Friday, April 12, 2013

MORE Updates, April General Meeting Saturday, High Stakes Testing with Julie and Jesse on Sunday

Come see the only group in the UFT with democracy in action as MORE is transitioning towards post-election mode with tomorrow's meeting being a combo of election experiences, structural changes (so far a year with no formal steering committee which certainly hampered some decision making in the elections but still kept us ticking), talk about the mayoral endorsement issue for the upcoming DA and other issues.

Saturday 4/13 12:00-3:00

224 West 29th st 14th Floor

NYC

Open meeting

Please join us for this very important meeting

The UFT elections are here- we will discuss our current strategies and share stories of our unique experiences in electioneering. We will also phone bank together to help get out the vote. The UFT leadership will be endorsing a mayoral candidate soon. Let's decide how we want to approach this critical decision in the upcoming election. We will also offer proposals for a steering committee and visions for building MORE into a stronger movement.

Sunday 4/14

And on Sunday, that do-nothing, know-nothing Cavanagh who won't speak at the delegate assembly is completing her weekend by appearing with Seattle test boycott teacher leader Jesse Hagopian at this MORE/Change the Stakes sponsored event at the Earth School where MORE elementary school Ex Bd candidate is chapter leader. Leading parent advocate Janine Sopp will be speaking too. This event will be moderated by MORE candidate for UFT Secretary Brian Jones. You know those MOREs, so lazy.

The Earth School 600 East 6th Street

New York, NY 10009 Between Ave B and Ave C

Come to either event to see Julie and possibly Jack. You can also play with Jack if the meetings bore you. Bring baby food.

MORE victory party, April 25 at a bar near the vote count
So we are also planning a Victory Party right after the count is completed on April 25. No, we don't expect to be running the UFT on July 1 but there is certainly something to celebrate no matter the vote count. Like our very existence and the process by which we got to this point. Somehow things got decided and accomplished without a formal structure.

Being somewhat of a control freak, does this make me comfortable? Hell no. With election coming to an end it is time to get down to organization building. And I will predict right now --- if MORE doesn't get some of this done in the next 6 months it will find itself adrift like other caucuses have ended up. I will offer advice based on lessons learned.

Informal Election analysis, Friday April 26, 4:30 PM, Skylight Diner, 34th St and 9th Ave.

This began as an ICE event for those wonks who want to talk about the election results the day after but it is open to whoever wants to come and chat as we will discuss the good, the bad and ugly of this election round. The space we use can seat 20 but if there are more wonks than we expect people can break into tables of 6 or so.

MORE intends to hold a more formal analysis in May.

Carol Burris is State HS Principal of Year, Change the Stakes Meets Today

Carol Burris at GEM/Change the Stakes Forum

Video below of Carol Burris with an intro by a very pregnant Julie Cavanagh at a GEM April 2012 forum on teacher evaluation. (And Julie still had 3 months to go - Jack was a big boy even before he was Jack).

Of course to Unity slugs it is way more important for Julie to speak at a stage-managed Delegate Assembly than to organize a forum bringing together Carol, Leonie Haimson, Gary Rubinstein and Arthur Goldstein (who couldn't be there due to a death in the family).

New York’s High School Principal of the Year, Burris is now a candidate for the award of National High School Principal of the Year, an award sponsored by the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) and The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. A principals institute and awards ceremony sponsored by NASSP and MetLife will be held in Washington, DC this fall. ---The Patch

How exciting if Carol wins the national award. What a strike against the ed deform industrial complex. Carol has pointed to the major ills of the common core and the state testing system. She has criticized the unions for going along, which led to an attack on her by Leo Casey. Here are some links: Setting The Record Straight On Teacher Evaluations: Scoring - Edwize

defender of the faith leo casey defends indefensible - ICEUFT Blog

iceuftblog.blogspot.com/.../defender-of-faith-leo-casey-defends.html
Feb 24, 2012 – Besides Long Island Principal Carol Burris, who co-wrote the principal's letter ... The UFT leadership answers this by trotting out Leo Casey, ...

Leo Casey “Sets the Record Straight” on the New Teacher ...

theassailedteacher.com/.../leo-casey-sets-the-record-straight-on-the-ne...
Feb 22, 2012 – Over at Edwise today Leo Casey, Vice President of the United ... principal Carol Burris of the new teacher evaluations here in New York State.

ATTENTION NYC TEACHERS: YOU HAVE BEEN HAD BY YOUR .

theassailedteacher.com/.../attention-nyc-teachers-you-have-been-had-...
Jan 30, 2013 – Remember when Carol Burris criticized the UFT for agreeing to a system ... Here is Leo Casey addressing Burris' point about our schools being ...

Hey, getting Casey agitated is enough reason to give Carol this award. I can't tell you how many supervisors who I respect are shaking their heads at the union's going along with the state evaluation system -- even they think the union is leading its member to slaughter. But I guess it might take another landslide win by Mulgrew followed by the slaughter to get the message across --- that only a strong opposition will force the UFT to act in defense of its members. Sorry for turning a great event for Carol into a political diatribe. So back to Carol.

Carol Burris is part of Change The Stakes, the group fighting his stakes testing and working with parents opting out. CTS it a unique group with teachers, parents and administrators -- the best you can find. We are meeting today at 5:30 rm 3389 at CUNY if you are interested. (Small room so email me if coming.)

I have shot some video of Carol. Here, MORE's Julie Cavanagh introduces Carol Burris at a GEM/Change the Stakes Teacher Evaluation forum in April 2012. In this segment Julie also reads a statement from Arthur Goldstein who couldn't attend due to a death in the family. (I will put up the other segments from this event in a separate post.)

http://vimeo.com/40748945

GEM Teacher Evaluation Forum Carol Burris Statement from Grassroots Education Movement on Vimeo.

