Teacher as Savior

Yesterday I spoke of a forum I attended in the Bronx. An interesting conversation ensued between audience and panel about recruitment for TFA and Moskowitz Academies. Evidently the pitch is that children of color must be saved and only you, the students, can get it done. Oh, and also we can give you a job after you graduate up to your neck in debt.

There are a number of striking points you could make about this particular argument. One is that there are plenty of public schools right there in the Bronx, and if you wish to branch out there are four more boroughs nearby with kids who could use your assistance. Another is that working in an NYC public school still beats the hell out of doing test prep for Eva and watching your hapless kids pee their pants rather than pause one moment from studying. She treats those kids a lot worse than I treat my dog (and in fact I love my dog, treat him well, and take him out whenever he asks).

Then, as one of the panelists pointed out, it's not exactly within our means to change everything. You know, there's poverty, there are learning disabilities, there is environment, and there are newcomers who speak no English. And make no mistake, Eva talks a big ballgame, but she doesn't take the same kids we do. 100% of the students I teach are beginners. They are most definitely not ready for intensive bathroom-free test prep, and that's not to suggest that anyone else is. If Eva takes ELLs, they are certainly on a higher level. Special education runs the gamut as well. Just because someone has an IEP doesn't mean she's alternate assessment, like a group of kids at my school. Alternate assessment kids are not expected to graduate. We take them to worksites and train them for jobs, and their stats count against us at year's end. And, of course, self-purported savior Moskowitz has a reputation for dumping kids that don't help her test-score-based bottom line.

As for TFA, sure you can have them pack you off to anyplace in the country. Sure you can help poor students whether or not you've got training sufficient to work in a public school. Maybe you've seen movies like Freedom Writers, where the actress what's her name (who, in fairness, has been in some good stuff too) singlehandedly inspires kids and saves them from their otherwise miserable destinies. Then there was the movie with Michelle Pfeiffer, where I think she shot a gun off in class, or jumped out a window or something, and didn't get fired.

One really cool thing about these movie teachers is they invariably have only one class. That's convenient, because you can focus on the handful of kids being saved. Most teachers I know have 170 students, and are pretty busy with things like, oh, grading tests and lesson planning. In my school, located on this astral plane, we now have grading policies so ponderous that teachers can barely find time for anything else. And don't get me started on gym teachers who have different classes every other day and are expected to perform this nonsense for 500 kids. I don't know how they even learn student names.

Of course teachers are a positive influence. Of course teachers, next to parents, are often the very best role models for children. And of course sometimes teachers can do incredible things, and there are extraordinary teachers. I know real stories about real teachers who reach out and change lives. I even know one who did this for years, who was threatened with an ineffective rating from a supervisor who appreciated this not at all, and who died alone one weekend only months before his planned retirement. I don't suppose that would make a movie script, as the protagonists tend to be gorgeous young white women.

The really cool thing about the teacher as savior model is it takes almost everyone off the hook for just about everything. Problems with your kids? The teachers suck. Failing the class? The teachers suck. Not graduating on time? The teachers suck. Teacher calling your house? He should handle it himself, that's his job, and he sucks. Why can't he be more like Michelle Pfeiffer or what's-her-name from Freedom Writers?

Not only parents are off the hook, but so are politicians. Arne Duncan, or John King, or Barack Obama, or Michael Bloomberg, or Joel Klein, or Andrew Cuomo (all of whom send their kids to private schools), can get up and tell some story about how a great teacher can change a life. That takes them off the hook for crumbling infrastructure, lack of a living wage or affordable health care, and allowing both parents to work 200 hours a week each to make ends meet. The implication is that a good teacher can change absolutely everything, and politicians are suddenly responsible for nothing, It's a WIN-WIN!

Thus you devise ways to fire teachers, like value-added, you devise ways to vilify teachers, like attacking their unions, and you devise ways to blame them for every ill of society. You even try to make a few films that drop the whole savior routines and stereotype public school, making charters the hero. You gloss over the whole pants-peeing thing because it doesn't make for increased popcorn sales.

Here's the thing--we do the best we can, each and every day, under incredibly challenging circumstances. We choose to go out and work with America's children each and every day, no matter who they are or how they come to us. We're not asking to be portrayed as super-heroes, but we don't deserve super-villain status either.

I want to support kids and help them to be happy, but I can't do everything. Politicians need to do their part too, instead of simply taking money from rich people, making their comfortable lives even more so, and ignoring those of us who actually work for a living. And we need to hold their feet to the fire.

The best idea would be to make folks who run schools patronize them. If the schools you run aren't good enough for your children, they likely aren't good enough for mine either. If Bloomberg or Klein had to send their own kids to public school, they'd eye very different reforms than the ones they ended up enforcing. You wouldn't have kids sitting in trailers, eating lunch before 9 AM, herded like prisoners, running around outside because there is no gym, or going years without glasses because even an eye check is unaffordable.

With Donald Trump as President, with demagogues like Betsy DeVos and Eva Moskowitz pretending to care about all children but giving in to the backward moves of this administration, our jobs become even more difficult.

Maybe we have to be super-heroes after all. Maybe we can. But our super-hero status will have to bring us outside the classroom and into communities, where we will be truth-tellers. Truth-tellers are in very short supply here in 2017.

What Freaks Out AFT?

Is AFT leadership really freaked out that Joel Klein would actively support Hillary Clinton? Well, yes, probably they are. The question is really why. After all, AFT President Randi Weingarten negotiated multiple contracts with him, notably the one in 2005 that created the ATR. While Randi was President, there was a UFT blog called Edwize that suggested the ATR was just a temporary thing and that all the teachers would eventually find jobs. What Randi and her crack negotiators failed to anticipate was that Klein would hire new teachers even as thousands of UFT members lingered in the ATR.

Of course, Mulgrew killed Edwize and there's no more public record of that. (Mulgrew's approach to social media is to urge members to get on Twitter and say this or that while avoiding it utterly himself.) But the 2005 contract was a celebration of reforminess, and there was nothing in it that was worse than the ATR agreement, a direct hit on the seniority privileges Klein so detested. Even now, Mulgrew has to get up in front of the DA and rationalize it, saying there are fewer ATR teachers this year than last.

While leadership has, to its credit, hung tough in not allowing ATR teachers to be fired for the offense of having no permanent position, it's also placed them between a rock and a hard place. By removing the option of UFT seniority transfers (Full disclosure--I took one, and I've very glad I did), it sorely reduces member ability to escape a self-serving or vindictive supervisor. By supporting so called fair student funding it makes principals less likely to select senior teachers. Of course, a whole lot of principals would think twice anyway before hiring pain in the ass teachers with experience who know their rights. By allowing principals an absolute veto, as the 2005 contract did, they made things even worse.

Joel Klein is as bad as anyone from AFT says. He closed schools, likely as not on false premises. He supports all things reformy, no matter what. He advocated for a "thin contract" for UFT that would have reduced us to at-will employees or worse. He supported Eva Moskowitz with no reservations, and was pretty much there at her beck and call. He regularly trashes tenure, increasing pay, and pretty much anything in support of working teachers. He has nothing but respect for business people, and seems to defer to their judgment in all things. Though he claims to place children first, he'd set them out into a world with no job protections, where they'd be at the mercy of his BFFs in places like Walmart.

There's really no defense for something or someone like a Joel Klein, not if you're an advocate for working people. Yet despite all the nonsense he spouts, the United Federation of Teachers, led by now-AFT President Randi Weingarten enabled a whole lot of it. The ATR was far from the only
"reform" we supported. We supported mayoral control under Klein and Bloomberg. When it came up again, we demanded a few changes, failed to get them, and supported it again. We supported teachers being rated via VAM junk science, and Michael Mulgrew even boasted of having a hand in writing the law that enabled it.

We supported charter schools, failing to envision what they would become. We even started a charter school, now evidently failing. Not only that, but we colocated it, becoming an active part of the cancer that undermines city schools. We can complain about Klein, but we were best buds with him and Bloomberg for a while, and it led us places it was demonstrably unwise to go.

