBURN 
Note how the merger mania in the airlines leads to LESS choice, higher prices and worse service. Whatever works for profits.

Some tenets of neo-liberalism as described by Elizabeth Martinez and Arnoldo Garcia at CORP WATCH:

The main points of neo-liberalism include:

1. THE RULE OF THE MARKET. Liberating "free" enterprise or private enterprise from any bonds imposed by the government (the state) no matter how much social damage this causes. Greater openness to international trade and investment, as in NAFTA. Reduce wages by de-unionizing workers and eliminating workers' rights that had been won over many years of struggle. No more price controls. All in all, total freedom of movement for capital, goods and services. To convince us this is good for us, they say "an unregulated market is the best way to increase economic growth, which will ultimately benefit everyone." It's like Reagan's "supply-side" and "trickle-down" economics -- but somehow the wealth didn't trickle down very much.
   
2. CUTTING PUBLIC EXPENDITURE FOR SOCIAL SERVICES like education and health care. REDUCING THE SAFETY-NET FOR THE POOR, and even maintenance of roads, bridges, water supply -- again in the name of reducing government's role. Of course, they don't oppose government subsidies and tax benefits for business.
   
3. DEREGULATION. Reduce government regulation of everything that could diminsh profits, including protecting the environment and safety on the job.
   
4. PRIVATIZATION. Sell state-owned enterprises, goods and services to private investors. This includes banks, key industries, railroads, toll highways, electricity, schools, hospitals and even fresh water. Although usually done in the name of greater efficiency, which is often needed, privatization has mainly had the effect of concentrating wealth even more in a few hands and making the public pay even more for its needs.
   
5. ELIMINATING THE CONCEPT OF "THE PUBLIC GOOD" or "COMMUNITY" and replacing it with "individual responsibility." Pressuring the poorest people in a society to find solutions to their lack of health care, education and social security all by themselves -- then blaming them, if they fail, as "lazy."
   

Naison Calls for John King's Removal

We've had 3 DUD NYSTATE Ed Comms in a row since 1995. Time to move on.

Dear Speaker Silver and Assembly Member Nolan

    It is time to remove John King  Education Commissioner of the State of New York. Commissioner King purposely decided to score state tests in such a way as to insure that the majority of the students in the state failed. The result was collective humiliation- of ELL students, of special needs students, of students living in poverty- and intimidation of the state's teachers, who future careers will be determined by these scores. The test results were a conscious, malicious "set up"-- and a power grab- by the Commissioner to close more schools, remove more school boards, and put more power in the hands of the state government at the expense of local school districts.

    This is an abuse of power by an unelected public official.  All throughout the state, teachers, parents, students and concerned citizens are rising up to say that excessive testing is squeezing the heart out of public education in our state, driving out the best teachers and principals, and destroying the confidence and morale of our most vulnerable students.  It is time elected officials heard their voices. It is time those who serve the public say no to policies that when all is said and done, amount to collective child abuse.

  I understand that some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the state support Commissioner King's policies. However, I urge you to hear the voices of all those quietly suffering because, through no fault of their own, they, their children and the students they teach, have been labeled "failures."

  Please work for Commissioner King's removal and put in his place someone who actually listens to the voices of teachers, principals, parents and students.

Sincerely

Mark D Naison

Professor of African American Studies and History

Fordham University

Rubinstein: Success Academy Scores Based on High Attrition Plus Other Factors

I wonder if this could start some kind of charter civil war. What ‘excuse’ is there for these other [charter] schools?  Surely behind closed doors they are accusing Success of some kind of manipulation, either by extensive test prep or by booting even more kids than they do. ... Gary Rubinstein

Gary Rubinstein follows up on his analysis of charter school chains like KIPP and Democracy Prep catastrophic test results with analysis of the one charter chain that blew everyone away. We posted commentary on Gary's previous post: Can We Close the Achievement Gap Between Success Academy and Democracy Prep, KIPP et al?

I loved that Success showed up the other charters as that brings the kind of scrutiny Gary provides as he does with all "miracle" schools. I left this comment on his blog:

We can certainly support the idea of 2 teachers in a room and that makes any comparison with public schools faulty. When you add the “disappeared” who most likely end up in public schools, the SA results don’t look so good given the different climate. So they have money to do this, often due to working young teachers to a bone and replacing them when worn out. Yes, cheap labor with 12 hour days and few career teachers. In no way scalable and over the long run as SA expands to 40 schools even sustainable. Watch the numbers as they get to higher grades. And the point that there is so much demand is bogus as we’ve been saying all along.