Here is my interview with Carol in her office at her school. I told her when I interviewed her last May, "I would come out of retirement to work for you."

HST Film Carol Burris from Grassroots Education Movement on Vimeo.

Burris' 2012 book, Opening the Common Core: How to Bring ALL Students to College and Career Readiness.

http://www.amazon.com/Opening-Common-Core-Students-Readiness/dp/1452226237

NOTES: MORE MEETS TOMORROW AND HOSTS SEATTLE TEACHER TEST BOYCOTT LEADER JESSE HAGOPIAN ON SUNDAY. CHECK MORE BLOG FOR DETAILS.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Brooke Parker: Standardized Tests Make Age-Inappropriate Demands on Kids / “They’re designed to fire teachers”

Leaving aside the absurdity of explaining what “on track for college” looks like to children who say “Justin Bieber” when asked what they want to be when they grow up, Walcott would have gotten his message across more succinctly by simply sending a barf bag to parents.

The good news for parents is that the “opt out” movement is growing across NYC, the state, and the country, as increasing numbers of parents are learning about this issue and refusing to allow their children to be tested.

--- Brooke Parker

Brooke Parker does what the UFT doesn't. She is right on the front lines in the battle to defeat ed deform, especially over the Moskowitz family invasion of Williamsburg-Greenpoint. Here she says flat out:

Standardized Tests Make Age-Inappropriate Demands on Kids / “They’re designed to fire teachers”

http://thewgnews.com/2013/04/new-standardized-tests-make-age-inappropriate-demands-on-kids-theyre-really-designed-to-fire-teachers/

Posted by The WG News + Arts on April 11, 2013 in Commentary, Education, In The Paper, Issue 41 · 0 Comments

By Brooke Parker

This year, the parents of public school 3rd to 5th graders received a letter from Chancellor Dennis Walcott offering suggestions on how to ease test anxiety in their 8- to 10-year-olds. Walcott’s talking points included, “Let your child know that these tests are meant to be really hard. That’s because they are designed to measure whether students are on track for college and a good job when they finish high school.” Leaving aside the absurdity of explaining what “on track for college” looks like to children who say “Justin Bieber” when asked what they want to be when they grow up, Walcott would have gotten his message across more succinctly by simply sending a barf bag to parents.

What makes this year’s tests so different that they require a preparatory letter from the Chancellor? For starters, no one is prepared for them. The tests will be based on the new Common Core Standards that New York State implemented this year. The new curriculum was released only a little over a month before the test is to be administered. Principals and teachers are panicking, but not to worry, they got a Walcott letter, too, acknowledging that “these tests will be more difficult to pass,” but assuring educators that, somehow, these tests were in the best interest of their students.

For those of you who may not know what’s involved, kids will sit for 540 minutes (90 minutes a day, for 6 days) taking tests in English and Math. This is more test-taking time than is required to finish the SATs and the LSATs combined. Parents are talking about the enormous stress their kids are under, stress we parents never had because the state tests, back in our day, were short and diagnostic, with no high stakes attached. It’s clear to all involved that the students’ scores will suffer, and that will be taken into consideration, but a lot still rides on those test results, including the possibility of summer school, promotion to the next grade, and which middle schools they’ll be eligible to attend. For teachers, their jobs are on the line, since a significant portion of teacher evaluations is based on how students’ test scores improve from year to year. For schools, poor test scores will put them at risk of closure.

Walcott tells us that these new tests, aligned with the new Common Core Standards, will set a “baseline for measuring our students’ growth” (read: so that we can judge teachers with the scores) and that the results will help both teachers and parents support our children’s learning. Yet, under the current contract with Pearson (one of the largest for-profit test publishing companies in the world), the tests will be kept secret. Since teachers and parents will never see which questions students got right or wrong, the tests are utterly useless as a tool to support student learning. We’ll also never be able to judge if these compulsory tests, paid for by our tax dollars, are fair or reasonable. Leaks from last year’s test revealed a nonsensical series of questions based on a ridiculous text describing a race between a hare and a talking pineapple. Pineapplegate would have been laughable if the stakes were not so dead serious.

The switch from using tests to diagnose an educational problem to using tests to punish students, teachers, and schools reveals how big business would like us to think about public education and poverty. If the problem with public education is poverty, then we’ll need to spend more money to address how poverty impacts the classroom. On the other hand, if we decide that people remain poor because there’s a problem with public education, then schools, not poverty, are the crisis, and reforming education becomes very lucrative. We can now test students, transform the curriculum, and test students some more, offer professional development aligned with tests, and when the test scores don’t improve, redesign the curriculum, which will require new tests. Sound familiar? The one constant in this spending cycle is the unquestioned use of standardized tests to measure learning. I’ve come to cringe any time I hear the ka-ching that accompanies the terms “rigor,” “high standards,” and “accountability,” when applied to education.

There’s big money in testing to ensure high standards for our children, a regular flow of public dollars into private hands, even as repeated budget cuts force our children into increasingly crowded classrooms. Pearson aggressively lobbied to get their $32 million dollar contract to administer tests in New York, not to mention the lucrative sales of the packaged curriculum they developed for their tests. Tracing the money trail through profitable relationships is like a family tree in education reform, from Race to the Top to Teach for America to charter schools to online colleges.

Pearson is right there, pushing their tests and profiting along the way.