Even after Klein left, we actively supported reforminess. No one who's seen it will ever forget UFT President Michael Mulgrew, in a rare display of some kind of passion, offering to punch us in the face and push our faces in the dirt for messing with his beloved Common Core. And even now, as he's ostensibly against it,  the UFT has not only failed to support the opt-out movement, but also indulged in outrageous criticism of not only those of us who do, but also the movement itself.

Yes, Joel Klein is unacceptable, and it's high time we noticed. But Arne Duncan was no better, and AFT ignored that, endorsing Barack Obama term two with no reservations whatsoever. Perhaps President Hillary will sensibly refrain from naming a fanatical ideologue like Klein.  But that isn't enough. We really need to stop appeasing the reformies by giving them this and that, and then feigning shock when they want more.

It's not enough for AFT leadership to freak out when Joel Klein's name is mentioned. We need to fight against not only him, but also all the baseless nonsense he represents. Thus far we've enabled quite a bit of it. That's not on Joel Klein, but rather on us.

We need to stop laying all the responsibility at Joel Klein's doorstep. It's our fault he managed to push his execrable agenda so far. We need to stop not only him, but also his insane ideas. That means "not Joel Klein" is too low a standard by far. We need federal officials who are not insane.

I will vote for Hillary because Donald Trump comes a long way from meeting that standard. But she's got a way to go before she earns my trust. Let's remind her that we supported her early, and let's demand she actually do something for it. Let's put her feet to the fire, and if she doesn't respond, let's ask leadership why the hell we supported her, particularly against Bernie Sanders.

School Bullying--Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is shocked, shocked that bullying goes unreported in city schools. After all, the city needs to know of absolutely every incident that occurs anywhere. That way, it can take appropriate action. We now know there were fewer persistently dangerous schools this year, and that's very suspicious. We need to investigate right away and find out where the danger is.

You know, like Jamaica High School. They followed the rules. Why? Because they took Chancellor Klein's sincere advice sincerely. The Powers That Be determined that all incidents needed to be reported. So the dedicated principal dutifully reported every incident that occurred. He filled in all the paperwork. He filled in each box ever so carefully. He used block letters so that no one could mistake an i for an e. He carbon copied it and filed each copy in the proper file.And he made sure that the yellow copy went in this file and the pink copy went in that, so there was no possibility for misunderstanding.

And where did that get them? Well, it got them closed. Their century of history was buried under the four or five new schools that Bloomberg dumped into the building. Their teachers were scattered all over Queens. Some of them landed in my school, some in yours, and others travel around the city, week to week, school to school, here and there, teaching whatever. Naturally they're vilified in the tabloid op-eds for drawing salary, if not breath.

But if schools don't report incidents, they're also guilty. What possible motivation would a principal have for not reporting incidents? Oh yeah, their schools can get closed and they can lose their jobs. But Attorney General Eric Schneiderman thinks these principals should stand up like little Whack a Mole dolls and get hammered over their heads. Surely he reports absolutely every sordid detail about his own life, holds nothing back, and trusts in the inherent fairness and objectivity of Andrew Cuomo to keep him in his position. Who wouldn't?

Seriously, does anyone think fewer schools are labeled persistently dangerous because human nature in NYC has fundamentally changed? Are fewer young people engaging in bullying? Have they seen the light because some guidance counselor came to their classroom and explained that it wasn't a good thing? Are children becoming inherently kinder because they watch TV and find role models, like our presidential candidates, to look up to?

Or could it actually be that people haven't changed all that much? Could principals be saying, "Hey man, I don't want my school to go down the road Jamaica did." What happens to principals who preside over schools that close? Do they put it on their resumes and boast about it? Is it a stepping stone to assistant superintendent, superintendent, chancellor, and then Emperor of All I Survey? Don't bet on it.

It’s ridiculous to incentivize people to hide what really happens, or to punish them for trying to help victims. But that's precisely what our system does. Principals should get credit for trying to help students. Instead, they're encouraged to sweep trouble under the rug. It's the worst of both worlds.

I've got a low tolerance for stupid. Nonetheless I'm understanding of errors kids make, and I think being a kid is among the best of excuses. After all, their job is to learn. But they can't do that if we're effectively forbidden from dealing with issues, reporting them, or helping them. It's a lot worse with adults. We're supposed to know better. And educational leaders ought to know even better.

But they don't. Joel Klein was a disingenuous and fanatical ideologue who'd just as soon close a school as eat a pizza. And his legacy lives on in Schneiderman, whether he knows it, whether he means it, or not. If we want to help our schools, if we want to help our kids, we need to stop penalizing people for doing it.

Maybe common sense is the least common of all the senses after all.

Platitudes Ahoy from Hillary at NEA

Writer Dana Goldstein is highly impressed by Hillary's talking points at the NEA. She says it represents a new beginning for teachers, and calls her "the teachers' candidate." Yet she's also highly impressed by recent actions of the Obama administration.

Former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan issued a mea culpa of sorts on the overuse of standardized testing, and his successor John King has drawn attention to racial segregation and overly harsh school discipline.

While it's nice that these guys have finally taken the crucial step of paying valuable lip service to these things, the fact is they've done jack squat on the testing front, and John King is, in fact, trying to subvert ESSA to ensure that more testing be done, spirit and letter of the law be damned. And despite the alleged philosophical evolution of President Obama, I haven't heard him raise a peep over King's disregard for the law.

You'll pardon me for not getting overly enthusiastic here, but I've watched our AFT President Randi Weingarten very carefully, along with our local President Michael Mulgrew, and I've heard a lot about what President Obama has said. Those words have not changed much for those of us who actually do the work. Things seem to get worse each and every year, no matter what they say. Here's more on our commander-in-chief:

Two years later, in a speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Obama referenced teacher tenure more harshly, saying, “I reject a system that rewards failure and protects a person from its consequences.” If we could fire bad teachers and replace them with better ones, the thinking went, we could narrow the academic fissures between rich and poor children.

Obama wasn’t wrong about the excesses of teacher tenure.

I love that Goldstein feels no pressure to, you know, offer any evidence for that statement. In fact, tenure does not give teachers jobs for life. Tenure just means, or at least used to mean, that admin has to prove teachers are unfit before they fire them. Generally no one, including Goldstein, questions why these teachers received tenure if they were indeed unfit. And no one questions why administrators didn't bother to go after these teachers before. But now that Cuomo has managed to place the burden of proof on teachers to prove they are not unfit, a virtually impossible burden, perhaps writers like Goldstein find things improved. Who knows? She herself feels no need to even offer an explanation.

And while it's nice that Obama pays lip service to factors other than teachers, and it's nice that Hillary does as well, there's no evidence here that anything is going to change, and no promises to actually, you know, do anything about it. Were Hillary saying she was going to do away with all VAM junk science, it would be something worth talking about. But I didn't hear that, and Goldstein didn't report it. Here's the important part of Goldstein's argument:

I wrote a book on our historical tendency to blame teachers for society’s ills.

That's what you call an appeal to authority, a logical fallacy, if not a self-serving advertisement. I don't care if she's written ten books. Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein have written books too, and they're still still full of crap. Show me why I should listen to you. Here's what self-appointed expert Goldstein has learned:

Teacher accountability isn’t a bad thing; any functional system has mechanisms in place to remove low performers and, even more importantly, help them improve. 

You see that? It's more important to help them improve, but despite all the nice words about external factors from Hillary and Obama and her uncited sources, there's still that bad teacher floating around the pool polluting the water for everyone else.  And here's Goldstein's conclusion:

It’s safe to say it is a new day for the Democratic Party on education policy. But here’s hoping that Clinton’s turn toward the unions doesn’t mean she lets go of some of the Obama administration’s more promising recent ideas.