Yes, I absolutely support the idea of 2 teachers in a class in early grades -- actually, that is the private school model where they put novice teachers in with an experienced one. Great idea but not one that Eva really calls for in all public schools. Too bad because if she did she would not be as evil. But her aim is to undermine, not support public schools.

Gary makes these points:

I don’t think they really prove that there are super teachers out there who can get the ‘same kids’ to excel, even if it is just on standardized tests, since I’m not convinced they are truly the ‘same kids.’  But the ‘reformers’ should be very careful about this.  They already had Success as a big success story, as well as a bunch of others like KIPP and Democracy Prep.  Now they still have Success, but they have lost some of their schools they used to take credit for.  I’m not sure how they can reconcile their idea that test scores are an accurate measure of school quality with the fact that many of the schools they have been touting have lost their luster by that measure.

Here Gary looks at the key attrition rates.

So the next thing I looked at was their student attrition.  If they ‘lost’ many students, these scores are tainted.  Now there is only one Success school that has been around since 2007.  That school started with 83 kindergarteners and 73 first graders.  Those cohorts just tested in 6th and 7th grade, respectively.  The school has ‘lost’ a big chunk of those original 156 kids.  Of those 73 first graders in 2007, only 35 took the seventh grade test.  Of the 83 kindergarteners, only 47 took the sixth grade test last spring.  Overall, they have ‘lost’ 47% of the original two cohorts.  If this is one of the costs of having such high test scores, I’m not sure if it is worth it.
For the four cohorts that just took the fourth grade tests, those 316 students were, back in 2009, 443 kindergarteners, so they have ‘lost’ 29% of those cohorts.  Now their high test scores aren’t completely explained by this nearly 30% attrition rate, but it is still something worth noting as we consider if this program is ‘scalable’ or not.

 And talks about the teacher attrition rates:

When a school is ‘healthy,’ teacher are happy there and want to stay there.  The Success schools are known to have huge attrition of teachers, in the neighborhood of 50% per year. 

When push comes to shove, Success Academy will prove to be just another scam charter. Would NYC charter chief James Merriman send his kids there? Maybe he would given that Eva is abandoning the poor kids for the rich ones in Manhattan and gentrified areas of Brooklyn.

Read his entire piece.

And Perdido Street School too.
Just How Did They Get To Be So Successful At Succe...

"Waiting for Superman Makes List of Famous Documentaries That Were Shockingly Full of Crap

Waiting for "Superman" -- Charter Schools Kind of Suck, Too

[NOTE: SEE OUR RESPONSE TO WFS HERE]

Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_20585_6-famous-documentaries-that-were-shockingly-full-crap.html#ixzz2btdYTlUR

The Film:
Waiting for "Superman" is one of those documentaries that made everyone who watched it instantly call their friends and tell them they had to drop everything they're doing and see it right away. Even President Obama declared himself a huge fan.

According to this award-winning film, only 20 to 35 percent of eighth graders in the U.S. read at grade level, an alarming statistic that explains so much of the Internet. It follows a number of families as they try to get into charter schools, which offer a free alternative to the crushing bureaucracy that is killing our public education system. Tragically, not all of the families get in, damning those kids to schools where they'll hopefully at least be taught how to tell when their pimp is cutting their crack with too much baking soda.

s  

The Fallacy:
Waiting for "Superman" was all about improving the country's education, but it's so poorly researched and one-sided that it might actually be making things worse.

Let's start with that "only 20 to 35 percent can read well" statistic: The real number is closer to about 75 percent. Also, you might remember a throwaway line about how only 1 in 5 charter schools performs better than public schools -- yeah, that's sort of a big deal, movie. Thirty-seven percent of charters actually perform worse.

Via Wikipedia
Unfortunately the director went to a charter school, so math isn't his greatest strength.

The film focuses on the charters that perform better, of course, but at least one of those is achieving its results through fishy means. One of the administrators of a school shown in the film, the Harlem Children's Zone, expelled an entire class of children that he feared would throw off his glowing performance statistics. It turns out that when teacher pay and/or school funding is tied to student performance, a model that the film advocates, it opens the door for all kinds of shady shit, including flat-out expelling low-performing students the day before the test to boost their numbers.
In the movie, not getting into a charter school is the worst thing that can happen to a poor family, but studies have shown that school choice itself matters little to a student's success -- shockingly, it's more about how seriously the students themselves and their families take their education. And that ghetto public school might not actually be so bad: According to administrators from Woodside High School, which the film claims only sends a third of its students to college and only graduates 62 percent of them, the film excluded students who go to out-of-state colleges in their statistics, and their graduation rate is more like 92 percent. Shit, being left behind is starting to sound awesome.

