The site covers every topic but on education it has this list where we are in good company.
http://prorevnews.blogspot.
Written and edited by Norm Scott: EDUCATE! ORGANIZE!! MOBILIZE!!! Three pillars of The Resistance – providing information on current ed issues, organizing activities around fighting for public education in NYC and beyond and exposing the motives behind the education deformers. We link up with bands of resisters. Nothing will change unless WE ALL GET INVOLVED IN THE STRUGGLE!
The fact is, the war between the unions and Cuomo was NEVER on because these people running the unions don't want a war. They like testing, they like Common Core and they like reform. They're simply negotiating the terms of exploitation and surrender while sucking up their double pensions and other union perks and putting on a show for the rest of us... RBE points out that the ed deform supporting union leadership (AFT/UFT/NYSUT) UFT Continues To Put On Dog And Pony Show Against Cuomo, But Signals They Expect Defeat -Michael Fiorillo left this comment below on the Perdido Street School blog where Reality-Based Educator talked about the resolution at the DA: UFT President Michael Mulgrew Discovers Nixon's Silent Testing Majority which is a must-read.
Do I really need to pay over a thousand dollars a year to listen to someone who misrepresents me and acts like a ventriloquist's doll for Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg and all the other so-called reform privateers? To say that tests should drive instruction, as Mr. Robeson did, is to repeat their phrasing word for word.
The needs of children, not tests, should drive instruction.
The reviving of democracy, not tests, should drive instruction.
Education as a means of providing choices, and the ability to rationally judge them, not tests, should drive instruction.
Yesterday's DA provided yet more proof, as if it was necessary, that the Weingrew regime fully accepts the premises of the so-called reformers, which pivot on high stakes testing. These people are there to manage and pacify us while the deal goes down.
How these folks think they can maintain their dues machine once the union is so weakened and discredited (and make no mistake, any union where 80% of the active membership doesn't vote, where archipelagos of schools have no Chapter Leader, and where the contract is ignored with impunity, is racing there) that it can be drowned in the bathtub.
That is exactly what Gates and company will do when Weingrew have outlived their usefulness: stop taking their phone calls and send them on their way to their double pensions.
Apparently, they've signed a loyalty oath to Bill Gates, not that it will help when he's used them up.
Perhaps they're operating under the assumption of the crooked bankers and mortgage brokers leading up to the financial crisis of 2008: IBGYBG, or "I'll Be Gone, You'll Be Gone."
Did I tell you we got back from Singer Island and Delray beach Tuesday? |
Motion—Mike Schirtzer rises, raises motion for next month on behalf of MORE, to support I Refuse Movement. Circulates it. Mulgrew says it needs a simple majority to be placed on agenda.Oh, and a post-DA conversation between Schirtzer and New Action's Shulman where Shulman complained loudly that if only MORE had communicated with New Action they would have fixed the reso and it would have passed. Sure. New Action has so much influence. They've been on the UFT Ex Bd through the grace of Mulgrew and in exchange for supporting Mulgrew or Weingarten in the past 4 UFT elections over a decade and we have seen so much "inaction" on the testing issue.
Mike says has been passed by several locals, that testing regime is out of hand, and that we should oppose high stakes testing. Says test prep saps joy from teaching, helps neither us nor our students. Kills creativity, critical thinking so we can do non stop test prep. Says we must starve the beast, that MOSL is junk science. Says if we’re gonna go to war against Cuomo, let’s take high stakes testing away from him.
Point of information—states we cannot make resolutions for NYSUT, and that there is no NYC Board of Education. Mulgrew points out other reference to NYSUT, makes disapproving noises, says DA does not have ability to bind NYSUT’s hands.
Sterling Robeson rises to speak against resolution, says we are against overtesting, but that we need tools to help drive instruction. Says parents need tests to ensure that they’re getting the “education they deserve.” Says we’ve supported this issue “from teachers of Chicago,” and in early grades. Says we’ve enforced it and reemphasized it over and over. States there is difference between opting out and refusing. Says it tells folks to tell their kids to refuse. Although there are pieces that are appealing to us, it goes to far. Urges this motion be defeated.
Mulgrew holds vote, I did not hear him declare outcome (it was clearly voted down, I would say 2-1) takes point of personal privilege, says he understands passion around this issue. Says resolution is out of order because it asks us to make decision about NYSUT. Speaks of how parents want tests. Says we’re in a fight and have to be smart about it, that we ought not to take a boilerplate resolution that was put together in other places. Says we should be against high stakes.