Despite the fact that Hillary was addressing an audience of teachers and clearly catered her remarks to evoke applause, despite the fact that this was a speech, not an act, and despite the fact that teachers booed her remarks about charters, which she clearly plans to support and expand, this writer, who "wrote a book," is  certain it's a new day. Frankly, I didn't even see how Hillary's promise of "a seat at the table" has any meaning whatsoever. I've been to many legally imposed public meetings where those who were supposed to listen had their minds made up and did whatever they came to do anyway. I've joined entire communities to speak at that table as Bloomberg's operatives played video games below it, ignoring us entirely.

If Hillary becomes President, it's incumbent upon activists like us and opt-out to keep the pressure on. We already know that AFT and NEA are content with status quo and unconditionally accept every word that comes out of the mouths of educational demagogues they wish to support. It's what they do, not what they say, and thus far Hillary Clinton has done nothing but sit idly by while her former boss followed each and every reformy druther of Bill Gates. She's accepted money and support from Broad and the Walmart family, and this teacher does not believe reformies are paying for any "new beginning" that involves improving the lot of public school teachers or students.

Go ahead and prove me wrong, Hillary. But don't take me for such a fool that, after decades of reforminess, I should just take your word things will be better even as you offer no specifics whatsoever.

Fixing the ATR--We Lag Behind New Jersey

Reformy Chris Cerf has put a bunch of unassigned teachers to work in Newark. This is ironic, because he was part of Joel Klein's band of fanatic ideologues, and likely as not had a hand in the creation of the Absent Teacher Reserve. The ATR was one of the many hideous creations of the 2005 contract. The now-dead Edwize reported it was a temporary thing, failing to anticipate that Klein would hire new teachers while current ones remained in limbo.

Here in NYC, we have hundreds still in the ATR pool. Reformy Chalkbeat NY reports 1,083 ATR teachers currently working. This, of course, fails to consider the hundreds (or thousands) of provisionally appointed ATRs working all over the city, and hoping for appointments. Alas, the permanent appointments are few and far between. In my school, a few veteran teachers have been permanently appointed, and we hope this trend will continue. Some of us worked very hard to make this happen. Nonetheless this appears to be far from the norm.

Here's the thing--Bloomberg and Klein are gone, and de Blasio won by a huge margin running as the anti-Bloomberg. So why on earth can't he and the UFT come to an agreement about placing the ATRs somewhere? Now that there's precedent, in New Jersey under Cerf for goodness sake, you'd think we'd be able to work something out.

I haven't heard a peep from Mulgrew or his minions about this, but I do know that they're fine with reporting only the number of ATR teachers lacking even provisional placement. They're also fine with dumping seniority privileges which would have enabled teachers at closing schools placement in other schools. Mulgrew gets up in front of the DA and claims this is a victory because there are more transfers under his Open Market system than under previous ones. Mulgrew doesn't take into account that principals may be eager to hire lower-paid and more compliant new teachers than those with experience.

The current system is labeled one of mutual consent. Oddly, this means the principal can pretty much turn down anyone but teachers must take assignments. In fact, ATR teachers who miss two interviews can be and are fired. This is a real money saver for the city. They send out notices via the cumbersome and inefficient DOE email, and if you miss two messages they can dump you. That's pretty much it, and this firing system has proven more efficient than even the second-class due process that Mulgrew championed. Mulgrew is happy to suggest that any ATR who twice shouts in the hall ought to face a one-day 3020a process, but I've yet to hear of that being used. Why bother, when the city can pick them off for missing email?

It's time to end this charade. It's time to stop stereotyping people for the crime of working in closed schools. I'm sick to death of reading baseless assertions that ATR teachers are no good, and even more sick of seeing them judged by roving supervisors, at least one of which I've personally observed to be borderline insane. It's ridiculous, in fact, to observe teachers subbing and judge their merit. They have no chance to build bonds that longterm teachers have, and it is in fact these bonds that make classes what they are.

I know it's tough for Mulgrew to admit failure. In fact, he never does. What Mulgrew does is take new positions and pretend the old ones don't exist. For example, Mulgrew enjoyed a great victory when he negotiated all 22 areas of the Danielson rubric be observed. Bloomberg only wanted a few. Mulgrew enjoyed another great victory when he negotiated only a few.

So why not work toward getting all ATRs permanent placement? Mulgrew could pretend he never supported any other position and declare yet another great victory. The city could save millions of dollars. It's a win-win, and since Mulgrew never reads blogs, he could say he didn't hear about it here.

We need to let all our teachers teach. If the city wants subs, let them hire subs. Let's put all the ATR teachers back to work, let's have the ATR counselors offer much-needed help to our children, and for goodness sake, let's give the ATR assistant principals brooms and mops and let them do something worthwhile for a change. Everyone needs to contribute.

Eva Doesn't Need No Stinking Rules

Eva Moskowitz is pissed off that mean old NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio is demanding she sign a contract over her pre-K classes. So what if 277 other pre-K programs have signed it? She's Eva Moskowitz, dammit, and rules don't apply to her. If you, a lowly public school teacher, made kids sit in chairs until they peed their pants, you'd be subject to CR A-420, corporal punishment, and if you kept treating kids like that you'd find yourself fired.

But those rules don't apply to Eva. In fact, chancellor's regs don't apply to any charters. They can make their own rules. Verbal abuse? No problem. Harass families until they withdraw their inconvenient low-scoring kids? That's fine, and an added bonus is their low scores can be counted against those awful public schools. You know, the ones with unions and stuff.

So now Eva is reaching out to reformy MaryEllen Elia, our esteemed education commissioner, and letting her know she's had it with all these stinking rules. Now it's one thing to apply them to public schools, but quite another when they come to her and her BFFs. For example, mayoral control was a fantastic thing when Michael Bloomberg was in charge. Eva had a hotline to Joel Klein, and could push for whatever she needed back then.

When that Bill de Blasio came in, though, things got ridiculous. First of all, he was elected. That sucked, because Joel Klein was appointed by Mike Bloomberg, who pretty much gave Eva carte blanche. Second, he ran on a platform of support for public schools and opposition to charters, and those stupid NYC voters actually chose him overwhelmingly. Who the hell do those people think they are?

Eva was having none of that, so she went to Governor Cuomo, who had taken millions from her reformy BFFs and had had it up to here with that "democracy" nonsense. Cuomo pushed a state law saying that de Blasio would have to either approve Eva's schools or pay rent for them. Now the whole mayoral control thing was no problem. De Blasio could make decisions one way or the other, but they made no difference to Eva, the only person in New York who mattered.

But then there were those troublesome regulations, and that nasty de Blasio didn't even ask Eva before making them. A contract? Now how in the hell can Eva Moskowitz do what she wants, how she wants, when she wants, with whomever she wants if she has to sign some flipping contract?

Fortunately, MaryEllen Elia is a pawn of Governor Cuomo, who's clearly beholden to Eva and her reformy BFFs. Things are looking up.

Frank Bruni Waxes Poetic on the Teacher Shortage

It must be great to be Frank Bruni. One day you're a food columnist, and the next you're an education expert. Today Frank is all upset about the teacher shortage. After all, his own paper wrote a big story about it. Nowhere did they bother acknowledging that teachers are pretty much under nationwide assault, but hey, why sweat the details when you're writing for the Paper of Record? The fact that they print the column should be good enough for anyone.

As it happens, Bruni himself is a prominent teacher basher. He believes passionately in junk science rating of teachers and can't be bothered to do the most fundamental research. Who cares if the American Statistical Association says teachers change test scores by a factor of 1-14%? What's the big deal if they say use of high stakes evaluation is counter-productive? He knows some guy who likes it and that should be good enough for anyone. Bruni does other important work, like spitting out press releases for Joel Klein's latest book.

But now he's amazed no one wants to be a teacher. Naturally, being a New York Times reporter who has access to pretty much anyone, he goes right to the source, the very best representative of teachers he can muster:

Teachers crave better opportunities for career growth. Evan Stone, one of the chief executives of Educators 4 Excellence, which represents about 17,000 teachers nationwide, called for “career ladders for teachers to move into specialist roles, master-teacher roles.”

“They’re worried that they’re going to be doing the same thing on Day 1 as they’ll be doing 30 years in,” he told me.