A Weekend (not with Bernie) in Chicago

Moi, Yelena, AJ, James, Camille, Megan, Julie, Gloria, Jia (Sean caught a flight)

I have so much to say about the trip to Chicago I made with a big crew from MORE this past weekend but so much of it would be boring -- like you don't really want to know just how much beer I drank. And how much fun it was to hang out with year old Jack who can now make animal sounds upon prompting -- my fave was the snorting pig.

And the entire Eterno family was present -- Kara is 4 already? Jeez. James, nearing retirement in a few years will be having a hell of a lot of fun as full-time nanny. They are staying for a few extra days of vacation. To me having Julie and Jack and James, Camille and Kara present made the weekend special. (I was thinking that 2 years ago when we were there Jack wasn't even a gleam in the eye --- well, maybe a gleam.)

Guess: Which is the statue?

But this was serious business with people coming from all over the nation. I learned so much -- about how the CTU uses social media from their expert Kenzo Shibata who I first met in 2009. And the struggles of teachers from other cities and states --- so much that if I tell you some of it I would have to kill you. And you all know what a blabbermouth I am. So I am trying hard to stfu.

I did some video of the Friday night presentations of Karen Lewis, Julie Cavanagh and reps from Newark, Seattle and Chicago. I will post them later. (Funny but I did post them for conf attendees and got some blow back that I should edit out a few words here and there that might get some people in trouble. Given the attacks on teachers, there is increasing paranoia that may just be justified.)

To me this is not yet as much about as forming a national movement of social justice oriented unions, caucuses, individuals, etc. as it is about the first stage of such a movement -- networking and gaining trust in each other.

I am actually getting tired of the term "social justice" which is getting overused. It comes across to me as sloganeering instead of clearly stating what it is you want to do. Both at this conf and at MORE events there is a sense we have to sell the idea of SJ to people. Don't sell the term, just do it -- like build alliances with parents instead of trying to convince people that it is important. Show results like they did in Chicago. OK. Off soap box.

For me this was the 3rd time doing something like this -- 2009 in LA with 5 cities, 2011 in Chicago with about 200 people and this time. So we get to know more and more people around the nation. Two years ago few people knew Julie. Now she is on the national steering committee and played a  role in organizing this.

Many encounters are accidental -- like where you happen to sit down. I was sitting next to an LA teacher union activist and learned a lot about the LA story, where Alex Caputo-Pearl is running for union president, a very exciting idea -- Alex had a bunch of us over to his house for breakfast back in 2009 and is one of the most dynamic teachers I've met. I wrote about Alex and linked to a number of pieces about him not long ago. Alex is TFA, class of 1990.

Sunday morning I went to get coffee and ran into Bob Peterson, president of the Milwaukee Teachers Education and also founder of the social justice pillar, "Rethinking Schools," one of the most important journals for progressive teachers (which everyone should subscribe to and support). We had coffee together and I got to know a bit about him. That he has 2 daughters living in Brooklyn and visits regularly --- can't wait to get him to speak at a MORE event. I consider Bob a great educator -- a real teacher and now a union leader. With the attacks on Wisconsin teachers there is a good chance the NEA and AFT will merge in that state, which would be a good thing and bring in some progressive forces into the AFT.

And I had a brief Fred Klonsky citing but then had to go prep for a presentation I was co-giving with a CORE member so never got to chat with him. Actually, Fred has kids living in Brooklyn too and what a double treat it would be to get him and Bob together one day in Brooklyn.

At the Sat. night party I sat down with teachers from Philadelphia and we talked about how we can support each other. Also teachers from Newark's NEW Caucus who we hope to get together with real soon to chat about everything -- and what an impressive crew they are.

Next July the AFT convention is in LA and some of these people will be there. Will it be as an organized force to pressure the AFT leadership to resist ed deform more firmly? I do not see this movement presenting a challenge to Randi/Unity control of the AFT but more as a working within to get more locals to call for MORE from the AFT. If I am healthy and my house is not under 10 feet of water I will try to be there.

I may write some more about the weekend -- after I check with the censors.

I met Michelle Gunderson from CORE a year ago at SOS in DC. She helped run the entire weekend and was one of the many CORE people we met who just seem so knowledgeable and competent at whatever they do. And what they are doing is organizing in Chicago to bring parents and people together to fight the mean Rahm machine.

