How Unity is Selling the Contract and A Response from a Rank and Filer Who is Not Buying

What was the union's dream contract?  What were our demands?  How can anyone but the mayor declare this a victory?... High School teacher responding to email from UFT organizer

You know something is shaking when people I haven't heard from in years start sending me letters they are writing saying they will vote NO. These are not the activist MOREistas who spend a hell of a lot of time on union stuff, but rank and file people who very rarely get involved.

Below is a response to a Queen UFT/Unity operative who sent out an email selling the contract and announcing school visits (read it below the teacher's response). I'm keeping the names out of it.

Hello ------,

I will vote no.  I will encourage my fellow teachers to vote no.

This is not a well negotiated contract.  This contract seems like a good starting point for the MAYOR.  If these are the agreed upon conditions, where did the mayor start?  Did he suggest 0% for nine years with immediate termination of ATRs along with major healthcare concessions?

What was the union's dream contract?  What were our demands?  How can anyone but the mayor declare this a victory?

Use the link below to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics to see that the Consumer Price Index shows a 23% increase in consumer prices over the past 9 years.  Our contract gives us an 18% raise over the same time period.  This means that at the end of 9 years, we will be 5% poorer.  To drastically compound the matter, this contract is absurdly backloaded.  For the majority of these 9 years our salaries were even further below the adjusted consumer price index.

Previous contracts went through fact-finding and arbitration.  No such process occured here.  Nothing occured here.  I feel more betrayed by my union than I have ever felt by my administration.

http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

Sincerely,

---------

Email from Queen UFT Organizing Committee

Please note:

       Because of the proposed contract, the schedule below is highly tentative.

May 5                                  John Bowne

May 6                                  Bayside

May 7                                  HSAB

May 7                                  Delegate Assembly

May 9                                  Townsend Harris

May 13                                UFT Organizing

May 13                                Queens HS Chapter Leaders

May 14                                Gateway

May 15                                Queens Vocational

Contract

                  What needs to happen now is for your Chapter Leader and Delegates to attend this Wednesday’s Delegate Assembly-that’s what you elected them for.

                        Then there need to be Chapter meetings at which the provisions of the proposed contract are explained and questions answered.  I hope to participate in many such discussions over the coming days.

                        It is essential that folks respond to the actual Memorandum of Agreement when it is available and not rely upon blogs and newspapers for their information.  To that end I will not myself be publishing any details of the proposed contract until after Wednesday’s Delegate Assembly, except for the Union’s press release:

Kit Wainer: Historical Reference to Previous Contract Struggles

Kit's history is an important starting point for the upcoming contract struggle. I have a different take on some of Kit's analysis - remember - my history of contract struggles goes back to the early 70s. But it is too nice a day and I am too lazy to get into it - though I may do a separate post at where I disagree.

But a few words before I head outside.

In 1995 I had just come back to activism after being elected CL in my school the year before. I was so focused on my battle with my principal I basically sat out that NO Vote campaign - though I did debate my district rep in my school. Besides - that was 2 years before Ed Notes - so I didn't have a vehicle anyway - and was not interested in working with TJC or New Action.

The 2005 battle was very different. ICE had been formed a year and a half before -- mostly in response to the New Action sellout and also a reaction to how TJC viewed things. Though feelings with TJC were still ruffled, we united for this campaign and did pretty well. New Action members of the negotiating committee had voted for the contract, though Mike Shulman later denied it (Randi announced at the DA that the vote was unanimous and Shulman didn't say a word that she was wrong. NAC insiders told me there was a revolt from within - Shulman argued that if they opposed the contract Randi would be mad at them -- but they insisted on the very least a leaflet saying they opposed, though they wouldn't do any organizing around it - as a cover for them.

The ICE/TJC opposition campaign garnered almost 40% of the vote against. Can that happen again?

Some Lessons of Previous Contract Struggles, Part 1

http://morecaucusnyc.org/2014/01/28/some-lessons-of-previous-contract-struggles-part-1/#more-2851

January 28, 2014 — 6 Comments

By Kit Wainer
Chapter Leader, Leon M. Goldstein H.S.

