EIA: Louisiana has the rare combination of high spending and low unionization rates

I’m not sure if anyone is examining the public education environment there from that angle.... EIA

Interesting nugget from Mike Antonucci, a critic of teacher unions who is seeing the real agenda of ed deform:  $$$$$$$$$$$$$. Lots of it for charters. I always thought that once charters get their mitts on an entire city or state and kill all the unions the true purpose will emerge. Credit to Mike for exposing this trend. And by the way, while Mike says he us unqualified to judge the quality of the schools, the story of failed ed deform is emerging.

Louisiana’s Strange Success Story

Written By: Mike Antonucci - Jul• 17•13

 

The complete overhaul of Louisiana’s public schools after Hurricane Katrina was a matter of controversy then, and still is today. I’m unqualified to offer a worthwhile opinion about the current quality of the state’s schools, but I do know that if you were to hypothetically describe a state with vouchers, a multitude of charters, a mostly decimated pair of teachers’ unions, and a Republican-dominated state government with a governor determined to make a national name for himself on education issues, you wouldn’t expect to hear that there was an explosion of spending, hiring, and compensation hikes. Yet that’s exactly what has happened.

More at http://www.eiaonline.com/intercepts/2013/07/17/louisianas-strange-success-story/

You Get What You Pay For - from a NYC Parent

A debate on the NYCEd listserve resulted in a teacher of all people joining the ed deform chant of "throwing money at things is not the solution" and that Bloomberg's failures in ed deform despite the expendutures is proof that money doesn't work. His solution is strengthening School based Support Teams. I won't go there now other than to say that I posted all the ways Bloomberg's spending was misspent on everything but supporting the classroom. Here, Vicki, a parent on the list serve makes so much more of an eloquent statement than I can.

You get what you pay for

Think about the money we spend on schools and "overpaid, overstaffed" union employees the next time you drive by one of those constructions sites.

You know, the ones your tax money pays for, maybe on second avenue. Two or three supervisors standing around chatting, one with a clipboard leaning against a wall, one guy just to hold up a sign. Three guys to watch the guy who moves the backhoe.

But we can have one teacher and 30 children in a classroom learning to read?

What do we say about starting a new business? Make sure it's well-capitalized.

What do we say about major corporations? They want to pay lower taxes because they need the money to invest in the business -- the best people, the best equipment.

What do we say about pharmaceutical companies? They need to charge higher prices so they can invest in R&D and hire the best employees.

What do people say about their cars, as evidenced by the 99% of cars on the roads in NYC that are late-model SUVS? We need top-quality transportation and it's worth paying for so we don't have dents in the door, chips in the paint, and so on.

What do we say about schools? Seventy-year-old buildings with PVCs leaking from the light fixtures are good enough for our kids. Libraries without books are good enough for our kids.

Inadequate gym facilities are good enough for our kids. Lack of indoor play space, and thus forced watching of Sponge Bob during recess (no books allowed in the auditorium!) during half of all schools days is good enough for our kids.

One teacher for every 30 kindergarten children is good enough for our kids -- oh, and let's "raise the standards" by skipping a developmental stage and force them to read in Kindergarten.

Kid, you say you want to blow your nose? Well tell you mother to send some tissues.

School supplies? Paper staples notebooks pencils pens? Ask your mother.

My parents went to school in the 30s and 40s when there were plenty of immigrants and plenty of social problems in NY. Their parents had no cars and often scrimped to pay the rent.

Yet their high school had a pool and Latin and handwriting and physics and a football team and everyone graduated knowing who Charlemagne was. We still don't offer more than 2 years of history in all of the 12 years our kids spend in school.

--Vicki

How Do They Loathe Us? - Fred Smith's Sonnet to Tisch, Duncan et al.

Fred wrote a sonnet dedicated to Arne Duncan, New York State Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and Mayor Michael Bloomberg and  their respective departments of education, as well as test monger Pearson.  He says, "In their nonfiction, data-cramped world, this is the kind of poetry they inspire."

How Do They Loathe Us?


How do they loathe us? Let me count the ways.

They loathe us deepmost to the very core.

Teachers, parents they evenly abhor--

Children more so in their tend’rest days.

They loathe us blind-eyed with “high standards” rage,

Misusing tests to give each one a score.

They loathe us thus and thus turn gold to straw.

They loathe us in a frenzied death-embrace:


Loathe by every unfounded decision,

Declaring that we have no other choices;

Loathe us, turning classrooms into prisons.

They loathe us darkly and ignore our voices;

Worship at the shrine of imprecision,

Foreclose the future, loathe us and rejoice.


~Fred Smith, Change the Stakes (with apologies to EBB)

Stay cool, ask your ardent followers to put some iambs together in sonnet form, and compose their own litany of loathing.

Edushyster Blows Up Democracy Prep 100% Grad Rate and New Yorker Shill Piece

I was going to do a piece on the New Yorker article on the publicity seeking Democracy Prep but was so spitting mad I couldn't think straight. To our rescue comes Edushyster. Did DP give UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon a speaker's fee as part of the PR machine hype, which to charters like DP is their most important operations? Just askin'.

I was in a DP co-located school in Harlem a few years ago when the chapter leader invited me to address the staff during a union meeting. The staff was mostly black, Latino and older. A walk through the halls during passing showed the DP racist spin in action The blond pony tails of the young teachers were bobbing along. And the big signs on their doors with the names of their fancy colleges were prominent.

http://edushyster.com/?p=2907

Other People’s Children

Posted on July 11, 2013

Why are white people so eager to advocate for the sort of schools to which they would never send their own children?
 
 

Reader: more and more white people agree that strict, “no excuses” style charter schools provide an ideal learning environment for poor minority kids. As proof of this surging enthusiasm I give you exhibit A: a glowing report about Harlem’s Democracy Prep charter school featured in the current issue of the New Yorker, one of America’s whitest magazines. (Full disclosure: I am white and also a New Yorker subscriber). Which brings us to today’s fiercely urgent question: why are white people so eager to advocate for the sort of schools to which they would never send their own children?
 
Through the Gauntlet
The New Yorker piece, by writer Ian Frazier, is subtitled ‘Up Life’s Ladder’—but ’gauntlet’ might be a more accurate metaphor. Frazier is dazzled by the spectacle of the 44 members of Democracy Prep’s first graduating class, on stage at the Apollo Theater in their school-bus-yellow robes, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on hand to fete them. But more than three quarters of Democracy Prep’s students—23% each year—never made it onto the stage. If Frazier is aware of the school’s attrition rate, among the highest in New York City, he doesn’t mention it. Nor does Frazier have anything to say about the school’s strict “no excuses” disciplinary policy. Instead, he seems excited by the fact that students at the school are required to take Korean, the only foreign language offered. Best of all, Frazier likes the fact that 100% of the remaining graduates are headed to a four-year college.