The good news for parents is that the “opt out” movement is growing across NYC, the state, and the country, as increasing numbers of parents are learning about this issue and refusing to allow their children to be tested. Still, it’s scary and impossible for some parents to have their children opt out. In NYC, opting out is a slight misnomer as, unlike a do-not-call list or unwanted mail, there is no legal provision to opt out of state standardized tests. Instead, parents refuse or boycott the tests for their children, keeping them home from school on testing weeks or pulling them out of school when testing begins. Having a legal and standardized opting out mechanism would allow kids to have the 540 minutes as class time, rather than test time.

As it turns out, just as secret as the tests themselves is the information that parents who can refuse the tests (3rd, 5th, and 8th graders) will not be at risk for having their children held back. There is, in fact, a portfolio assessment that allows students to demonstrate their strengths and learning, and which accurately and holistically addresses how they’ve done over the school year. Go figure. Testing isn’t the only way to measure students. Lots of parents might have liked to know that in their Walcott letter.

For more information about standardized tests in New York, why there is a growing movement against them, and what we can do to return to learning in the classroom, check out Fairtest.org, changethestakes.org, and nystoptesting.com

Gotham Links to Bogus Charter School Wait List Reports

An appropriate analogy might be if Harvard began referring to the 32,994 students it didn’t admit this year as a “waiting list,” then added that number to the 32,270 it didn’t admit last year, giving it a “waiting list” of 65,264, or a fiercely urgent case for lifting the Crimson Cap.

I propose that any charter that currently has fewer students enrolled than it has capacity to educate welcome some of the students on the waiting list effective tomorrow. Presto! The list just got smaller. See how easy that was?

-- EduShyster, The Waiting List for Superman?

Ooops! There goes those low numbers at KIPP as Gary Rubinstein has been reporting. Anyone for joining EduShyster in ending the charter attrition game?

The April 9 Gotham Schools Rise and Shine had this link to a NY Post report:

The Success Academy network of charter schools says more than 12,000 families applied. (Post)

Will Gotham Start Linking to National Enquirer?

Hey, I have an idea. Why not pull Geoff Decker off the Leonie Haimson beat so he can check out the truth of these claims?

I left this comment:

Why not report Success has a 12 million waiting list? Link to ANY Post article no matter how biased or untrue?

Here is the kind of reporting from EduShyster one might do vs chasing after Leonie Haimson:

The waiting list to enter academies of excellence and innovation in Massachusetts has now grown so long that policy makers have no choice but to respond to the growing waiting list by making policy that reflects the extraordinary length of the waiting list. Except that some actual reporting this week by the Boston Globe revealed that the waiting list is more fiction than fact. The story follows on the heels of this devastating expose in Chicago in which a reporter dismantles claims of a 19,000 charter wait list in Chicago, the length of which is now being used to justify charter expansion even as public schools are closed in that city. EduShyster looks at the list that wasn't and offers some excellent tipsfor reducing the wait time for students who are actually on it. Read more. http://edushyster.com/?p=2340

EduShyster is one of the astute and funniest bloggers around.

Her post credits @TonyBontheMIC for providing her with the title to this post. Check out his musings on the same topic here.

ICE Slams Unity Indifference to Representing Members

It is one thing that the DOE has evolved the U rating appeals system as a kangaroo court. It is another that our Unity colleagues remain complicit and actually contribute to the loss of our members rights. --- Kaufman at ICE

Jeff Kaufman talks about what he has to do to defend a U-rated ATR where Jeff had to lead the UFT "couldn't care less rep" to water where she (reluctantly) drank. And the U rating was reversed. Now if the UFT had any gumption at all it would blast the name of the supervisor all over the place and demand that no ATRs be put under that thumb.

"U" Rated ATR Wins Appeal Despite "Unity" Representation

While there are plenty of reasons to vote for MORE and dump the "Unity" stranglehold on our membership perhaps the most compelling is the refusal by our leadership to properly represent our members.
Witness Samuel Richardson. Mr. Richardson (not his real name) is a 24 year veteran Social Studies licensed high school teacher who was excessed from a closing Brooklyn school 3 years ago. As with his colleagues he was assigned as an ATR and forced into nomadic purgatory where he shuffles from Brooklyn high school to Brooklyn high school on a weekly basis.
Last year he made it to my high school, Aspirations, and after we got to know each he explained that he had received an unsatisfactory observation for a lesson he was clearly set up. The story was all too familiar. With little notice Mr. Richardson said he would be observed in a class he was the substitute teacher for two days. The next day he was ushered into another class (a much more difficult class behaviorally and academically) and told to teach his lesson before the teacher and observer.
The subject of the lesson had nothing to do with what the class was studying at that point and needless to say the class was somewhat unruly. His observation report was written as if he provided no meaningful instruction and had no classroom management skills.
He reluctantly showed me the observation report. I tried to schedule a meeting with this ATR supervisor to no avail and by the time June rolled around he was given a "U" rating for the year. His supervisor saw him a total of 3 times (twice in the week he was observed) and engaged in no meaningful conversation with him the entire year. The U rating sheet referred only to the observation report and his perfect attendance record.
Throughout the next several months Mr. Richardson and I have been in communication. We regularly discussed appeal strategy and ways to reverse this rating. When he received notice right before the Easter break that his hearing would be today he called me. We met and I gave him a package of materials including the Rating Guide and several court cases dealing with arbitrary U ratings.

