BloomKlein Model in the Land of Oz

I received an email from Trevor Cobbold, a parent activist, who is based in Canberra, Australia's capital and is involved with Save Our Schools Canberra.

He wrote an article for the Canberra Times addressing the situation in New York in terms of school reporting:

Ideology win in school reporting

The Rudd Government's ''education revolution'' is looking more and more like an extension of the Howard government's school policies. All the same elements are there choice and competition, reliance on markets, and now public reporting of school results.

The model for the new school reporting scheme comes direct from New York. Julia Gillard has been enthusing about the New York system ever since her audience with the New York schools chancellor, Joe Klein. She says she is ''inspired'' and ''impressed'' by Klein's model.

If Gillard had looked more closely, she would have seen major flaws.

The New York system produces unreliable and misleading comparisons of school performance and student progress. It is incoherent, can be used to produce league table,fails to compare like with like and is statistically flawed.

He goes on to cite Diane Ravitch and Jennifer Jennings (Eduwonkette) and concludes with:

Australia and Finland are two of the highest-achieving countries in the world in school outcomes according to the PISA surveys conducted by the OECD. Neither country got there by reporting school results.

Why the Rudd Government is choosing to emulate the reporting policies of much lower-performing countries such as the United States and United Kingdom can be explained only as a triumph of ideology over evidence.

Read the entire piece here.

Trevor also sent this blog site for reference.

http://www.futuredforum.blogspot.com/

I have disagreements on an article he wrote on class size at Save Our Schools where he talks about cost effectiveness and teacher quality as excuses not to jump into class size reduction across the board. While praising the STAR project, he also cites research on teacher quality, which no one seems to be able to define:

There is evidence that improving teacher quality contributes more to increasing student outcomes than class size reductions. Recent studies by Doug Harris and David Plank at Michigan State University and by Dylan Wiliam, Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, show larger improvements from increasing teacher ability and skills than by class size reductions.

Too many researchers have agendas based on where their funding is coming from and the TQ people have a lot more money than advocates for class size. I find it interesting that the "quality" issue is not raised when it comes to putting more police on the street to reduce crime or firemen on the job to cut down fires or doctors in emergency rooms.

I have to ask him what he thinks about all those Aussies Klein hired (at up to $1000 a day) to run around schools in NYC as consultants.


Personal Aussie Note
We visited Canberra in the early 90's to attend the Scherr scion's Bar Mitzvah. We had to smuggle in the yarmulkes - apparently it's tough to get them engraved in Canberra but I did manage to get them through customs despite the yarmulke sniffing dogs. The Scherrs, now living in Perth/Freemantle, stayed with us for 3 weeks last summer (and we're still talking.) Their son Sam is now 30 and a founding member of Capital City, a rock band in Australia. Dan Scherr, a native of the TenEyk housing project in Williamsburg in Brooklyn, keeps me informed of ed events in Western Australia.

The Battle Over Mayoral Control? Sorry Yogi, It's Over

It's down to a battle of twicks and tweaks

There's been a lot of sturm and drang over whether mayoral control will be renewed in 2009. If it isn't will force us back to the much derided old system of local elected school board control over grades K-8 (32 districts) with central control over high schools and various special services along with a central board of education.

Much has been made this week over the enormous sums being spent by Bloomberg and his corporate buddies to steam roller the politicians (the corrupt and useless state legislature has the power to decide) and the public. They might as well have saved the money. Or maybe even put it into classrooms by buying school supplies (teachers and parents are funding an awful lot of this stuff while money flies to political manipulation.

While many of us were critics of the old system, there was never any attempt to fix those flaws as the baby was thrown out with the bath water when the mayor gained total control over the school system.

Other than a few groups like ICOPE, my colleagues in the Independent Community of Educators and some independent activists out there who still believe the same system of parent and community input should be given to urban parents just as it is in the surburbs, even the severest critics of the Bloomberg and Klein administration (Ravitch, Stern, and even Leonie Haimson) think there is a need for some centralized control in the hands of a politician (who controls the money.)

The UFT? They were the first out of the box to support mayoral control in 2001 (which was one of the issues that pushed me into opposition mode) and no matter the rhetoric coming out of 52 Broadway, we always predicted they would never waiver from that position and instead call for minor changes that would still leave the mayor in control. Tey even had a committee spend a year or more holding meetings and listening to all sides. We even had some ICE'ers involved and they have the people running the committee good grades for listening. But the results are predetermined no matter what people said and I think they were wasting their time.

What will happen is report will be issue with all the criticisms included but no real call for an end to mayoral control and a reversion to some improved version of neighborhood control which the UFT has opposed since the mid-60's.

Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, who has been perceived as a thorn in Bloomberg's side, formed a commission to study the issue. Today the report was released.

What it amounts to is a joke with recommendations so inconsequential as to make us wonder if the money couldn't have been better used for school supplies. Like we need a 4 year term of office for the un-peppy PEP so they can't be fired by the mayor who appoints them anyway. Duhhhhh! Like now he'll make sure to appoint total robot nincompoops so he will not have to fire them. Read it here.

Nothing they do will make a difference unless there is radical change. The first step is to get politicians out of education, which by the way was the main flaw in the old decentralized system that existed from 1968 - 2002. All they did with mayoral control and their twicks and tweats is to shift the flow of influence (and patronage - the major interest of politicians) from one set of politicians to another.

Today's NY Times story

Separate and Unequal in Good 'Ole New York

UPDATE:
Leonie's piece also posted at NYC Public School Parent blog

In these days of phony ed reform, where there is a claim by so-called reformers they are engaging in the "civil rights movement of our time," is it time for another Supreme Court Brown vs, Board of Education case?

Ooops! Not with this Court. Maybe in another generation when we find progress has been marking time. When the results are examined in detail, it will be found that the BloomKlein administration have set back civil rights by 50 years. (Check 2 blog posts by Chaz School Daze on the increase in the need for remedial programs for NYC high school grads under BloomKlein and the deteriorating SAT score situation under Kleinberg.)

And follow the events in the Chicago boycott and civil rights march after 13 years of mayoral control and Phony Ed Reform Politics (which we are now referring to as PERP and "reformers" as PERPS) in the ed notes sidebar where you can also find a link to Fred Klonsky's Prea Prez which is covering the story. His brother Mike also has a story today. Chicago is a great model to see how this all plays out over time and how it will play out in New York in the next half dozen years.

My ICE colleague James Eterno has been writing about Academic Apartheid at Jamaica High School on the ICE blog and in letters to useless NY State Ed Commisioner.

Leonie Haimson chronicled this wonderful story and interchange betweem Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and Joel Klein on a tour of a charter school. Poor Marty, lamenting the severe differences in resources allocated to public and charter schools in one of the poorest areas of Brooklyn. You see, Marty has been a total suckup and supporter of BloomKlein, so these are only crocodile tears. (And I remember a different Marty in his Brooklyn College and tenant activist days when he held a meeting in my building lobby to fight our landlord.)

Here's Leonie's superb post:

Jenny Medina of the NY Times captured the following exchange during the usual dog and pony show of yesterday’s media tour of the first day of school:

In a kindergarten classroom — its door designating the students inside as members of the Class of 2025 — Mr. Markowitz cornered Mr. Klein. “Why can’t our public schools have a place like this?” he asked a bit testily. “Do you know the resources it takes for a place like this?

Elizabeth Green of the NY Sun also observed this conversation:

On a visit to the Excellence School, which is housed in a sparkling new 90,000-square-foot school building in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the president of Brooklyn, Marty Markowitz, became visibly agitated.