Whatever it Takes
 

I’m guessing that it’s not the fault of the New Yorker’s legendarily “no excuses” fact-checking department that these less inspiring (not to mention less democratic) details about Democracy Prep didn’t make it into the magazine. Instead, the writer is merely reflecting a growing consensus among elites that a certain kind of schooling is necessary to propel poor minority students along the steep uphill climb to college. This formula for success, the “special sauce,” is long and hard and requires the sort of militaristic discipline that I doubt any writer for the New Yorker would tolerate for his or her children for a day, let alone the four years, eight years, even 12-year-long slog that is supposed to end in a mythical place called “college.”

• Doing time
  The school day at Democracy Prep starts at 7:45AM and lasts until 4:15PM, but students routinely stay until six for tutoring. A nine, ten or 11 hour school day would no doubt strike middle class parents as excessive (what about Skyler’s soccer practice, or Emma’s beekeeping camp?) but even within this endless school day there is no time to lose. Democracy Prep, like many urban “no excuses” schools, uses a countdown during transitions from one class or activity to the next so that students don’t waste a second of learning time.

• Living the DREAM
  Democracy Prep relies upon a monetary-based system of rewards that is common in the “no excuses” world. Students earn and lose DREAM Dollars (the acronym stands for the school’s values: Discipline, Respect, Enthusiasm, Accountability and Maturity) based on behavior and academic performance. In addition to providing an important regulator of behavior, the DREAM dollars also prep the students for their ultimate destination beyond even college: work.

• Broken windows
  A “no excuses” school embodies a philosophy that might best be understood as the educational equivalent of the broken windows theory. Small disruptions are seen as leading to the kind of unruliness and disorder that stands in between poor minority kids and college-bound success. Hence the straight, silent lines in which students transition from one class to another might be seen as leading straight to college.

• SLANT
  Suburban parents are likely unfamiliar with SLANT, the KIPP-informed mantra that shapes “no excuses” teaching. The behavior management technique instructs students to sit up, listen, ask questions, nod and track the teacher. Younger students, who tend to be naturally disruptive, may also be instructed to fold their hands or “make a bubble,” pursing their lips and filling their cheeks with air so as to keep them from talking.

• Time and Punishment
  The elaborate architecture of rewards and punishments that undergird the “no excuses” approach must have consequences, of course. Suspensions at these schools tend to be extremely high, even though suspending students has long been linked to worsening academic outcomes and higher drop out rates. The recent revelations about the high number of kindergartners suspended by the charter school chain “Achievement First” in Connecticut may have caused some initial discomfort among suburban advocates of these schools (little Haley, suspended???). But amid the rising certitude that we must do “whatever it takes” to propel poor minority students to college, that discomfort was soon forgotten.

Send tips and comments to tips@edushyster.com.

Bruce Baker: Charters are Parasites

Here is the Ravitch post with the link to Bruce's piece:

Bruce Baker has studied Newark charters repeatedly. As he shows in this post, their greatest success is their ability to skim the students who are most likely to succeed. Some if his findings about their academic growth–or lack thereof-may surprise you. 

Charters are parasites, he concludes, that harm their host. Making the entire district charter does not change that: 

“But sadly, those who most vociferously favor charter expansion as a key element of supposed “portfolio” models of schooling appear entirely uninterested in mitigating parasitic activity (that which achieves the parasites goal at the expense of the host. e.g. parasitic rather than symbiotic). Rather, they fallaciously argue that an organism consisting entirely of potential parasites is itself, the optimal form. That the good host is one that relinquishes? (WTF?) As if somehow, the damaging effects of skimming and selective attrition might be lessened or cease to exist if the entirety of cities such as Newark were served only by charter schools. Such an assertion is not merely suspect, it’s absurd.”

The agenda of the people behind charters is to eliminate as much of the public school system they can before it all falls down around their heads. If they can really break it badly it can never be put back together again and no matter the scandals, etc. we will be back to the 19th century pre-public ed --- except for the kids no one wants --- but I bet some charter slugs will even come up with some scam to take those --- you know, use Guantanamo techniques at the least expense but charge high fees for their "special" services.

Here is a post that reveals that agenda from Andy Smarick posting in Philanthropy Roundtable:

Our schools won’t thrive until the charter ethic replaces the urban school district itself, says this leading reform expert....The traditional urban public school system is broken. It cannot be fixed. It must be replaced.

http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/site/print/magna_charter

Gary Gives Advice to an upcoming TFAer

And to TFA:  Shame on you for disrespecting this woman by not providing her adequate training.  And shame on you for having no concern for the 150 to 200 students who she is about to teach.  Teachers who only taught a few fourth graders reading and math for sixteen hours are most certainly not going to close any achievement gaps in their first year teaching middle school science.  There is a reason that 15% of corps members quit (and another significant percent who probably should quit since they are not doing much good).

Excerpt, Gary Rubinstein blog:  Preventing a disaster

Newark Confidential - Turnaround Children Inc. Transparency Grade: F

[Cami] Anderson refuses to respond to open requests for information, and Turnaround officials are equally evasive... Attempts to contact New Jersey Education Commissioner Chris Cerf  have been met with similar silence..... Ted Cohen

Cami Anderson, one of Joel Klein's hatchet women, now Supt of Newark schools, won't share info? Shocking.

Guest Editorial

by Ted Cohen

The top school official in a major American city as part of an education-reform initiative is bringing in yet another private foundation, yet as little is known about Turnaround for Children Inc. as is known about how it fits into Supt. Cami Anderson’s plan to modernize Newark, New Jersey’s schools.

Anderson refuses to respond to open requests for information, and Turnaround officials are equally evasive.
Attempts to contact New Jersey Education Commissioner Chris Cerf  have been met with similar silence.
Anderson arrived in New Jersey’s largest school district  - two years ago this month She brought with her an education-reform movement. The city's public schools are among the lowest-performing in the state, even after the state government took over their management in 1995.

Although the school district continues to struggle with low high school-graduation rates and low standardized-test scores, the mayor of Newark, Cory Booker, insists, "Newark, New Jersey can become one of the first American cities to solve the crisis in public education." This vision for better school district is also shared by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who made a $100 million donation to Newark Public Schools in 2010.

