PTA--Pass Them All

It's remarkable to read about how you get all your seniors admitted to college. If you're a charter school, of course, you simply dump every student who isn't making it back into the public schools. If you're a public school it's a little more difficult. Fortunately, it's more or less the Wild West over in DC.

First of all, you have this ridiculous evaluation system. You can rate teachers ineffective and get rid of them. Anyone who doesn't play ball is thrown out of the game. In NYC, we worry about vindictive administrators. In DC, that's probably true too. But if you factor in Campbell's Law, which basically says the more pressure there is, the more corruption there is, it's easy to understand how admin bows to pressure and allows any damn thing to happen.

NYC has been a little more progressive on this, though Sue Edelman at the Post is always turning over rocks to find sleazy principals who cheat to juke the stats. For those who bother following rules, it's a little more difficult to paint failure as success. I recall online nonsense being substituted for class time, including PE. I marvel at how you can answer a bunch of questions, or get your smart girlfriend to answer them for you, and earn credit.

I'm sure there are still makeup rules, and they're still nonsense. But they aren't anything compared to this DC scam, in which everyone passed no matter what. Basically, you didn't have to go to school until they threatened to take you to court. Pretty sweet deal if all you want to do is come in now and then to say hello. In fact, it's a pretty sweet deal even if you don't. Just drop in once in a while, graduate, and somehow get accepted to college.

I'm not sure how well you'd do in college if your work ethic entailed showing up only when the alternative was going to court. I'm pretty sure you just flunk out and lose your tuition if you can't be bothered to show up and do work. There aren't any worksheets or online programs to help with that.

Actually, over the years I've had some remarkably low-performing students who did better than I'd have expected in middle school. I teach ESL, and I usually teach beginners. I've had students who knew virtually no English (and absolutely no Spanish) who received 65 in ESL, ELA and Spanish. I sometimes wonder whether the NYC middle school teachers are pressured as intensely as those DC teachers. It's incredible for me to see kids who clearly know nothing about these subjects passing them.

I've been called in to administrators over the years to explain why I failed students. Usually it's not so hard for me. This one was absent 200 times in one month. That one failed every test. I don't fail students just for fun. I'd actually like to see them pass. It's tough, though, when the students  only come in two or three times a week, or month, or whatever. When you look at their grades and see that this is what they do in every class, it's even tougher.

You can call homes. I'm a great believer in calling homes. But once you do this four or five times with no change in behavior, it becomes an empty exercise. It's ridiculous to rate teachers for student performance. We are all humans. We do what we want. If what a student wants does not entail going to school, it's not the teacher's fault.

This lunacy was largely fostered under the Obama administration with all that Race to the Top nonsense. Arne Duncan and John King bought every reformy notion under the sun. Now you see them on Twitter, mustering the audacity to criticize Betsy DeVos simply because she's as incompetent and unqualified as they were.

I certainly play a part in what goes on in my classroom. I take responsibility for that. But until my job entails going to student homes, waking them up, getting them out of bed and dragging them to school, it's ridiculous to blame me for their grades. I can wake them up when they nod off in my classroom. But I still can't make them go to sleep before 3 AM.

There are a lot of factors in education. The American movement to blame the teacher for absolutely everything is short-sighted. While it satisfies the blood thirst of those who hate us and everything we stand for, while it makes some people feel good to punish us for the offense of devoting our lives to the welfare of America's children, letting kids and families completely off the hook for this behavior is not productive. When mom and dad have to work round the clock to make ends meet, it's hard for them to look after their kids.

As far as I can tell, we're moving farther away from offering help where help is needed. Just look at the insane GOP tax bill that rewards those who least need it, kicks children off of health care, and makes it even harder for working Americans to reach or maintain middle class.

But hey, let's forget all that and blame the teachers. It's the American Way.

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.