In the 25 years I’ve been a UFT activist I’ve lived through many. I’ve learned some lessons from these struggles that I thought might be useful to share as we head into another contract period. From 1993-2012 I was a member of Teachers for a Just Contract. From 2012 to the present I have been a member of MORE.

1. Every contract announcement focuses members’ attention on the contract and on the UFT. However, not every contract, yields significant opportunities for mobilizing or even educating. Historically, some UFT contracts have consisted of minor cost-of-living wage increases and few changes in working conditions. The 1990 contract, for example, got us a 5% raise over one year and little else changed. In 2007 a two-year deal merely extended the terms of the 2005 contract until 2009, got us minor wage increases and raised top salary for teachers to 100K. Sometimes, although a contract passes overwhelmingly it contains some unpopular provisions which open organizing potential even if only among a minority of members. The 1993 contract, for example, was easily ratified but its 18-month wage freeze made it unpopular among many members and encouraged a handful of them to become active and form Teachers for a Just Contract. TJC lasted until 2012. It started as a group 7-8 people, a couple of whom were chapter leaders. We remained that size throughout the 1990s and published a newsletter a few times per year called “Class Action.” Unlike New Action, TJC emphasized the need for membership mobilization and specifically argued that “a union that has abandoned the strike weapon is at the mercy of the employer.”

The 2002 contract extended the work day for the first time in decades. Although it was also approved fairly easily, I believe the anger over the longer work day spilled over into the the 2005 contract fight. Neither the 1993 nor 2002 contracts led to vast political openings within the UFT. However, different opposition groups were able to make a number of contacts during the time the contract was debated. TJC, at least, was able to call on many new contacts afterward to help with literature distribution and to run on our slate in the UFT elections of 2004. The Independent Community of Educators formed in fall 2003, partially in response to New Action’s turn toward an alliance with Unity. TJC and ICE ran a joint slate for the high school Executive Board seats in 2004 and won. Apart from the high school seats, however, the two groups ran separate slates that year.

2. 1995. This was the only time in the UFT’s history that the membership voted down a contract which the leadership had negotiated. Never having faced a serious contract fight before the Sandra Feldman/Unity leadership took this one cavalierly. The pact was negotiated with the Giuliani administration only two weeks after the previous contract had expired. It was a 5-year deal with an 11% raise spread out over the final three years — no raises the first two years. It included a “retention incentive” — a withholding of 5% of all new teachers’ salaries to be returned only to those who lasted five years in the system. It added a 25-year longevity increment which would have meant increasing the

number of years required to earn top salary from 20 years to 25. It created C6 assignments. This was before the days of the blogosphere, so it was difficult to gauge membership sentiment at first. When Feldman brought the pact to the Delegate Assembly the meeting was raucous and — unusually — closed to non-delegates. Feldman warned that if we didn’t accept this deal Giuliani would start layoffs, first with paraprofessionals then with new teachers. Clara Barton High School Chapter Leader and future Vice President Leo Casey declared it was an elementary principal of union solidarity to stand by the weakest members — ie., accept concessions in order to prevent layoffs. Manhattan HS District Representative and Humanities HS Delegate Bruce Markens was one of the main speakers against, highlighting everything that was wrong with the deal. True to form, the Delegate Assembly ratified the deal.

Until that time I had never before held any union position nor had I ever had a real opportunity to organize co-workers around a union-related issue. On the Wednesday morning of the DA I wrote a letter to the chapter highlighting all the givebacks in the proposed contract and urged my colleagues to tell our chapter leader and delegate — both of whom were members of Feldman’s Unity Caucus — to vote “no.” An English teacher, acting on his own, started a petition to the chapter leader and delegate asking them to vote “no” at the DA. 80% of the chapter signed his petition. Nonetheless, the chapter leader and delegate voted “yes.” The next morning’s chapter meeting featured outraged members demanding to know how the chapter leader and delegate could simply ignore the unambiguous will of the members. This incident permanently damaged their credibility and was the main reason I was elected chapter leader the following spring. The English teacher who launched the petition was elected delegate.