HuffPost’s Joy Resmovits called Newark  “a national test case for the fixing of troubled urban schools and the use of major philanthropic dollars in an educational system.”

Now, Turnaround For Children is interviewing schools in Newark for September. What is Turnaround and what is its proposed role in Newark? The best source for information would be Turnaround, right?
Wrong.
Turnaround has refused to provide information about its failed foray into Orange schools and whether that experience foretells problems in Newark.

Turnaround’s entry into the reform movement began with Orange, N.J., as well as New York City and Washington, D.C. But as soon as the Orange effort began, it failed, according to Turnaround’s nonprofit filing with the Internal Revenue Service. Tax documents filed with the IRS by Turnaround disclose the program's unexpected suspension. The documents, a public record, also reveal that Turnaround was forced to return the remaining part of the grant that funded the program.

"Management decided to terminate its three-school program earlier than planned," Turnaround officials told the IRS. In their IRS filing, Turnaround officials blamed the short-lived program's demise on what they vaguely described as a "shift in organizational priorities."
But officials failed to disclose what they meant by the change or who instigated it.
Turnaround officials say they suspended their request for the remaining funding they were to receive for the Orange project, but they made no mention of the amount of funding they had already received and the amount they were still due.

Turnaround officials issued a prepared statement defending their Orange pullout. “Our hope was to expand the partnership, to deliver a significant amount of professional development to teachers and to increase our engagement district-wide,” said Kate Felsen, vice president of communications. “Unfortunately, Orange Public Schools did not have the capacity to take on the professional development we had to offer during the 2011-12 year. For this reason, we ended our partnership amicably."

Though Turnaround proudly announced the Orange project in its September 2010 newsletter, there is no evidence on the organization's web site that Turnaround officials ever notified the public of the program's suspension.

If Orange school officials are to blame for Turnaround’s failure in their schools, then they are apparently taking the accusations in stride. Orange Supt. Ronald Lee refused to respond to questions. He submitted a statement finally after receiving a formal open-records request.

He said, “Turnaround proposed to expand its program to a transformational model that encompassed academic, foundational and behavioral elements in the 2011-2012 school year. At the same time, the district was continuing or launching a number of significant initiatives to improve instruction and student outcomes. We mutually concluded that the district’s initiatives would require and deserved the full focus of the district staff, principals and teachers. Therefore, we discontinued the program in Orange at that time to allow these innovations to take hold.”

Felsen, too, will not go beyond her prepared statement. When asked who funded the Orange effort and who will be funding the Newark plan, Felsen replied, “You have my statement.”
More to the point, attempts by journalists to procure information from this so-called “transparent” group – as described by GuideStar.org – have been met with silence, stalling and arrogance.

Ted Cohen of Maine is a veteran newspaper and radio reporter who follows trending national issues. He can be reached at tedcohen@hotmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Tedcohen1.

Weiner owes bump in the polls to black voters, Spitzer Soars Over Stringer, Does Lhota Have a Chance? Moskowitz in Future

I'm ordering pins for the UFT leadership to wear: December 31, 2029.

Weiner owes his bump in the polls to black voters, 31 percent of whom favor him for mayor, compared to Christine Quinn's 16 percent and Bill Thompson's 14 percent. Weiner also leads among men. ... Village Voice

‘Tabloid Twins’ Spitzer and Weiner lead in new NYC poll.... Support from African-Americans boosted Weiner and Spitzer, the “Tabloid Twins,” says Maurice Carroll, poll director. “Whether those numbers hold up in the real poll on primary election day is the big question,” Carroll said in a statement. Weiner earned support from 31% of black Democrats, compared with 16% for Quinn and 14% for former comptroller William Thompson, who is African-American. Quinn takes the support of white voters with 22% compared with 20% for Weiner and 12% for Thompson. Spitzer also has a big margin of support among black voters, who favor him over Stringer 51% to 26%. USA Today

Weiner's candidacy, for now, seems generally healthy: His fund-raising in the latest filing period was better than that of any of his Democratic rivals, too.

Oy! Black voters favor Weiner over Thompson? No wonder the UFT sent out a desperate plea the other day for Thompson support. Remember Bloomberg's prediction? UFT endorsement was the kiss of death. Given current numbers it looks like a Weiner/Quinn runoff. Remember back in 2009 when the UFT didn't endorse Thompson, claiming that at most the UFT endorsement can move the needle is 2? Thompson looks like a dead duck.

That puts the UFT in the position similar to 2001. In a Weiner/Quinn runoff the UFT has no choice but to go for Quinn who at least they have a relationship with, as opposed to Weiner who they always have despised. Imagine if  Weiner wins that too. Then what does the UFT do in a Lhota/Weiner race? Sit on the sidelines or endorse Weiner over the Lhota Bloomberg-like nightmare. Weiner isn't much better but still.....

This is really the UFT's worst nightmare.

You know, from the very beginning I predicted that the entire Merryl Tisch pro-Thomson scenario, while her husband supported Lhota, was to create enough confusion to enable Lhota to win. The idea was to make sure that neither Liu or de Blasio reached the runoff. Check.

If Thompson, de Blasio and Liu all combined their totals in one candidate they might have a chance. I wonder what would happen if the bottom 2 (Liu and de Blasio) dropped out? Would Thompson then be able to compete? I bet he still wouldn't make the runoff but at least it would be close.

For people like me, what to do? I want Liu first and de Blasio second and my vote doesn't move the needle at all. Can I vote for Thompson? I guess NYC Educator's analysis Thompson for Mayor sort of makes sense. My problem is, can I pull the trigger?

Stringer YES
I know that people think that Spitzer will go after people. I don't really believe it. I also know that Stringer is viewed as a weak link. But let's not forget that Stringer has appointed Patrick Sullivan to the PEP time and again. One voice but a strong voice who holds the Bloomberg scum accountable. That alone gives him my vote.

And Stringer also slapped down Eva Moskowitz when she ran for Manhattan Borough President 8 years ago.

Hmmm, maybe that wasn't the best idea given that she is building a massive machine through her charter network. That is why she is making sure to open up in every district in the city. I'm betting we see a Moskowitz mayoral bid in 4 or 8 years.

Let's see now. Lhota for 8 years. Then Moskowitz for 8. Do the math. I'm ordering pins for the UFT leadership to wear: December 31, 2029. 