Tons of Coverage, Hundreds of Millions of Dollars for Charters--We're on Our Own

I cannot believe the crap that passes for news nowadays. Families for Excellent Schools says any damn thing it likes on behalf of Eva Moskowitz, who terrorizes young people into peeing their pants over tests. She's celebrated in the pages of the tabloids and, of course, in Chalkbeat NY, which considers her every move worthy of a feature story. They just had another expensive customized t-shirt heavy rally for more charters.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting in a school that's been over 200% capacity for decades and we have no place to put kids. My inbox is full of complaints from teachers in rooms with no windows that may or may not have air sources. I myself am in a room with a sunny southern exposure on the top floor that gets so hot I can barely concentrate. There's a non-functional air conditioner in front of the room. I complain and I'm told it will be fixed tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

It's a dual-edged sword for public schools here in Fun City. If your test scores and graduation rates aren't where the city wants them to be, you're under one program or other, and now they don't close your school anymore. You simply rehire the entire staff, and everyone has to apply to keep their jobs or become one sort of ATR or another. A lot of teachers don't bother to reapply, as they don't want to jump through all the various hoops demanded by the city and state, and who can blame them? Root causes like poverty, learning disabilities, and lack of English are no excuse for low test scores, and the core problems are vigorously ignored by all levels of government, right up to and including Secretary of Education Reformy John King, who happily dumps hundreds of millions of federal funds into charters.

And make no mistake--charters are not public schools. We don't run them, and we don't get to make decisions about them. We are, however, graciously allowed to pay for them. There is no way Eva takes the kids I teach, the ones who arrived here last week from countries all over the world. There is no way Eva takes the kids my school does, essentially everyone, up to and including alternate assessment students who are not expected to graduate and are a drag on the all-important stats. There is no miracle whatsoever in selecting students, dumping those who don't measure up, and achieving high test scores. If you or I allowed a student to pee her pants in class, we'd be up on corporal punishment charges via CR A-420. Of course Eva doesn't need any stinking rules.

My school is the most requested in the entire city. Any kid who lives in our district, or can successfully pretend to live in our district, gets in. As such, admin scrambles to meet contractual class size, but whenever you push out of one class, you push into another, and it's almost impossible. Our class sizes are already too high and we can barely keep up. Even if we do, 100 kids can walk through our doors on any given week and we'll be right back where we started.

It's a disgrace that the media celebrates the moneyed charter school astroturfers while studiously ignoring the effect on public schools. The more they draw from our best students, the more they can vilify us for not attaining the scores that they've achieved. The more they ignore what's actually happening on the ground, the more the public uncritically accepts their nonsense.

I don't know about you, but it's pretty clear that critical thinking is not being propagated no matter how much Common Core Crap we hurl at our hapless students. If so-called Families for Excellent Schools can regularly feed the media soundbites and stories, why the hell can't we?

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.

Chalkbeat NY Stands Up for the Gates-Funded Little Guy

I was pretty surprised to read that the NY Regents are passing policy without the input of the public. I mean, that's a pretty serious breach of basic democracy, isn't it? On the other hand, I've been to a whole lot of public hearings about schools and school closings, and I've spoken at them too. Several were at Jamaica High School, closed based on false statistics, according to this piece in Chalkbeat.

The thing about public hearings is this--yes, members of the public get to speak. In fact, at Jamaica and several other school closing hearings, I don't remember a single person getting up to speak in favor of school closings. I've also been to multiple meetings of the PEP under Bloomberg where the public was roundly ignored. In fact, Bloomberg fired anyone who contemplated voting against doing whatever they were told. While he didn't make them sign loyalty oaths, the effect was precisely the same.

State hearings are different, of course. When former NY Education Commissioner Reformy John King decided to explain to NY that Common Core was the best thing since sliced bread, he planned a series of public forums. However, after the public said in no uncertain terms they disagreed, he canceled them, saying they'd been taken over by "special interests." The special interests, of course, were parents and teachers. He may have implied they were controlled by the unions, but of course the union leadership actually supported the same nonsense he was espousing.

In fact, the only meeting King went to where he found support actually was taken over by special interests, to wit, Students First NY. Only one non-special interest actually got to speak, and that was my friend Katie Lapham. Other than that it was a pro-high-stakes testing party. Doubtless this was King's view of a worthy public forum, and given that it's taken until now for Chalkbeat to stand up to the lack of forums, I have to question whether it's theirs too.

The big change Chalkbeat points to is a link claiming that the Regents "wiped out" main elements of the teacher evaluation law. If you bother to follow the link, you learn that this is a reference to the fake moratorium on high stakes testing, which the article itself later admits to be limited to the use of Common Core testing in grades 3-8. The fact that junk science rules absolutely everywhere else, and will in fact be increased in importance next year, is evidently of no relevance whatsoever.