Furthermore, because I had written the letter against the proposed contract members began coming to me to ask how they could help stop the deal from going through. Many of them started taking TJC’s “Vote No” leaflets to other schools. Suddenly our distribution mushroomed and leaflets were easy to give away, especially in the high schools. I remember going to a PD with people from various high schools and nearly everyone wanted a stack. Members were angry.

When the membership votes were tallied at the end of 1995 the contract was rejected by a margin of 54%-46%. At the time I thought a new day in union politics was opening. I figured the leadership had just been humiliated and the membership had just voted “no confidence” in Unity. But that isn’t how most members saw it. Even at my school, most members judged that the leadership had been taught a lesson and would now go negotiate something better. And Unity rebounded intelligently. Rather than criticize the members Feldman blamed the Giuliani administration for giving itself raises while asking teachers to take a wage freeze. Over the coming months TJC grew slightly and I gained some credibility as a leader among my colleagues but 1995-1996 did not become a year of substantial new activism. The leadership basically waited us out. In June 1996 Feldman and Giuliani negotiated a slightly less obnoxious version of the deal members had just rejected. The “retention incentive” was gone and the 25-year longevity became a 22-year longevity. But the double zeros and C6 were still there. Most importantly, the 1996 version of the pact included a retirement incentive which made it

possible for most members age 52 or older to retire. Thus a significant number of senior members were enticed to ratify a contract under which they would never have to work. This time members approved the pact by a margin of 3-1. TJC’s assessment was that by its inactivity in the early months of 1996 the leadership convinced the membership that it would not lead any new fights against the city and that this was the best deal they were going to get. Unfortunately, there was no consciousness among the members that through their own activity they could force a change in the UFT’s direction. And by the way, the layoff threat proved to be a bluff.

We also believed that Unity learned some important lessons. First, it would never again take a contract fight for granted. In the future it would much more actively defame opponents and do a better spin job to make defeats look like victories. Second, I believe that Unity concluded that in order to sell concessions, members have to be offered money. Asking members to accept even minor givebacks with no wage increase is tough because members can simply avoid the concessions by voting “no.” If the contract on which they are voting contains no raises, they lose nothing by rejecting it. Future concessions, such as the longer work day, would be packaged with significant salary increases and retroactive pay. The Unity leadership would apply these lessons with far greater skill in 2005, when it successfully sold the most damaging contract in the union’s history. How they did that is what we will explore in part 2.

Some Lessons of Previous Contract Struggles, Part2

http://morecaucusnyc.org/2014/01/31/some-lessons-of-previous-contract-struggles-part-2/

The 2005 agreement included raises, pro-rata pay increases to compensate for the longer work day, and full retroactive pay. Members were being offered substantial pay hikes and retroactive checks that, for some, would approach $10,000.

But there was great anger. Roughly 200 protesters showed up outside the Delegate Assembly, even though no group had prioritized building the protest. Weingarten moved the Delegate Assembly to the Brooklyn Marriott so that it could pack the room with retirees and union staff. Nearly 2000 delegates attended. Randi spoke for an hour to provide “context” for the contract. Then Elementary School VP Michelle Bodden spoke for ten minutes to argue for ratification. Weingarten asked speakers in favor of the deal to line up on one side and those against to line up on the other side.
The first speaker “against” was actually a speaker in favor of the contract. She said she had a bad knee and couldn’t walk over to the “for” line. Randi let her speak nonetheless and then called on another speaker “for.” I was the fourth speaker and the first one to oppose the contract. I spoke for 7-8 minutes. My strategy was to ignore most of the justifications Randi and Bodden had just made and address the issues I knew members were talking about. After me, only two others were allowed to speak “against” before District Representative Marty Plotkin called the question. On the first vote the delegates overwhelmingly approved the deal. Then Randi, responding to shouts from the audience, asked for a vote of only active members (non-retirees). This time the vote was roughly 60-40 in favor, not a good showing for the leadership at a meeting it controlled.

Dozens of people approached me at the DA, took “vote no” leaflets to distribute to their schools, and filled out TJC coupons to get on our mailing list. We held an open meeting about a week later at which several ICE members, one New Action/UFT member, and a few dozen independents showed up. The meeting decided to organize a picket outside UFT headquarters before the membership ratification vote. I believed at the time, and still believe, that was a mistake. The priority should have been literature distribution in the schools, doing everything possible to reach out to new people who were angry about the proposed contract but had not been involved in union issues before. Those kinds of people were not the types who would show up at a rally. But the rally idea prevailed and we held one in November. About 175 people came out.