"Listen to me," he said to the schools chancellor, Joel Klein, as the two toured a classroom, "we have some public schools that are starving for these kinds of resources." Mr. Klein replied that some schools are doing as well as Excellence with more modest budgets. Mr. Markowitz was not convinced; he said that while he supports charter schools, he is "conflicted" about the extra resources they sometimes receive from private donors.
"I really believe the jury is out on this whole thing," Mr. Markowitz said, walking out the door.


Is it all a matter of private donors? According to the school’s website:

Excellence is housed in a 90,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art facility with a 10,000-volume library, a 500-seat auditorium, music and art studios, a gymnasium, a climbing wall, a rooftop turf field, and sufficient classroom space to house Excellence as it grows into a K-8 school.

According to InsideSchools, the building was renovated from a former DOE public school (PS 70):
In the new facility, students will enjoy amenities that rival deeply-endowed private schools. Designed by Yale School of Architecture Dean Robert A.M. Stern, the renovated building includes an AstroTurfed roof garden/play yard with sweeping city and harbor views, secluded and inviting book nooks on every floor, double-sized science labs, a giant gymnasium complete with climbing wall, a spacious school library, and a state-of-the-art auditorium. Sawicki lives around the corner from the new building.

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/BES/BED027.htm has wonderful before and after photos:

And where did all the money for this incredible facility come from?

See this 2006 article from Fortune magazine, about the Robin Hood foundation and its founder, “hedge fund maestro Paul Tudor Jones” :

“The school is the product of a pooling of dollars by the New York City Board of Education, Robin Hood, and Jones personally, plus contributions from a variety of corporations. The school's physical plant, including a fabulous AstroTurf roof, would be the envy of any $30,000-a-year private school. Inside, groups of energized young teachers and little boys, kindergarten through second grade (and 100% minority), in white shirts and ties, ready themselves for the coming school year. Principal Jabali Sawicki tells me there is a 170-student waiting list. Just a few years ago this building was a neighborhood eyesore, a symbol of all that had gone wrong in Bed-Stuy. Originally constructed in the 1880s as PS 70, and later used as a yeshiva, it became a home to drug dealers and prostitutes after a fire in the 1970s - even a venue for illegal cock fights. Then, in 2004, another organization that Jones supports, Uncommon Schools, committed $30 million ($6 million from Jones personally) to buy and renovate the property. David Saltzman, the executive director of Robin Hood, persuaded Robert A.M. Stern, dean of the Yale School of Architecture, to design the facility, which was completed this spring. Signs throughout the school were done gratis by renowned design firm Pentagram. And Robin Hood sent a check for $150,000 for the school's operating budget. Books were donated by Scholastic and HarperCollins, which have given a collective two million volumes to Robin Hood…”

This 2006 article notes how the Robin Hood Foundation raises hundreds of millions per year; from charity concerts of the Rolling Stones (take: $11 million); benefit dinners hosted by Jon Stewart w/ Beyonce performing, and auctioning off naming rights to charter school buildings going for $1 million:

Most charity dinners in New York are considered a smash if they bring in $1 million. Here success is measured in tens of millions. "If you are on Wall Street, particularly in hedge funds, you have to be here," says one of my tablemates. The final tally? In a single night Robin Hood hauls in $48 million. Some $20 million is earmarked for the new school - which will be matched by the board, $2.25 for each $1. And New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein, who at one point during the gala, at Jones's urging, stands and takes a bow, has said the city, in turn, will match the combined sum (as well as the amount of a tax credit). Overall, the $20 million for the school will grow to $180 million. The cost to put on the dinner? Around $5.6 million.

And the cost to taxpayers: $90 million. In answer to the Fortune reporter’s question: Don't charter schools draw precious resources away from other public schools?

Jones makes no apologies:

"Charter schools are the best thing that ever happened to education in New York City because they provide competition to regular public schools and raise the bar that everyone is trying to attain. They provide thought leadership for other schools, so again there's a multiplicative impact."

This is Klein’s usual response as well. Wonder why so many other schools in Brooklyn and citywide still have substandard conditions. How does that competition thing work again?

Leonie Haimson
Class Size Matters
classsizematters@gmail.com
www.classsizematters.org
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/

Welcome to the hut, Steven!

"People generally believe that education is what you make of it … Well, I don't know about you but if I were to ask you to cook your Thanksgiving dinner and all I gave you to make your feast was $5, a kitchen-less hut, and a granola bar you'd be pretty screwed. That's the same situation society puts me in."


A new beginning for public education?
By: Steven Lee
NYC Teaching Fellow
Posted: 9/3/08

New York City teachers reported to their schools this week to start professional development in preparation for the upcoming school year. Our school was hit hard by recent city-wide budget cuts and our principal, who is a very resourceful and competent leader, revealed some bureaucratic "baggage" that can only be attributed to the failed policies of the current Bush administration and their optimistic No Child Left Behind legislation.

Our principal educated us on the statistics of our small school in the past year. Our graduation rate was approximately 74 percent, but the Department of Education calculated our statistics at an abysmal 38 percent. Where's this discrepancy coming from you might ask?

Well, upon further investigation, we found that the source of these additional students came from sudden transfers from a district 79, from a non-existent school numbered 510. When I say non-existent, I mean the building itself doesn't exist and that there's no teachers and the students most likely don't even know they're attending that institution. To look up a school by the number 510 in a district 79 would be impossible on the schools.nyc.gov Web site.

These students have supposedly "transferred" have been circulating the computer systems of the Department of Education, and in the attempt to cover-up the outstanding failures or omissions on the register, they've transferred these names onto the rosters of unsuspecting schools that actually perform their duties. So our report card grade suffers because children are in fact being left behind in schools that don't exist.

This is the illusion that I call urban education. Society believes that it's a null issue or that there's nothing really wrong with education since test scores keep rising, right? Data doesn't lie, right? Well to let you guys know, test scores are scaled to boost student averages. The passing score on the standardized science exam is a 39, which is scaled to a 65.

In all my discussions with fellow pedagogues and administrators, there seems to be a sort of settled attitude about these things. We know that there's really nothing that we can do to change these things. What bother me are the stories I hear of incompetent administrators and principals where teachers wonder how they even became administrators. There's a serious lack of competent leadership in education. I couldn't imagine how long I would be teaching at my school if my principal was as incompetent as some of the others that I have heard about.

This coming election is America's chance to turn the tide on the failed legacy of foreign policy and to kick start America's economy by starting an educational revolution. The lack of in depth educational policy between the Obama and McCain presidential campaigns is pretty terrifying to me. They seem content on either somehow modifying or tweaking No Child Left Behind and aren't really too keen on listening to the suggestion of those who work on the front lines. But then again, I recall through the stories of bad principals how sometimes you don't have to be the most competent to earn the title of decision-maker …

Summer vacation has been a time of reflection for me. Finishing my first-year teaching high school science in the South Bronx has opened my eyes to a new level of social neglect that I didn't think existed. Many people ask if this is what I really want in life or if this is something I want to do for a long period of time, but I usually tell them that I couldn't imagine another place where I'm so desperately needed.

I have literally killed myself this past year taking graduate school classes, lesson planning, sleeping less than four hours every night, neglecting friends and family, and paying upwards of $1,000 out of my own pocket on class materials for a generation of students who are not only looked down upon, but are neglected or ignored by those who are in a position of power and privilege. Politicians don't send their sons and daughters to urban public schools. I wonder why? The educators seem pretty dedicated, right?

