Labor Day Special: Yelena Siwinski, Mark Torres, Brenda Walker, Clarence Taylor on WBAI, 6PM

Labor Day- Monday, September 5th, 6pmWBAI-Building Bridges Radio Show
Education Panel to start the program at 6PM on the issues ahead for this coming school year for parents/teachers/children - preserving and enhancing public education.

• Yelena Siwinski  (GEM/Grassroots Education Movement)
• Mark Torres (PPM/Peoples Power Movement)
• Brenda Walker (CPE/Coalition of Public Education)
• Clarence Taylor (Recently released book - "Reds At The Blackboard")

      WBAI’s Radio Building Bridges: Your Community & Labor Report
                           Produced by Mimi Rosenberg and Ken Nash
               Monday, September 5, 2011,  6  - 11 pm EST, over 99.5 FM
                           or streaming live at http://www.wbai.org            
                                           ******************
Fighting the Merchants of Austerity, a Building Bridges Labor Day Special
Now, in the U.S. one percent of the population rakes in almost a quarter of the national

income and has amassed forty percent of the wealth. That class sees this as a problem

– it’s simply not enough!

For corporate America, the recession has  meant the opportunity to mold the economy

into something approximating the Third World model: vast wealth, power and privilege

for those at the top, and chronic unemployment, falling wages, and inadequate or

nonexistent services for the rest of society.

The mantra of the “haves and have mores” has been to further slash benefits and

entitlements at a time of heightened need, while simultaneously calling for more tax cuts

for themselves. And, President Obama has as well advocated for cuts in Medicare,

Medicaid and Social Security, life-sustaining entitlements, as sacrifices on the altar of a

balanced budget, while talk of the pain of the ever increasing masses of theunemployed

has all but disappeared from the mainstream discourse.

The merchants of austerity across the country demean those fighting for  jobs, and those

seeking to hold onto jobs with benefits as some insidious special interest undermining

the public good.  The hope that the protests in the mid-west against ultra-reactionary

state governments and union busting employers would prove to be a catalyst to create a

national movement have yet to reach fruition.  But, there are voices raised offering

guidance and inspiration not only for fighting the cuts backs, but for forging a new agenda

for us, which must involve mass redistribution of the wealth.

This Labor Day join Building Bridges as we bring a diverse array of voices to you who not

only resist going backwards, but will provide new insights to reverse the war on the workers

and move forward.   
 *******************
                                     Listen on your Smartphone     WBAI live streams are available on the iPhone, BlackBerry, Android &
     other smartphones. For more information, go to http://stream.wbai.org            

                                             Listen When You Want        Building Bridges and most WBAI Programs are now being archived
     for 90 Days. These links will be live ca. 15 minutes after the program ends.
                         To listen, or download archived shows go to                       http://archive.wbai.org/show1.php?showid=bbridges            

                                                  Visit our web site -
                                     www.buildingbridgesradio.org 

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

Protest and Rally Against Egregious School Staff Layoffs: Weds Sept. 7, 4PM

Update: From Leonie Haimson

Happy Labor Day and welcome back to a new school year.  I hope you had a good summer and rest. 

Unfortunately, the DOE has not been honoring those who work in our schools.  Instead, they are planning to lay-off nearly 800 school aides and other school-based personnel; people who help our kids every day.

The day before school begins, on Wednesday, at 4 PM in front of Tweed, we are co-sponsoring a protest against the proposed lay-offs; for more on these layoffs, see Juan Gonzalez’ column here and a flyer on our blog.

This year, we also expect to return to a much diminished teaching force; with more than 3000 or more teaching positions lost and/or teachers excessed. While enrollment is still increasing, this is likely lead to the highest class sizes in eleven years  in many grades.  (See how the DOE received an “F”  in the city’s performance reports, largely because of rising class sizes.) 

Meanwhile, DOE keeps adding hundreds of positions, in an unprecedented expansion of the mid-level and central bureaucracy, spending tens of  millions of dollars for highly paid educrats called “achievement coaches” , “teacher effectiveness consultants”, “talent managers” and the like, none of whom will ever directly  help a single child. 

They also plan to spend more than $36 million for new local assessments,  $12 million for new teacher evaluation systems, $10 million to expand the central “innovation office” and “innovation managers,” and millions more to expand online learning -- even as school budgets are cut for the fifth year in a row.  (For more details on all this new spending, see the DOE document here.)

One of the new achievement coaches was just appointed to that post after the Special Investigator found that as principal, she had  passed 30 students who had failed their courses; this is more evidence of DOE’s deep-rooted pathology,  just like the way they rewarded Verizon with a $120 million contract after the company was found complicit in fraud.

The entire way the department is  run is the antithesis of Children First – instead it should be renamed Educrats First. 