A retired teacher [UFT rep] called him to meet with him and "prepare" for the hearing. He had one meeting with this advocate and gave her the materials I gave to him. He pleaded with her to call me.
Yesterday, on the eve of his appeal, a received a phone call from this "advocate." Our conversation was not pleasant. She accused me of cross-examining her and finally stated "if I do all you want me to do I would have no time." I then asked her how she would have felt if she, while teaching, had received a U rating and her advocate told her she had no time for her case. Silence.
It is one thing that the DOE has evolved the U rating appeals system as a kangaroo court. It is another that our Unity colleagues remain complicit and actually contribute to the loss of our members rights.
Advocates are taught to read statements (written by some knucklehead with no legal training) to the U rating appeals officer. They are not given the materials, training or time to adequately represent our members. The jobs are reserved for the Unity faithful in their retirement. In fact there is even a rule that lawyers are not allowed to argue for members.
As a result it is easy for the DOE to affirm almost every U rating appeal and since no record is ever made that would be valuable in Court most appeals to Court are denied.
I just got off the phone with Mr. Richardson who told me how the hearing went. The advocate submitted the papers I had provided him and according to Mr. Richardson used many of the strategies we discussed. There was actual questing of the rating officer and at the end of the hearing Mr. Richardson was informed his rating would be reversed.
A vote for Unity is a vote to not only perpetuate this system but actually codify it by placing a quota on appeals and needing Unity's permission to appeal. This is America?

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

MORE's New video

Thanks to a MORE high school teacher with a professional background for doing this.

http://youtu.be/2BSY1sG8-vQ

Here is the MORE announcement.

The UFT ballots have arrived or will come in the next few days. Place an X in the MORE box if you believe in Positive Leadership of our UFT that will save public education from profit driven reform. If you believe the UFT should organize with parents and communities to serve the best interests of our students then you believe in MORE. It’s time for a new contract that improves our working conditions and our students’ learning conditions. Our students are not test scores, nor are they “common” or “standardized”. We will not sign on to policies that harm our children and turn teachers into test prep machines. Our schools are not businesses that should be closed. Educators need a strong union that stops the onslaught of paperwork and denial of tenure to good teachers. The UFT must protect our members from administrators who harass their staff each and everyday. Our students deserve smaller class sizes and better schools, a union led by MORE will fight day and night until our children get the education they deserve. Vote MORE- tell your colleagues to the same because every vote counts!

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Norm in the Wave: UFT Election Season: The Game is ON as Mulgrew Ducks Debate

April 5, 2013
http://www.rockawave.com/news/2013-04-05/Columnists/School_Scope.html

UFT Election Season: The Game is ON as Mulgrew Ducks Debate

By Norm Scott

Recently a reporter asked me why a 10-year retiree is still doing this UFT union stuff. “I’m crazy,” I told her. Probably as a result of hitting my head while attempting to walk under my house to see if it meets flood standards.

Every three years, the United Federation of Teachers holds an election for 12 officers, 89 Executive Board members and some 700 AFT/NYSUT convention delegates. With ballots going out on April 3 and due back by April 24, we have reached that point once again. Full disclosure: I am a member and activist with Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) a new group challenging the ruling Unity Caucus party which has held onto power for over 50 years, a longer run in power than any banana republic dictatorship. Unity controls 100% of every single elected position in the union, the kind of control that excites the envy of people like Pinochet and Putin, who aims to turn what’s left of Russian democracy into the UFT model, one reason I check my food for radioactivity when I dine at UFT Executive Board meetings.

So, I have these 60,000 MORE leaflets in the back of my car, all of which must go into the school mailboxes of teachers all over the city. Luckily, there are many people taking most of the leaflets off my hands, leaving me to handle most of Rockaway and Howard Beach schools. I have such joy running around to schools and I make sure to treat myself to a snack after each school visit. By the time I lose the extra weight we’re ready for the next election. This is the 4^th election I’ve worked in since 2004 and here’s hoping I get a life before the next time – yikes – 2016, when we’ll be preoccupied with the Hilary Clinton presidential campaign.

MORE’s presidential candidate is 13-year special education teacher Julie Cavanagh, the first time an elementary school teacher has run for UFT president. Her opponent, Michael Mulgrew, was appointed to take over the union by Randi Weingarten when she jumped to the AFT Presidency. Mention Randi around Mulgrew supporters and they say, “Randi who?” Ah, such short memories of the woman they backed on every single position as she took the UFT down the dangerous road of collaboration on ed deform.

When Julie Cavanagh challenged Mulgrew to a debate, he didn’t respond. The NY Post headline called him “chicken” and reported, “a top aide to Mulgrew confirmed that the incumbent would not debate Cavanagh. Instead, Mulgrew’s political handlers offered to have one of the subordinates from his Unity Caucus debate her.” People who have seen Cavanagh in action in local, national TV appearances and in other venues understand Mulgrew’s reluctance.

Cavanagh in an email to Mulgrew said: “While we have differences and disagreements concerning education policy and union democracy, we both are committed to our union and the children we serve. In that spirit, we should be able to engage in an open conversation during election season so we can ensure our fellow members are informed and engaged. To this point you have ignored outreach regarding your participation in a debate or question and answer town hall with me. I would like to directly and formally ask you to participate in such an event. I believe that our members deserve the opportunity to ask questions of their presidential candidates and I strongly believe this kind of open and honest discourse strengthens our union: an educated and engaged membership that is listened to and participates makes us stronger.” My guess is Mulgrew will opt for an uninformed, non-engaged membership that is not listened to.

Putting together MORE over the past year has been an adventure, blending a variety of multi-generational teachers. 50% of NYC teachers leave within 5 years. Once past this point people start thinking like lifers which changes one’s perspective. Some think about getting out of the classroom, especially given the assault on classroom teachers in the attempt to hold them accountable when the sun doesn’t shine. Some see becoming a supervisor so they can torture teachers instead of being tortured.

Julie Cavanagh, four years ago, was headed in this direction until she witnessed an invasion of her school by a charter school run by the son of a billionaire with influence with Bloomberg. That gave her an up-close-and-personal look at the Bloomberg privatization agenda. The lack of response by the UFT to the needs of her school opened her eyes to the failures of the union, leading to an understanding that the monster of corporate education deform cannot be fought until the UFT throws all its weight into the battle. That will never happen until there is a progressive leadership in charge.