People generally believe that education is what you make of it … Well, I don't know about you but if I were to ask you to cook your Thanksgiving dinner and all I gave you to make your feast was $5, a kitchen-less hut, and a granola bar you'd be pretty screwed. That's the same situation society puts me in. And all I can do is write angry blog entries or letters to the Targum.

Steven Lee is a Rutgers College Class of 2007 alumnus. He is currently working as a teaching fellow in New York City.

Posted at The Daily Targum, "serving the Rutgers Community since 1869"


Welcome to the hut, Steven!
School report cards and grades are part of the distraction to undercut such a movement by making natural allies fight and compete with each other - you know, each school is an island and we have to beat the other guys.

Of course, you will be accused by the "ed reformers" of making excuses. Yes, do the best you can. But it doesn't stop at writing letters. True ed reform will require teachers to go beyond the classroom into political action to create a movement for change that will shift money from bailouts and corporate welfare so we can tear down that hut and build an education system that will serve children, parents and teachers instead of politicians and Walmart, Gates, Broad and the other privatizers.

I suggest you begin with a movement to reform the UFT, a union that all too often lines up with the phony reformers while going along with the corporate agenda. Without a strong, progressive union willing to fight back on all levels instead of undercutting and coopting progressives, there is little chance that the hut will go away soon.

A tale of the UFT and non-union building

Need to Run a Chapter Leader Election?

Some teachers have returned to school to find their chapter leader has resigned, been excessed, hung. Sometimes they contact the union to find out what to do. It's sort of left to someone conscious enough to take action. Sometimes, since there is no one in charge, they don't and the principal can just give out those parking permits as they wish. And do some other crap too.

Now one would think the UFT machinery would provide schools with an automatic method of handing this situation. An election for chapter leader should be held immediately but the UFT is so missing in action at this crucial moment in the school year. I guess they have other fish to fry (hint - look for a large green dot) than worrying about schools being left hanging without a union rep.

frying fish at the UFT

Some district reps take some initiative and set up a load of info.

Others respond with: "They are out of the kits and have ordered more. When it arrives, I will mail it to you."

Now this is one dumb (or lazy) district rep. (Why worry if a school has no union rep?) Maybe he thinks the kit comes in a box.

The ICE web site (not the blog) has the scanned "kit" downloadable in a pdf. (6th item on left hand panel.)

Maybe I missed it but I wish the UFT web site had the elusive "kit." If anyone wants to go on a scavenger hunt to find it, let us know.

Diane Ravitch on How Dems Match Republicans on School Reform

Dems say

Diane Ravitch began a new season on her blog with some points on how Dems are aping the elephants on ed reform.

We used to see a partisan divide about the big issues in education policy. The Democratic party advocated more funding for disadvantaged students and policies that promoted equity. The Republican party advocated choice, privatization, merit pay, and accountability, and criticized the teachers’ unions as the main obstacles to reform.

In this election cycle, that familiar divide has changed dramatically. The Republicans still advocate choice, privatization, merit pay, and accountability and are still critical of the teachers’ unions. But now there is a significant movement within the Democratic party that advocates the same positions as the Republicans.

The “reforms” of the Klein-Sharpton-Rhee group are not at all new. They attack the teachers’ union, bash teachers, demand merit pay, promote charter schools and private management, and laud testing, lots more testing. They love NCLB, and they want it toughened. At bottom, they would like to see the public school system of the United States run like a business, with employees hired and fired at will. They are ready to privatize and outsource whatever they can, trusting private managers to succeed where the public sector (with themselves as leaders) has failed.

Read it all at Bridging Differences, her dialogue with Debbie Meier here.

As one of the major players and founders in the standards movement, is Diane playing the role of Dr. Frankenstein as she sees what has become of her monster?

Follow events in Chicago going on right now with a student boycott over a failed schools system. Need I remind you that Mayor Daly is a Dem? That city has had mayoral control and all the "goodies" of the ed reform movement since 1995 - and Paul Vallas to get it all started. He went on to Philly to create a mess and is not running New Orleans. Hate to say we told you so, but we did - starting with pleas to the UFT back in 2001 to resist mayoral control when reports out of Chicago started surfacing compliments of George Schmidt and Substance.

Rather than look at ways to continue mayoral control with checks or independent commissions to evaluate results (a good thing) as all too many critics like Diane seem to line up, better to seek ways to remove education from the control of politicians who, no matter what the controls, will engage in tactics to override them.

Justice-Not-Just-Tests: First meeting of the year! Mon. Sept, 8 5:30 Cuny grad center

Sent from the NYCoRE working group that addresses high-stakes and standardized tests in our schools.

When: Mon., Sept, 8, 5:30
Where: Cuny grad. center. room 5414 (directions below, bring ID)

We are going to be getting ready for our campaign to resist merit pay in our schools. We will also be thinking about the up-coming year and mapping out our plans. So, please come if you are interested in fighting against high-stakes and standardized tests in our schools and fighting for justice. We need to be loud this election season!

If you have been thinking about getting involved in this fight, now is a great time! The merit pay issue is a big one and has been popping up a lot in the national debates about education. Now is the time to let the candidates know how actual educators feel! (Here is a link to an article in rethinking schools about merit pay in NYC: http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/22_04/meri224.shtml)

Same goes for high-stakes and standardized tests. We all know that, at best, they simply don't work and are bad pedagogy. At worst, they are racist, thinly veiled attacks on public education and working class children of children of color. Why don't the candidates know?
(Link to nycore's position statement on testing http://www.nycore.org/PDF/testingposition.pdf)

We are always looking for fresh faces and new energy so make this the year you stand up for what you believe in!

If you have questions, comments, you want to come but can't, are planning to come, or are just friendly. . .

email us at jnjt@nycore.org

Grad Center
Located on Fifth Avenue between 34th and 35th Streets, the building is two blocks east of Penn Station, one block east of Herald Square, and two blocks west of the 33rd Street and Park Avenue station. The closest subway station, located at 34th Street and Avenue of the Americas, is served by the B, D, F, N, R, and Q trains.

Today....

...I toast all NYC teachers as they meet their kids for the first time.

Today used to be the first official day teachers reported and for most of my career we had 4 days to get ready for the Monday following Labor Day when the kids reported. I never minded those 4 days - except for the stupid 2 hour faculty conference which was repeated word for word every year. Hey, there are 2 new teachers that have to hear about the school philosophy - which is to get high scores - do what you have to - so make 40 other people sit through it again - and again - and again. But most people hadn't seen each other for 2 months and we had long lunches and chats and bitching galore. But you know what? I was ready to go back by then. The main bitch for me was the loss of free time to think about doing all the things I didn't get to do - and never would.

The night before the kids showed was always the finals of the US Open and I would watch while finishing up whatever, nervous as all hell - no matter how long you teach, the night before is spent trying to contain those flying insects floating around your gut.

I'm talking about the years when I had my own classes - roughly from 1969-1985. After that I was a cluster which was one tenth the work, so I don't look at those years the same way.

Now we are in a different landscape. Today - the day after Labor Day - is THE DAY for teachers and children. Klein is racing around to all the boroughs - if I showed up at Tweed at 7 AM I might have even gotten on the press bus - but no thanks. And Randi Weingarten and City Council head Christine Quinn have their own schools to visit together, it seems. I wonder what new UFT Chief Operating Officer Mike Mulgrew will be doing today? As long as you see Randi's face on the TV screens, she is running things. I still think she digs the nitty gritty UFT stuff more than the AFT statesperson role. But who else was there to take on that role.

Well, here's to all the NYC teachers - wishing you the best year possible - and hoping this year many of you see there is a need for some level of activism on your parts to take back this union, which is the first step in attacking the true problems facing education today.

Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now Arrested at RNC

You tube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
www.democracynow.org

Amy Goodman and Two Democracy Now! Producers Unlawfully Arrested At the RNC

September 1, 2008

Contact:
Denis Moynihan 917-549-5000
Mike Burke 646-552-5107, mike@democracynow.org

ST. PAUL, MN—Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was unlawfully arrested in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota at approximately 5 p.m. local time. Police violently manhandled Goodman, yanking her arm, as they arrested her. Video of her arrest can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ

Goodman was arrested while attempting to free two Democracy Now! producers who were being unlawfully detained. They are Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. Kouddous and Salazar were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. Goodman's crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press.

Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and Salazar were being arrested on suspicion of rioting. They are currently being held at the Ramsey County jail in St. Paul.

Democracy Now! is calling on all journalists and concerned citizens to call the office of Mayor Chris Coleman and the Ramsey County Jail and demand the immediate release of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar. These calls can be directed to: Chris Rider from Mayor Coleman's office at 651-266-8535 and the Ramsey County Jail at 651-266-9350 (press extension 0).

Democracy Now! stands by Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar and condemns this action by Twin Cities law enforcement as a clear violation of the freedom of the press and the First Amendment rights of these journalists.

During the demonstration in which they were arrested law enforcement office used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and excessive force. Several dozen others were also arrested during this action.

Amy Goodman is one of the most well-known and well-respected journalists in the United States. She has received journalism's top honors for her reporting and has a distinguished reputation of bravery and courage. The arrest of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar is a transparent attempt to intimidate journalists from the nation's leading independent news outlet.

Democracy Now! is a nationally syndicated public TV and radio program that airs on over 700 radio and TV stations across the US and the globe.

Video of Amy Goodman's Arrest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ

##
= = = = = = = = =
ABOUT DEMOCRACY NOW!
Democracy Now! airs on over 650 radio and TV stations, including Pacifica, NPR, community, and college radio stations; on public access, PBS, satellite TV stations (DISH network: Free Speech TV ch. 9415 and Link TV ch. 9410; DIRECTV: Link TV ch. 375); on the World Radio Network's European Service and on the Community Broacasting
Association of Australia service; as a "podcast", automatically downloaded to your computer or portable audio player; and streams live M-F at 8am EST at www.democracynow.org
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You can also view/listen/read all Democracy Now! shows online:
http://www.democracynow.org
To bring Democracy Now! to your community, go to:
http://www.democracynow.org/get_involved/bring_to_station

Ed Reformers Urge Vow of Celibacy for New Army of Teachers (spoof)

In a new initiative, new teachers would be required to renounce marriage in order to devote themselves more fully to the task of preparing each and every child to excel in standardized test-taking.

Another brilliant parody. Already there are some Socrates-like idiot comments on this Eggplant post from Tauna at This Little Blog. How dare someone parody KIPP - boo, hoo. Have you ever been in a KIPP school - sniff, sniff! Susan O also has it up on her site.

Tauna is not far from reality as we are seeing in NYC where young urban dwellers without family commitments are preferred over parents who might actually have to leave school on time (often to a suburb with a long commute where they can afford a house) to go home and care for their children. Any stats on how many KIPP teachers have children of their own?

Save Now

Must See Video: You Are Surrounded - Put Down Those Video Cameras

UPDATE: Read a full account of the raid here.

Thus saith the FBI and police in St. Paul as they surround a house rented by a New York based journalist team from I-Witness Video Collective in a further demonstration of democracy inaction as prep for the Republican convention. We had our own joys with the NYC police at the Republican convention 4 years ago when they arrested numerous people illegally and ended up dropping most of the charges (the law suits still coming up.) BUT THESE ARE JOURNALISTS. You see that happen in Central American tin-horn dictatorships. Well, now that I think of it.... What next, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove death squads in the middle of the night? I'm locking my screen door.

But having journalists report on their own situation is a priceless ad for American democracy as a woman in handcuffs (for walking out of the house) is interviewed and the police break in though the attic (without a proper warrant), point guns at people and handcuff them.




Here is the direct link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi1eluuDGss&eurl

Thanks to Fred Klonsky at Prea Prez for putting this up.

Park Anywhere - E. Pluribus Bloomum

Download, print and place in windshield. Tweed guarantees this pass with the same level of assurance as graduation rates.

Click on photo to enlarge.
Based on a collaboration between ed notes and David B, who did the all the photoshopping work. Sort of like the collaboration between the UFT and Tweed.

How Credible is Education Week?

Here's something for a quiet Labor Day weekend. I'm not a reader of Ed Week (known by some as Ed Weak) but what I do read can often look more like cheerleading than neutrality. We've touched on the "Ed Week as advocate for certain points of view" before. Not withstanding Ed Week's seeing the potential of bloggers like Eduwonkette, there has been a body of criticism out there. That Susan Ohanian, Phil Kovaks and Deborah Meier were among the signatories is enough for me.

Sean Ahern sent this along to ICE-mail.

Not as right wing as the EIA, Ed Week is still a mouthpiece for the DC Education establishment. From the Schools Matter Blog here is an assessment of Ed Week worth bearing in mind when reading anything this scholastic magazine for grownups produces.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Education Week's History of Cozy Establishment Advocacy

Education Week's incestuous relationship with the Washington education establishment has finally been called out in a strong letter that challenges their ideologically-driven treatment of public school issues in their annual trademark piece called Quality Counts. With the kind of unacknowledged advocacy that Ed Week engages in regularly, who needs an editorial page!

The Letter:
IT’S TIME FOR EDUCATION WEEK TO CEASE ITS VIOLATION OF BASIC JOURNALISTIC ETHICS

The editors of Education Week claim to be objective journalists, but with their Quality Counts publication, they abandon objectivity and promote the standards-and-testing industrial school paradigm of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). In this context, they are no longer reporters; they have chosen to act as advocates.

The editors of Editorial Projects in Education (EPE), the nonprofit that publishes Education Week, say that their mission is to “help raise the level of awareness and understanding among professionals and the public of important issues in American education. We cover local, state, and national news and issues from preschool through the 12th grade.” Education Week does not publish its own editorials, and it claims not to advocate for particular ideological or policy positions.

Yet for more than a decade EPE has published its Quality Counts (QC) annual volume, purporting to assess the condition of American public schooling from a neutral and fair-minded vantage. Education Week has presented Quality Counts (QC) as if it were any other piece of journalism, that is, a piece of reporting. But a quick inspection of the 2008 volume reveals the dishonesty in this presentation. Quality Counts is not reporting in any normal sense of the word. Rather it is advocacy. Its assertions and conclusions often support particular policy positions. A few examples reveal these characteristics.

• QC embraces the position that state academic standards are a positive force in schooling (p. 45). This is an ideological position. QC offers no evidence to support this position. While most corporate and political leaders and many school leaders embrace this position, many educators and parents believe that standards constrain learning more than they enable it, that standardization of learning is an antiquated artifact of the 20th century that hinders creativity and the personalization of learning.

• QC accepts the criteria of an unpublished review of state standards conducted by the American Federation of Teachers, dated October-November 2007 (p. 45). This review judges state standards in terms of the following attributes: “clear, specific, and grounded in content.” Here QC is embracing an advocacy position of the AFT. To employ an unpublished document that cannot be reviewed is also bizarre for a publication that calls itself journalistic.

• QC awards positive scores to states that “assign ratings to all schools…” and “sanction low-performing schools. (p. 47). These are additional advocacy stances. There is no evidence that, for example, Florida’s crude A-F rating system does anything for children other than intensify test preparation. Nor does QC offer evidence that sanctioning “low-performing schools” does anyone any good.