While Chalkbeat acknowledges these changes were urged on by Governor Cuomo's task force, it fails utterly to make connections as to what forced Cuomo to start a task force, let alone pretend he gives a crap about education or public school teachers. This, of course, was a massive opt-out, in which over 20% of New York's parents told their children not to sit for tests that Cuomo himself referred to as meaningless. But rather than speak to any of its leaders, Chalkbeat seeks comment from a Gates-funded group I've never heard of called Committee on Open Government.

After all, why go to Jeanette Deutermann, or Leonie Haimson, or Jia Lee, or Beth Dimino, or Katie Lapham, when you can get someone who's taken Gates money? And just to round out the forum, Chalkbeat goes to Reformy John King's successor, MaryEllen Elia, who's taken boatloads of Gates money and is therefore an expert on pretty much whatever.

Chalkbeat also makes the preposterous assertion that the Regents allowing children of special needs a route to graduation should have been more gradual because schools were prepping them for tests they didn't need. While that may be true, this did not remove their option of taking those tests. Announcing the allowance this year and enabling it, say, next year, would've helped absolutely no one. You don't need to go to a Gates-funded expert to figure that out.

While it may have been nice to have public hearings, the fact is the public has gotten up and spoken, and without that, none of these changes would have occurred. It's remarkable that Chalkbeat NY doesn't know that.

Imagine Help for Newcomers

You may have read a thing or two on this little blog about CR Part 154, the idiotic state regulation that cuts direct English instruction to newcomers and substitutes it with, well, less than nothing. Instead of direct English instruction, a newcomer may have a social studies class with an ESL teacher to help, or a dually-certifed ESL/ social studies teacher. Supposedly, this teacher, or pair of teachers, will teach newcomers both English and social studies in the same time it takes an American-born student to learn social studies only.

Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa told me that this rule was made with the best of intentions, and I'm sure she's right, but that's a weak argument indeed. I think everyone does everything with the best of intentions. Michael Bloomberg closed schools with the best of intentions, and hired Cathie Black with the best of intentions. He felt that people who had a lot of money knew better than those of us who don't, and acted accordingly.

But everyone knows the road to hell is paved with good intentions, so why don't we focus on taking newcomers somewhere else? One of the things I've learned from being chapter leader is that it's best to come not only with a complaint, but also with a potential solution. So if anyone actually knows Betty Rosa, maybe you can present her with it.

The other day, a social studies teacher looking to get ESL certification observed the first period of my double period class. I was showing a Powerpoint explaining vocabulary. She wrote that she saw a preparation period for the class that follows, which was accurate. So why not, instead of taking away an ESL period, add one? I'm not a social studies expert, but I could easily read the text and prep students for whatever the lesson may be.

I could easily identify key vocabulary and fill them in before the class. I could identify key concepts and make sure they are familiar with them before they walked in there. I could actually offer students more support rather than less. Is that such a revolutionary concept? I don't think so.

Of course I'm just a lowly teacher who spends each and every day of my working lives with these kids. I'm not an expert working in some office tower in Albany making decisions about children I never see and will never know. Eveidently they keep teachers out of such decisions and keep them pure, under the direction of folks like Reformy John King, who regards parents and teachers as special interests, or MaryEllen Elia, who loves her some Gates cash and programs.

Honestly I have no idea what anyone was thinking when they rewrote Part 154 like this. I have no idea what drugs they were taking, or why they thought this would benefit anyone. They certainly couldn't be bothered investigating research or practice, none of which would support this. My personal feeling is they felt teaching students how to communicate in the English language was simply not Common Corey enough, and decided to do away with conversation in favor of answering questions about Hammurabi's Code, and other things about which teenagers don't give a crap.

But the David Coleman approach of shoving things down children's throats whether they like it or not is not only counter-intuitive for teaching reading, but also for teaching English. These are subjects in which affect plays a great role. For example, I don't love reading, say, the UFT Contract, but because I'm a reader I can plod through it and understand what I need to. If you want me to go the extra mile and learn a foreign language, there'd better be someone or something I love where they speak it. In lieu of that, there'd better be a teacher to trick me into loving it.

Because I can tell you for sure, this Hammurabi's Code stuff isn't gonna cut it. Nor is Part 154. 