Please join us in protest against these unfair layoffs and the systematic way DOE is disinvesting in schools and the classrooms -- and further bloating the bureaucracy:

Who:   Parents, teachers, labor and community leaders including Class Size Matters, NYC Parents Union, Local 327-DC 37, UFT, CEP, GEM, the Mothers' Agenda New York, NYCORE, Teachers Unite, ICE, NY Charter Parents Association & OurSchoolsNYC.org

When:  Wednesday, September 7, 2011 at 4 PM

What:  Protest & Rally Against egregious School Staff Layoffs

Where:  New York City Department of Education, 52 Chambers Street

Bring your kids! They’re the ones being deprived of a quality education; they might as well get an education in politics and protest.

And on Thursday, please try to count the other students in your children’s classrooms, or ask your children do that for themselves, and report back to me what the situation is at leonie@att.net.

MEDIA ADVISORY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 2, 2011

Contacts:

Mona Davids, New York City Parents Union, (917) 340-8987

Protest and Rally Against Egregious School Staff Layoffs 

Who:   Coalition of parents, teachers, labor and community leaders including the New York City Parents Union, Local 327-DC 37, United Federation of Teachers, Coalition for Public Education, Grassroots Education Movement, Class Size Matters, The Mothers' Agenda New York, NYCORE, Teachers Unite, Independent Community of Educators, New York Charter Parents Association and OurSchoolsNYC.org

When:   Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Time: 4:00PM

What:   Protest & Rally Against Egregious School Staff Layoffs

Where:   New York City Department of Education, 52 Chambers Street

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

Who are we? A common vocabulary is indispensable to building a movement

Updated: 9AM

The ed deformers have spent a lot of time and money in the branding game. They are reformers. We are status quoers (though that game is wearing thin given that they control so many school systems for a decade or longer and are now the status quo themselves - something we need to point out at every opportunity). In their branding game, they are for children, we are for adults. Another term we need to turn around by showing how the adults like Rhee and Klein and Moskowitz are doing very well on the backs of the children they claim to represent and that teachers and parents who oppose them truly represent children.

One of the goals behind the GEM movie "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman" was to turn the tables on the so-called ed reformers by reframing the debate using our terms, not theirs. Thus they are not reformers but deformers, a term I take credit for creating years ago. The current vogue seems to be referring to them as "corporate reformers" and us as the Real Reformers – thus the reason we call the GEM committee that work on the film "Real Reform Studio."

It is important for us to take back the language of reform from the deformers. It is important to label them for what they are - when we talk to people, speak publicly, leave comments on blogs, etc. If you are in a school, hold a seminar on this topic when you get back to school - make these points at union meetings and to parents.

And make sure to challenge the ed deformers on the trashing of class size as a major Real Reform - that's how you can tell the difference between a Real Reformer and an Ed Deformer. I got that insight when I had a mini debate with E4E's Sydney Morris in a bar where she through out the ed deform argument that you can only make a difference if you lower class size to 15 (like ed deformers who pay 30 grand a year for their own kids to get low class size). Sydney argued that there was no real difference between mid-20's and 30, showing the agenda is NOT children first- or teachers either from a group supposedly representing teacher interests.

You can get the best arguments on class size from Leonie Haimson - here is a post on Norms Notes you can use: Unproven Online Learning Fails Test by Ed Deform Standards - Contradictions on Class Size

In going through old email I found this interchange from last June. Leonie Haimson responds to an email titled "Who Are We?":

I have long believed that we need to reclaim that word “reform” for ourselves; we at PAA say we support “progressive education reform.” and oppose “corporate reform” that’s based on privatization, competition, and high-stakes testing. I am starting to use the hashtag #realreform when I tweet (if I have the room.)


Leonie Haimson
Class Size Matters/Parents Across America

Who Are We?

The other day a local paper referred those opposed to school privatization and de-professionalization of teachers as “critics of the school reform movement.” I don’t regard privatizing schools, abolishing local democratic control of schools, or replacing qualified teachers with untrained temporary workers as a “reform movement,” especially give the positive connotations that the word “reform” carries. The dictionary definition of reform is 1. to make better 2. to improve by removing faults and or abuses. School privatization is no more a reform movement than the policy to privatize prisons is a “prison reform movement.” Both share the goal of shifting public assets into the private sector and removing publicly funded institutions from direct elected government oversight and accountability.

But the ease with which the media can characterize us as contrarians does raise an important issue. A common vocabulary is indispensable to building a movement. The privatization advocates have done this well, wrapping the market-based model in the language of choice, opportunity, rights, and equality and even arrogating the image of the “new civil rights movement.” This last piece of word play is especially offensive give that the goal of the civil rights movement was to empower dispossessed and disenfranchised people, not steal what little they controlled.