Norm blogs at ednotesonline.org

Monday, April 8, 2013

Saturday, 4/13: MORE GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING, Sunday, Julie and Jesse at Earth School

An exciting MORE weekend with a monthly meeting on Saturday and a forum on testing resistance on Sunday with Julie Cavanagh and Seattle test boycott leader Jesse Hagopian. MORE doesn't just "call" for things, it makes things happen.

Find out what all the excitement is about. You won't see any other caucus make a public announcement and open invitations to their meetings. MORE might even tackle an initial discussion about mayoral candidates but in an open and democratic manner. Organizationally, things are still somewhat fuzzy in MORE and people showing up for the first time, even non-members feel welcome to join in the discussions.

Phone banking for the election will also take place.

With the elections coming to a close, it is also time for MORE to get down to the work of organizing internally and externally. In the past elections the post-election energy drop was noticeable. In fact people sort of just stopped for the rest of the year and then the next Sept it was back to where we were if not behind based on erosion. Then the cycle began all over again.

I'm hoping that the MORE commitment to using the election to build and move to the next stage will come to fruition. You never know about the impact of the election results. Old hands who understand the nature of the UFT/Unity election process have realistic expectations. But newer members may be expecting a more magical result which it it doesn't work out might be disappointed. Post election analysis is an important step and the next 2 months and into the summer will be telling about MORE's future.

MORE is planning a post election happy hour right after the vote count on Thursday April 25. No matter what the outcome MOREs want to party to celebrate all the progress as an organization it has made over the past year. But still a long way to go so the work will begin anew on in May.

Note that this is a upcoming weekend of MORE with Sunday being a high stakes testing event at the Earth School with Seattle teacher Jesse Hagopian (4/14: THE SCHOOLS NEW YORK’S CHILDREN DESERVE *)
and Julie Cavanagh on the panel. So if you can't make Sat come Sunday.

4/13: MORE GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING

by morecaucusnyc

Interested in learning about MORE? Want to help us get out the vote and think about the next steps for our movement?

THEN COME TO THE NEXT GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING:

Saturday, April 13

Noon to 3pm

224 West 29th Street, 14th Floor

4/14: THE SCHOOLS NEW YORK’S CHILDREN DESERVE Ft. JULIE CAVANAGH + JESSE HAGOPIAN and MORE

7 Apr

FREE PUBLIC FORUM

THE SCHOOLS NEW YORK’S CHILDREN DESERVE

Fighting for real teaching and learning in our schools

FEATURING SEATTLE TEACHER AND ACTIVIST JESSE HAGOPIAN
Sunday, April 14th

3pm
The Earth School
600 East 6th Street
NYC, NY 10009
Between Ave B & Ave C
F train to 2nd Ave
15M bus
must show ID at the door
https://www.facebook.com/events/153458988155958/
JESSE HAGOPIAN
Teacher and lead organizer for the boycott of the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test boycott this spring at Garfield High School in Seattle. Despite repeated threats from the superintendent, the teachers who refused to administer this test attracted so much community support that they remain unpunished.

WITH
JULIE CAVANAGH
UFT Presidential Candidate for the Movement of Rank and File Educators, teacher, Pro-public education advocate
ANGELO PINTO
Public school parent and manager of the Correctional Association of New York
JANINE SOPP
Public school parent and member of Change the Stakes
sponsored by the Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE)
the social justice caucus of the United Federation of Teachers

Leonie Haimson Offers Parents Real Choice: Low class size, rich non-test driven curriculum

There is no little irony in the Daily News assault on Leonie Haimson for sending her son to a private school while supposedly denying choice to other parents without that option open to them.

Leonie has been such a thorn in the side of the deformers, they must disparage her work. How interesting that they chose one of their funding darlings, Gotham Schools and writer Geoff Decker, to do the initial dirty work. And of course their rise and shine linked to the DN piece today. Ka-ching.

Leonie advocates for all parents to have the choice of low class size, a rich curriculum not driven by standardized tests for kids (in the womb), parent and teacher involvement and other real reforms. You know, the kinds of schools leading ed deformers like Gates, Bloomberg, Arne Duncan and others send their kids to but deny that option to the 99%.

A Daily News opinion piece, Don't let the classroom door hit you on the way out, brands Leonie as an advocate "for the bogus cure-all of hiring thousands of additional teachers to reduce class sizes."

The Daily News supports not giving parents choice but removing their choices. Their choices of whether to have an unwanted charter school planted inside the public school their child attends. A charter that offers no progressive education but a rigid military style discipline. That is the only "choice" the DN wants people to have. The kind of choice that will just happen to enrich market-driven charter school chains and test enriched corporations like Pearson which owns so much of a monopoly.

I left a comment:

Why are you denying parents the choice of low class sizes for their children which is somehow "bogus"? I'll bet given a choice you would choose low class sizes for your own children. As Leonie has done for her own child given that the NYC Public school leaders seem to subscribe to the same "high class size is better" that you advocate.

Leonie opted out of the narrow, bogus phony choice system being implemented by ed deform. When that system falls apart people who want the same kind of progressive education the 1% give to their children will be back.

See Leonie's post on her blog: A personal note

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Jia Lee - High Stakes Testing Meeting: April 8th Parent Meeting at The Earth School

Please join us as we discuss our questions, concerns and develop a common understanding of the high stakes tests looming upon our children. Feel free to forward, print and distribute this flyer. I apologize for not being able to get it translated into other languages with the time constraints.