This is what Frank Bruni interprets as vision. Let's make one thing clear--Evan Stone is not a teacher. He was for a few excruciating and clearly unrewarding years. But once he learned all he could from that dead end job, he started this glitzy new E4E thing and got his hands on Gates money. Now he gets to make pronouncements to distinguished NY Times reporters like Bruni. Meanwhile, the rest of us are stuck actually teaching children. Naturally Bruni doesn't ask us what we think. After all, given our obvious lack of ambition, what could we possibly know?

Bruni has gala luncheons to attend, fois gras to critique, and he can't be bothered.  Still just because Evan Stone's E4E got 17, 000 people to sign papers in exchange for free drinks doesn't mean they actually represent those people. I happen to know, for example, a UFT official who signed the paper just to see what was going on at one of those meetings.

In fact, there's no evidence to indicate anything E4E says is based on anything beyond Bill Gates's druthers. Their support for junk science and calls to actually worsen already tough working conditions border on lunacy. Their acceptance of reformy money and embrace of a reformy agenda mean they do NOT represent working teachers.

Here's something no one told Frank Bruni--teachers who want to "get out of the classroom" make the very worst educational leaders there are. How many of us have worked under supervisors who don't love our job, who can't do our job, but who don't hesitate to tell us all the ways we do our job wrong? How many of us know the, "Do as I say, not as I do." mantra well enough it might be tattooed on our foreheads?

Yes, Frank Bruni, there is a teacher shortage. And yes, there are reasons for it. Some reasons are your BFFs like Joel Klein, Campbell Brown, and Gates-funded astroturf groups like E4E. They spout nonsense-based corporate ideas designed to destroy public education and union. You talk to them and can't be bothered with us.

Another big reason is mainstream media, which hires people like you. When people read nonsense like the stuff you write, they may not know that fundamental research is something you consider beyond the pale. They may not be aware that your piece does not entail talking to working teachers. They may think we don't love our jobs and we don't love working with and helping children. They may not know that merit pay, which E4E is pushing in one form or another, has been around for 100 years and has never worked. They may even think that Evan Stone knows what he's talking about.

But he doesn't, Frank. And neither do you. That's why you're a big part of the problem.

On Inconsistent Agendas and Shifting Scores

A young woman writes a piece in the Post expressing outrage that she graduated. After all, she barely attended one of her classes. There was just no way she deserved to pass. But when it comes time to go to college, she's right there.

“I don’t think I did anything bad,” she said.

I don't think so either.  But her own story suggests outrage:

New York City gave me a ­diploma I didn’t deserve.

It may seem odd that I’m speaking up, but it’s only because I’m fully aware I didn’t deserve to pass a course that allowed me to graduate.

You know, it's not like the young woman couldn't have done something about it. She could have read a book, sat for a test, written a paper, or done something to ease her anxiety. Her teacher also spoke to the Post, saying she passed the young woman because she was under enormous pressure. This pressure, though, is nothing particularly new. The teacher is not jumping up and down with pride over this decision:

But if we set the bar higher, we would be a failing school.

That's pretty much the case, from all I see.  And what exactly is a failing school? Well, there are several metrics. One, of course, is the graduation rate. In a perfect world, every student would graduate in four years, without exception. In this world, though, there are all sorts of messy things that get in the way. Maybe the kid doesn't speak English. Maybe the kid has a severe learning disability. Maybe the kid's parents work 200 hours a week, offer no supervision, and the kid has no sense of discipline. Or maybe the kid, like the one in this story, just didn't bother coming to class.

In 2015, all of that is the teacher's fault, and all of that is the school's fault. Never mind that these things occur with great frequency only in high poverty areas with high concentrations of kids with high needs. The NY Post editorial board can't be bothered hearing about such things. Better to blame Carmen Fariña, as though this didn't even exist for the interminable years their BFFs Mikey Bloomberg and Joel Klein ran the city.

Rather than rely mainly on test scores, grades and other clear measures to see if a student is ready to advance, Fariña OK’d “a comprehensive evaluation of student work using multiple measures.”

Actually, NY Post, that was based on state regulations. But don't expect to see them asking Tisch or Cuomo to step down any time soon. But the Post editorial board loves test scores. They'd feed them to our children for breakfast, lunch and dinner given half a chance. The fact that state tests seem to get worse with each passing year is neither here nor there.

Where was the Post's outrage when Bloomberg's scores miraculously went up as the state dumbed down the tests? Did they ask for Klein to step down? Did Post chief Murdoch refrain from giving Klein a megabucks corporate gig on his DOE departure? Did they ask for Bloomberg's resignation? Of course not.

There is an agenda at the Post editorial department, and it has little or nothing to do with ensuring our children get a great education. Murdoch saw, long ago, that there was tons of cash to be made off the backs of our children. Therefore public education is bad, teacher unions are a menace, and anyone who isn't simply trying to crush union must be humiliated at each and every opportunity.

The series of Post stories are open to interpretation. Mine is that teachers and schools ought not to be under such pressure to pass absolutely everyone. We should teach students that there are consequences when they fail to be responsible. It's not Carmen Fariña's fault that there is ridiculous pressure to graduate as many kids as possible. It's not her fault the Heavy Heart Assembly passed an insane bill that will place public schools into receivership. And it's certainly not her fault that there is such ridiculous pressure on school administration that things like this occur.

The Post is already running gleeful articles suggesting this could be the end of mayoral control. I'd be fine with the end of mayoral control, but the Post only wants the end of de Blasio's control. And let's be honest, he hasn't got all that much anyway since Cuomo took Eva's money and forced NYC to foot the rent whenever she feels like expanding her company.

Should we get another reformy mayor, the Post will once again be enamored of mayoral control, and passing kids for no reason will no longer be a problem. The names change, but the agenda remains the same. It's tough keeping a level head with people trying to punch us in the face all the time, but that's still our job.

We'll have to let the crazies do their thing while still striving to keep our eye on what's important. And in case you don't know, that's our kids. One day they will have to work for a living just like us. We need to fight the crazies at least long and strong enough to make that possible.

On Disrespect from Politicians

I'm a little flabbergasted by commentary I see everywhere not only about, but sometimes also by NYPD. They turned their backs on the mayor at a funeral. It's odd, because in fact the mayor has not said a disparaging word about them. However, this man, who was elected by 73% of New Yorkers, mustered the audacity to tell the city, after a man was killed on the street, that he told his son to be careful when he went out, that he was concerned for his safety.

For this, the NYPD turned their back on the mayor at a funeral where he was paying his respects to a murdered officer. What sort of a society is it where an elected politician may not tell a heartfelt truth? Would Pat Lynch like personal approval over every word said on mass media? Are we a society in which we are not only prohibited from criticizing police brutality, but also from expressing empathy with its victims? I'd hope that not even police would support police brutality.

I've heard de Blasio blamed for these murders, which is ridiculous. I've even seen the same people who say people kill people, guns don't, are blaming de Blasio for the actions of this deranged individual.

I understand police being proud of what they do. My daughter wants to be NYPD, and I've said nothing to dissuade her. If she actually follows through, I'll be proud of her too. I always respect people who do jobs I'd be no good at, and as such I respect the police.  I'm not NYPD, but rather UFT, and I'm proud to be a city teacher. I think there are few jobs as important as mine. I can certainly understand police feeling the same way.

Here's the thing, though. There is clearly a different standard for teachers. We are trashed regularly by pols, and often by NYC mayors. I've watched Rudy Giuliani say teachers stink and shouldn't get a raise. I've actually heard him blame teachers for the Eric Garner killing. Mike Bloomberg regularly made outrageous statements about us. He said he wanted to fire half of us and double class size. Joel Klein regularly trashed tenure and step pay. I still hear people, all of the above and more, demanding all sorts of reformy nonsense. Who cares if merit pay has been around for a hundred years and has never worked? I see so-called liberals like Bill Maher talking about how teachers need to be fired. Whoopi Goldberg says outrageous stereotypical nonsense about us without a second thought.