Meanwhile Unity stuffed mailboxes around the city with literature claiming the proposed contract didn’t actually mean what it said. They said that by giving up the right to transfer more teachers would have the right to transfer. They said giving up the right to grieve letters in the file was insignificant because we never won those grievances anyway. They said the new C6 assignments would always be professional activities controlled by members. At a high school chapter leaders’ meeting one District Representative said that no students would actually show up for 37.5 minutes, that this was something that would only hurt elementary school teachers.

My sense (and I admit that I can’t prove it) was that in schools where there were oppositionists (TJC, ICE, or unaffiliated) who distributed “vote no” leaflets we convinced the membership. But in the majority of schools only Unity’s deceptive literature was seen.

In late 2005 the membership ratified the contract by a 63-37 margin. Among teachers the vote was 60-40. However, the anger over the deal was significant, even among those who voted “yes.” Both TJC and ICE gained many new contacts around the city and the momentum pushed us a little closer together. We ran a join slate in the 2007 UFT elections.

Unfortunately, I think the lesson Unity learned from this was that the mobilizations it authorized in spring 2005 raised membership expectations and made the contract a tougher sell. After that the UFT called for far fewer rallies. The union, for example, has done nothing comparable in recent years even though we have been without a contract for more than four years.

Rebecca Mead in New Yorker on Teachers Refusing to Give Test and on Louis C.K. Slam of Testing and Common Core

This week, teachers at International High School at Prospect Heights, which serves a population of recently arrived immigrants from non-English-speaking countries, announced that they would not administer an assessment required by the city. A pre-test in the fall “was a traumatic and demoralizing experience for students,” a statement issued by the teachers said. “Many students, after asking for help that teachers were not allowed to give, simply put their heads down for the duration. Some students even cried.” When a comedian points out the way in which the current priorities don’t add up, it earns even the attention of those who haven’t thought much about school since they graduated. But the brutal math of the New York City school system is no laughing matter.... Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker

Rebecca is an opt-out parent in Brooklyn and talks about our pals at the International School at Prospect Heights campus - see the video I made (Video and Press Release: NYC High School Teachers Refuse to Administer Test). 

The Louis C.K. story has been circulating for days, topped by his appearance on Letterman. I posted some of his tweets the other day - Even more Louis CK Tweets this time about CC and "Bill Hates"!!!

His kids go to public school in Manhattan. Here are some more links to stories.

Diane Ravitch: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-ravitch/louis-ck-common-core_b_5250982.html

An ed deform Newsweek writer, who claims to be a former teacher - attacked Louis and used the same old tired excuses, even resorting to pulling same race card used by Arne Duncan -- that it is white middle class people protesting because they have nothing to lose while ed deform will save the poor children on the plantation.

Louis C.K.        ✔ @louisck 

@alexnazaryan the things you say about me are shallow and mean but you posed in front of some books for your pic & thus sound smart.

Ravitch does touch on this issue in one of her responses to Nazaryan.

Actually, we at Change the Stakes are beginning to see a real uptick in parents of color joining the opt-out movement. CTS has been going into these neighborhoods to provide info for people.

"LOUIS C.K. HAS FIGURED OUT WHY OUR KIDS ARE SAD"

"Their love of learning is dying. And the only way to fix it is to listen to them."
by Ben Collins
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/news/louis-ck-education

Gothamist--has embedded clip of Louis CK on Letterman. First two minutes of video

http://gothamist.com/2014/05/02/video_louis_ck_slams_common_core_te.php

Boing Boing piece by Cory Doctorow:

http://boingboing.net/2014/05/02/standardized-testing-and-schoo.html

Louis on ABC News. On Facebook: 1 minute video.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152184094139818&set=vb.214832449817&type=2&theater

 

May 1, 2014

Louis C.K. Against the Common Core

Posted by Rebecca Mead

On Thursday morning, thousands of children who attend public school in New York City will be sitting down for the second of three days of standardized math tests. Among them will be the offspring of Louis C.K., the comedian. Earlier this week, he took to social media to express his frustration at his daughter’s math homework, tweeting the questions she was required to solve to his more than three million followers. “My kids used to love math! Now it makes them cry,” he wrote.