Supporter of resolution makes point of information—"Last resolve makes it clear that this resolution is only"—Mulgrew interrupts speaker before she finishes and says it’s already been voted on. Calls speaker out of order.
Brian Williams was in Iraq because his employers worked quite hard to get us there. That’s how we found our way into Iraq—with people like Williams and (Chris) Matthews pimping the glories of Candidate Bush, then calling Gore “un-American.”Read it all at:
Brian is very wealthy today. People are dead all over the world because so many chasers of “press corps” Mammon sang these particular songs. On the brighter side, Williams is very wealthy today.
We’ve warned you and warned you and warned you again—disaster lurks when “journalists” are handed multimillions by corporate owners like (Jack) Welch. This syndrome affects our “liberal” journalists too, including those we may be most inclined to love, respect and trust.
.......
Immelt could afford both cribs? Having fawned to his friend Rush Limbaugh, Williams was now bringing in two times Immelt’s haul! He owned a house in wealthy New Canaan too, handed down from the influential in-laws which must never be discussed in profiles of Williams. Now, he also shared a Manhattan address with Immelt and with Welch. These are the sorts of facts people like Williams work quite hard to suppress. Obedient members of the guild will generally keep such facts undiscussed. This leads us rubes to believe the relentless cons about Brian’s vast everydayness.
We’ll discuss that problem before the week’s end; your lizard brain will insist that we’re wrong. But we don’t think that Williams is an obvious “decent guy” in the way he approaches the world.
We think he scratched his way to the top. Along the way, we’ll guess that he was often less than obsessively honest, and not just about those RPGs in Iraq.
When Howard Kurtz sang Brian’s songs: Back in 2007, Howard Kurtz sang Brian’s various songs in his book, Reality Show. By then, Williams was very important. Perhaps for that reason, Kurtz broke his back to tell Brian’s story in the way Brian likes it told. In December 2007, we did a three-part Special Report about Kurtz’s ridiculous fluffing of Williams. For links to all three parts, click here. For something resembling a fourth part to the series, you can just click this.
Usually most of the things they say on their internal web site are either dull and unimportant, or shrouded in their lingo (words like "efficacy," etc.) but here we have shilpi giving out talking points, about a politico article that's going to be published today about them.
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Here we have them talking about "lessons learned" from the parcc
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Here is something from January 21, 2015; This is their hilarious response / talking points regarding the recent fortune magazine article, called 'everyone hates pearson,' -- they completely dodge any questions about lausd and their so called charitable foundation, and they deny that barber wants global standards (of course he does) and they go on about how they are the most accurate assessment system ever!
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Maybe you've seen this one, ...but it's straight from the horse's mouth about how they are purposely dumbing down the children, I mean, they say it right there, "this material has been totally re-written, not repurposed from existing materials" and, get a load of the math problem on page two, where "marta" has a glass full of pieces of gravel VARYING IN SIZE (varying in size!!!!) and yet she has to GUESS how many will fill the glass, I mean, THIS IS NOT MATH, this is not rounding numbers, it is absolutely designed to confuse young children and make them feel that there are no correct, exact answers that can be found. They want kids to do it by a "best-fit" line. And with algebra, they're teaching it all wrong, they're having the kids move all the scientific formulas around first, solving for just one variable, before plugging in numbers. That's an extra step you don't need to do, and makes problem-solving very time-consuming. They apparently don't want you to be able to plug in numbers directly into formulas written the way they're supposed to be written in the standard format.
Disciplinary Action/Termination: Rather than simply moving forward with disciplinary action based on a teacher’s “Ineffective” rating, the DOE will only pursue disciplinary action (3020-a) for teachers rated poorly if principals agree. It is also important to note that principals can use their autonomy to go in another direction and recommend teachers rated “Developing” for 3020-a.
SANDERS: I really am concerned about some of the language you used leading up to this discussion, the suggestion that it is un-American to criticize the president and we're supposed to be fighting for freedom.Let's attribute correctly! Suddenly, Brian was very concerned about fundamental fairness! He was willing to float “un-American” rather widely with respect to Gore. But he sought fairness for Rush!
This is not Iraq. It's not China, and I think the American people want a serious debate on this issue.
[...]
I think the position that Jim [McDermott] and I are advocating is what the vast majority of the people want. They want us to work with the United Nations. They are concerned about the impact of a unilateral effort on the war on terrorism, as Al Gore just said...
WILLIAMS: Congressman, Congressman Sanders, just to be fair, I was quoting, when I used the term “un-American,” a caller to Mr. Limbaugh's radio show accusing—
SANDERS: But who cares what—but who cares what Rush Limbaugh says?