There was some big thing with Joel Klein and Condi Rice saying we were a threat to national security. Rod Paige, former US Education Secretary before he started buying off journalists to pimp out his programs, called us a terrorist organization. You'd think we were that, or public enemy number one, or a zombie plague ascending upon America.

Actually I don't think it's that bad to turn your back on the mayor--if you have a valid reason. My first act of union activism was marching in a UFT Labor Day Parade. We all wore black shirts that said, "Shame on City Hall," and planned to turn our backs on Dinkins for denying us a contract, if I recall correctly. There was a good reason. Anyway, Dinkins ran off to a tennis match before we got the chance, but I still have the shirt.

I don't feel much like wearing it today. I don't think Bill de Blasio deserves scorn for trying to calm down NYC after a man was killed on the street and a grand jury cleared the man who did it. We have seen a few peaceful protests. We have also seen some random acts of lunacy. I have seen people twist logic in bizarre ways trying to attribute this to Bill de Blasio. Rudy Giuliani spouts bile, saying it wouldn't happen under his watch. As a matter of fact, 9/11 happened under his watch, and he'd determined it was a good idea to place his emergency room on a high floor of a proven terror target.

It's lunacy to think that a democratically elected mayor has no right to try to calm down a troubled city. We'd be better off without the attacks on de Blasio. They are unwarranted, as are the perpetual and visceral attacks on teachers.

I see teachers who've done next to nothing repeatedly attacked in the tabloids, with their names and spurious charges that have been dismissed. Neither they nor police ought to be disrespected by politicians.

But honestly, Pat Lynch appears to have no idea what it means to be have voices of alleged authority spew condemnation. He could learn from us, and I certainly hope he never has to. But loving your children and trying to protect them is far from a crime. Trying to keep the city together during a time of crisis is the mayor's job.

There are certainly things UFT could do better. Still, I see absolutely nothing we could learn from the example of Pat Lynch right now.

The King Is Dead. Long Live the King.

In one way, the list to the left rings true, but  in another, King has personally accomplished quite a few things. I've always been fascinated, for example, by the TV show The Sopranos. There you will find grown men sitting in lawn chairs at construction sites, and getting a pretty good salary for doing so. Beats working, you might say. And John King, while he didn't sit in a lawn chair, managed to spend his entire tenure not representing our children. Rather, he represented the moneyed interests that got him his job in the first place. While he didn't actually do his job at all, he did accomplish a few things.

For one, after facing the public for the first time, he labeled parents and teachers "special interests," canceled all future meetings in a snit, and managed to keep his job. Can you imagine what would happen to you if you decided your students didn't have valid concerns, canceled all your classes, and walked out? Do you think you'd get that commendation letter you've hoped for all these years?

For King, it was no biggie. So he made a mistake, He didn't face 3020a removal hearings as you would if you were outright derelict in your duties. That's for the little people. Forced to reconsider and actually face the public, he failed to say a word when a real special interest group monopolized one of the so-called public hearings:

In short, no one at the forum engaged in critical thinking about the new educational standards that are, purportedly, all about critical thinking.

He also got away with an outright lie, contending the Montessori schools his kids attend actually utilize the nonsense he advocates for ours. Clearly they do not. The "Do as I say, not as I do" mantra is a common one among the reformies, from King, to Bloomberg, to Klein, to Rhee, right up to and including our own President Barack Obama, he of the hopey changiness that has completely eluded American schools during his tenure.

John King taught a whopping one year in a public school, and went on to teach two years in a charter. How that qualifies him to head education in NY State I have not the slightest idea. Of course, people with money value reforminess far more than actual experience. That he managed to corral his NY State gig with such paltry experience and hold onto it despite his remarkably thin skin and outrageous hypocrisy is an achievement in itself.

Finally, despite his inability and unwillingness to sustain an argument against a thoughtful opponent, resorting to name calling rather than the critical thinking he claimed to be modeling, despite his woefully meager tenure as an actual teacher, despite his utter lack of helping our kids, he managed to wrangle a promotion. His credentials as relentless fanatical ideologue were sufficient for equally unqualified Arne Duncan to offer him a prestigious federal gig. One might assume he actually had achieved something beyond advocating for those who want to test our kids to death and destroy my chosen profession.

One would be laboring under a misconception, of course.

On Being Unhindered by Inconvenient Reality

It must be great to be Joel Klein. You can simply blame the UFT for everything. There's that awful contract that restrains you from doing all the wonderful work you aspire to. Never mind that you signed it and had a hand in writing it. And the best thing about it is that even if stuff isn't in the contract, you can just make it up and get it printed in the Atlantic. There's prestige for you. And in fairness, why should New York Times columnists and editorial writers corner the market on reforminess?

Klein laments that he could not meet with teachers because the contract prohibited it. I find that odd because I teach in the largest school in Queens and for his entire eight-year tenure the Kleinster did not see fit to set foot in our school even once. I've read the UFT Contract and I haven't seen the part that says a Chancellor may not enter the school building. In fact, both Cathie Black and Dennis Walcott visited my school and I didn't even file a grievance. Walcott and I actually spoke on several occasions.

But Joel Klein is different. He has deep and abiding respect for clauses in the UFT Contract, even if they do not exist. That's just the kind of guy he is. The union was completely uncooperative when Joel tried to reach out. Just look at how hostile then-UFT President Randi Weingarten looks in the photo above. You can just sense the absolute enmity between the two of them. Clearly she isn't cooperating with him at all.

Odd that Klein was so respectful of the Imaginary UFT Contract,  but had multiple issues abiding by the actual UFT Contract. If I'm not mistaken, one year he decided to deny all sabbaticals. I believe that was taken to arbitration and he lost. Odd that someone absolutely willing to unilaterally ignore the real contract would be so upset by clauses hindering his options under the imaginary one.

What's truly odd to me, though, is that several times I directly spoke to Klein at the PEP. Not only did he fail to utter a single word in response, but he appeared to be playing with his Blackberry and utterly ignoring every word I said about the then-massive overcrowding at Francis Lewis High School. I watched him do the same to James Eterno as he spoke the outrageous conditions at Jamaica High School. In fact, though Eterno emailed Klein about the false assumptions used to close Jamaica High School, that didn't stop Klein from going ahead and closing it on those very assumptions.

But of course that is reality, and Klein can't be bothered with such things when telling his story. That's what enables reforminess, actually. You can't get up and say there are billions of dollars in education and Eva Moskowitz needs to get her taste. You can't say you want to close neighborhood schools and make profits for your BFFs. You can't get up and say you're determined to ignore poverty and cut taxes for people who don't send their kids to public schools. Really, you can't get up and say, "I'm Joel Klein, or Mike Bloomberg, or John King, and I choose not to send my own kids to the schools I make up rules for."

Rather, you can write books about the way you choose to remember things. Because Eva Moskowitz, Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan and the other people who read such books are highly unlikely to fact-check or read blogs like this one. 

You Don't Need the Amazing Kreskin to Know Which Way the Wind Blows

A lot of people are upset about paying union dues. After all, it's a thousand bucks a year or so, your roof needs fixing, and that could make for a hell of a night out. And there are legitimate complaints. For one thing, I'm paying NYSUT and AFT to represent me, but in fact they do not. I represent the largest school in Queens and we get no voice at all. In fact, the only way I could get us a voice would be to sign an odious loyalty oath promising to support whatever I'm told, and if I did that we still wouldn't have a voice.

NYSUT put up a poll asking what we'd like from them. I told them I'd like democracy. My union brothers and sisters from PJSTA essentially said the same thing, but in far greater detail. After all, their locals can't pick who they'd like to represent them because of the UFT's massively huge rubber stamp. UFT-installed President Magee and her newly double-pensioned pals know if they support local representation they'll get booted out just like their predecessors. If it's a choice between democracy and going back to that classroom, we can guess pretty accurately where they're headed.

And yet there is a necessity for union. Though ours is inept, falling for one reformy thing after another, though they've watered down our Contract time after time to save their ridiculous seat at the table, it still protects people, and we still can have a voice where we work. Just about any day I'd rather be union than depend on the tender mercies of Michael Bloomberg, Joel Klein, and their merry band of fanatical ideologues.