• QC advocates for the ideological position that “all high school students…(should) take a college-preparatory curriculum to earn a diploma…” (p. 48) This is yet another value-based position, not reportage. While some politicians and educators support this goal, others note that a more differentiated high school curriculum is likely to better serve the very diverse high school population, particularly since a large percentage of new jobs in the decades to come will not require a college degree.

• QC awards points to states where “teacher evaluation is tied to student achievement” (p. 51). Such a policy is extremely controversial, given that many educators and analysts agree that efforts at this sort of simplistic cause-and-effect delineation both distort the complexity of causation in the schooling process and increase pressure for schools to become test preparation factories.
  

These examples and others in Quality Counts display the profound ideological bias in this document. In this volume the EPE editors— Virginia Edwards, the editor and publisher; Gregory Chronister, the executive editor; Lynn Olson, the executive project editor; Karen Diegmueller, the managing editor; and Mark W. Bomster, the assistant managing editor—are not journalists engaged in good faith, objective reporting. They are powerful advocates for a particular school ideology: state standards, the simplistic labeling of schools based on narrow indicators and the “sanctioning of low-performing schools,” “teacher evaluation tied to student achievement,” and so on—seemingly the whole industrial paradigm of schooling, from Ellwood Cubberly to George W. Bush.

If these EPE editors are not willing to publicly acknowledge their work as advocates in their yearly publication of Quality Counts, how can we trust the fairness of what they present each week in Education Week?

We call on Ms. Edwards and her colleagues to rectify this situation in which Education Week pretends to be a neutral reporter but actually engages in advocacy. Two obvious remedies come to mind.

1. EPE could cease to act as an advocate and thus cease to publish advocacy pieces such as Quality Counts.
2. EPE could play by the rules just as every other newspaper does and establish an identified editorial function. Then it would need to separate its reporters from its editorialists. Even the Wall Street Journal and the New Hampshire Union-Leader meet this standard.

It’s certainly long past time for Ms. Edwards and her colleagues to give up this charade of objectivity and play by the same journalistic rules as everyone else.

David Marshak
Philip Kovacs
Susan Ohanian
Jerry Bracey
William Spady
Deborah Meier

Parking Rule Comments - Will UFT Staffers get Priority?

From random comments on ICE-mail. Note the assumption that union bigwigs will get priority passes. Now one wouldn't necessarily object if they didn't misuse their positions to attack critics. But they do.

The city will issue at least 1,000 additional placards for those who work in more than one school. I wonder how many of the 1000 placards will go to Unity people visiting schools as district reps or itinerants?
____
I'm sure my district rep, who came to my school today, will get one. He told us what a good job the union did by not allowing the city to cut the number of parking spaces. He explained that Bloomberg did it as retaliation against the union (probably true). He also told our excessed paras that they had nothing to worry about. He explained that paras and teachers enjoy being excessed because they can just sit around the school having fun.
____
Many Unity people who are out of the classroom, used the uft positions to escape. They have no idea that so many of us entered this profession to teach, to be in the classroom, to develop relationships with kids, to have an impact on their lives, and we are pretty proud of the work we do despite the odds. That is why out of classroom Unity people don't care about parking placards, letters to file, autocratic principals and the rubber room. If they were effected, there would be one helluva fightback and no spin.

____
It seems to me that parking permits will be divvied up according to the pecking order in the school. Teachers in the click will get them. The principals spies will get them. Unity collaborators will get them. The hard working staff who earn their pay every day will have to park down the street and have to move their cars for alternate side. I'm sure BloomKlein will issue a regulation prohibiting teachers from leaving the school in-order to move their car for alternate side. This stupid rule will not cut down on green house gasses or encourage teachers to use mass transit. Except for teachers in certain parts of Manhattan all this dumb regulation will do is force teachers to park down the street from their schools and increase parking fines. This is nothing more that a punishment against teachers. I propose that Chancellor Klein
should be made to give up his park anywhere parking permit as an example to everyone.

____
A resolution needs to be issued by ICE calling on Randi to give up her "park anywhere" DOT parking permit as a show of solidarity with teachers who are loosing theirs.


Ed Note: Randi and Joel don't need permits - their chauffers just wait in the car. And do you think they have to worry about paying a parking ticket?

Teachers Issues in DC and Gaza

Rhee in DC Teacher Raise Proposal - Another Nail in the Coffin of Public Education

This morning, I stumbled across Tom Hoffman (Providence, RI) over at Tuttle SVC who raises some very important issues on the proposed DC teacher contract - This Raise Brought to You by the Broad Foundation.

Rhee wants to use donations from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and the Broad Foundation, in part, to pay for the raises and bonuses. Officials from the Gates and Broad foundations would not comment on proposed future funding.

I don't know if any more information than that has subsequently come out (I can't find it easily if it has), but if that's still the plan, it has some rather shocking implications. The DC government would be handing all the contributing foundations a virtual veto on their education policy for at least the next five years, the ongoing capacity to trigger a fiscal crisis in the District at their whim.

Five years, the proposed term of the contract, is a long time to our new power philanthropists. They have a short history, but they've already established a clear pattern of packing up and leaving when things don't go their way, including when the citizens of a city don't vote the way they like, or when democratically elected officials don't see things their way, or when the top down reforms they've imposed simply fail.

Tom has a lot of interesting things to say and I've added Tuttle SVC to the Outside NYC blogroll.



Teachers fired over strike - in Gaza
But did they lose their parking permits?

I'm not sure of the source, but Jeff K who keeps us informed of union activity around the world - a good contast to the lack of such in the UFT - posted this on ICE-mail. Remember the monhts long Israeli teacher strike last year? Imagine - a union of Palestinian and Israeli teachers. Nahhh! Why would we expect workers to put their common interests ahead of nationalism when we see American workers who vote against their own interests all the time?

In Gaza, the Fatah-controlled teachers’ union called a strike to protest teacher transfers. Hamas took the opportunity to replace an estimated 2,000 of the 9,000 teachers who walked out. “Anybody who left their job will not be allowed to return,” said the Hamas education minister. “They have become irrelevant and cannot be trusted anymore as educators.” This is bad news for the students, who don’t know whether to return to school or not, and bad news for the teachers, who are out of a job if they don’t return to work - and who are out of a job if they do return to work because the Palestinian Authority, headed by Fatah, “would fire teachers who accepted school promotions,” according to a teachers’ union leader.

“This is a disaster,” said Aly, a 47-year-old math teacher who declined to give his full name for fear of offending Hamas or Fatah. “The big losers are me and my students.” Wael, a 38-year-old physics teacher and Fatah loyalist, said he felt bullied into striking. “My salary and future are tied to the side that pays me,” he said. “At the same time, I am afraid there’ll be (Hamas) procedures taken against me.” He declined to give his family name because he did not support the Fatah-led walkout and feared his pay would be cut.

And Unity Caucus/UFT worries about losing dues checkoff if they should strike.

"You Don't Fit" - Fired in DC by Rhee

Hello - I just found your website and wanted you know about this website, www.reinstatedrart.com, sponsored by students and parents in support of a highly successful DC teacher who was dismissed from his 18 year post under Rhee's regime, with the explanation "you don't fit." I'm alerting the Daily Howler as well.

Who doesn't fit?

More on Dr. Art Siebans

From The Examiner

If there is a central spine that runs through all the changes and creates the dogma of the new day in D.C. schools, it is a sharp focus on the classroom, teachers and students. Listen to Rhee’s many speeches and pronouncements, and you will hear her dismiss any extraneous matters that would stop her reformers from getting great teachers who will improve test scores.