Democracy--AFT Style

I just read a retweet from Randi Weingarten. It was some teacher in Texas (or somewhere) who voted for Hillary and wrote about how proud she was that her union had endorsed Hillary. Now that's fine. You can be proud of anything or anyone you want, and as long as you don't try to shove it down my throat I won't give you any grief about it.

Here's the thing, though. I represent the largest school in Queens, one of a handful of the largest schools in the largest district in the country. I was not asked who I wanted AFT to represent, and I don't know a single other person who was either. I'm told there was a scientific survey, but I'm not sure exactly what it means. For one thing, I haven't seen a single question on this survey, and for another I have no idea exactly what sort of science we're discussing here. Is it the same kind that rounds out my teacher rating?

And who exactly filled out this scientific survey? Again, not I or anyone I know. In fact, time after time I read survey reports saying teachers support Common Core, or Hillary, and I wonder why the surveys show that teachers support whatever leadership does. Personally, I can't think of a single working teacher who supports Common Core. I know some very smart teachers who've found ways to deal with it and ways to help their students do the same, but I haven't heard a word of enthusiasm about it even from them.

Months ago when AFT began its exhaustive search for whom to endorse, I was invited to be part of a conference call featuring Randi Weingarten. At this call, supposedly, we could push a button or something and get to speak our minds. I couldn't help but notice the first person who spoke was this NYS Unity guy who wrote a column about me. The guy called me a part time union leader and a part time teacher, and said I was obsessive over having lost the NYSUT race for EVP, all of which is ridiculous.

Randi, of course, posted a link to this blog (I won't), and kept it up, saying what I great blog it was. I was kind of surprised at how impressed she was by a combination ad hominem/ strawman personal attack. Nonetheless, when I pointed out to her that the characterization of me as a part time teacher/ part time unionist insulted not only me, but also every working chapter leader in the city she took it down.

Anyway, I decided whatever pearls of wisdom this NYS Unity employee had to offer were probably not worth my time, and turned it off. Of all the hundreds of people on this call, it was absolutely impossible that guy's call happened to be first by coincidence. So in Democracy, AFT style, you get in this long queue, and they call on whoever they're gonna call on.

And then there's the UFT winner-take-all system, which means anyone who disagrees with Punchy Mike Mulgrew gets no voice whatsoever in AFT or NYSUT. It was pretty obvious that AFT was gonna endorse Hillary, just as it was obvious that UFT was gonna endorse that mayoral candidate, what's his name, who told the Daily News the city just couldn't afford to give teachers the raise everyone else got.

We have a shot at changing that this May. It's usually in April, but in a typical quirk of UFT-style democracy, May happens to be when a 3.5% raise kicks in. So May it is. I'm sure that decision was made just as democratically as our decisions to endorse Hillary, to support Common Core, to support junk science ratings, to support mayoral control, and to allow Reformy John King the right to arbitrate our rating system. 

Reformy John King--Hypocrite of the Year

In a headline that appears to belong on The Onion, New York's own Reformy John King is "trying to repair the Obama administration's frayed relationship with teachers." This is kind of incredible. First of all, if President Obama wished to score points with teachers, he would not begin by appointing someone who appears to hate us and everything we stand for. And yes, that would be King.

In New York, King held hearings on Common Core. When he found himself criticized, the King called public school teachers and parents "special interests." He then canceled all subsequent hearings until an outraged public forced him to come out of his office and face the music. King passionately supported the miserable Common Core, and became indignant when New Yorkers asked why he placed his own children in schools that did not use it.

In one of his first major speeches as acting U.S. secretary of education, John King apologized to teachers for the role that the federal government has played in creating a climate in which teachers feel “attacked and unfairly blamed.”

It is borderline surreal to read these words. King himself championed the New York junk science rating system. It never bothered him that value-added teacher rating had no established validity. He totally ignored NY State principals who said that this was the wrong way to go. When the American Statistical Association declared that teachers affected student scores by a factor of 1-14%, King did not raise a whisper of acknowledgement.

Another disappointment is the reaction of NEA President Lily Eskelson Garcia:

“We definitely hear something new coming out of Dr. King,” she said, adding that while his words “mean a lot to us,” teachers are now interested in seeing how he backs up those words with actions.