Math looks different these days from when Louis C.K. and his contemporaries attended school, and many similarly aged parents have found themselves puzzled by the manner in which math concepts are being presented to this generation of learners as well as perplexed as to how to offer the most basic assistance when their children are struggling with homework. If you are over the age of twenty and not yourself a teacher, it is unlikely that you will have an intuitive facility with a “number line,” or know how to write a “number sentence,” or even understand what is meant by the omnipresent directive to “show your work.”
In several of his tweets, C.K. blasted the Common Core, the federally approved (but not nationally mandated) standards that most states, including New York, have adopted. Parental critiques of Common Core math problems have gone viral before. At the same time, defenders of the Common Core have argued that the standards themselves are not the problem so much as the poorly conceived or badly expressed curricula in which they are often embedded. This defense sounds reasonable enough, though parents whose children come home with worksheets presenting obscurely worded or illogically presented problems and bearing the words Common Core can hardly be blamed for conflating the two.

More:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2014/05/louis-ck-against-the-common-core.html  

Memo from the RTC: Time to Start Mooning Over Buffalo

Published in The Wave, May 2, 2014

Memo from the RTC: Time to Start Mooning Over Buffalo

By Norm Scott

I walked into a rehearsal of the Rockaway Theatre Company’s upcoming production of the very funny “Moon Over Buffalo,” a play that I, a theater ignoramus, had never heard of before even though Carol Burnett got rave reviews when it opened on Broadway 20 years ago. There on the stage were Kim Simek and Steve Ryan doing a love scene – take after take after take. Directors Leslie Ross and Alan Rosenfeld called for a more passionate kiss – maybe a little more groping and  tangling of limbs. “Let’s try it again.” Boy, this acting stuff sure looks like fun – from a distance. Watching the details of choreographing a comic love scene – which lasts at most maybe a minute - is like taking a cold shower.

When I heard the RTC was doing this play by Ken Ludwig, the only non-musical production the RTC is doing this year, I rolled my eyes. A play set backstage at a seedy theater in Buffalo? In 1953? Give me a break. Steve Ryan urged me to read the play. “It is very funny,” he told me. And so I did. And so it is. I laughed out loud a number of times – getting funny looks from my wife.

The basic story is that a famous and aging acting couple on the downside of their careers, Charlotte and George Hay,  are doing reparatory theater in Buffalo. One day they do “Cyrano” and the next Noel Coward’s “Private Lives.” Even I know enough about the theater to get the message that these plays can’t be more different – and if somehow an actor should get confused about which play is being performed – say due to an over abundance of vodka – well, you get the idea – and should be breaking into a smile – if not laughing out loud – at the thought of the comic implications.

But there is so much more. A deaf and daffy mother, a daughter trying to juggle two boyfriends, a pregnant mistress, lots of mistaken identities and comic lines flying around like a swarm of bees. The RTC did another play by Ludwig, “Lend Me a Tenor,” which was also very funny.

The lead role of Charlotte is played by one of our favorite RTC stalwarts, Jodee Timpone, who is well-known to the PS 114 community for the theater work she did with the children. I did a short video interview with Jodee before rehearsal the other day. Watch it and try to stay away from the play. https://vimeo.com/93136473

Ludwig plays call for lots of doors (there are 5) and exquisite timing for them to work. (One of my task in constructing the set was to install all the door knobs – so if a door doesn’t work correctly blame me). The RTC crew always make it happen the way it should, so I am looking forward to the opening on May 9 followed by other 8PM performances on May 10, 16, 17, 23 and 24. Sunday matinees: May 11, 18 at 2PM, with the May 11 Mother’s Day special $10 bargain – a great treat for moms.

please join us Tuesday May 6 at 9 AM re charter giveway!

From Leonie:

Parents and elected officials are holding a press conference Tuesday May 6 at Tweed to speak out against the new state law that gives any new and/or expanding charter free space either in our public school buildings or in private space paid for by the city .