Keep this in mind: Great teachers; improved test scores.

Which brings me to the curious case of Art Siebens.

Siebens has taught biology and other science courses at Wilson Senior High for decades. My daughter took his AP bio class last year. They didn’t get along. Siebens accused my sweet daughter of insubordination and called me in for a meeting. Hardly shocked, I negotiated a detente.

To call Siebens quirky is an understatement. Do you know any other teacher who hauls out his guitar on “back to school” night and has parents sing “It’s a Water Water World,” his song about H20, to the tune of “If I Had a Hammer?” Siebens has recorded a collection that teaches science through song. His students sing and learn — even my unruly daughter.

By any statistical measure, Siebens is a success. His students consistently score well on the AP bio test. His Wilson classes are filled with high-performing students headed for top colleges, but minorities learn and score high as well. Numbers do not lie.

So, Art Siebens is by all accounts a great teacher, and his students score well on tests. So why was he fired? Neither Rhee nor Wilson’s new principal, Pete Cahall, has offered a complete explanation to Siebens’ fans, including 560 who have signed a petition to bring him back.

“Dr. Siebens was one of those rare teachers at Wilson who really, truly cared about his students,” wrote Devorah Flax-Davidson, 2005 valedictorian now at Michigan. She was “horrified and incensed” that Siebens got the gate.

Siebens isn’t talking — or singing. His supporters are appealing to Fenty and Rhee, but neither will make a move. Clearing up the Siebens debacle falls squarely in the lap of Pete Cahall.

It’s a no-brainer — bring him back, to suit Rhee’s dogma: great teachers and high test scores.

E-mail Harry Jaffe at hjaffe@washingtonian.com

Help Reinstate Wilson High School Teacher Art Siebens
Barbara Somson

You may have heard about the unsupported firing of one of Wilson’s most beloved teachers, Dr. Art Siebens, who taught Anatomy and AP Biology among other science subjects. He was, without a doubt, one of the very best DCPS teachers Becca ever had, and his dismissal has stunned us and many others.

Students and families who know Art Siebens have created a grassroots campaign to get Dr. Siebens reinstated. If you are or have been a Wilson student or parent of a student and if you would like to help support Dr. Siebens, the students have created an online petition that just went up on July 17 at http://gopetition.com/petitions/reinstate-dr-art-siebens.html.

You can read more about the situation and Art’s very creative and inspirational teaching at the petition web site as well. I encourage you to join the campaign and help spread the word so we can get Dr. Siebens back where he belongs!

http://www.dcwatch.com/themail/2008/08-07-20.htm

Teacher Reviews Mr. Fry and NCLB

Andea Mauk a teaching colleague of Jack Freiberger in LA, nails the kind of failures of NCLB that drive people out of teaching in her review of his one man play "They Call Me Mr. Fry." over at her blog (my review is here and not nearly as effective politically and educationally.) Jack has some videos on his site.

Here are some excerpts from Andrea's review:

A former colleague of mine, Jack Freiberger, put on a one man show in Culver City yesterday. Even though I taught Saturday school, I rushed off to see the show with my mom, and we didn't even make it on time. Yet, we went in, and as we did, I was floored. There was my story, so many teachers' stories coming to life on the stage. It was so moving, so fantastically presented. Jack played many characters, but none more poignantly than Anthony, a "problem" student that came from a hard-knock background.

He dealt with the No Child Left Behind Act that has brought misery to so many classrooms across America in such a humorous but telling way. He shared the fact that he was written up for playing King Arthur, using a pink clown's ballon tied as a sword because LAUSD has a zero tolerance weapons policy. He subsequently got called to the principal's office because he was teaching math at the wrong minute of the day.

Yet, this is the reality that I face everyday. I was hired by the former principal because I was creative, and I could bring a plethora of talents to the classroom. Yet, due to our school's lack of progress at meeting our No Child Left Behind progress goals, my talent is no longer needed in the classroom. Instead, what is desired is a robot teacher who can follow the daily schedule to the exact minute, execute the lesson plan without grasping the teachable moments because the teachable moments that pop up are not part of the objective of the lesson, and unless the lesson is delivered in an extremely precise manner, the students "will not learn." I feel as if I am being asked to change my very essence.

So, as of yesterday, between my conversation with our current principal and watching the life of an NCLB teacher played out on stage, I came to realize that what made me a "good" teacher is exactly what the powers that be don't want to see in the classroom.

My mom has a habit of watching CNN endlessly, which to me is depressing, but she tells me almost daily that it is the teachers that are getting blamed for the woes of our educational system. I am not saying the teachers are blameless. However, not one teacher at my school knows exactly what "they" are looking for. In order to be an effective teacher, you are supposed to set clear expectations. Yet, the teachers have no idea exactly what is expected of them. They only hear what they have done wrong.

The fear has been so craftily instilled that I find myself working on various planning sheets that we are expected to have, and doing work for the "well planned lesson" until the moment it is time for me to go to bed. For teachers, bedtime comes early. As Jack said in the play, "Even my alarm clock is pissed off that it has to wake up at 5:30 every morning."

My house is a mess because there's only time to put toward the job, there are papers everywhere from lessons that need to be planned and projects and this and that. It's not a life. It's out of control. I saw it on stage yesterday, a mirror of my life, so touching and yet so ridiculous.

John McCain for President - An Ad You'll Love

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Svmd6ps1BMc

The "Teacher Agenda" Defused

You hear the phony ed reformers say it all the time: schools are currently set up for adults (teachers) than for kids. What a load of bull. Like they really are setting things up for kids rather than the corporate work force. Exactly who are the people who fight for lower class size? In all my years in the system I found teachers were often the fiercest fighters for their kids.

A post today from guest blogger Yo Mis over at NYC Educator addresses this brilliantly.

Recently, at an event dubbed “Ed Challenge for Change,” certain Democratic politicians had a fine time denouncing teachers’ unions. Most curious, I thought, was Colorado State Senator Peter Groff, who complained that when the adult agenda meets the children’s agenda, “the adult agenda wins too often.” This statement led me to ponder what, exactly, is the “adult agenda” in education. Let’s assume that the “adult agenda” is roughly the “teacher agenda,” as I cannot imagine what else Sen. Groff could possibly mean.

Make sure to read the entire thing. It is Superb! I'm not sure there's any better way to say this.

One of the corrolaries is their line "schools should be for children, not adults (teachers)".

But is their agenda "for children" really favorable to children or the imposition of a privatized, business, competitive model on schools and children? How have children benefitted from the chaotic reorganizations of the BloomKlein years? How do they benefit from credit recovery? Or seat time? Or easier tests?

How do the mostly innocent students benefit from walking into a police state every morning through metal detectors?

Parking permits for teachers reduced by 82%

....63,000 to 11,000 this year, the largest amount in the city by far.

UPDATE:
From NY 1: Weingarten said she's relieved the number of available spots is staying the same. "I'm actually surprised at Ed for talking about it that way," said Weingarten. "Ultimately what has happened here is there are 25,000 parking spots right now in the city of New York for school teachers and as of next week there will still be 25,000 parking spots for school teachers."

Weingarten's numbers don't match - and we need MORE spaces, not less.

The ICE blog has a post with a letter showing the extent of the UFT sell-out. Why did they drop the grievance when this is clearly a reduction in working conditions?

Will the UFT and DOE solidify it's collaboration on merit pay to teachers whose kids score high by giving those teachers preferences for the permits?