Bring as many parents as possible, and they don't have to be in testing grades this year. Next year, they are planning to roll out the K-2 Standardized assessments.

At the Earth School, we are planning to have two teachers present a statement. We are steadily moving towards a place where the tensions between the important work that we do with our students is being impacted to a detrimental degree because of high stakes testing.

We look forward to coming to some answers and plans of action together.

Best,

Jia

Parent and special education teacher

Jia Lee is one of the core activists in MORE and is running for UFT Executive Board, elementary school division. She is chapter leader at the Earth School on the lower east side.

Vincent Wojsnis: Why Does the UFT Leadership Cling to Mayoral Control?

Vincent Wojsnis, who was never involved with a UFT caucus in the past, has become a stalwart MORE advocate. He has thrown his hat into the ring with gusto. He is running for a MORE Executive Board At-Large position. Vincent posted a "Why I Am Running With MORE" piece on the MORE blog.

"I’ve been a chapter leader, a delegate, an arbitration advocate. In 2009 I joined other UFT members to help organize teachers for the AFT in Texas. My union activity was recognized by the union leadership later that year when I was received a Trachtenberg Award as well as a UFT Partnership Award that I shared with my former principal. I am proud of it all....

Until recently, however, to anyone who’d ask me to which caucus I belonged I would simply say, “UFT.” So-called “in fighting” within the union, it seemed to me, was factional and counter-productive. I no longer feel that way. The extreme agenda advanced by the so-called “education reform movement” and our union leadership’s weak (often questionable) response to it has made me a partisan. Earlier this year, concerned over the direction that the union leadership was taking both in New York and nationally, a group of UFT members joined together and formed the Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) as an alternative caucus within the UFT. I joined the MORE Caucus because I believe that union has to go in a different direction.

It is people like Vincent as much as anyone who has joined MORE that scares the Unity machine the most. But just as important is for MORE to justify Vincent's faith by staying true to democracy and principles. It has been an absolute pleasure working with Vincent. It is people like him who represent real change in the UFT.

Why Does the UFT Leadership Cling to Mayoral Control?

By Vincent C. Wojsnis

The headline of the March 21 edition of The New York Teacher reads “Mayoral Control – Not Mayoral Dictatorship!” Inside, the article reports on the recommendations of the UFT Task Force on School Governance which outlines a series of reforms the committee feels should be adopted to change the law that gives the mayor total control over New York City’s public schools.

Among the panel’s recommendations were: changing the number mayoral appointees on the Panel for Education Policy from eight to five members; ending the practice of appointing non-educators as chancellor; restoring the power and independence of local superintendents; and empowering Community Education Councils to approve school co-locations in local school buildings.

These recommendations were presented to and approved by the UFT Delegate Assembly on March 20. However, it was not without opposition. MORE member, Gloria Brandman, who represented one of two dissenting votes on the task force, spoke in opposition, arguing against union support for any form of mayoral control. Her voice was drowned out by Unity-led hecklers. So it is now official, in this election year, the United Federation of Teachers supports a modified form of mayoral control.

Lest there be any doubt about the official union position on mayoral control consider the following statement by UFT president, Michael Mulgrew. In a March 14 message to the membership Mulgrew stated: “I am expecting that some in the press may erroneously report the story as the UFT and Michael Mulgrew are trying to end mayoral control. I want to make sure you know that is not the case. We are not proposing to end mayoral control. We do not want to turn the clock back to 2001 or return to the chaotic days of the old elected school boards.”

I wonder how many teachers who were around in 2001 currently serving time on the Absent Teacher Reserve would agree that they are so much better off now than they were during those “chaotic days of the old elected school boards.”

I arrived late that Wednesday from a high school trip with my students, so I could not attend the last DA. Were I able to attend and were I permitted to speak, I too would have opposed the resolution. My question to the membership is this: Were we not led down this road before? Did we not learn anything from that experience?

The last time the issue of mayoral control came up was when the original law expired in 2009. (Opposition to that law actually caused it to expire for several months before the state legislature could vote on a new law.) Then, as now, a task force on school governance was formed by former UFT president, Randi Weingarten. Its recommendations were very similar to proposals made by the current task force. As a UFT chapter leader at my former school, I fought for those proposals. I remember stating at a Senate committee hearing: “We need to reform the reforms.” I was wrong. The essence of the proposals being made here (then, as now) are not so much to “limit” mayoral control as they are to save mayoral control. Why does the union leadership continue to cling to such a miserable and failed public policy?

2009 was a pivotal year in education reform. It was the year Mayor Bloomberg muscled the City Council into changing the law allowing him to seek a third term, though he had previously long championed term limits. “Education reform” was at the center of the mayor’s re-election campaign. It is also notable that the UFT did not oppose Bloomberg’s re-election.

2009 was also the year the DOE announced the phase out of my former school, MS 399, one among the second big wave of school closures under former Chancellor Joel Klein. As a chapter, we rallied together with parents and community organizations to oppose the school’s closure. The election campaign and the debate to renew the mayoral control law presented unique opportunities for our school to “make our case” at various public forums.
For its part, the union leadership was very supportive and helped to organize demonstrations and rallies in support of our school. However, while it became clear to teachers and parents that “our battle” to save our school was part a “greater war” against mayoral control, the message from the union leadership was also as clear and distinct; we oppose the closing of your school but, THE UFT STILL SUPPORTS MAYORAL CONTROL.

The concept of mayoral control is an idea hatched by corporate think tanks that have two objectives: one, to enrich and empower the corporations who will benefit as a result of the “reforms” and secondly, to disenfranchise millions of American citizens of a basic democratic right; the right to affect real change in their children’s education.