The fact is she ought to know better. Candidate Barack Obama went to the NEA and promised to do things "with" teachers, not "to" us.  He followed that up by appointing Arne Duncan Secretary of Education, racing to the top, and imposing junk science ratings and Common Core on most of the country via a gun to its head. When Arne said Katrina was the best thing to happen to NOLA education, Obama didn't chastize him at all. When Arne made his idiotic remark about soccer moms' kids not being so smart, based on ridiculous Common Core tests, Obama said nothing.

Making John King Duncan's successor was a slap in the face to working teachers. It's very disappointing neither Eskelson Garcia nor Weingarten would come right out and say so. Of course, they're both busy campaigning for Hillary Clinton, who has promised to close any school that isn't "above average."

King would have us entirely forget his own tenure in New York and make believe we trust him. I certainly hope we aren't stupid enough to fall for that.

Charters Outspend Us, While We Spend Millions Praising Cuomo

It kind of freaks me out to read that Eva Moskowitz and her reformy BFFs have outspent union on lobbying. And by quite a bit, too:

In all, labor groups and their key allies on education issues spent $8.3 million on political activity in 2015. Charter schools and their influential lobbying arms spent a little over $9 million, and tax credit advocates, $5.7 million, according to the lobbying and campaign finance reports.

So they're outspending us on two fronts. First, on charters, which is a great way of getting public money into private hands. They have great commercials, telling us to support the noble and principled Andrew Cuomo as he struggles to fire all those crappy unionized public school teachers. After all, the test scores are down, and that's what matters. Who cares if the tests are all new and we've set the cut scores to make everyone fail? That's not in the commercial, so no one knows it anyway.

The second front, of course, is the tax credits that will pay for John King to send his kids to a Montessori school, thus sidestepping the awful programs and tests he's imposed on everyone else. And if you want to send your kid to that school, well, that's fine as long as you can pony up the difference. This is another great way to help rich people have more money to invest, always a priority for the politicians they've bought, like Cuomo and King.

Now I've watched NYSUT and UFT celebrate for the last two year that we didn't get this tax credit/ back door voucher program. While they didn't achieve anything good, at least they've put off one bad thing for another year. Problem, of course, is that every time you cut off one reformy head, another grows in its place. Last year, for example, they didn't get the tax credits, but they did get a teacher evaluation system that's even worse than the one we have now, and we did take away the right of unions to negotiate much of it. Now that we have that, and Michael Mulgrew has thanked the Heavy Hearts Assembly for it, they can push even harder for the tax credit.

What really bothers me, though, considering that unions have spent all those millions, is that we've spent two or three of them on glitzy commercials congratulation Andrew Cuomo for coming to his senses on education. Unfortunately, it's plain that while Cuomo gives lip service to change, things are fundamentally the same. If you teach above grade 8, things haven't changed at all. And giving kids unlimited time to torture themselves with developmentally inappropriate tests was not precisely a victory either.

If you think Cuomo is a friend of education, you need look no further than his insistence that his idiotic tax cap be adhered to. Schools are allowed to raise their budgets by a whopping 0.12% this year, and no matter how high inflation gets it's capped at 2%. This comes from a man who musters the audacity to label himself a "student lobbyist." I listened to current NYSUT leaders discuss all the clever ways they'd get around the cap, and thus far they've failed to deliver, instead opting to spend member dollars telling the world what a swell guy Andy Cuomo turned out to be.

It's time for UFT and NYSUT leadership to get out of the ass-kissing, seat-at-the-table, Cuomo-praising business and start advocating for not only those of us who they ostensibly represent, but our students as well.

Staying Ahead of the Curve

I don't  know much about the writer of the quote at left. Oddly, I found it on Facebook, posted by the writer himself. I'm wary of people who quote themselves, but I love this sentiment. Look at Andrew Cuomo, with no moral center, doing any damn thing his contributors want. He only rolls it back when his popularity is swirling the bowl, and even then, not nearly enough to change much of anything. NYSUT and UFT leadership appear not to notice, and spend millions of our dues dollars on what appear to be pro-Cuomo commercials.

Thinking teachers and parents are paying close attention, though, and don't buy the "moratorium" nonsense that rolls back just a little bit of the test-based drek that passes for teacher evaluation in New York State. Our kids are still taking the same number of tests, including the ones that now seem to count for nothing whatsoever.