We once had a teacher who on the first day had her car stolen. Someone at a school she had been at saw the car go by with someone driving it. She quit the next day.

This is a real hit in working conditions for many. For teachers, especially in elementary schools who do a lot of schlepping from far away, this is a major hit. If I had to take public transportation, my trip would have taken an hour and a half instead of 35 minutes.

And how about the high crime areas? I can't count the number of batteries, radios, broken windows, one alternator, a distributor cap with wires, that I lost right down the block from the school. There's nothing like trying to teach while worrying whether you will lose part of your day's pay for a ticket or worse, have no car left.

Every school seems to be short of spots. Watch the promises to get more go up in smoke. At PS 84K there was a major shortage of spots and the administration and UFT rep worked very hard to free up a few more spots from the dreaded alternate side rules - why not clean before or after school? We finally won a few but some months later the signs were changed back. Let's say the bureaucracy at the Dept of Transportation was not exactly cooperative, if not outright disdainful of teacher parking problems.

But it's not punitive that teachers took the biggest hit by far said a Bloomberg spokesperson who was just thrilled with the way the UFT collaborated :

the teachers union has been "very reasonable...a pleasure to work with" on the placard issue. Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, had been prepared to go to court to block the reductions but said she was relieved that the number of spots remains the same. It's simply fewer placards. "This was at least a rational way of dealing with this," Weingarten said. The principals and a UFT rep at each school will determine who gets the placards. - Daily News.

More stories in the NYPost, NY Times.

Unions stress over racism in the ranks

DENVER — Racial prejudice is being cited among senior union leaders to explain Sen. Barack Obama’s difficulty in winning over support from white rank-and-file members.

The Hill

Democrats: All On Board in Attack on Teacher Unions

Revised 8/26, 11:30 pm- for The Wave, School Scope column to be published Friday, Aug. 29.

We've been pointing out that when it comes to the ed reform movement, Democrats have not been all that far away from the Republican agenda. Joel Klein, Joe Williams, Al Sharpton, Cory Booker and the rest of the Educational Equality Project gang are Democratic Party (I won't call them democratic because they are in favor of dictatorship over the schools of poor minority kids while white suburban parents get to vote on school boards and budgets.)

A typical anti-union cartoon

The Bigger, Bolder approach would seem more in line with traditional values of the Party but as Phylissa Cramer and Kelly Vaughan have been pointing out at Gotham Schools, they may not be all that different. Are the EEP and Bigger, Bolder approaches all that far apart? Both call for accountability. But what does that mean? Where is the accountability on the part of politicians and the business community?

Kelly writes:

And as a society, it makes no sense to put the whole burden on schools. I will know that our nation really wants to leave no child behind when I see a complete package of funded legislation that takes on health care (physical and mental), housing, environmental justice, early childhood education, and a host of other issues that affect the development and opportunities of our kids. “Our schools are failing,” is nothing but an excuse when the rest is left unaddressed.

To me, it looks like common sense: no excuses schools in a no excuses society.

Let’s move beyond the “false choice” and explore what two-way accountability could look like in practice. Anyone?

When Randi Weingarten jumps on the one-way accountability bandwagon - "Yes, we do want to be accountable" - we know we are in trouble. I've been asking Randi for a decade, "Accountable for what and to whom?" Listen, I jumped on her from the day she first uttered her support for mayoral control in 2001 when I knew from the Chicago experience that the only answers politicians will have is to blame teachers and their union.

What I want my union leader to say is: We have always been accountable to our children and to our parents and to our principals. But to some federal, state and city government that raises itself above accountability? No way!

So yesterday she had a golden opportunity in her speech at the Democratic convention to make an important point for teachers. Naturally, she failed the test.

Chapter leader Lisa North commented on ICE-mail:

Wow, Randi's speech basically said nothing about education except that public education is important and too must testing is not a good idea. It seemed very weak.

Lisa, I didn't expect anything more. Like did you hear her mention class size and the studies that support it? Did you hear her call for full funding of education instead of wars and bailouts? Did you hear her call them on No Excuses - on their part?

Randi has always tried to play both sides against the middle by bending over backwards to try to show she is a reasonable union leader and "progressive" in a willingness to give up teachers.
To be perfectly fair, she is just following the trail blazed by Al Shanker back in the early 80's when he jumped on board the same bandwagon. (plug- plug - get a pdf of our review of the Kahlenberg book on Shanker.)

But what good as it done the AFT/UFT as they still keep coming under attack? Thus, read yesterday''s Michelle O'Neill report at Ed Week

Union Tensions at DNC

The education event that followed the NEA luncheon showed the growing tensions within the Democratic Party over school reform, and the role of teachers’ unions.

Though it’s no surprise an event sponsored by the Democrats for Education Reform would have a slight anti-union message; many of the speakers at the event took several shots at unions during the press conference announcing the Education Equality Project in June.

Today, the sentiment was strong and persistent at standing-room-only, three-hour forum called Ed Challenge for Change. In fact, some of the big-city mayors who participated predicted that had such a forum been held four years ago, a mere five souls would have showed.

Here at the Denver Art Museum, Democratic mayors from Newark, N.J., Washington D.C., and Denver joined education reform darlings including New York City’s Joel Klein and Washington D.C.’s Michelle Rhee. The group was referred to as the “misfits” of the Democratic Party by DFER's Joe Williams, a nod to their willingness to speak up against the influence of teachers’ unions, which have formed the backbone of the party.

The educators, along with the Rev. Al Sharpton, kicked off the event with a nearly hour-long press conference to tout the event. There, Rhee (who left early to catch a flight home; D.C. schools open on Monday), took the Democrats to task, saying the party is “supposed to be the party that looks out for poor and minority kids,” when that’s not actually happening.

The anti-union sentiment spilled over into policy forums that followed. The fight against the teachers’ unions and other special interests is a “battle at the heart of the Democratic Party,” said Newark Mayor Cory Booker. “As Democrats, we have been wrong on education. It’s time to get right.”

Even former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer, who has tried to avoid controversy in his position as the ED in ’08 leader, earned some murmurs from the audience when he said that reformers cannot be “wedded to someone else’s union rules and that politicians, practically speaking, need to work with unions even thought they are “wedded to the past.”

See more reports at Slate and Dana Goldstein at The American Prospect who says:

if ...teachers... embrace the Democrats for Education Reform agenda -- giving up tenure in exchange for higher starting salaries and merit pay tied to student achievement -- the unions will have to get with the program. If they don't, they'll risk becoming irrelevant to their own members.


Unions are already becoming irrlevant (how many vote in elections?) to their own members for the opposite reasons: capitulation to the BloomKlein Educational Equality Project agenda. Unfortunately, Randi Weingarten will not resist the "advice" Dana Goldstein offers and will continue to lead the teacher union movement into oblivion.

The Perimeter Primate Takes on George Will

Oakland parent Sharon Higgins left this comment on the Daily Howler critique of George Will I posted Sunday. It is worth sharing as a separate post. Her blog, The Perimeter Primate, touches on a number of important issues. Here, Sharon exposes the myth of charter schools - that they succeed with the same kids who failed in public schools.

photo from Sharon's blog.

The fluff about this school has been driving me nuts for years!

Here's what I wrote to George Will.

Dear Mr. Will,

In preparing your recent column in the Washington Post (8/21/08), "Where Paternalism Makes the Grade," you may have wished to take a look at the demographic changes over the past several years at the American Indian Public Charter School. I am certain that you were unaware of them when you wrote the piece, but their influence must be considered when discussing the changes that have occurred at this particular school. Otherwise, a true picture is not portrayed.