It’s not just Bloomberg and it’s not just New York. When Pres. Mulgrew points to examples of where mayoral control of the public schools appears to have succeeded; in Boston or Washington D.C., he is being deliberately misleading. Everywhere it exists, mayoral control has led to school closures and their replacement with privately-run charter schools. It has replaced a broad and robust curriculum with an insane preoccupation with standardized testing. For teachers, it has led to an erosion of fundamental union rights such as seniority, tenure protection and the implementation of an unfair teacher evaluation process.

But mayoral control does not exist everywhere. Throughout the country there are still school boards that are elected by members of the communities, mostly parents, who seek to have a voice in education policy. This is particularly true in affluent, suburban, mostly white school districts. Are not the parents of less affluent, urban communities of color entitled to the same rights?

I believe that our union is now standing at the crossroads. Do we want to continue with a union leadership that is content “to have a seat at the table;” and essentially acts as an overseer for policies that have proven to be so harmful to the schools and communities we serve? Or, do we dare to choose a new leadership that will stand independently and fight for the best interests of our members and students?

The Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) is running candidates in the upcoming UFT elections. In contrast to the Unity Caucus, in paragraph 3 of our platform it states:

3. MORE Democratic Governance by Communities, Parents, and Educators; No Mayoral Control, No Corporate Education Reform
We must wage an unequivocal fight for a democratic and responsive educational system, overturning mayoral control and resisting corporate “education reform,” which have disenfranchised communities from the governance of their schools.

We will fight for . . . An immediate end to the current UFT support for mayoral control and its replacement by a democratic system of local governance run by communities, parents and educators.

This spring UFT members have a choice. Vote for the MORE slate of candidates. We are the social justice caucus of the United Federation of Teachers.

References:
Landau, Micah. “Mayoral Control with Limits,” New York Teacher, March 21, 2013.

MORE Platform, Movement of Rank and File Educators, http://morecaucusnyc.org/the-more-platform/
Mulgrew, Michael. “Our School Governance Recommendations,” UFT.org, March 14, 2013
Wojsnis, Vincent C. “The Closing of MS 399,” New York Teacher, March 9, 2009
Wojsnis, VincentC . “Public Education at the Crossroads,” Mount Hope Monitor, May 7, 2009

Saturday, April 6, 2013

MORE in the Media Plus Some Analysis

MORE has been getting some press in a way that I haven't seen an opposition get in the past. Not mainstream press, mind you, but the press impressed by the Chicago model and MORE's modeling itself on that model. Here are a few links with excerpts from The Indypendent, Brooklyn Rail and Julie and Seku's appearance on wbai.

(By the way, Julie and Seku are like finding diamonds and that they cast their lot with MORE is a sign of the potential MORE has to attract amazing people.)

Julie Cavanagh and Seku Brathwaite on wbai
http://archive.wbai.org/show1.php?showid=eatcrossr

Brooklyn Rail: A Groundswell of Teachers Wants More

Cavanagh is the cheery face of dissident militancy. Unlike her running mate, long-time International Socialist Organization activist Brian Jones, she’s fairly new to rabble-rousing, going to her first protest in 2009 to demonstrate against school closings. Between taping a campaign video and entertaining her 7-month-old son on a Saturday afternoon in January, she explains that MORE is the consolidation of two dissident factions, Teachers for a Just Contract and the Independent Community of Educators, and includes members of the New York Community of Radical Educators, the Grassroots Education Movement and Teachers Unite. Cavanagh admits that the campaign against Mulgrew will be an uphill battle. “We’re trying to get into other schools, into mail boxes,” she said. “We have a team of bloggers, and the traditional boots on the ground.”

Hmm. First time I've heard Julie described as "the cheery face" but not bad.

The Indypendent - Ready to Resist (excerpts)

Late on the Thursday afternoon before spring break 15 teachers gathered around a long table in the back corner of a tapas bar in Chelsea. Faced with a daily grind of standardized test prep, performance metrics, data management and pervasive job insecurity that increasingly defines their existence as teachers, they were looking forward to a week’s respite. But, they were also discussing this April’s elections in the United Federation of Teachers and how they might be able to rejuvenate a union that they say has failed to effectively resist the corporate-style education reforms that Mayor Michael Bloomberg has implemented over the past 12 years.
“Resistance is not futile if we join forces with the people in the communities we serve,” said Sean Ahern, a teacher who works with troubled youth at Rikers Island, as the group went around the table introducing themselves and describing the teaching work they do.
The happy hour gathering was organized by the Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE), an opposition caucus that is battling the UFT’s entrenched leadership. MORE was formed last year by members of several left-leaning teacher groups. Many MORE members have joined protests in recent years against school closings and charter school co-locations inside existing public schools carried out by the NYC Department of Education. In the 170,000-member UFT, they see an institution with the resources and the citywide reach into school communities to lead a powerful fightback against Bloomberg’s policies — including mayoral control of schools — which have proven increasingly unpopular with parents. But first, they say, the UFT must transform itself and become an organization that fully encourages member participation and forges strong ties with the communities it serves.

“The membership is not educated, organized and mobilized, and that has hurt us,” said Julie Cavanagh, an elementary school special education teacher who is MORE’s candidate for president against UFT chief Michael Mulgrew.
Cavanagh’s candidacy is a by-product of New York’s school wars. She first became politicized several years ago when she led a community struggle in Red Hook against a politically-connected charter school that was looking to take over much of the school where she teaches.
Campaigning with minimal resources, MORE has held happy hour gatherings like the one in Chelsea, organized public forums to discuss issues of importance to educators, set up social media sites and email lists, and distributed tens of thousands of flyers to members at school campuses. It’s this kind of patient, bottom-up organizing that MORE activists hope will enable them to make inroads this year against the Unity Caucus, which has controlled the UFT since shortly after its founding in 1960.