Meanwhile, many thousands of NYC public school students are sitting in vastly overcrowded schools, subjected to excessive class sizes, in trailers or on waiting lists for their zoned schools, with an underfunded capital plan.  This is one of the worst charter giveaways ever passed into law, and will create even more inequitable conditions in our city going forward. 

Meanwhile, Eva Moskowitz charter chain, Success Academy,  raised more than $7.5 million in one night, from Jeb Bush and her Wall St. buddies, while claiming she could not afford to rent her own space.  Instead, the DOE is being forced to rent three parochial schools for her, and pay for renovations to suit her specifications.  Here is yet another shameless ruse in which Success Academy is planning to make big sums off the stock trades of their billionaire supporters.

Clearly the charter lobby wants to drain as much resources and space from the public schools in order to destabilize and further overcrowd the system,  or else they would pay for space themselves.

A flyer for our press conference is attached; one is also posted here: http://tinyurl.com/qy3mlaf

Please invite your City Council reps and other elected officials to attend as well. 

Hearings follow the press conference at 10 AM at City Hall on the lack of charter accountability, including their egregious practice of suspending and pushing out large numbers of high need students.

Meanwhile, comedian Louis CK’s tweets have made a huge splash on the Common Core math materials given his children as test prep; see Rebecca Mead in the New Yorker, and the tweets themselves. Both Rebecca and Louis are public school parents, and a welcome voice in this debate. Take a look and join the discussion! 

We just heard today’s 3^rd grade math exam was awful.  What did you hear from your kids?

Thanks,

Leonie Haimson

Executive Director

Class Size Matters

124 Waverly Pl.

New York, NY 10011

212-674-7320

leonie@classsizematters.org

www.classsizematters.org

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com

Follow me on twitter @leoniehaimson

The Contract: Retro Pay is a LIE! It's Crap! - UPDATED

The MORE Contract site: http://www.uftcontract.com

From a former colleague who I haven't heard from in years:

Retro Pay is a lie!

From what I understand of the new UFT Teacher's Contract?? It's crap.
There is no Retro Pay!
Retro pay is pay for timed served. They want me to work another 4 years to make up that pay.

If I retire or leave the system, I get 1% of the "Retro Pay” for 2013.
Now what about the work for 2009, 2010,2011,2012?

A teacher that starts next year will get 3% in few years,
if I leave I get nothing. How is that retro pay?

So let's call it a pay raise over time, not Retroactive Pay for work done 5 years without a contract.

Eric

Another former activist in GEM writes:

Hey norm,

I'm more concerned about easing of rules in firing under performing teachers.

So are principals still under budget pressure to get rid of expensive senior teachers?

Where can we get a copy if this new potential contract?

And one more from a recent retiree:

I think Mulgrew planned this with the retirement caveat to:

1. Get anyone eligible to retire to do it now, to get higher numbers of dues paying members in.

2. It is the equivalent of a retirement incentive.

3. To get those who retired between 2009 and 2014 to sing praise of Unity.

Sell out ATRs - many will be gone by the 2016 elections and give retirees even more of an incentive to vote Unity.

James Eterno analyzes the contract:

morecaucusnyc

James Eterno on the Contract: NEW UFT CONTRACT: RETRO DELAYED = RETRO DENIED WHILE ABSENT TEACHER RESERVES HAVE TENURE WEAKENED - Cross-posted from the Independent Community of Educators (ICE) blog. http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com/2014/05/new-contract-retro-delayed-retro-denied.html

Video and Press Release: NYC High School Teachers Refuse to Administer Test

International HS at Prospect Hts has children from 35 nations speaking about 25 languages. Making them sit through a MOSL test that has nothing to do with their education but only to do with rating their teachers is obscene. These 30 teachers said NO.