WILLIAMS: Well, let's not attribute it to the broadcast. Let's attribute correctly.
WILLIAMS: For the record, we tried to get Rush Limbaugh on tonight. He had another engagement, sent his regrets. But I confirm that was the sound of a trash can hitting the wall during his broadcast today, a rough day for Rush.Poor Rush! He had really had “a rough day,” all thanks to that speech by Vile Gore!
Shortly after unveiling ads last week attacking Gov. Cuomo's education plans, the heads of the city and state teacher unions met with aides to the governor, the Daily News has learned.City teachers union President Michael Mulgrew and New York State United Teachers President Karen Magee attended the meeting on Friday at the state Capitol.Sources say the unions during the meeting may have agreed to temporarily pull their attack ads, leaving some insiders to question whether the sides are trying to hammer out some type of agreement on how to move forward.Reps for both unions wouldn't discuss the specifics of the meeting, though a NYSUT spokesman said that its "broad-based media campaign is moving forward, with more to come."“We talk to elected officials all the time," said Mulgrew spokeswoman Alison Gendar. "We use strategically-placed ads to move the education discussion in the right direction. At this moment, the UFT and NYSUT, our parent organization, are engaged in the largest grass-roots campaign in recent memory to empower teachers and to protect our students.”In a separate statement, NYSUT spokesman Carl Korn said that "we advocate for students and public education in many ways, including talking to elected officials.""We have a strategy to use rotating television ads, billboards, print ads, social media and public forums to educate New Yorkers about the importance of protecting public education," he added. "Our grassroots campaign is accelerating. More forums are taking place next week. NYSUT's broad-based media campaign is moving forward, with more to come."Neither Gendar nor Korn returned calls over the weekend for clarification on their statements.Cuomo aides also wouldn't comment.Cuomo has been warring with the unions, who did not back his reelection effort last year.Vowing to break what he calls "one of the only remaining public monopolies," the governor this year proposed an education-reform package that would revamp the teacher tenure and evaluation programs, make it easier to fire bad and lecherous instructors, give the state more power to oversee the overhaul of failing schools and expand charter schools.He also has accused the unions of being more interested in protecting their members than improving the situation for students.The unions have accused him of trying to demonize teachers.
Norm, our first graders spent September, October, November testing, all for teacher MOSLs. We lost the opportunity to attend to the needs of our first graders at the very beginning of the school year when they need us most. Teachers were unable to delve into high interest units as we usually do, like Apples, Pumpkins, holidays, etc. It was such a waste of time & we were all so very upset at what we weren't able to teach during that time. The worst part about it is that parents were completely unaware that testing was going for all that time. Can you imagine putting out a school letter that says, "Dear Parents, We'd like to advise you that all first grade students will be tested for the first 3 months of the school year." Ha ha. We had about 5 different tests to administer, one with several components, and ALL were to be administered individually. Now you figure out how much learning when on during those months.Then there is this from CapitalNY. It's like an internal tug of war where schools waste countless hours testing kids to death while people at the top are oblivious.
CITY WILL INVEST $5 M. IN LITERACY, LANGUAGE PROGRAMS—Capital’s Eliza Shapiro: “Bill de Blasio's preliminary budget will include more than $5 million for literacy intervention teams and access to language services for parents, according to the mayor's office. The Fiscal Year 2016 preliminary budget, scheduled for release today, includes $2.4 million to create a separate intervention team within the Department of Education's special education office to support literacy in students with dyslexia.Sure. Teachers have time for labor intensive dyslexia interventions when they are assaulted from every direction, including the massive paperwork.
—The intervention would further Carmen Fariña's goal of getting every child in New York up to reading level by second grade, something de Blasio reiterated last month during his announcement to expand the Young Men's Initiative. The funding would also be used for staff training to create more expertise around dyslexia interventions and more literacy support across the general education population. In addition to her second grade reading goal, Fariña has said she wants to see the quality and quantity of writing vastly improved in all city schools over the next year.
My school is administering mid-year benchmark assessments this month. First graders will be tested for a minimum of 180 minutes over the course of four consecutive days. On days one and two - for 45 minutes each day - ReadyGEN curriculum assessments will be used to test six and seven-year-olds in English-language arts (ELA). On the other two days - again, 45 minutes each day - first graders will take Go Math assessments.These tests are being given in addition to:1. Beginning of the year NYC Baseline Performance Tasks in ELA and math (MOSLs used for teacher evaluation purposes only)2. Running records - 4 per year3. Monthly writing assessments aligned to the Common Core standards4. 12 Go Math unit assessments5. End of the year NYC Performance Tasks in ELA and math (MOSLs used for teacher evaluation purposes only)This is first grade, folks.