Video – MORE Summer 2013: High Stakes Testing and the Schools Our Children Deserve

MORE kicked off the summer series by taking a look at the effects of high stakes testing in our schools. Parents from Change the Stakes joined us to discuss why a growing parent movement against the high stakes nature of these tests is mounting not just in NYC but statewide and nationally. We discuss HST and its use as a vehicle for enabling destructive policies such as school closures and ranking and sorting students that leads to the school to prison pipeline. The socioeconomic and racial disparity in these policies has been downplayed and must be brought to light. This was a great opportunity to discuss teacher and parent concerns as well as ways in which we can support each other and build a movement towards enabling schools that our students deserve.

The video is an hour and a half extracted from about 3 hours. Breakout groups are not included. Thanks to Jia, John, Janine, Marissa and Gloria.

 
https://vimeo.com/70236696

Commentary below by Norm Scott

Frankly, for all you UFT election freaks. I consider events like this way more important for MORE to do than run in elections -- because the first stage of organizing and mobilizing is educating ourselves and others who may not be aware of the full impact of high stakes testing which is behind all the assaults on public education, teachers and their unions.

I want to point out that MORE is more than a caucus just running in an election and then going away for 3 years. MORE is committed to engaging in open discussions that do not seem to take place in many places inside the union as part of the "educate, organize, mobilize" theme.

This was the first in our summer series of 4.

Coming next July 25: UFT Leadership, Friend or Foe - an analysis of the somewhat delicate relationship between a minority caucus with the leadership. How far do you go without helping the anti-union enemies? See the current amazing debate on Diane Ravitch blog which has generated well over 200 comments. Thanks Diane. http://dianeravitch.net/2013/07/10/my-friend-randi-weingarten/

I extracted Michael Fiorillo's response to internal attacks from teachers on the union which i posted at ednotes:

Fiorillo: Better Randi than no union at all

I made this point:

The fundamental nature of the lack of democracy internally is a bigger threat to the life of the union than the external - in the long run.

Unless the UFT/AFT starts thinking about democratizing - I won't go into the gory details -- they will find more and more calls for things like desertification coming from the ed deform plants in the teacher corps and even some dedicated unionists who have had enough. When our people on our side start calling for the right not to pay dues or for the union right of dues checkoff to be taken away we are in dangerous territory. The lack of interest in voting in the UFT is a warning. (In Chicago 60% of the teachers voted - and retirees do not vote.)

[Note Peter Goodman's response that the UFT is forming a committee to study the issue -- one of the big jokes that will lead to things like "more robo calls" more ads on TV, etc. -- like we don't really need to change anything structurally, just nudge people - discounting that the Unity Caucus Ch ldrs held bagel parties to encourage the vote but Unity suffered a major drop in votes.]

MORE is committed to find a way to counter these anti-union calls while fighting for internal democratization.

Shame on New Action for giving up the fight for a democratic union, something that was high on their agenda until 2003 when Randi bought them off.

For those not familiar: MORE got around 5000 votes in the last election and gets no Exec Bd seats or any the 800 delegates to the AFT convention while New Action which got significant less votes than MORE in every division gets 10 Exec Bd seats (out of 101) as a reward for endorsing Mulgrew.

Given that only 18% of the working teachers voted, what does this say to those people who did bother to vote for MORE?

Critics of Tim Wise for Support for Teach For America

Posted to MORE Listserves

Dear New Orleans activists,

Some of you may remember Tim Wise, who was an anti-apartheid activist at Tulane in the late 1980s, and then went onto to work with the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism (LCARN), one of the organizations that emerged in the fight against David Duke's various runs for state wide offices in the late 80s and early 90s. He later worked with the corporate foundation-funded non-profit Agenda For Children, which was also a part of the STICC outfit that was involved in the demise of the St Thomas public housing development.

Since leaving New Orleans in the mid 90s he has put his oratorical skills to use by developing  a lucrative career as a nationally renowned    "anti-racist" lecturer. As he often mentions in his lectures and writings to underscore his grassroots credentials, he was trained by the New Orleans-based People's Institute in his anti-racism work. Unsurprisingly, like the People's Institute, who assisted developer Joe Canizaro by putting a progressive anti-racist veneer on the destruction of the St Thomas public housing development  the 1990s, Tim Wise is doing the same for the hedge funders and other billionaires  bankrolling the charter school movement.  He has agreed to speak to a national gathering of "Teach For America", which is a key player in the assault on public education. http://speakoutnow.org/userdata_display.php?modin=53&uid=8451
 
Black Agenda Report, edited by Bruce Dixon and Glen Ford, who many of you are familiar with and who have written some of best critiques of the Obama administration, including the regime's "anti-racist" backers, have called on Wise to cancel his planned talk. Below is an article Bruce Dixon wrote on Wise and his planned TFA address, and the petition demanding that Wise cancel.

Please sign the petition and pass onto others.

http://www.blackagendareport.com/tfa

article by Bruce Dixon: Why Is Tim Wise Stamping the Anti-Racist Ghetto Passes at Teach For America

http://www.blackagendareport.com/tim-wise-stamps-ghetto-passes-4-tfa-say-it-aint-so

In addition I have attached a really rotten piece that Wise wrote undermining support for the courageous Edward Snowden while employing  a 'progressive', anti-racist cover.

http://www.timwise.org/2013/06/whiteness-nsa-spying-and-the-irony-of-racial-privilege/

Finally, below is an article by Adolph Reed critiquing the dead  end that of the 'anti-racism' politics of people like Tim Wise

http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Antiracism.html "
 

Sean Ahern responded:

I sent this note to Tim Wise

Dear Mr Wise,

I have read Bruce Dixon’s article and your response. I gather you will not be canceling your speaking engagement with Teach For America on July 27.  What’s next?

What are you going to say to Teach for America about Teach for America? Some internal reflection there  might at least cause some defections.

Here are a few suggestions for what you might say (By the way I am a NYC public school teacher who hopes that everyone with a heart and a brain who hasn’t already cut their ties to TFA will do so shortly): 

1) Michelle Rhee cheats on tests and lies about it afterwards.

. 

2) Rhee engaged in a witch hunt against Black teachers while she was in charge of the DC school system.

 

3) According to an internal United Federation of Teachers (UFT) report, TFA has contributed to the decline in the hiring of Black and Latino teachers in NYC schools under the Bloomberg school dictatorship..

4) Teach for America is part of the corporate led assault on public education in the large urban centers where the majority of students negatively affected are Black and Latino.

5) There is no “crisis of education” in the US and replacing “bad” teachers with “good” teachers is a toxic “remedy” for an already false diagnosis.