So when I see things like this on Facebook, I know what they really are. How could the union use my money for politics? In fact, it's the union's job to try to influence politics. Anyone who thinks otherwise is nuts. Our union, of course, does a terrible job, picking Thompson four years too late, after he demonstrated his utter lack of conviction by telling the Daily News editorial board that the city couldn't afford to give teachers they raise everyone else got. And in the end, by delaying the raise ten years, the crack negotiators of UFT managedto make sure we didn't get it. They sold out our brother and sister teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve, managing to give back without even getting an equitable contract. As if that weren't enough, they managed to dump the worst pattern in my living memory on every city union. Anyone remember how we felt about DC37 when they dumped the zeroes on us? I do.

What the article is pushing, and it's not at all subtle about it, is right to work, and in California no less. This is a system in which you pay union dues only if you feel like it. While those who push it will tell you it's about your individual freedom, it's really about decimating union so they can do whatever to you and your brother and sister unionists, along with the non-unionists who want representation without paying for it. They don't like all those stinking rules, and would just as soon fire you over a whim as look at you. But some people will be fooled.

Now me, I still pay into COPE, even though I have grave reservations over what the UFT machine does with my money. And I'd probably continue to pay dues even if they became optional for as long as the union could hold out. But that would likely not be very long. UFT members are not like CTU members, and won't hit the streets en masse to support a union President who wants to punch us in the face and push us in the dirt if we touch his Common Core. Few are inspired by people more interested in free trips or patronage gis than doing their jobs, and there are all too many such people.

Since the UFT has enabled mayoral control, since it's enabled junk science and two-tier due process, since it sat silently while almost every comprehensive high school was closed, since it did nothing when Cuomo and Eva Moskowitz betrayed mayoral control under de Blasio it hasn't got a whole lot of street cred with the reformies. That's why they're coming full speed ahead after tenure. 

And don't fool yourself. They'll push right to work in NY in a New York minute. It would be nice for UFT and NYSUT if the most active members in the city and state would stand with them and support them. But it's a two-way street and our leader is not Karen Lewis, but rather a guy who will punch us in the face if we fail to support his favored corporate reforms.

This notwithstanding, it would be smart politics if they simply stopped building brick walls around activists moved by conscience rather than perks. People looking for free trips will not inspire the membership, dispirited and discouraged from decades of nonsense from these very cynical hangers-on.

Are our leaders so juvenile they cannot bear to entertain opinions that vary from their own? Do they really need to conceal themselves inside some massive echo chamber in which their notions are never challenged or even openly discussed? I find when you listen to others, you sometimes learn they're right, adjust your opinion accordingly, and do better.

Look where the echo chamber has gotten us. You don't need to consult the tarot cards to see where it's headed.

As Education Commenter, Frank Bruni Is a Great Food Critic

by special guest blogger Harris Lirtzman

Time Magazine’s most recent issue offers for its readers the picture of a perfectly round, deep red apple about to be squashed to a pulp by a judge’s gavel with the warning:  “Rotten Apples: It’s nearly impossible to fire a bad teacher. Some tech millionaires may have found a way to change all of that.”

Evidently, the article is not as terrible as the visual, though the writer couldn’t be bothered to find a single working teacher to talk to as part of her reporting.  But we all know that thousands of grocery shoppers and patients in doctor’s offices very often see only a magazine cover and magazine editors know that.  Score another for the “education reformers” in their campaign to demolish the integrity and hard work that almost every teacher I have ever known brings to his or her job every day.

The other day, the New York Times columnist, Frank Bruni, recently its restaurant critic, wrote a “thought piece” called “Towards Better Teachers.”  I know that the pressure of writing two eight hundred word columns a week can bring any author to his knees so Mr. Bruni decided to offer his readers a book report instead of his usual opinion piece.  Bruni sat down with former New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein to puff his new book Lessons of Hope: How to Fix Our Schools.  During the interview, er, transcription, of Mr. Klein’s words, Bruni offered "But they [teachers] owe us a discussion about education that fully acknowledges the existence of too many underperformers in their ranks. Klein and others who bring that up aren’t trying to insult or demonize them. They’re trying to team up with them on a project that matters more than any other: a better future for kids."

 Joel Klein has never, ever, not once during or since his Chancellorship "tried to team up with teachers to build a better future for our kids."

This is stenography. This is not reporting.  Joel Klein spoke. Bruni wrote.
Bruni feels sorry that we teachers had our feelings hurt by the recent Time article
My feelings aren't hurt that the man who was the Times restaurant critic until two years ago now takes dictation while Joel Klein pontificates about teachers. I am simply angry. I am simply tired that restaurant critics, technology entrepreneurs and hedge fund managers now make policy for public schools and for public school teachers.

But that's OK. Andrew Cuomo, our governor and likely to be our governor for the next eight years, declared early this week to the NY Daily News editorial board that public schools are "one of our only remaining public monopolies" and that he feels obligated to break that monopoly by going to war with public teacher unions in order to increase the number of almost entirely unregulated and unsupervised charter schools in the state.

Mr. Bruni opines, with help from his keepers.  Mr. Cuomo rules, with no apparent help from anyone. And though Mr. Cuomo is a fearful man there are brave teachers and parents and students who will resist his determination to turn public schools over to private oligarchs, restaurant critics and former Michael Bloomberg autocrats.

Many of you may believe that public schools need to do better and are angry that teachers have pensions and tenure. Yes, public schools need to do a better job but public schools have always played an important role in forming citizens who function in a democratic society and teachers struggle every day to teach children who speak dozens of languages, have special needs, come from dispossessed communities with limited resources and require extraordinary and skillful work to make them proficient in language and math and history and science. Taking away tenure will solve none of these problems and Joel Klein and Campbell Brown and Michelle Rhee and David Boies and John King, all of whom send their children to private schools, have never once extended a hand in partnership to teachers to work together to improve public schools. They just want teachers to be humiliated and frightened enough so that they will not fight for public schools or for the preservation of their unions and well-earned but not profligate salaries and pensions.

Mr. Bruni, I hear there's a really good salad being served at Per Se and a wonderful Chateaubriand available at Eleven Madison Park. May I reserve a table for you so that you and a few of your closest hedge fund manager and Silicon Valley friends can think of a few new ways to save black and brown kids in Brownsville and Corona Park from the hands of yet another grasping dolt of a teacher?  After all, my friends who’ve been doing this work for more than twenty years “don’ know nothin’ about teachin’” public school students and eagerly await your latest prescriptions for forcing them do their jobs better by taking away their basic work-rights and job protections and destroying their union. That will, I’m sure, spur them onto great and glorious feats of teacherdom not possible without the new paradigm of private management of public schools promised by our Silicon Valley experts, restaurant critics and education-warrior of a governor.

Should We Be Recruiting Teachers on Craigslist Before Placing ATR Teachers?

I was pretty surprised to see this ad on Craigslist. Apparently you can be a city teacher and utter lack of experience is no obstacle. When I started in 1984, I got my job via a subway ad, and lack of experience was about all I brought to the table. But times were different then. No one wanted this job. The city conducted intergalactic searches for anyone willing to sit in one of the ancient wooden chairs that sat in front of thousands of classrooms. Now reformy folks everywhere complain the standard for teachers isn't high enough.

Nonetheless, though there's actually a glut of teachers on the market, we're still not only recruiting people cold on Craigslist, but subsidizing their Masters programs. I'm all for helping people with education costs, particularly in such a miserable economy, but our priority ought to be getting experienced teachers working with kids, where they belong.

The Absent Teacher Reserve is the very worst consequence of the short-sighted 2005 UFT contract. I wasn't very active in union politics before then. I'd written a few pieces in NY Teacher, and I started this blog hoping to counter some of the anti-teacher nonsense I'd read in the tabloids. In fact, I was thrilled when Edwize popped up, thinking it would further aid the cause. I made an agreement to write for Edwize, and was about to fold this blog when the 05 contract popped up.