Dr. Chavis’ first year at the school was 2001-02. By the time he began his third year at the school, a new course for the school was in place—the acquisition of more students from the higher performing subgroups and a reduction of students from the lowest performing subgroups. Please note the changes in enrollment which occurred.

(Incidentally, the demographics of Oakland were not shifting in this same way. They have remained stable with the exception of an increase in Latino residents and a decline in African American residents.)

The percentage of the school’s students who were in the following subgroups: American Indian or Alaska Native, Pacific Islander, Filipino, Hispanic or Latino, or African American in the 12 school years from 1996-97 to 2007-08.

1996-97 = 100.0
1997-98 = 97.0
1998-99 = 93.8
1999-00 = 100.1
2000-01 = 97.0
2001-02 = 100
2002-03 = 98.7
2003-04 = 74.3
2004-05 = 55.4
2005-06 = 65.3
2006-07 = 51.1
2007-08 = 50.5

Here is the changing percentage of the school’s students who were in the following subgroups: Asian or White.

Please note the unusual increase in 2003:

1996-97 = 0.0
1997-98 = 2.9
1998-99 = 6.2
1999-00 = 0.0
2000-01 = 2.9
2001-02 = 0.0
2002-03 = 1.2
2003-04 = 25.72004-05 = 44.6
2005-06 = 33.7
2006-07 = 22.4
2007-08 = 38.4

This data was obtained from the California Department of Education @ http://dq.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/

In 2006, questions were being raised about the selectivity of students.
Suddenly, the school had an unprecedented number of students who were not specifying their subgroup. The percentage in this group had been nonexistent for 10 years. It suddenly jumped to 26.4 percent and has remained over 10 percent since. This certainly appears odd and would be one way to muddy the true demographics of the student population.

Sincerely, Sharon Higgins, Oakland parent
http://perimeterprimate.blogspot.com/

Eduwonkette Revealed - Phew, Now I Can Talk

Just a few weeks less than the first anniversary of the Eduwonkette blog, Diana Schemo in this week's NY magazine reveals Eduwonkette's real identity - Jennifer Jennings, a grad student at Columbia in the sociology department. Jennifer explains why she came out on her blog. Read her post and wonderful cartoon here.

And yes, I knew all along and am notoriously bad at keeping secrets, but she really scared the crap out of me - like if I squealed she would never work and I would have to send her money. Trying to keep a secret for almost a year for a yenta like me was torture.

She was a tough task master, making sure I didn't write anything too revealing. When we both attended an AERA event in March where Rotherham and Russo (and the Times' Jennifer Medina) were on a panel, we didn't sit together. She had to leave early and used some of my notes for her report. She was attacked by Rotherham for being connected to a crazy like me.

So let me say right here that though I've known Jennifer for 4 years that does not indicate agreement on her part with the stuff put out on Ed Notes.

Recently I spent an extended afternoon with Jennifer. Let me say this: there's no one in the education world where 4 hours of ed talk can be so enlightening - and mind wrenching - and thought provoking. One of the sad parts of our conversation was that her anonymity was interferring with her meeting too many people. It was clear she was planning an exit strategy from anonymity. The time frame seems to have been speeded up a bit.

There's a lot of areas where we agree and many where we don't. But don't be surprised if the crazies at the DOE who disparage Jennifer's exposure of their stats as biased go even further in attacking her for knowing the "wrong" people.

I personally pooh pooh research with an attitude of "Don' need no stinkin' research" to tell me what I instinctively know as a teacher. Like forget the class size research, even though the Tennessee study validates low class sizes. All teachers will point to class size as a major issue. But without research, what would all the researchers in education do? And all the pundits?

From the day I met Jennifer 4 years ago at a Walton HS (in the Bronx) press conference where the addition of small schools to an overcrowded building was an issue, I was impressed by the depth of knowledge of just about every ed issue out there. And the way she approached issues from the dual perspective of a researcher and a teacher.

She doesn't like to talk much about it but she did have some teaching experience in an urban setting and though brief, it was enough to inform her with a "teacher" mentality and that is how she approaches many issues. Thus, at no point will you find any hint of the teacher bashing that goes on amongst so many pundits. Maybe that is what upsets the DOE about her.

I remember telling people who bash the younger generation that with people like Jennifer there was a lot of hope. When I told her about ICE, she expressed interest in observing meetings as part of her research to see what it was all about. At that time ICE spent a lot of time debating education issues which many of us found more interesting than UFT electoral and caucus politics. She also recorded a special well-attended event we held at the old Stuyvesant building on small schools a few years ago.

Last September I had lunch with Jennifer on the day the Broad prize was announced as being given to Bloomberg/Klein at a "Pain Quotidienne" in the Village. She had been sending me some of the wonderful research she was into and it seemed a shame it didn't have a wider audience. (I had even spoken at PEP meetings using some of her research which I fuzzed up enough to keep her anonymous.) The Ed notes blog was about a year old at the time and I offered to publish some of her work.

She raised the idea of doing her own blog but also her reservations about it as she expresses in the reveal announcement on her blog. We talked about the idea of going anonymous as many bloggers do. We also spent a lot of time discussing the teacher effectiveness/quality issue that day. (We disagree in some areas.)

A few days later she sent me the prototype of her blog and and I was impressed. She went public a few days after that with a week long series on teacher effectiveness (worth reading again) that was very powerful.

I'm proud that Ed Notes was the first blog to announce her debut on her first day. Some major blogs plugged in the first day also. She got 300 hits that day.

By December, Education Week came calling with an offer to reach an even wider audience (she would not accept money.) There was never an expectation she would come under the kinds of attack she did for being anonymous." But the immediate impact she had was also unexpected.

Class Size Matters' Leonie Haimson is a good friend of Jennifer's and one afternoon after an event at Teachers College, I had the privilege of spending time with these two amazing ladies. Talk about brain power. Mine felt like a shriveling pea. When people ask why I am still doing this stuff 6 years after retiring, my answer is getting to know people like Leonie and Jennifer.

Leonie commented on her listserve soon after Jennifer's announcement:

Jennifer is beautiful and brilliant and it’s a relief not to have to keep her identity secret any more….She also did the seminal study of the “bubble kids” in Texas; see her study here and her WaPost oped here.

There will undoubtedly be many more pathbreaking studies to come – that is, if Bloomberg/Klein do not put out a hit against her.

Let’s hope her unmasking does not negatively affect her academic future!


Amen! Jennifer's real concerns about her notoriety affecting her ability to work in the academic areas will be tested. My sense without knowing anything about that world is that she may find it helps. Plus, she has garnered enormous respect. (Jeez, the very idea that Leo Casey and I agree on anything is frightening.)

Eduwonkette is not all about dry research. Her cleverness, charm, and fabulous wit came along with it.

Leonie unwittingly played a role in introducing Jennifer to someone who became a good friend.

"Class size really DOES matter," Jennifer commented.

Why I Hate Teach for America

"Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a big fan of the New York City Teaching Fellows either. I’m not defending NYCTF for it’s faults, which include provided precious little support and training for their new teachers as well as frightenly high turnover rates. According to a 2007 Village Voice article, by their fifth year teaching, less than fifty percent of Teaching Fellows remain from a given cohort. But at least in NYCTF the high turnover rate is seen as a failure. In TFA, the high turnover rate is designed as part of the program. TFA members are expected to leave teaching after their two-year commitment is up, those who continue to teach are seen as the exception."

From Anna, a 3rd year NYC Teaching Fellow. Read full piece posted at Feministe.

Thanks to Voice