So who are we? What terms should we use as political shorthand that will convey what our goals are? The school privatizers dismiss us as supporters of the “status quo” and the label will stick as long as we don’t reach a consensus on how we define ourselves and that encoded shorthand phrase conveys our vision of education.

In a sense, we are defined by the other opposition—we are resisting “reforms” that don’t make education “better” and don’t remove “faults.” We are “anti-privatization, “anti-business model,” “anti-market-based model” and anti teacher-deproffesionalization. Defining us in oppositional terms may makes sense—the “anti-war” movement had its appeal. But is there a positive, visionary and universal definition that would serve us better; one that would denote our belief in educational excellence, equity, and democracy?

Are we the “school democracy” movement, or is that too narrow and does that not address that democracy by itself is not the solution to the problems of inadequate and inequitable educational funding, high-stakes testing, and poverty? Without a common analysis of the problem and its solutions and a common vocabulary to express those ideas, we allow the other side to define our public image.

So how do we encapsulate the message that we are “status futurum” rather than “status quo”? I am sure that this discussion is occurring in other circles but it would be helpful to engage our growing movement in a public discussion through the internet.

ATR Life In Limbo Strikes Again

The saddest thing I saw was a male teacher about my age, who had two kids with him, about the ages of my older two. His name tag said, “Technology and Computer Science” and his kids kept pointing to tables saying, “What about this one, Dad?” or “This is a high school, Dad, how about here?” and he kept answering, “No, they don’t want me, they don’t want me.” My heart broke for this man, and my anger flared at a system that throws people on the trash heap like day-old bread.  

she was behind me, shouting. “Move over here! Yes, YOU! I’ll speak slowly. MOVE…OVER…HERE."

But do you know who there was an abundance of? TEACHING FELLOWS! Brand new, shiny, sparkling Teaching Fellows! Everywhere! Even though the invitation e-mail specifically stated that this “job fair” was for ATRs exclusively.

Life in Limbo over at NYCATR has been chronicling the indignities that exist in the ATR world. Here is a post on the hiring hall at the Brooklyn Museum this past week.

I wasn’t going to go. 

I’ve become tired of dancing to the same old song and, sorry, I was just going to sit this one out. And I’ve already seen all of the paintings in the European Masters room. While I love Rembrandt, THSC, could you please move the fairs to a different gallery? I think the Surrealists make a better backdrop for this, anyway. 

But my inner masochist had been looking forward to this all week, and she’s such a whiner when she doesn’t get her way, so off I went.

MORE at  Job Fair Tale #3: Fine Art and False Hopes

The work being done over at NYCATR has inspired us at GEM to gather some of these folks together to start getting the word out to other teachers and the general public as to what this game is all about.
------------------
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Math Applied to the NYC DOE

This came via email and no source. Thanks to Loretta Prisco.

There is discussion of eliminating algebra, trigonometry

and calculus and replacing it with “applied math”.

My suggestions for a new, and more useful test.

1)     The Dept.of Ed. (DOE) notified Principals that they could obtain waivers on the hiring freeze for new Math, SS and English teachers.  This, in spite of the fact that there are still over a 1000 ATR (those excessed from closing/closed schools) yet to be placed.

(a)   How much will the DOE spend to hire 1,000 new teachers at approximately $50,000 per teacher?

(b)   How much will the DOE spend to keep 1,000 experienced teachers at approximately 70,000 per teacher?

(c)   Explain the statement:  I don’t want the DOE managing my money.

2)     The Regents issued rules that (1) Districts could raise teacher ratings based on state tests from 20% to 40%, and (2) If the teacher were “Ineffective” in the rating based on student data, the overall rating be “Ineffective”, regardless of how well the teacher did on the 60% of the rating on other measures. The judge overturned the second rule, and said the first rule was subject to collective bargaining. The State is appealing.

(a)   Who’s on first?

(b)   Construct an evaluation system for at least 2 of the following: Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man,thief.

3)     Verizon was implicated, by Condon’s office, in a probe of consultant Willard Lanham accused of stealing $3.6 million. Lanham was to wire public schools for high-speed Internet. He was arrested and accused of overbilling the city for millions. Verizon’s direct profits from this deal were $800,000.

(a)   How long will it take you to run to check your Verizon bill?

(b)   How many positions could be saved if Verizon paid the city the $800,000 that it owes?

(c)   When was the last time you heard the phrase “your dime, start talking”?

4)     The DOE cut 737 school aides paid between $11,000- $27,000 each including benefits.  The city said that it was done because the union wouldn’t agree to concessions.

a)     Using an average salary, how much is the total savings from layoffs of school aides?

b)     How much more will the DOE spend to use Assistant Principals (salary approx. $110,000) to do lunch and bus duty?  Run off materials?   Take inventory?