I could not believe how bad it was. I was shocked the union could agree to this. Edwize writers suggested the ATR was just a temporary stopgap, and that soon all the teachers would get jobs. They said such things had been done before. They failed to anticipate fanatical ideologue Joel Klein would continue to hire new teachers even as ATR teachers wandered in the contract-sanctioned purgatory that kept them from classrooms.

I fully understand there are people who don't belong in classrooms. I also fully understand, unlike Campbell Brown, that many of them are there because administrators failed to do their jobs, and that they remain because they still don't want to do their jobs. There's no justification for arbitrarily and capriciously removing teachers, despite their fond desires.

All the ATR teachers I know are there either because of school closures, or because the charges against them were not sustained. In the few cases with which I'm intimately familiar, the teachers are not at fault at all. I've spent a lot of time and energy trying to help these teachers, and I've gotten very good support from UFT to help them. Our results are mixed, but it's not for lack of trying.

The problem, of course, is that we allowed the ATR to exist in the first place. For many principals, there's no premium on experience. Better to have an entire staff of newbies, and then you don't need to worry about that pesky contract. Anyone who makes a stink is fired, and that's that.

Actually, this benefits neither teachers nor the kids we serve.

We have a union president who will stand up and say he'll punch people in the face if they take away his Common Core. What we sorely need, though, is a leader who'll get upset when teachers are not allowed to teach. What's more fundamental than that?

Fire Them All, Says Daily News

The Daily News gets one thing almost right in its otherwise deplorable editorial:

It is insane for the New York City public school system to keep 1,200 unwanted teachers on the payroll, at a cost of more than $100 million annually.

It's insane that they spend all that money without putting the teachers to work, that's for sure. And it would be very easy to give them jobs with the full blessing of city principals. I'll get to that later.

That's the first line, actually. From there, it's all downhill. Let's not blame this all on the Daily News. I'm fairly certain I've read the same thing in NY Times editorials, which leads me to ponder one thing---where the hell is that liberal bias they're always complaining about on Fox News?

It's been clear to me for many years that newspapers hate unions, and hate having to follow the rules they've contractually agreed upon. Why shouldn't people work all night and all day? Why can't we just give raises to people to whom we're related? Why the hell do they have to eat lunch? How can I eat lunch if I have to make time for others to do it?

Anyway, this is not all the fault of management. For example, I was at a school that was slated for closure, but I got out. I used a UFT transfer in 1992. My then boss had a Spanish teacher who frequently threw kids out of class. I never threw kids out of class. To make her life easier, she threatened me. Either I would teach all Spanish, or she would give me a program so late I couldn't make it to my second job.

I transferred. I had that option. It wasn't, in fact, that I was a bad teacher. I was facing punishment for the unforgivable offense of being good at one aspect of my job.

But, in one of the worst deals in my living memory, UFT gave up seniority transfers in 2005, allowing News editorial writers to conclude the only reason teachers weren't placed was their incompetence. It's surely completely unrelated that DOE now forces schools to pay salaries out of school budgets, and it's sheer coincidence that the overwhelming majority of ATR teachers are senior. Why bother protecting people who've worked all their lives when we can simply toss them out with the trash? That's precisely the future the Daily News is advocating for us and our children.

I've seen Michael Mulgrew at the DA announcing the new program was better, because there are more transfers. You see that? Sometimes Mulgrew thinks more is better, even while not thinking MORE is better. Nonetheless, shortly after I started this blog, I had an email dialogue with a teacher who was despondent at the prospect of being an ATR. She soon resigned, and Bloomberg won that one.

UFT leadership did not expect Joel Klein would continue to hire new teachers before ATR teachers were placed, nor did they anticipate how ATRs would be used as scapegoats and punching bags for our union-bashing press corps. In my view, the ATR brigade was the very worst aspect of the awful 2005 contract. Of course, making them move around week to week has made it even worse.

I was at the DA when the ATR vote took place. Several higher-ups in the UFT assured me that the DOE was inept, that they were disorganized, and that they'd never figure out how to send teachers place to place week to week. Jamaica Chapter Leader James Eterno told me they would certainly do it, and to vote no. As the other part of this agreement was that no teachers would be fired, I abstained. But Eterno was right, and it's highly doubtful that Bloomberg, after wasting months trying to kill LIFO, would have followed through and fired all those newbie teachers.

In any case, given we have the highest class sizes in history, it's insane to fire the ATR teachers. If indeed there are some who are as bad as the paper says, maybe they shouldn't be placed. But if Bill de Blasio really wants to do something, he can offer the services of these teachers to schools without having them pay from the school budget. Then we'd really know how much principals want these teachers.

Some of these teachers, I know, are carrying scarlet letters issued by Emperor Bloomberg. Their files pretty much instruct principals not to hire them. These letters, or marks, or whatever they are, ought to be removed, and principals ought to be able to interview these candidates unhampered by the prejudices of the now-abdicated Emperor.

I know two ATR teachers very well. Both of them deserve to work, and both should be placed. Just because the papers hate union is no reason to hurt working people. The News editorial is old news, old advice, and old ideas. I very much doubt such ideas will fly in Bill de Blasio's New York.

Real people voted for a real mayor, and we will see the sort of real changes we've been too scared to even contemplate for the last two interminable decades.

Who's Afraid of Matt Damon?

It's amazing watching reformy people fall all over themselves to condemn actor Matt Damon for sending his kid to a private school. They claim to be wounded because the less fortunate haven't got that option. The poor are stuck in a world where schools full of kids who don't speak English or have learning disabilities fail to pass standardized tests.

You'd think it was an outrage, and that Damon was personally depriving the less fortunate of the opportunity to attend a charter school where they can march around like little soldiers for 200 hours a week. You'd think those schools actually accepted the non-English speakers or the kids with extreme learning disabilities without exception. You'd think that test scores were the only thing that was important, or that rich people sent their kids to schools where tests were all that mattered.

Personally, I would not send my kid to a charter school on a bet. Nor would fervent charter supporters Rahm Emanuel, Michael Bloomberg, Joel Klein, Reformy John King, or Barack Obama. In fact, these are the very people that dictate the all tests. all the time. In fact, by closing schools based on test scores, these people deprive Americans of the choice they take as a given--neighborhood schools.

These are the same people who have fought the middle class for years. Bloomberg just vetoed a prevailing wage bill. And here's a secret--the one thing that makes a middle class thrive is union. Look at history if you don't believe me. Then take a look at Walmart's history with union. They close entire departments and stores rather than allow it, let alone pay a living wage. Then, ask yourself why the Walmart family spends so many millions of dollars supporting all things reformy.

Actually, those of us who support public schools fight so they won't be continually undermined by the very people who have the audacity to attack an actor who agrees with us. If these people wanted to give Americans a choice, they'd give us the choice of government-sponsored health care. They'd give us the choice of union rather than flagrantly defying American law for decades, and getting around it with disingenuous nonsense like Right to Work. We wouldn't tolerate Tea Party thugs taking away the rights of union to collectively bargain. We wouldn't tolerate a wink and nod to a President who promised support for the Employee Free Choice Act and failed to deliver. We wouldn't tolerate a reformy mayor who claims to put Children First, Always by cutting school budgets, terrorizing teachers, and fighting for fewer library services.

In fact, the hypocrites are those who spend millions hyping second-tier schools for the poor and don't use them for their own kids. When the poor can send their kids to Sidwell Friends, with less testing and smaller classes, then we can talk. Meanwhile, I've got nothing but respect for those who fight for such options for my kid. You won't see Rahm Emanuel's children in the charters he deems good enough for other people's kids. And make no mistake, as he closes the schools in their neighborhoods and claims to put children first, he's not doing that at all. He's decimating their communities and ensuring they won't get decent union jobs in the future to save his rich BFFs, folks like the Walmart family, tax money.

Matt Damon can do what he wants. As reformy tools of corporations laugh at us behind our backs, deprive us of opportunities Americans fought and died for, and degrade our lives and communities to enrich those who least need it, I'm glad he will speak and fight for us. Those who publicly criticize him are bought and paid for. We don't need their false choices. We don't need their crocodile tears. We don't need their crooked education experts.