Here is a brief report from Samantha Winslow from Labor Notes, which played a big role in supporting and organizing the conference.

http://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2013/08/chicago-teacher-organizing-lessons-go-national

Chicago Teacher Organizing Lessons Go National

“Woke up this morning with my mind on education,” sang Michelle Gunderson, one of the organizers of a conference that brought teachers from around the country together to strategize. Photo: Samantha Winslow.

Teachers from across the U.S. gathered in Chicago over the weekend to share strategies for strengthening their unions to battle the seemingly never-ending attacks on public education.

A conference for social justice unionism, the host organizers called it. They were from the Chicago Teachers Union’s Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE). Many teachers see the group, which won office in 2010 and led last fall’s nine-day strike, as a model.

CORE and many other participants emphasized that teachers have to ally with their students and communities to advocate for quality public education—and show the public that “the people who care about your children are working with your children,” said CTU President Karen Lewis. “They are not in the state capitals.”

Teachers and union leaders from Chicago, Newark, St. Paul, New York, Los Angeles, and other cities were abuzz. They got down to nuts and bolts—everything from how to get parents involved at the school site, to how to talk to your co-workers, to how to fight mayoral control. And they talked about such big-picture questions as, “How do we combine bread-and-butter union issues with social justice and education justice?”

“CORE was definitely a blueprint for other caucuses around the country and the world,” said Shannon Coleman, who came with a group from Newark, New Jersey. “I was really in awe to see how they organized their members and aligned their members with the community, how they got a majority of their members involved.”

Coleman is on the steering committee of the NEW caucus, which recently won a majority of seats on the Newark union’s executive board. Seeing how many teacher groups share similar goals, “it clicked for me that this was the mission of our caucus,” Coleman said. “I could see what type of movement was starting to build.”
Tide Turning

“The tide is turning” against corporate attacks on teachers and public education, Lewis declared to loud applause, as she welcomed the more than 100 teachers on Friday.

The conference included panel discussions on running for union office, organizing with community members and parents, strategic political action, research to advance union struggles, and media and communications strategies.

CORE hosted a similar conference in 2011.

Nick Faber, an officer at the St. Paul Federation of Teachers in Minnesota, said his union has been inviting parents and community members to attend bargaining sessions this year, to show how their interests are aligned.

The union has modeled some of its strategies after CTU’s. The influential 2012 report The Schools Chicago Children Deserve was a template for a similarly named St. Paul report about the union’s and the community’s education priorities. At least a half-dozen teacher groups at the conference said they were working on similar reports for their own cities.

“What we can see from the conference is that there is already an incredible amount of social justice union activism, at the grassroots level, in locals across the country,” said CORE leader Xian Barrett, who helped plan the conference.

Last year’s strike in Chicago resonated even around the world. Lewis brought a surprise guest: Beth Davies, president of the National Union of Teachers in the U.K. Its 350,000 members in England and Wales are preparing for a national strike. They too were inspired by CTU.

No Reinventing

Collaboration and support among union locals and caucuses was a repeated theme. “We need to think about how we work together so we are not constantly reinventing the wheel,” Lewis said.

As the conference began, Philadelphia’s superintendent was announcing that a budget shortfall might keep the district from starting the school year on time next month. Teachers in both Chicago and Philly have fought massive layoffs and school closures this year.

“The lesson from Philadelphia and Chicago is that, even with strong [local] union activists, it is not enough to defeat the corporate education reform efforts,” Barrett said. But if we come together and collaborate we can win.”

Teachers concluded by discussing ways to collaborate: on national education policy, the overemphasis on testing, working with parents, and getting more teachers involved in union campaigns.

They also compared notes on the upcoming March on Washington. Working with National Nurses United and other organizations in Chicago, CTU is organizing a group to travel to D.C. for the 50th anniversary of 1963’s famous March for Jobs and Freedom.

In the spirit of the original march, which called for jobs and racial justice, organizers want to raise those issues again—this time highlighting school closings, foreclosures, and the recent acquittal of George Zimmerman, who shot and killed unarmed African-American teenager Trayvon Martin and sparked national outrage. Teachers union leaders in D.C. also plan to participate in the march, as will many other national and local unions.

And it wouldn’t be a labor event in Chicago without a visit to the Haymarket Memorial, where students performed a series of readings to commemorate the events at Haymarket Square. Conference organizer Michelle Gunderson urged teachers to remember the fight for an eight-hour work day and their role in labor history.

Modifying a civil rights movement hymn, she sang in one conference session, “Woke up this morning with my mind on education.”

Samantha Winslow is a staff writer and organizer with Labor Notes.samantha@labornotes.org
- See more at: http://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2013/08/chicago-teacher-organizing-lessons-go-national#sthash.jRito7A2.dpuf