Was this event worth getting 5 hours sleep? Hell yes. Below this photo is the video of the press conference held across the street from the Prospect Hts Campus where the International School is located. I was so proud to be associated with these teachers, who not only made a stand but articulated their views so clearly. For the first 7 minutes they read their letter to Farina 9which you can read at http://www.standupoptout.wordpress.com). The rest is the excellent Q and A with the press, some of whom asked some excellent questions and got even more excellent responses. Advocating for teacher made assessments (not Pearson), one reporter from Epoch Times (who asked impressive questions) brought up the issue of standardized tests. Listen to Steve's (the gentleman in the white beard) fabulous response. Rosie and Emily were right on as always and the other teachers who spoke were too.

Note some of Geoff Decker's (from Chalkbeat) questions as he probes for the dividing lines between teachers and the DOE and the UFT -- who he points out were united on opposing what the teachers were doing (not surprised, are you?) Geoff did his job as a reporter and the teachers did theirs by not putting their feet into those waters. Their restraint and discipline was impressive (you know I would have jumped down the DOE and union's throats -- thus the youth leads the aged.)

I should point out - since a reporter later told me he assumed MORE organized this - that it was the teachers at the school who organized this - with the support of MORE, NYCORE and Change the Stakes, all of whom blasted out the story and provided moral and logistical support. I believe the role these groups played is a long-term one -- providing a sense of support and empowerment based on working with each other in a free and democratic atmosphere. See - democracy does work. And darn, working with them is so energizing, my tendency to not leave my house is easy to overcome just to be with them.

UPDATE: And Jia Lee and the rest of the Earth School crew, some of whom who also opted out of giving the test send support:

https://vimeo.com/93555886

NYC High School Teachers Refuse to Administer Test

May 1, 2014 · by Change the Stakes 

 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  Thursday May 1st, 2014

Contacts:  Janine Sopp, janinesopp@gmail.com, (917) 541-6062
Emily Wendlake, emilywendlake@gmail.com, (413) 657-7255
Emily Giles, emmeducator@gmail.com, (917) 575-2936
Rosie Frascella, rosiefrascella@gmail.com, (917) 767-1001
Anita Feingold-Shaw, afeingoldshaw@gmail.com, (510) 872-1712

Teachers and Staff at International High School at Prospect Heights refuse to administer the NYC ELA Performance Assessment Test

New York – On Thursday, May 1, 2014, most of the teachers at International High School at Prospect Heights gathered on the steps of their school to announce that they will not give the NYC English Language Arts Performance Assessment Exam.  More than 50% of parents have opted their students out of taking the test, and 30 teachers and staff refused to administer the exam citing professional and ethical concerns.  Approximately 95% of the students at IHSPH are English Language Learners. Thirty-five percent of students are classified as Students with Interrupted Formal Education (SIFE), meaning they have missed more than one year of school.

The test is not used for promotion and does not factor into student grades. The test has not been aligned to assess English Language Learners and will be used exclusively for the purpose of evaluating teachers.

Teachers are refusing to give the test todaybecause they say it was constructed and formatted without any thought for the 14% of New York City students for whom English is not their first language.

 Teresa Edwards-Lasose, a parent who opted her student out, said, “The test is meaningless.  He (her child) doesn’t  read and write enough English yet to do the test and it doesn’t count for his grades.  Why should he take it?”

The level of English used on the exam is so far above the language levels of the school’s recent immigrant student population that it provides little or no information about their language or academic proficiencies. Despite students’ best efforts and determination, the vast majority of them received zero points.

Anita Feingold-Shaw, a 9th and 10th grade English teacher at IHSPH said, “This test doesn’t benefit students, but it definitely hurts them and that feels unfair.”  Many of the students that took the test in the fall did not yet read or write in English.  And yet, this test asked them to read pages and pages with no translation support and write an argumentative essay in English.

“I watched students just put their heads down and give up.  A few students even cried,” says Emily Wendlake, another 9th and 10th grade English teacher at the school. “Testing experiences like this make our students feel like failures, and that school is not for them.  We feel the consequences in our classes for the rest of the year.”