6) Contrary to what Michelle Rhee says, Unions for school workers are good things and should be expanded to include independent  parent and student unions so that schools rule themselves and  may dispense with unaccountable overseers, mayoral dictatorships and condescending saviors.

Even a bad union has benefits. For example, my own union The UFT is the largest teacher union local in the USA and it has  a terrible history of siding with administration in defending white privilege to the detriment of their members and the communities served.  In spite of this negative self destructive history the union leadership, to date at least, has not yet given up the city wide seniority system (last in first out) with regards to layoffs.  This provision, a legacy from the Shanker era, has slowed the disappearing of Black and Latino teachers in NYC and offered some protection from the Chicago scenario where city wide seniority was not in the CTU contract and school closings in Black and Latino communities have resulted in a precipitous loss of jobs for Black and Latino teachers, school aides and janitors.  Unfortunately this provision offers no protection to the students in the schools being closed who are just shuttled around to the next closing school.

Here are two suggestions for what you might do before July 27:

1)  Ask a leader of the CTU (Karen Lewis is a great speaker and former stand up comedian) to accompany you to the TFA meeting and inform them ahead of time that a CTU leader will be part of your presentation.

2)  If the CTU can’t or won’t join you, inform the TFA that you will donate your speaking fee to the CTU strike benefit fund.

By now you get the gist.  I wish you had declined the offer on the 27^th but second best would be for the TFA to cancel your engagement once they are apprised of your resolve to speak frankly.  The publicity gained might even turn out to be good for your business.  In any case, TFA is a sinking ship [Teach For America's Civil War: Organizing Resistance....]  Just hope you are not on board.

Peace,

Sean Ahern 

Mark Naison posted in Dump Duncan

Mark Naison 8:13am Jul 12 Quick background on my comments on Tim Wise before I return to my cruise. I have long been an admirer of Tim Wise's writings, but have, for the last two years, tried, without success to get him to critically comment on the Obama administrations education policies, especially school closings and teacher firings which have devastated inner city communities. I have emailed him and tweeted him repeatedly, always politely and respectfully, and heard not a word. And I ended up concluding that like the commentators on MSNBC, he didn't want to publicly criticize the Obama Administrations education policies. Hearing that he agreed to speak to Teach for America at a time when that organization is coming into cities which have fired large number of lifetime educators was the last straw. I had to say something about how wrong i think this is, and how it reflects a larger issue with his worldview. It doesn't mean that I have written off the positive things he has done.

Stop and Frisk: My Articles in The Wave

Over the past few weeks I wrote a few pieces for The Wave on S and F and race issues.

Published July 5, 2013

Confronting Myself on Race

By Norm Scott

A rally was held on July 8 at on the steps of Tweed Courthouse (Protest at Tweed Over Racist Comments Draws a Crowd), headquarters of NYC Department of Education, calling for an investigation of Minerva Zanka, the  principal of Pan American International High School in Queens, who allegedly referred to African American teachers she was firing as “big lipped,” “nappy haired,” and “gorillas.” Given the DOE’s double standard of protecting principals who do wrong while hounding teachers over relatively minor transgressions, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the principal get off with no more than a slap on the wrist.  I am not shocked that racist attitudes are still so visible.

The idea that with the election of Obama we are entering a post-racial society looks far from reality. We are ingrained with racial stereotypes from our earliest years. Black male teens and young men are often the target of these attitudes. I was in Philadelphia about 10 years ago for a conference and went to dinner with a friend who had just gotten her MBA at Wharton, one of the top schools in the nation. I walked her back to her apartment which was in an “iffy” neighborhood with lots of people hanging out on a hot June night. On the corner there was a group of black men who looked to be in their twenties and older drinking from beer cans and having a good time.  My antenna went up, though my friend seemed unconcerned. As we came to the corner, she ran up and hugged one of the guys, congratulating all of them on their graduation from Wharton with their MBAs. Big lesson learned about my own racial assumptions.

I was reminded of this event during debates on stop and frisk. What assumptions do police make, admittedly in a somewhat different situation, when they see a group of black makes, especially teens, hanging out? Having taught elementary school, I had little experience with high school students. But in the late 80s - early 90s I spent some time with a group of kids of color who played basketball on a high school team where one of my former students was a star player. I was involved in trying to find the right school for him but being a poor academic student he ended up at one of the tough neighborhood high schools which was in the process of being closed and reopened under a new name. During his freshman year there were only seniors left in the school. (The school has since been closed once again.)

For his 4 years in the school I went to most of their games and kept their stats.  I often gave them lifts. We went to basketball tournaments and Knick games. A few times I drove some of them out to my house to enjoy the beach or play computer basketball games on my computer. While at times rambunctious, like any teens, I found them to be a delightful group of kids though some did get into trouble. Living in some of the poorest neighborhoods they seemed to have experienced stop and frisk activities from police, which they accepted as an expected occurrence. I wondered how it would feel from the perspective of white kids and how their parents would react?

A few weeks ago my wife and I went into the city in the late afternoon when the subway cars were loaded with kids coming home from school. We got seats in the midst of a group of noisy and rambunctious young teens who were horsing around. Being on the trains at that time quite often, I was wary but not uncomfortable. My wife seemed a bit more concerned, at first. Until one kid, running by bumped into me. He stopped, turned around and apologized. While being aware, as one must be, ingrained assumptions can be very dangerous. Just ask George Zimmerman. [POSTNOTE: He may have gotten off but he will never rest in peace. In fact he may have been better off in the long run if convicted on the lesser charges.]

Norm blogs at ednotesonline.org.

Here is a more newsy article on a march to stop stop and frisk held in Rockaway on June 22. Published in The Wave June 28, 2013:

Rockaway Rally to Stop “Stop and Frisk”

By Norm Scott

Having read City councilman Eric Ulrich’s recent column in The Wave in which he criticized attempts to curtail Stop and Frisk and proposed bills in the City Council calling for more oversight of the police department, seeming to view them as an attack on the work of the police, I decided to check out a “Stop Stop and Frisk" march staged by a group of activists from  the Rockaway Youth Task Force, Brothers for Peace and Social Change, Culinary Kids, and People's Justice. About 30 people marched along Beach Channel Drive from Beach 57th Street to Mott Avenue on June 22, a beautiful Saturday afternoon. I was only able to cover the early part of the march which was aimed at making the community aware of their efforts, handing out leaflets and engaging in information conversations on the route.

Josmar Trujillo, one of the march organizers and a Rockaway resident said, "We're not here to say we don't want any police. We want policing to be done the right way.”