In fact, we need every single person of prominence who will help reinvigorate the disappearing American middle class. We need a President who will offer more than lip service when the middle class is under attack. And we need every one of our voices raised high against transparently hypocritical nonsense like the criticism of actor Matt Damon.

Here in Bizarro World Massive Failure Is Good News

I just read at Diane Ravitch's blog that Mayor Bloomberg has joined fellow know-nothings Joel Klein and Arne Duncan in hailing the massive failure on Common Core exams as a good sign. I'm rarely at a loss for words, but I don't know precisely what to say to this.

How on earth is a two-thirds failure rate anything to boast about? This is the same guy who, after defying the twice-voiced electoral will of the people, bought himself a third term. Am I the only one who remembers the surreptitiously Gates-funded motto, "Keep It Going, New York?" Actually, what Bloomberg and Geoffrey Canada, who was running the campaign, wanted to keep going was a test score rise based entirely on the tests having been dumbed-down. And then when the gains were made moot, which Ravitch had predicted years earlier, Bloomberg and Klein said that was a victory too.

So here's the message from Michael Bloomberg. If test scores go up, it's a great success. If they stay the same, it is also a great success. And if they plummet, that is also a great victory. I keep saying, "Being reformy means never having to say you're sorry," but intending it as ironic. Apparently, it's the unvarnished truth.

It turns out that when you revolve your philosophy around things like junk science evaluation and standards that have been established to be effective absolutely nowhere, you can just say any damn thing you feel like. When circumstances change, you can continue to say any damn thing without concern that you're contradicting yourself. It doesn't matter if your past statements are recorded all over the mainstream media and can be checked with a one-minute Google search.

Anyone who thinks it's OK to subject hundreds of thousands of children to failure, based on nothing, is simply unfit to care for them. And anyone who boasts of massive failure while demanding teachers be fired for the same is a massive, deluded hypocrite. I don't want to mention any names, like Mike Bloomberg, Joel Klein, Arne Duncan, Barack Obama, Andrew Cuomo, because I wouldn't wish to embarrass anyone. I'm a sensitive guy.

Finally, I'm pleased to tell you that while today's Daily News posts yet another E4E column on Common Core, it also features commentary from Diane Ravitch, Zakiyah Ansari, and yours truly.

Time for Charters to Work Their Magic

It's not altogether surprising to me that fewer than 50% of students in transfer schools don't make it. After all, we're pulling from a pool of 100% that didn't make it before. To me, that's a predictor.

But to reformy types, I suppose that's yet another failure. After all, schools with high percentages of special-needs students are always labeled failures, always closed, and the reformy Tweedies are always patting themselves on the backs and saying what a great job they did closing those schools. Then the kids from those closing schools get dumped into other schools, which develop stats similar to the closed schools, and then more schools close.

What does this mean? Well, this means we need more charter schools, which tend not to have ESL and alternate assessment students, and sometimes miraculously improve the grad rates. The fact that they shed inconvenient students along the way is of no consequence.

In any case, I have a solution to this vexing problem. Since public schools are all so awful, and since charters are so wonderful, let charters exclusively serve these tough kids. Let Eva Moskowitz and Geoffrey Canada sprinkle their fairy dust on these children, and let them make everything better. For goodness sake, Canada is on American Express commercials. He must have the secret sauce.

So from now on, let's dispense with all this lottery nonsense. Why on earth should our system favor parents proactive enough to actually enter? Let's take our neediest children, the ones Michael Bloomberg places First, Always, and let's give them direct access to these utopian charter schools. It's a simple fix.

I only wonder why Joel Klein didn't think of it himself.

Chancellor, Bloomberg-Style

I'm surprised at how many people are shocked at NYC Schools Chancellor Walcott's sales presentation to principals last Saturday. It's encouraging, of course, that the principals gave him such a cool reception. After a decade of crap that never works, it's good to see that even administrators are not buying it. Bloggers I read regularly are shocked that he resorted to being outright political.

Yet it's one of Walcott's primary duties to fight for and defend crap that doesn't work. As long as Rupert Murdoch can squeeze a few extra millions out of it, whether or not it works is of no consequence. The important thing is to keep tossing out untested and unproven mandates and hope for the best. The best, of course, means Mayor Mike gets to fire as many teachers as possible, close as many schools as possible, and have Eva Moskowitz and her minions take over as many buildings as possible. Every dollar paid to a unionized teacher is a dollar that hedge-fund magnates may not get their grubby little hands on.

The NYC Chancellor, since the advent of Michael Bloomberg and mayoral control, is not at all the same position it once was. Ostensibly, the chancellor is supposed to be a voice for public school children. But now, the chancellor serves at the pleasure of the billionaire mayor, whose pleasure is closing neighborhood schools. undermining others by siphoning high-performing kids to charters, and thus creating a domino effect.

When Democrats stand up and say it's time to stop closing public schools, it's time to respect parents and teachers, and it's time to stop enacting insane policies that help no one who isn't already a billionaire, that threatens Bloomberg's legacy. It cannot be tolerated.

Thus, Walcott must be trotted out to proclaim how successful the mayor's policies are. That's his prime directive. He follows in the footsteps of previous non-educators Cathie Black and Joel Klein. Since none of them know anything at all about what it means to be a teacher, they can spout whatever they're told and not worry about how utterly inaccurate it is.

I certainly hope we get a mayor who isn't insane soon. It doesn't seem like a lot to ask, but it's been a long, long time with Emperor Mike, and who knows whether or not he'll change the law again to buy a new term for him and best bud Christine Quinn? But it's time for a new mayor. And it's time for a new chancellor who really has the interests of children at heart.

And if that mayor wants to know what children need, there are a whole lot of parents and teachers who can fill in the details.

Was Cathie Black a Victim of Sexism?

With the release of the Cathie Black emails, I'm reading a lot of speculation on how attacks against her were sexist. After all, she is a woman. We didn't know a whole lot more about her at the time of her nomination, other than the fact she had virtually no educational experience, a big plus for Mayor Bloombucks, who apparently met her at the Rich Folks Galas they sipped champagne at.

And yet, many spoke of what a brilliant choice it was at the time. Well, hindsight is 20/20, and even the NY Post, which initially adored her, has pretty much come around to saying what those of us who were not insane were saying at the time. So were we sexist?

Well, she did come across as a blithering ignoramus. However, that's not entirely her fault. After all, she knew nothing whatsoever about the job she'd taken. So why was anyone surprised when she looked like a deer in the headlights or blurted out inanities? It was very much to be expected.

And yet, Joel Klein did not have similar issues. Sure, he knew nothing about education. Sure, he made many an inane utterance. And yet, the papers loved him. He blathered on about theories that had no basis in reality, about untested notions, about things that had never worked anywhere, and the city editorial boards said, yeah, Joel, go for it!

Nonetheless, anyone reading this blog at the time saw stories of how nonsensical and ridiculous his ideas were. Anyone reading Leonie Haimson or Diane Ravitch read much the same.

So I'm going to say yes, Clueless Cathie was indeed a victim of sexism. When she suggested birth control as a means to reduce class size, there was outrage at the abject stupidity of the comment. Yet when Joel Klein said much the same thing, I don't think I heard about it--until some blogger somewhere pointed out he'd said the same thing Black did.

The papers were sexist in going after her but not Klein. Klein, you'll recall, was on board to praise Mayor Mike for the miraculous boost in NYS test scores, the ones Bloomberg based his third term on. Diane Ravitch examined them next to the NAEP scores and determined the state scores must have been dumbed down. Just a year later, the papers discovered Ravitch's claims to be correct.

So there is some sexism there. Klein was clearly as incompetent and clueless as Black, but has never really been nailed for it in the press. And make no mistake, if there is any sexism, it comes from the press.

I don't feel all that sorry for Cathie Black. But I wonder, is it easier to be a blitheringly incompetent man than a blitheringly incompetent woman in the United States nowadays?