More Background
Their action happens to fall on May Day, which in New York City, has become a day where the demands of immigrant rights are center stage.  Their decision to abstain from the test, they say, is ultimately one of educational justice for their immigrant student population.  “Our students deserve every second of class time to be engaging, meaningful and relevant to their lives.  This test is the opposite – oppressive, irrelevant to their learning and demoralizing,” said Giles, a science teacher at the school.  “Why wouldn’t we refuse to give it?”
Teachers at Prospect Heights draw a connection between the struggles of English Language Learners and immigrant rights. This is not the first time that the school community has organized around the rights of their students.  Last year, after watching many of their top students unable to attend college because of financial constraints, teachers created the International Dreamers Scholarship Fund.  The fund provides scholarships to undocumented students that cannot receive government funding for higher education. Last year the school community raised $35,000 and provided full scholarships to two undocumented students.
Ultimately, they’re asking that Chancellor Fariña reconsider the use of this assessment with English Language Learners in favor of measurements created by teachers.

The International High School at Prospect Heights is a public high school located in Brooklyn, NY.  Read their letter to Chancellor Farina at http://www.standupoptout.wordpress.com

Change the Stakes Next General Meeting - Friday May 2, 6-8pm - CUNY Grad center

Greetings All,

As today marks the first day of the math state test, Change the Stakes begins to move the conversation to "What's next?"  Opt out numbers tripled in NYC and almost 35,000 statewide, parents found support in many schools, some difficulties in other schools, teachers spoke out, principals spoke up, parents rallied, the press covered the issues of testing daily, if not multiple times each day, and it will continue.   It will continue because every day more and more parents are realizing what is happening to our children and schools, teachers are opening up and principals are speaking out.  We are making our voices heard.

CtS is not only advocating for opting out.  We see this as a strategy, but our agenda moving forward is leading us in the direction of many goals.  Promotions, Upcoming Field Tests, Teacher Evaluations, Early Childhood, Charter Schools/Privatization, Common Core to name a few.  We have made many new contacts over these past few months of meeting and organizing and hope to meet with many of you this Friday night at our next General Meeting.

Please join us if you can!  Let others know, too.

Change the Stakes Next General Meeting:

When:  Friday, May 2, 2014 – 6.00-8.00 pm
Where:  CUNY Grad Center. 365 5th Avenue @ 34th St. Room 5489.  Bring Photo ID to enter building.

 

 

Even more Louis CK Tweets this time about CC and "Bill Hates"!!!

I'm not that much aware of Louis C.K., whose daughter attends a public elementary school in Manhattan. I know he uses lots of unprintable words. So holy shit, how great are these tweets?

1. Louis C.K. ‏@louisck  2h

   didn't mean to write Bill hates. I meant to write "doody faced rich guy". Oh just kidding. Alright I'm done. Go ahead and rip my head off.

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2. Louis C.K. ‏@louisck  2h

   Lastly these are my views as a parent. I'm sure I'm wrong about some of it. Does that mean you're wrong about none o it? Peace.

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3. Louis C.K. ‏@louisck  2h

   The test are written to CCSS standards. The teachers are forced to deliver high scores to those tests. Why pretend that cc has zero fault?

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4. Louis C.K. ‏@louisck  2h

   Everything important is worth doing carefully. None of this feels careful to me.

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5. Louis C.K. ‏@louisck  2h

   I trust a teacher over Pearson or bill hates any day of the week. Don't all be so defensive and don't be such bullies.

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6. Louis C.K. ‏@louisck  2h

   Teachers are underpaid. They teach for the love of it. Let them find the good in cc without the testing guns to their and our kids heads.

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7. Louis C.K. ‏@louisck  2h

   1st step to learn: Amit you're wrong. Listen improve your understanding. Let teachers decide how to guide kids to these new ideas

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8. Louis C.K. ‏@louisck  3h

   It's arrogant and hurts the goals of CCSS. CCSS is not perfect. You want to teach kids to think and reason. Try it yourself first.

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9. Louis C.K. ‏@louisck  3h

   CCSS. It's a new program. why defend it aS perfect? Why let poor test writers profit and tell parents and teachers they are "wrong".

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10. Louis C.K. ‏@louisck  3h

    Kids teachers parents are vocally suffering. Doesnt that matter? listen to them. Adapt and slow down CCSS. Cool it with the testing

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11. Louis C.K. ‏@louisck  3h

    I never said that CCSS is all bad. But in NYC it wasn't rolled out, but adopted through High stakes poorly written tests.