Ulrich did recognize that the policy is controversial: "Critics abound. Some argue stop and frisk violates civil liberties and unfairly targets people of color and minority communities." Ulrich did not address the impact of the policy on law-abiding young men who are so often the target based on little evidence other than the color of their skin.

One 22 year old marcher, wearing a bright orange Rockaway Youth Task Force tee-shirt, touched on the unfair aspect. "I've been stopped many times. I've even been stopped walking into my building and asked where am I going. They search and pat you down. They ask if you've ever been arrested. They look you up and they let you go. It's a waste of their time. It's a waste of my time. It doesn't actually stop crime and we're tired of it."

Christina Gonzalez, 26, who grew up in Dayton was asked about the impact of the policy on women, given that they are almost never stopped, said they are no less affected. "They're the ones who have to defend their partners or be forced to stand by and watch helplessly," she said.

Ulrich maintained that "Stop and frisk has helped drive crime to historic lows, removed thousands of illegal guns from city streets and contributed to the overall renaissance of our great city." Critics point out that evidence points to a very small percentage are actually accused of a crime. Of the nearly 5 million stops that took place in last decade, less than 1% resulted in a handgun recovered. The 101st police precinct, which covers the eastern end of the Rockaways, has some of the highest rates of stop and frisk in Queens and in the City according to the NY Civil Liberties Union and is one of the only precincts in the City that has maintained a high level of stop while the rest of the City has seen a drop.

Trujillo said, "Residents and community groups are demanding that post-Sandy Rockaway be rebuilt with as much social and racial justice as planned storm-resistant infrastructure. Inequity and injustice have no place in a community that has pledged to be united moving forward. We gathered to show that we will not let the status quo of racial profiling in Far Rockaway continue."

Some claim that efforts to curb Stop and Frisk actually serves to police department from pressure from commanding officers to meet quotas to "juke" the stats," which are often the sole method used to judge effective policing. Critics blame Bloomberg’s cuts to the police, saying if there were more officers on the street for community policing there would be less need for Stop and Frisk.

A June 24 report at CapitalNewYork.com addressed this issue. “The most recent budget does not raise taxes or include increases in fines or fees ... and does not include more money to increase the size of the New York Police Department. One reason the police stepped up their proactive tactics, according to one of [police chief Ray] Kelly's predecessors, Bill Bratton, is the reduction in the size of the police department. With fewer officers and more responsibilities to fight street crime and terrorism, police can no longer spend as much time learning about the neighborhoods they're patrolling, developing a rapport with residents and acquiring information. According to Bratton, the "political decision” not to increase the size of the police force has led to the stop-and-frisk problem Bloomberg is now dealing with."

A public debate on the issue will be organized in Far Rockaway in July. Those interested in speaking or attending can get more information. Facebook: Resist Stop and Frisk - Far Rockaway

Email: resiststopandfriskfarrock@gmail.com

Here are some press releases from the organizing groups in Rockaway.

More than six months after hurricane Sandy the Far Rockaway community is seeing a resurgence of the familiar police tactics that were the norm before the disaster. The 101st police precinct, which covers the eastern end of the Rockaways, has some of the highest rates of stop and frisks in Queens and in the City, according to the most recent NYCLU data.

Residents, community groups and stop and frisk activists will come together on Saturday, June 22nd to march from the Edgemere housing buildings on Beach 57th and Beach Channel Drive to Mott Ave, near the A train station, where we will rally to say no more to racial profiling. We demand our community, and our youth in particular, stop being treated as criminals first and citizens last.

As the Rockaways look to rebuild and build back better equipped to deal with natural disasters, we will resist the social and political disaster bestowed down to communities of color by Mayor Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Kelly. The status quo of racial profiling as policy for the NYPD is not tenable, legal or just. The community needs economic and social investment, not a police state.

 ----------

RESIST STOP and FRISK IN FAR ROCKAWAY

More than six months after hurricane Sandy the Far Rockaway community is seeing a resurgence of the familiar police tactics that were the norm before the disaster. The 101st police precinct, which covers the eastern end of the Rockaways, has some of the highest rates of stop and frisks in Queens and in the City, and is one of the only precincts in the City that is doing MORE stop and frisks, while the rest of the City has seen a drop. In the Rockaways the overwhelming majority of stops are occurring on the eastern end of the peninsula. It has been said that commanding officers seeking promotions come to Rockaway where they can accrue high arrest numbers for the Compustat-based police model that has dominated the NYPD in in the Bloomberg era. Revelations from the Federal trial on stop and frisk policy last month included police officers who testified as to quotas placed upon them from higher ranking officer point. The official position of the Mayor and commissioner Kelly has consistently been that stop and frisks take guns off the streets. However, of the nearly 5 Million stops that took place in last decade, less than 1% of those resulted in a handgun recovered. It has become such a scandal that the Department of Justice has even recently come out to support the creation of an independent monitor for the NYPD, which the NYPD does not want. The NYPD and the local precinct point to the high crime rate but recent 2013 data shows that there is no relationship between stop and frisk rates and crime. In the early part of the year crime went down even as stop and frisks went down across the City. Not to mention the fact that the legal basis for the tactic require reasonable suspicion of being armed. Since 99.5% of the time there is no gun, one can only come to the conclusion that these suspicions are unfounded. But the 101st precinct has clearly and unequivocally said they use stop and frisks to combat crime in general--a clear violation of the standard they are supposed to place upon the tactic. Are you interested in talking more about this issue? 

Would you like to argue for or against stop and frisk? We will be organizing a public debate in July in Far Rockaway. If you are interested in speaking or attending, please contact us. Facebook Group: Resist Stop and Frisk - Far Rockaway Email: resiststopandfriskfarrock@gmail.com

Eat a Twinkie, Be a Scab

Are Twinkies the charter schools of the junk food industry? I always thought they sucked anyway. BOYCOTT!!!

Twinkies are back after a successful union-busting campaign that placed the blame on union workers for its demise. As the media celebrates their return, they make sure to bury the real story.

Here are some resources if you have nothing better to do on a hot summer day.

1. CNBC.com
   1. Business takeaways from the return of the Hostess Twinkie
      

      Quartz ‎- 2 days ago

      Now Hostess will have non-union drivers who will be able to deliver Twinkies to almost all the convenience stores in the country. The union ...
   1. The Twinkie Returns, With Less Baggage

      Wall Street Journal‎ - 5 days ago

2. Return of the Twinkie, Sans Union Labor - Dallas - News - Unfair Park

   blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/06/return_of_the_twinkie.php‎

   Jun 24, 2013 - Twinkie is risen from the ashes of its liquidated parent, Hostess, and will visit the shelves of grocery stores and...