5)     Since 2004, DOE contracts to outside consultants has soared 450% or more than $800,000.

a)     Develop a persuasive essay:  All contracts should be made with corrupt US companies that overcharge rather than foreign countries that do the same.

6)     British tabloid "News of the World" was shuttered amid a phone hacking and police bribery scandal.

NYS entered into a $27 million (to be paid with from the state’s $700 million award from Race to the Top) contract with Wireless Generation, a News Corp. affiliate, headed by Rupert Murdoch. They were to develop software to track student test scores.

(a)   If allowed to sign off on the $27 million contract, how much of the $700 million would remain to improve teaching and learning?

(b)   Would you trust a Rupert Murdoch subsidiary with your child’s personal data?

(c)   Do they have no shame?

7)     NYC  scores on English Language Arts (ELA) barely budged, and only 1/3 of Black and Latino children can read and write at state standards. More than 234,000 students failed to meet state standards in ELA – more students than in the entire Philly district. 8^th grade scores fell. In the 100 lowest-performing schools, ELA scores were completely stagnant. This year, as last year, 15% of students in those schools met standards in ELA. Out of the 27,726 children in those 100 schools, only 4,235 are proficient in reading and writing. Some of the least progress, 1 in 4 students, are meeting standards in some of the lowest-performing districts. And in these districts, boys are having the most trouble. In one district 10% of 8^th grade boys can read and write at state standards.  

(a)   What percentage increase would be achieved if we converted the lowest performing districts to all girls schools?

(b)   Restate the statistics above as the Mayor and Chancellor does to announce that the schools are doing better.

 

Today in The Wave: I Have a Feeling We May Be In Kansas---or Texas

Anthony Weiner, one of the most liberal members of Congress is in danger of being raplaced by Tea Partier Bob Turner. The alternative is David Weprin who was chosen to run by Dems in a backroom deal. What a choice.

School Scope column in Sept. 2, 2011 edition of The Wave: www.rockawave.com

I Have a Feeling We May Be In Kansas---or Texas
by Norm Scott
Submitted Aug. 30, 2pm

One of the benefits I was hoping to get out of Hurricane Irene was the expectation that "Bob Turner for Congress" lawn signs would be transported to Kansas – or maybe Republican presidential front runner lunatic of the week Rick Perry's Texas where they would be right at home – at least until Perry has the state secede from the nation. If Perry does become the Republican nominee, guess whom your local Congressman, if he is Bob Turner, will support?

Daniel Solomon in his August 19 New Frontiers piece ("Stopping Tea Party Terrorists") in the WAVE did a pretty good number on Turner, pointing to how he will join the Republican obstructionists who want to protect billionaires and corporations that pay little or no taxes ("they're people too" said Mitt Romney, the supposedly only rational candidate) while cutting everything - including social security (Perry calls SS a Ponzi scheme) and Medicare - but ignore the really big spending items like defense where the USA spends more than every single nation combined. And how about those ridiculous farm subsidies for stuff like ethanol? Oh, yeah. Iowa decides political stuff so let's keep tossing money into the pockets of agri-business. Turner claims he won't cut SS and Medicare but just watch him do what the Tea Party heads of the new Republican Party tell him do.

Oh, and how about that global warming conspiracy the Republicans love to talk about, especially in Texas where they can chill out as the thermometer tops 100 degrees every day? Is Rick Perry an outbreak of prickly heat? Can't you feel the upcoming ice age? I was really worried about a glacier hitting my house as the storm of the century whizzed by. Wanna bet we get more than a few storms of the century as we buy beachfront property – in Pittsburgh.

Oh, you think our local version of the tea party are not part of the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party - oh, excuse me, no longer a fringe - the Tea-party IS the Republican Party. Fringe turns the whole buggy.

Not one of the leading Republican candidates believes in evolution. It's just a theory you know. Like the theory the earth is round. Turner wants intelligent design taught in the schools. And flat earth theory - I still can't figure out why we don't fall off if the earth is really round. And how about the sun revolving around the earth? "The debate is important to define our underlying principles that come from our creator and not from man," said Turner. For some reason I don't think I share the same creator with Turner. Or the same principles.

Excuse me - what did you say? This is an education column so I should get out of politics, stuff I clearly don't knew anything about? Ok. Did I hear Bob Turner wants to abolish the US Department of Education headed by Obama slug Arnie Duncan? Hmmm. I despise Duncan, who helped run the Chicago school system into the ground before being tapped by Obama to do the same to the rest of the nation. How delicious to see Obama buddy and now mayor of Chicago Rahm Emanuel trashing the 16-year-old Chicago mayoral controlled school system as being one of the worst in the nation? But I digress. I'm not talking about idiot Democrats – not yet.

Did you notice that one of the few areas of Obama's program not criticized by most Republicans is his education program? And what can Turner be critical of since Obama out-Bushed George Bush on end deform? Of course Turner has to be a school privatizer and supporter of "choice" - as long as choice leads to public funds flowing into private hands.