We want our leaders to get up in front of the Cuomo equivalent powerful German army members intimidating everyone as they are singing German fight songs in Rick's cafe and lead everyone in the "Marseillaise".But no guts, no glory. And so it goes.
All just empty, going-through-the-motions-to make-it-look-like-we're on-top-of-this misdirection. They've already decided on what they'll settle for (on our backs, needless to say) and still think they can pull off something behind the scenes. If Shelley was still in place as Speaker, that might have "worked," somewhat, but now? With things so unsettled? They're taking a very big risk with our future...As I pointed out in my Casablanca referenced piece last night -Louie, I Think This is the Start of a Beautiful Friendship - Will Mulgrew Join the Resistance or Vichy?-- there is not much will for being resistance fighters in our leadership, which hungers most for a seat at the table.
At last DA Kelly asked if we would get additional money for our school based organizing against Cuomo and I believe that Mulgrew said something like yes. Anyone remember exactly what he did say? I asked my DR and she said NO.Followed by this:
At the "emergency" chapter leader meeting this Wednesday that all DRs were told to have with their CLs there was few concrete unified actions organized by UFT. DR gave lots of paper info and said we should organize our members. They didn't even have the petition nor did they have the postcards to get signed. I made concrete suggestions and after meeting, some of the other CLs came up to me for ideas. I also asked about getting extra money for the school campaign as per what Mulgrew said at DA but DR said no extra money. Honestly it was not hard to get my members activated and we have a bunch of actions planned. Imagine if our leadership was coordinating unified actions. No, just a petition campaign.Below is what the District Reps are sending to teachers with talking points and a breakdown of the Cuomo threat, which as NYC Educator pointed out in his fabulous piece - Entropy -
Now they want me to tweet what they tell me. Use this hashtag, or that, they say, and everything will be better. Once Cuomo sees our tweets he'll run like a doormouse. Mulgrew doesn't tweet because, like the pigs in Animal Farm, he's off doing brainwork, filling ledgers that must be meticulously filled then burned in the furnace. That's what I pay a thousand dollars a year for, while they go to conventions and fail to support people who might actually wish to help me.I love that Animal Farm reference. We are all so Orwellian as we pointed out at the AFT Bill Gates Seattle convention in 2010 with this video.
Thank you to everyone who was able to attend the chapter-leader meeting. I’m following up on what we discussed during the meeting.
What makes our campaign urgent is the fact that if the state budget is not passed on time (April 1), with changes made to the education policies of the governor, then Mr. Cuomo can use a political maneuver called an “executive order” to pass his own budget. The governor’s budget would include all the educational policies he introduced at the 2015 State of the State Address:
https://www.ny.gov/2015-opportunity-agenda/education-escalator#teacher-evaluations
Essentially, Mr. Cuomo is trying to accomplish in one year (really 3 months), what Mayor Bloomberg tried to accomplish in twelve years. An important part of our campaign to fight Cuomo’s education agenda is to inform our political representatives, the parents of our students and the general public on how bad these policies are for public education and our students. Our representatives must hear our chorus and our message and stand up to the governor and fight these policies.
The main points of the Cuomo education agenda are as follows:
INDIVIDUAL MERIT PAY – He wants to give teachers that get a highly effective final rating an additional $20,000. This may sound good for those that recently got this rating but wait until you see how he wants to change the teacher evaluation system. Merit pay is a divisive idea that has failed everywhere it has been tried. Who is going to want to teach the neediest students with this policy?
TEACHER EVALUATION - Cuomo wants to get rid of the 20% local tests and increase the state test to be 50% of the teacher evaluation. The other 50% for measures of teacher practice would be 15% from your principal and 35% from an outside agent. How many teachers are going to come into teaching, or remain, if they are evaluated like this? And, how many teachers are going to remain in schools that have a large number of students with disabilities or other life challenges?
NEW TEACHERS BEWARE! – Mr. Cuomo wants to extend the probationary period from 3 to 5 years! That might be okay if he were proposing more support for new teachers but he’s not. What he wants in an army of “at will” employees who will have no due process rights. This policy ignores the real issue - the lack of support that drives 40% of new teachers to quit by their 5th year.
DUE PROCESS – The governor wants to take away the use of an independent arbitrator and wants the employer to decide on terminations. We say the process needs to be fair, quick and impartial. He believes it should be fast and unfair.
CHARTER SCHOOLS – The governor wants to increase the charter cap even though he knows that most charters are breaking the law by “creaming”, or unfairly selecting, the students they teach. Rather than holding charters accountable for this he wants to reward their misconduct along with the billionaires that are backing the charter movement.