3. Hostess Ditches Union Workers – Plans July Twinkie Relaunch ...

   www.thegatewaypundit.com/.../hostess-ditches-union-workers-plans-july...‎

   Jun 23, 2013 - twinkie. Hostess union workers were hoping its new owners would rehire them after purchasing the bankrupt cakes company. Didn't happen.

4. Twinkie's future could be union-free - Apr. 25, 2013 - CNN Money

   

   money.cnn.com/2013/04/25/news/.../twinkies-union.../index.ht...‎

   by Jose Pagliery - in 91 Google+ circles

   Apr 25, 2013 - The makers of Twinkies are starting up production again soon. But union workers might not be getting their jobs back.

5. Twinkies Return, Hostess Unions Won't - ABC News

   abcnews.go.com › Money

   Apr 26, 2013 - The bankrupt assets of Hostess Brands, Inc, the company responsible for such delicacies as Twinkies, Ho Ho's, Sno Balls and Ding Dongs, are ...

6. New Twinkie Maker Shuns Union Labor - WSJ.com

   online.wsj.com/.../SB1000142412788732447400457844306238066026...‎

   Apr 24, 2013 - The company that bought the Twinkie, HoHo and Ding Dong brands out of bankruptcy won't use union labor when it reopens the plants.

7. No Union Label on Twinkie Return - Breitbart

   www.breitbart.com/Big.../2013/04/.../No-Union-Label-on-Twinkie-Retur...‎

   Apr 28, 2013 - Buried amid the generally gloomy news last week was a development that is a true cause for celebration. By July, the Twinkie, and other ...

8. What they didn't tell you about the Twinkies comeback! » peoplesworld

   peoplesworld.org/what-they-didn-t-tell-you-about-the-twinkies-comeback/‎

   Jun 27, 2013 - Those Millers Union workers who have taken jobs with the new Twinkie owners have taken substantially greater compensation hits than they ...

Teach For America's Civil War: Organizing Resistance Against Teach for America and its Role in Privatization

This summer, alumni and current teachers are launching the first ever national campaign against the organization.

This weekend former TFAers and others gathered in Chicago to discuss a resistance movement to TFA.

James Ceronsky wrote about it for The American Prospect.

Twenty-four years running, the rap on Teach for America (TFA) is a sampled, re-sampled, burned-out record: The organization’s five-week training program is too short to prepare its recruits to teach, especially in chronically under-served urban and rural districts; corps members only have to commit to teach for two years, which destabilizes schools, undermines the teaching profession, and undercuts teachers unions; and TFA, with the help of its 501(c)4 spin-off, Leadership for Educational Equity, is a leading force in the movement to close “failing” schools, expand charter schools, and tie teachers’ job security to their students’ standardized test scores. Critics burn TFA in internet-effigy across the universe of teacher listservs and labor-friendly blogs. Last July, it earned Onion fame: an op-ed entitled “My Year Volunteering As A Teacher Helped Educate A New Generation Of Underprivileged Kids,” followed by a student’s take, “Can We Please, Just Once, Have A Real Teacher?”

Despite the endless outcry, no one has ever staged a coordinated, national effort to overhaul, or put the brakes on, TFA—let alone anyone from within the TFA rank-and-file. On July 14, in a summit at the annual Free Minds/Free People education conference in Chicago, a group of alumni and corps members will be the first to do so.

 More here.

Here's the web site for the conference that ended today.

NYDN: Charter school funding balloons during Mayor Bloomberg time in office - DUHHHH!

If they can knock off 10% of the teaching staff with another 10% to come over the next few years, the city can funnel money directly to the charter jails without passing GO. Here are some points made in today's Daily News "Exclusive" -- some exclusive, telling us Bloomberg has shortchanged public schools in favor of charters.

Charter schools received billions of dollars during Mayor Bloomberg’s tenure — while teachers, school aides, principals and classrooms got a smaller share. Meanwhile, the city spent more money on direct services to schools, but reduced the percentage of funds that goes to pay for classroom staffers and materials.....NYDN

Duhhhhh, one might say given the Bloomberg ed deform aim to wipe out entire swaths of public schools and replace them with charters.

Now there are a whopping 159 charter schools in the city — and two dozen more will open in the fall. More than 100,000 students — about 10% of all city students — are expected to be enrolled when all of the schools reach capacity. 

Just watch calls for expansion when the cap is reached - given there are 159 charters in NYC already we are heading in that direction. Not only chains but every social welfare agency and mom and pop people with a vision of getting into the edu-real estate charter business where you can hold of a piece of an entire publicly funded and built building are jumping on the charter bandwagon. No unions, no worries. Think about it. 10% of the students mostly go to schools with non-union teachers. The UFT has to be taking a hit here with the loss of dues with the opening of  every new charter though the ATR deal where people are not fired like they are in other cities keeps dues coming in. But watch the final piece go into place starting this year with the new evaluation system as the city starts going after tenured teachers in droves. The entire purpose of the desperation of ed deformers to get an evaluation deal in place is all about an end run around tenure.

If they can knock off 10% of the teaching staff with another 10% to come over the next few years, the city can funnel money directly to the charter jails without passing GO.

Remember that the Chicago TU lost about 6000 teachers, around 15-20% of its membership.

EXCLUSIVE: Charter school funding balloons during Mayor Bloomberg time in office

Charter school funding, set by the state, has risen from about $32 million to about $659 million over a decade as the mayor increased their number.There were 17 charter schools in New York when Mayor Bloomberg took office. Now there are a whopping 159.

Related Stories

• Harlem Children Zone’s Promise Academy charter school, built with $60M from city, opens 
• Why charter school myths are spreading 
• Officials oppose state Senate yeshiva bus plan that could open floodgates to hundreds of millions of dollars more in city busing costs
• Democrats push back the educational policies of Mayor Bloomberg as GOP front-runner Joe Lhota makes confident play in support of reforms

 

Charter schools received billions of dollars during Mayor Bloomberg’s tenure — while teachers, school aides, principals and classrooms got a smaller share of a substantially larger school budget pie, according to documents obtained by the Daily News.
Money for charter schools exploded from about $32 million to about $659 million over a decade as Bloomberg increased their number from 17 when he took office in 2002 to 125 in 2010-11, the most recent year for which spending data are available.
Funding for charter schools is set by the state.