Republicans always want to remove any oversight over education so they can take us back to those wonderful days of late 19th century "separate but equal" of Plessey vs. Ferguson - or maybe even to pre-Civil War days when we had all those happy singin' 'n dancin' slaves who didn't need no public education. Not that I'm saying Bob Turner would own slaves if he could. Besides, I don't think they grow cotton in Breezy Point.

Can I talk about the Democrats now? David Weprin, who as I write this there were reports he ducked out of a debate with Turner? Oh, God! You mean the guy who was chosen to run by 3 people, one of whom was Geraldine Chapey - which one I don't know - aren't there 4 of them? The guy who comes from generations of politicians? Well, at least he wasn't endorsed by Ed Koch, like Turner was. My head is hurting. I'm starting to miss Weiner's weiner.

Wait a minute. There's another candidate. A real socialist. Not the Obama socialist (who has outcapitalisted George Bush in so many areas) the Republicans created out of myth. Christopher Hoeppner is his name and he is calling for workers to break with the two capitalist parties. Sounds good to me. Am I throwing away my vote? If I were the tie-breaking vote would I vote against Turner? I'm thinking of all the fun I can have writing columns about our very own Tea Party guy and watch him jump through hoops supporting the program - and campaigning for and with whatever loon the Republicans choose to run. But then again.....

Norm agonizes over these issues every day at: http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com

Hey Arne: Chicago Schools Branded a Failure by Mayor Emanuel and Brizzard

Even more insulting is that Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis refused to sit on the board to discuss how the extra 90 minutes would be imposed.  Is it too much to ask that she provide a little political cover by making it appear that the teachers were consulted.....


Only then will Chicago students be able to rise to the level of education juggernauts like the Houston Public Schools
 --Last Stand for Children First (satire)

"Chicago should not lead the country by being at the bottom," he (Rahm Emanuel) said, to some cheers.

Emanuel's handpicked Chief Executive Officer for Chicago Public Schools, Jean-Claude Brizard repeated the talking points about the city's public schools that he has been using since his first meeting with the Chicago Board of Education on June 15, 2011. According to Brizard, the public schools of Chicago have become a failure after sixteen years of mayoral control under Mayor Richard M. Daley and his school chiefs (Paul Vallas, from 1995 to 2001; Arne Duncan, from 2001 into 2009; and Ron Huberman, from 2009 to late 2010). In every speech, Brizard lists the various reasons why Chicago's schools are "failing."  

- Substance (Not satire, but could be)

Don't you love the fact that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Superintendent John Claude-Buzzard are trashing the Chicago schools run by Arne for 7 years and his predecessor Paul Vallas, the "pass the lemon" no-nothing Supt who destroyed school systems in Chi, Philly and New Orleans)? And that CTU President Karen Lewis refused that seat at the table that the UFT/AFT leaders so hunger for? Our union would have settled for 89 minutes and sold it as a victory.

One of our favorite master of satire bloggers has been enlisted in the cause.

Extending School Day is The Answer to All Our Problems

Last Stand for Children First has been involved in the education reform movement in Chicago since last winter when we were asked by Mayor elect Rahm Emanuel and business leaders in the Civic Federation to help with their grassroots efforts to fundamentally change education in the city.  This effort came to fruition with the passage of SB7 and now with Mayor Emanuel's attempts to impose a longer school day.

The teachers are being most uncooperative really.  After having their 4% raise voted down because the schools didn't have enough money, we promised to find a way to give them half their raise if they would only work another 327 1/2 hours.  That's a tidy little $3.08 per hour for a beginning teacher.

MORE AT: Last Stand for Children First

Go beyond the satire with the full story at Substance.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Chicago Public Schools sponsor Christian breakfast to promote CPS push for longer school day and year in Chicago

Excerpt:

Emanuel has changed his talking points since the mayoral election campaign, when he seemed to draw all of the "facts" he was citing from the movie "Waiting for Superman" and some unverified claims about Chicago's public schools. Prior to the prayer breakfast on August 25, Emanuel had been telling audiences that the average Chicago public school students had "four years" (later reduced in his talking points to "three years") less time in the classroom than a comparable public school student in Houston, Texas.

By August 25, 2011, Emanuel had changed years to "minutes."

Emanuel called on the clerics at the breakfast to issue a "battle cry for our children." He told the group that all over the USA children were in classes for "67,000 minutes per school year..."

Except in Chicago, where Emanuel claims the average public school child only gets "57,000 minutes..."

Emanuel then went through the grades, in the process ignoring the difference between Chicago high schools and elementary schools. He counted down, as if every year from kindergarten through 12th grade represented a "loss" that Chicago children suffered by comparison with the children across the USA. As usual, mayoral press people and others have refused to provide Substance with the studies and other materials that verify Emanuel's forcefully stated claims.