RECEIVERSHIP – The governor wants to have all of the struggling schools to be run by private companies and to abolish all collective bargaining agreements. This plan punishes the neediest children and the educators who serve them.
SCHOOL FUNDING – The governor is holding this year’s inadequate school funding increase hostage to his political agenda. Since he has been in office, the governor has not met his constitutional obligation to properly fund our schools and now he is blaming us. Our schools are already owed billions of dollars from the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) litigation.
What we need to do:
1. Every chapter should conduct an emergency chapter meeting. Invite everyone, even your supervisors. We’re all on the same side in this fight. Let me know when you will be doing this.
2. A committee of members should meet with the parents at each school to inform them of these disastrous policies. Recruit parents in this fight.
3. Each school community should organize a group to attend one of three regional forums that are being held next week on the 12th.
4. Each chapter and school community should plan and execute local actions. This could be letter writing, phone calls, sending post cards, informational picketing.
5. Join the social media campaigns. Join the UFT Facebook campaign and the twitter campaign.
6. Send me the names and contact information of the people you want to send to Albany on March 4th. I will need their email address.
7. There will be other large events, including rallies, in the near future . Each school community should join in these mass actions.
8. Document, photograph and record your individual actions so we can pass the word to other school communities.
We can either sit idly by and watch these things happen to us, or we can join together and fight back.
Thank you all in advance for your continued hard work, and for your assistance on this campaign!
Mulgrew stands before the DA and bloviates for an hour. His talk is disorganized, frenetic. He comes back to things he hasn't finished. He sneers. He raises eyebrows. He speaks of how it's time to fight, how that's what he was taught when he grew up. He radiates the machismo that failed to surface anywhere during the six years we went without a contract, the machismo that evinced itself nowhere as the union said we'd happily wait another seven years for the raises everyone else got years ago. We all voted for it because it was better than nothing, because they said they weren't gonna do better and we believed them. Mulgrew shouts the determination to stop Cuomo that was nowhere to be found when Zephyr Teachout rose like a David but failed to garner sufficient force, that time, to slay the Goliath propped up by the dollars of our enemies. We know who the enemy is. Why didn't we know last summer, when we could have maybe done something about it?.... NYC Educator: EntropyBasically, all you have to do is watch Casablanca and read Arthur's piece to get which way the wind is blowing.
I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders afterInspired by a Ravitch post: A Question About Parental Choicevaccinesexcessive standardized testing. I'm not arguingvaccinestests are bad idea. I think they are a good thing, but I think the parent should have some input. The state doesn't own your children. Parents own the children. And it is an issue of freedom and publichealtheducation... Rand Paul, slightly revised.
A tweet by Jason Stanford, political journalist in Texas:JasonStanford @JasStanfordWhy is it OK with some politicians to opt your kids out from getting vaccinated but not if you don't want them taking a standardized test?
Conflict of Interest?
According to Dylan Thomas, "Mill City [charter school] joins the small but growing portfolio of the Minnesota Guild, a non-profit charter school authorizer sponsored by the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers. When it launched in 2011, the Guild was the first union-backed charter school authorizer in the country." The Guild's first charter school opened this past year in Isanti, Minnesota, and the MN Department of Education has authorized Mill City and three other charter schools to open in Minneapolis this fall, under the sponsorship of the union created Minnesota Guild.
The current president and lobbyist (also a former president) of MFT not only created the Guild, but continue to serve on its board of directors. Every charter school they sponsor pulls more students from Minneapolis Public Schools (or other public schools) which eliminates unionized teaching positions. How can the president of the teachers union defend the rights of the union members who elected her, and at the same time create schools that threaten those same members' job security?
Brad Blue and the Guild operate out of an office in the MFT-owned building and pay no rent. MFT's brothers and sisters working as janitors and engineers in Minneapolis Public Schools have their SEIU local office in the same MFT building, and they pay rent. Those of us who are MFT members had no say in the creation of the Guild even though we actually are the union, and now we continue to subsidize our own demise.
Union Leaders Have Joined the Privatizers
Two years ago I wrote about the Minnesota Guild of Public Charter Schools, an organization created four years ago to sponsor charter schools. The Guild was created by Lynn Nordgren, the current president of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT), and Louis Sundin, a former president of MFT and its current lobbyist. The funding for this enterprise came from the American Federation of Teachers' (AFT) Innovation Fund, which itself received money from the Gates Foundation. All of this was done without a discussion or vote by the rank-and-file members of MFT.