I had a frank talk with the writer of this piece John Tarleton who has been following things closely for years. I asked for it to be off the record because I wanted to lay out the challenges MORE has ahead. John did include this quote:

“There is a mass machine that has to be battled at the school level and the district level,” said Norm Scott, a retired teacher and education blogger who is active in MORE.

I'm one of the pessimists regarding this and any election and never expect us to do well -- and people always accuse me of being a defeatist. I am a realist and don't believe in magical thinking. I believe in building a movement and a UFT election is just a piece of it. For instance, at last night's Change the Stakes meeting which was attended by mostly parents, the number of them supporting MORE to the extent that they were taking leaflets to distribute in their children's schools was encouraging. That MORE has attracted the support of these activist parents means we are doing something right, though I always think it was the amazing work of GEM that got us going and sometimes I fear that a focus on the UFT gets us away from that movement building we did in GEM.

John caught the drift of some of the stuff I was saying in that MORE has to balance the left within and attract a broader base beyond that.

Despite all its top-down power, the UFT has little impact in the daily life of many of the city’s 1,700 public schools. With MORE’s chances of victory in this election almost nil, organizers see this year’s campaign as an opportunity to build a school-level network of supporters that can continue to grow and win more chapter elections in 2015 and pose a stronger challenge in the next union-wide elections in 2016. Their success will be determined to a large extent by their ability to connect with and move union members who do not already self-identify as leftists.

I agree but also think that we need to activate the left-leaning people in the UFT in addition to attracting the center and I just don't mean people who will vote for us but will become active core members in MORE and help shape the future of a member-driven caucus which can morph into a member-driven union. Examine both Unity and New Action and you will see they are not member-driven and never have been. New Action is just an executive board and has given up any idea of actually building a force that could challenge Unity. Believe me, MORE could easily be that alone and one of the dissatisfactions with ICE was that was what we had become -- a narrow group -- a great group -- but narrow.

More from John:

MORE was formed last year by members of several left-leaning teacher groups. Many MORE members have joined protests in recent years against school closings and charter school co-locations inside existing public schools carried out by the NYC Department of Education. In the 170,000-member UFT, they see an institution with the resources and the citywide reach into school communities to lead a powerful fightback against Bloomberg’s policies — including mayoral control of schools — which have proven increasingly unpopular with parents. But first, they say, the UFT must transform itself and become an organization that fully encourages member participation and forges strong ties with the communities it serves.
“The membership is not educated, organized and mobilized, and that has hurt us,” said Julie Cavanagh, an elementary school special education teacher who is MORE’s candidate for president against UFT chief Michael Mulgrew.

MORE, of course has a long way to go to match CORE and I don't just mean in terms of winning power, but as an organization. After the election I do want to go into the details of the good, the bad and the ugly of organizational issues, what we think we learned from CORE and what we have applied and have not applied. There are things I am happy with and things I am not but who listens to the old fart anyway? In fact, when someone recently told me that some Unity types are saying that I am behind MORE I find that laughable. I have mush less influence in MORE and I am happy about that -- less guilt when things don't go the way I want.

I will say that we've done all we've done without any formal structure or steering committee -- everything is "show up and volunteer" -- which by the way a group of MOREs are doing tomorrow in Brooklyn to do phone banking for the election. But we won't go very far without getting things in order very soon. We can't get too ICEish which was totally free form.

Enough philosophizing.

It's so easy to vote for MORE. BUT the ballot is confusing.

James did a great piece at ICE:

http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-to-vote-for-more-in-5-easy-steps.html

And Peter Lamphere did this for his staff:

And of course the indefatigable Portelos who is another diamond.

Damning video on Mulgrew

http://youtu.be/jJE_dy1Ca8M

also check www.mikemulgrew.com

Don’t Tread on Educators Talk Show is BACK!

Friday, April 5, 2013

Portelos Talk Show From Rubber Room: Lois Weiner, Minnesota Educators Today

Don't Tread On Educators Talk Show is back!!!

Here is an interview I did with Professor Lois Weiner during lunch in the Rubber Room. Great talk with Lois. Mentioned unionism, MORE, along with a little Mulgrew and Unity and what they haven't done.

Only my 430th day under investigation without being charged. Professor Weiner explains her views on why.

http://wp.me/P31ecs-kK

Email me if you are interested in being a guest.

New Action: Creates Imaginary 2009 Caucus named MORE and Predicts the Future

MORE: failed to oppose Bloomberg in 2009, and will not support a candidate in this year’s race – New Action ad.

May 2012: MORE officially founded and named as a caucus. And MORE has not even addressed the issue of endorsing a mayoral candidate but when it does it will be at an open meeting and democratically decided, unlike both Unity and New Action (do they actually hold meetings?).

Next New Action will be claiming MORE walks around with an imaginary 6 foot rabbit.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Why Was Atlanta's Beverly Hall Indicted For Racketeering While Michelle Rhee Won't Be?

Great article by Bruce Dixon.

Published on Black Agenda Report (http://www.blackagendareport.com)

Why Was Atlanta's Beverly Hall Indicted For Racketeering While Michelle Rhee Won't Be?

Wed, 04/03/2013 - 10:27 — Bruce A. Dixon

hall_vs_rhee.jpg [1]

By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

Atlanta's black former school superintendent and 34 other black teachers and administrators have been indicted for “racketeering” in a cheating scandal. Why aren't others like former DC Schools chancellor Michelle Rhee and her team indicted? Should we be rallying the racial wagons around Dr. Hall and the other 34? No way.