Like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, his ideological counterpart, Chicago's mayor is attacking public worker unions... Public education workers have become the new mayor's scapegoat... Rahm Emanuel continues his two Big Lies about Chicago teachers and school workers during Town Hall Meeting

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

Is John Owens Really a Bad Teacher?

This must read account of a career-changer who had a highly successful career but found that teaching in a dysfunctional school with an all too typical principal turned him into a failure - by the measure of the  system. He lasted through February. Owens was no different than I and so many other first year teachers were. But we were given time and more support than he received. Just his bad luck to get this school and not one with a reasonably sane leader. He would still be teaching.

In fact, Owens was reaching the kids in his own way and would have found his style - like I and others did in days of yore - but...

John Owens is an editor and writer who survived his detour/U-turn into teaching, though he misses the kids.

John Owens's Salon stories

Monday, Aug 29, 2011 19:01 ET

Confessions of a bad teacher

I took a job in the NYC public school system because I wanted to make a difference. I ended up living a nightmare


Commentary by Arjun Janah

This initially enthusiastic teacher, John Owens, a corporate veteran who ventured into teaching, lasted a year in the New York City classrooms. He taught in one of the small public schools launched by the Bloomberg administration under his Chancellor, Joel Klein.  As has been the practice, this school was created after closing down the large school that used to occupy the building in which it, along with other such small schools, are currently housed.

Mr. Owens' sincerity was an insurmountable obstacle. He remembered what schools were (and still are, to a large extent, where the problems are fewer).

He accurately (and engagingly) depicts a few of of the problems faced by teachers in our schools. Some of us have lasted in these for a quarter-century or longer, and have, in our time, met and had to deal  with some of the things described here by him -- and many other things, besides, that Mr. Owens would have gone on to discover if he had stayed for a while longer.  But many, who have not taught in a typical urban classroom such as described here (or forgotten how it was or do not know how it is now), should read on.

As with the Iraq war and others like it,  a bit of background knowledge on the part of the general public could have avoided-- and could still limit -- a senseless waste of human lives.

A problem has to be acknowledged before it can be solved. And the causes of the problem need to be understood. Treating a cancer patient with antibiotics may not be the best way to go in most cases. As with cancer, the symptoms described here, as well as the underlying ailment, require sober attention. And there is no fast and easy cure.

Having spent many years breaking up larger schools, dismissing most of their teachers and creating smaller schools in their buildings, and with little to show in the way of success, the Bloomberg administration is now turning more and more to charter schools -- initially a concept pushed by teachers, but now part of a push, backed by big business and Wall Street hedge funds, to privatize the management of the schools while maintaining their public financing. Typically, teachers in such schools have even less rights and more pressures than Mr. Owens did in the school that he (unfortunately) taught in.

The idea that the unions are active in supporting teachers in the schools should also be put to rest. While there are exceptions, this is generally (in my experience) far from the case. And this is even more so currently.

-- Arjun

Listen to me, Arne Duncan: It’s poverty, stupid. And that’s not an excuse, that’s not an excuse, it’s a diagnosis.

Speech by John Kuhn, superintendent of Perrin-Whitt Consolidated Independent School District in Texas at the SOS Rally

SOS Rally 2011

Share it widely.



http://youtu.be/fFgrt95OD0U


Here's an abridged text: http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=2485

Let me speak for all public school educators when I say unequivocally: We will. We say send us your poor, send us your homeless, the children of your afflicted and addicted. Send us your kids who don’t speak English. Send us you special-needs children, we will not turn them away.

But I tell you today, public school teacher, you will fail to take the shattered children of poverty and turn them into the polished products of the private schools. You will be unacceptable, public school teacher. And I say that is your badge of honor. I stand before you today bearing proudly the label of unacceptable because I educate the children they will not educate.

Day after day I take children broken by the poverty our leaders are afraid to confront and I glue their pieces back together. And at the end of my life you can say those children were better for passing through my sphere of influence. I am unacceptable and proud of it.

The poorest Americans need equity, but our nation offers them accountability instead. They need bread, but we give them a stone. We address the soft bigotry of low expectations so that we may ignore the hard racism of inequity. Standardized tests are a poor substitute for justice.

So I say to Arne Duncan and President Obama, go ahead and label me. I will march headlong into the teeth of your horrific blame machine and I will teach these kids. You give me my scarlet letter and I will wear it proudly, because I will never cull the children who need education the most so that my precious scores will rise.

I will not race to the top. I will stop like the Good Samaritan and lift hurting children out of the dirt. Let me lose your race, because I’m not in this for the accolades. I’m not in it for the money. I’m in it because it’s right. I am in it because the children of Perrin, Texas need somebody like me in their lives.