Now there are a whopping 159 charter schools in the city — and two dozen more will open in the fall. More than 100,000 students — about 10% of all city students — are expected to be enrolled when all of the schools reach capacity.

“This administration’s unprecedented investment in education created stability and coherence in a broken system,” said Andrew Buher, chief operating officer for the city Education Department.

But the skyrocketing expansion, a key part of Hizzoner’s education legacy, is controversial partly because charter schools receive rent-free space in city buildings and are privately run.

Roughly two-thirds of the schools are located within traditional district schools.

“It’s no secret that this administration has made charter schools a priority, and this can be seen in dollars as well as in the allocation of space,” said Kim Sweet, executive director of city nonprofit Advocates for Children.

Charter schools outperform public schools on many measures, but only 6% of their students are English-language learners, and just 9% of their students have special needs — much lower than the citywide averages.

In a speech last week at the Manhattan Institute, city Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott boasted about“our highly sought-after charter school options.”

Charter school sources said they expect the level of growth to slow down in the next few years — even though there are huge waiting lists — because the schools can’t hire qualified staffers fast enough to keep up with demand as existing facilities reach their full capacities.

Meanwhile, the city spent more money on direct services to schools, but reduced the percentage of funds that goes to pay for classroom staffers and materials.

Teachers received about 34% of the overall education budget in 2010-11, down from roughly 40% of the overall budget in 2001-02. But their starting salaries increased — from $31,190 in September 2001 to $45,530 this year, according to education officials.

Still, teachers union head Michael Mulgrew blasted the city for skimping on teacher salaries, saying instructors haven’t received raises in the four years since their last contract expired in 2009. “If you’re going to lower the percentage you’re paying teachers, you’re not going to be able to hold on to or attract a high-quality workforce,” Mulgrew said.

Bloomberg also allotted smaller shares for custodial services, drug prevention programs and summer school, while boosting payments to private schools for special-needs students who require services district schools don’t provide.

More money was also doled out for debt service and employee benefits.
Since 2002, the overall city budget increased from about $41 billion to about $65 billion in 2011, according to figures from the Independent Budget Office.

The education budget takes up about a third of the overall city budget — and has nearly doubled since Bloomberg took office. It grew from $13 billion in 2002 to nearly $25 billion for next year.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/charter-school-funding-balloons-article-1.1398190

Martin Van Buren HS Community fight back against co-location

One of the more sinister methods the Department of Education uses to undermine comprehensive high schools is by opening up new schools within buildings that were not designed to hold multiple schools. This hurts the established school in a number of ways. The student population of the comprehensive school is reduced to accommodate the new school.  This in turn leads to a huge budget cut in the established school which leads to massive staff and program reductions. The students in the established school are also made to feel that they are second class citizens in their own school as they see the new school lavished with all kinds of state of the art equipment and facilities in their part of the building as the DOE pours start up funds into the new school. The DOE can then compare the two schools and find the established one lacking. ....James Eterno

The Martin Van Buren High School community is fighting the co-location of a new school in their building.  They are holding a press conference Monday at 1:00 pm in front of the school.  James Eterno has the details on the ICE blog.

Lois Weiner on the Survival of Unions and Why Chicago TU is Different

What we see in Chicago has been more  like the kind of organizing done by the CIO, fusing a progressive social program to union demands. CORE, the insurgent caucus that leads the CTU and was re-elected last month in a landslide (with over 60% of the members voting) has shifted the political terrain of education politics by embedding union demands in a vision for public education. ... Lois Weiner

Herman Benson, founder and driving force behind the Association of Union Democracy, is an interesting guy. He must be around a hundred years old by now.  See here, here, here.

I was in touch with the AUD early on in the life of Ed Notes. I was told by some old hands that Benson as a fan of Al Shanker and the UFT as one of the most democratic of unions (sadly, that is actually true) often left them off the hook. I imagine Benson, as others do, would think I am too harsh on the UFT given the context. But I don't know any other context personally. I guess there is another side but I have no patience for it.

Here is a great debate starting with Lois Weiner's comments referring to the debate on union democracy between Benson and Dan La Botz. Debating the Chicago model vs UFT model will be fodder for years of debate. I find it interesting that Mulgrew seems to have been selling both to Chicago and to the anti-Randy Unity Caucus people (a growing band) that he is differentiating himself from Randi. Maybe in some words and tone, but I offer my standard: watch what they do, not what they say.

A reply to Herman Benson: The Chicago Teachers Union is a different kind of labor union

http://newpol.org/content/reply-herman-benson-chicago-teachers-union-different-kind-labor-union

Lois Weiner

July 12, 2013

The exchange between Herman Benson and Dan La Botz highlights one, if not the primary, issue that has to be resolved if we are to turn back the tidal wave of anti-union and anti-democratic policies that have transformed the nation’s social and political landscape.  I think both Herman and Dan would agree that we need a revived labor movement. But what will drive the revival? And what form should it take?

Herman’s definition of revival seems to consist of more “oomph” from the AFL-CIO leadership and more attention to union democracy.  Both are sorely needed. The question is whether these are adequate to restore, let alone push forward, the political and economic policies we so desperately need.  In education, the answer is a clear “no” and the example of the Chicago Teachers Union supports Dan’s argument.

Yes, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) conducted a militant strike. But it was not a traditional strike by any means, if we take as a definition of tradition what has existed in US unions for four decades.  What we see in Chicago has been more  like the kind of organizing done by the CIO, fusing a progressive social program to union demands. CORE, the insurgent caucus that leads the CTU and was re-elected last month in a landslide (with over 60% of the members voting) has shifted the political terrain of education politics by embedding union demands in a vision for public education. Yes, the strike was a contract dispute, but these courageous, wise activists found a way to win over the vast majority of teachers to use the contract fight to fight for much more. Theirs was a fight for public education - as is their current struggle against the unnecessary, racist school closings that other cities are facing.  CTU has taken on the power establishment of Chicago and the White House.  They organize along side parents and community activists, as partners. In doing so, the CTU has shown teachers and organized labor the kind of unions - and unionism - we need.  Now. 

The victory of “right to work” legislation in Michigan shows how very tenuous U.S. labor’s hold is on the right to bargain collectively. Is it even a movement? Herman has been so right for so long about union democracy. Still, his analysis reflects the problems liberals have had in understanding that neoliberalism has destroyed the landscape in which unions have functioned.  (In an upcoming article in “The Jacobin,” I’ll be discussing liberalism’s failure to “get” what’s ailing education and the unions more detail.)

(Note: You can now follow me on twitter @drloisweiner.)