Our achievement gap is an opportunity gap. Our education problem is a poverty problem. Test scores don’t scream bad teaching. They scream about our nation’s systematic neglect of children who live in the wrong zip codes.

Listen to me, Arne Duncan: It’s poverty, stupid. And that’s not an excuse, that’s not an excuse, it’s a diagnosis. We must as a nation stop assuaging the symptoms and start treating the disease.

Let me ask you a simple question: Where is adequate yearly progress for the politician? Will we have 100 percent employment by 2014? Will all the children have decent health care and roofs over their heads by their deadline? But wait. They don’t have a deadline. They aren’t racing anywhere, are they?

When will our leaders ensure that every American community offers children libraries and little leagues instead of drugs and delinquency? Lawmakers sent you into congressional districts that are rife with poverty, rife with crime, drug abuse and poor health care, but lawmakers will never take on the label of legislatively unacceptable because they do not share the courage of a common school teacher. I say let us label our lawmakers like they label teachers. Let us have a hard look at their data. Let us have merit pay in Congress.

Congressmen, politicians, if you want children that are lush, stop firing the gardeners and start paying the water bill. Politicians, your fingerprints are on these children. What have you done to help them pass their tests?

President Obama, why don’t you come and join me in a crucible of accountability. We have talked enough about the speck in our teachers’ eyes, let’s talk about the plank in yours.

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

Follow what is happening in Chile, where the Ed Deform Model Was First Tried

Why Chile? Well, if you know of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, Chile was the laboratory in the 70's for neo-liberalism and the privitization of everything they could get their hands on. I won't go into the details of the role our union played in aiding and abetting the process of repression by using front group teacher unions to undermine left unions - you know the drill - kill off militancy and Allende while you're at it. George Schmidt wrote a document in the late 70s documenting all of that stuff.

Here are some reports of the latest uprisings in Chile.


The students are being joined by many others/unions.  The student leader, Camila Vallejo is amazing.
Perhaps we can follow Camila Vallejo's lead.  Her words are direct and clear.  For example....

"We do not want to improve the actual system; we want a profound change – to stop seeing education as a consumer good, to see education as a right where the state provides a guarantee.

"Why do we need education? To make profits. To make a business? Or to develop the country and have social integration and development? Those are the issues in dispute.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/24/chile-student-leader-camila-vallejo

Angel Gonzalez writes:

Please watch links below see to articles, powerful pictures; videos of street protests in Chile this week and this past month. Inspiring to hear song (the people united will never be defeated)of the MIR and Allende 1970's era being song by huge throng of thousands. 

Two days of a general strike (students and labor united) this week included the demand of free quality public education.

Chile since the 1970's has been suffering from neoliberal reductions in the standard of working class living conditions, diminished labor rights,services and in particular devastated school system plagued by a private profiteering & voucher systems.

Conditions have reached intolerable levels and are at a boiling point, as evidenced by these recent series of massive protests.

We here with the Obama-Bush privatized education agenda (NCLB), using a massive and expensive media hype deceptive campaign, are being driven down that same road -  the failed Chilean model.

The privatized education model imposed in the 1970's in Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship was facilitated with the backing of the good-ol'  USA - CIA - AFT - AFL alliance

and under the tutelage of economist Milton Friedman's & his Chicago Boys (see Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein).

El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido.

Angel FG

  Go to this link to see series of photos:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/26/MNP61KS2M3.DTL

Thousands in Chile take to streets, demand change

Federico Quilodran, Associated Press

Friday, August 26, 2011

MORE 

Press conference Tuesday to demand Verizon pay back the money it owes our schools

Verizon/DOE 20110829223556] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EsKXwhTy-s (Patrick Sullivan, Manhattan BP appointee to the PEP)

NEWS CONFERENCE 

11am, Tuesday, August 30^th

Make Verizon Pay Back the Money it Made from a Fraud on our Schools and Settle a Fair Contract with its Workers

What:   Education advocates, labor unions, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, and other elected officials will join together to demand Verizon pay back its ill-gotten gains from our schools and settle a fair contract with its workers.

When/Where: 11am, Tuesday, August 30^th in front of the Municipal Building.

Background:

            On August 17th, the Mayor’s PEP approved a $120 million contract with Verizon.  According to the Special Investigator for the Schools, Richard Condon, Verizon knew about and profited from an overbilling fraud scheme[1].  Verizon’s direct profits in the scheme were at least $800,000, according to the investigator, but the PEP approved the contract anyway.

            The fight is not over: Verizon should pay back the money it made off of the scheme and make the schools whole through a restitution – and settle a fair contract with its workers.   This issue also deserves more scrutiny from the NYC Council, which Councilman Cabrera has promised.

            Verizon has contradicted itself on the schools contract, allegedly telling some members of the PEP and the media that it may pay back its proceeds from the scheme.  Verizon also sent a letter to the PEP denying its role in the fraud and falsely claiming that the Schools Investigator’s report did not say that Verizon was aware of the fraud. 

Verizon is demanding massive givebacks from its workers, including: freezing pensions for new and current workers; raising health care costs by thousands of dollars for current and retired workers; cutting benefits for workers injured on the job; and shipping more jobs overseas.

            Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s representative, Patrick Sullivan, was one of four PEP votes against approval of the controversial contract.  Borough President Stringer, CWA, education advocates and other elected officials (list in formation) will call on Verizon to pay back the money, make the schools whole, and settle a fair contract with its workers.  Please join us!

Repercussions of UFT No-Layoff Deal

Was the UFT the handmaiden to Bloomberg "divide and conquer" strategy?

I do hope people make the connections to the damage that is done when the UFT signs onto a no-layoff deal that ends up screwing fellow school workers who happen to be in another union. My position it that they should have challenged Bloomberg to lay people off and try to run the schools without them. But the UFT was desperate to avoid the LIFO issue. So now (mostly white) newbie TFA and Teaching Fellows get jobs and ATRs get paid while the poorest school workers (mostly people of color) lose jobs. And silence when it happens.

But silence can come from many places. See New York City Parents Union Statement on School Staff Layoffs. Really a great statement - except for neglecting to mention the impact of the UFT role in the story. C'mom Mona, tell it like it really is.


DC 37 layoffs (see the Times article at http://nyti.ms/oolBj7).

These layoffs are clearly a result of the budget deal that the UFT cut in June, which averted teacher layoffs in exchange for concessions and leaving DC37 high and dry. Teachers are still feeling the pinch through the massive excessing caused by budget cuts and the ATR crisis, which the Times outlines pretty well. Students will of course suffer the most, in the form of reduced services.

See Gotham Schools story: DC-37 official: Cutting school aides won’t save city much money


And Juan Gonzalez in the DN shows which districts get punished- again silence from the UFT. And from Gonzalez on the connection to the UFT no-layoff deal.

Department of Education layoffs hit poor areas hardest

JUAN GONZALEZ - NEWS

The disparate nature of the cuts - the biggest layoffs at any agency in the Bloomberg era - became apparent yesterday, when officials gave Local 372, which represents nonprofessional school employees, a detailed hit list.

Under the plan, District 5 in Harlem and District 6 in Washington Heights will lose almost 8% of their school aides, parent coordinators and community workers - 77 out of a total of 998.

At the same time, only five of 942 similar workers in Staten Island's District 31 - less than 1% - will get pink slips.

Likewise, three school districts in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Brownsville, East Flatbush and East New York will lose 4.4% of their nonprofessional workers.

But three more middle class districts in South Brooklyn that include Dyker Heights, Borough Park, Bensonhurst, Midwood, Sheepshead Bay and Mill Basin, will lose only 11 of 1,900 employees - less than 1%.

Those who could lose their jobs are some of the lowest-paid workers in the city and overwhelmingly black and Hispanic. School aides, the biggest group targeted, average about $11,000 a year for part-time work. Even with health insurance and pension costs factored in, the city pays about $27,000 annually for each of these workers.

"We've been trying for weeks to meet with Chancellor [Dennis] Walcott, and each time they canceled ... at the last moment," said Santos Crespo, president of Local 372.

"On Monday, they just called us in and hit us with these cuts," Crespo said. "They didn't even want to discuss ways we could cooperate to reduce costs."

At a time when the school system is spending hundreds of millions of dollars for more outside contractors and consultants, it's crazy to cut the most vulnerable workers.

DOE officials say Crespo's parent union, District Council 37, is to blame.

"During the budget negotiations this June, the chancellor called Lillian Roberts [executive director of DC 37] ...to work ...to avert DOE layoffs," agency spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz said.

"Unfortunately, the union would not agree to any real savings ... so schools took a larger budget cut than might have otherwise been necessary."

In other words, if you don't do what Bloomberg wants, you and your members will suffer the consequences.

But why hit poor districts so heavily?

It could be just a coincidence, but some of the biggest cuts occurred in neighborhoods where City Council members were vocal critics of the mayor.

Ravitz said principals made all the decisions on cuts.

"Schools received their budgets at the end of June and made school level decisions about which staff they were keeping and which staff to excess," she said.

Several principals I spoke to yesterday disputed that version. They say budget officials from Tweed encouraged them to look to their nonprofessional staff for cuts.

Nevertheless, one thing seems clear: if these layoffs take effect, the poorest districts will suffer most.

jgonzalez@nydailynews.com



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/08/26/2011-08-26_doe_layoffs_hit_poor_areas_hardest.html#ixzz1W96Xcq9f

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