It's surreal that we live in a country where Bill Gates can dictate that test scores dictate the life and death of schools (not to mention the careers of teachers). Yet Gates sends his own kids to schools that aren't subject to his whims and caprices. Reformy folk like Gates, Rhee, King, Obama, Cuomo and Bloomberg opt their kids out of programs they impose by opening their wallets. When we do the same by declining to allow our children to take the tests, it's an outrage. The taxes we pay for our children's schools can be withheld, they say. Our children will suffer, they say, because we didn't conform. That's not taking care of those in their charge.

Of course, the folks above appear interested in taking care of only their own children. Otherwise, why would they impose a system they deem unfit for their own children on our kids? Of course there is hope for our kids. Opt-out is burgeoning in New York State, despite the druthers of test-happy zillionaires and the politicians crawling through their pockets. Parents and teachers aren't blindly accepting this nonsense anymore.

Classrooms don't need to be test-prep factories. Classrooms can be windows of kindness and encouragement in a tough world. A test-obsessed America makes that tougher each and every day. How can you be kind to children when you're gonna lose your job if they fail that test? It's an awkward balancing act, and every thinking teacher I know feels that pressure pretty much every moment.

Despite that, most of the kids know whether or not we care about them. Most of the kids know whether or not we have their interests at heart. It's harder for us, of course, because we're subject to all sorts of external pressures that have little to do with their welfare (not to mention ours). I can't imagine being a new teacher today, and trying not only to learn a very complex job, but concurrently dealing with all the red tape and nonsense that make actually doing the job a near impossible dream.

It's a balancing act, a juggling act, and it's really getting tougher to maneuver every single day. It's too bad we can't just do our jobs, help our students and give them that little bit of guidance they need. It's too bad these kids will lose so many people who could help them due to myopic to outright hostile leadership.

But we stand, we stay, and we care. How we broadcast that message over the Gates-propagated noise machine is just one more issue for us.

Obama Does Something Good

I'm not Obama's biggest fan, and I didn't even vote for him the second time he ran. His education record is abysmal. But he's right about guns. How anyone can oppose background checks for people wanting to buy firearms is simply unfathomable.

Of course the Republicans hate everything Barack Obama does. That, I suspect, is why there's so much right wing opposition to his miserable and baseless education program. When GW Bush was in charge the GOP loved every stupid idea he had. They embraced every ridiculous idea he championed, including the notion that every child would be perfect by 2014 or schools would pay. But when Obama came out with Race to the Top, which was just as stupid, they said the Fed ought not to meddle in education.

I used to be horrified when GOP politicians said they wanted to abolish the Department of Education. Now, after years of Arne Duncan, and after Barack Obama found someone even worse in the form of Reformy John King, I'd be happy to see them blow the whole place up and salt the ground so nothing could ever grow there again. John King has no problem sending his kid to schools that don't use the crappy programs he imposes on our kids. Barack Obama has no problem doing the same. If these programs are so state of the art, why aren't they good enough for their children?

Nonetheless, Obama did a good thing by imposing rules on the lunatic gun lobby. It's outrageous and unconscionable that the GOP presidential hopefuls can oppose such common sense rules. Will Obama's order solve our gun problem? Of course not. But if even one fewer lunatic gets his hands on a firearm, if one fewer person dies, if there's one fewer mass shooting, it will be worth it.

Marco Rubio can stand up in front of God and everybody and say that released felons cannot vote, but have every right to buy guns. For the life of me, I can't figure out why someone who's unfit to select a leader is fit to carry around a firearm. But I'm not privy to the workings of the GOP mindset.

Sometimes it's good when Democrats are Democrats. Sadly, for working people, those times are few and far between. One thing that caused me to vote for Obama the first time was his support of the Employee Free Choice Act. That would've made it easier for working people to join unions. But alas, not only did he not help it pass, but as far as I can tell, he never pushed for it to come up for a vote.

I can't understand how anyone can reasonably oppose Obama's executive action on firearms. From what I read, 90% of the American public support this. It's obscene that the NRA and the gun lobby can supersede the wishes of the overwhelming majority of Americans, but that's where we are in the USA in 2016.

From Obama--Too Little Too Late

Barack Obama, the reformiest President in US history, paid what he evidently considers to be valuable lip service to reducing testing in a Facebook message. Obama made a non-binding suggestion that districts may or may not accept. Evidently the President stuck his finger in the air, felt the winds of discontent, and determined he did not wish people to blame him too much for the misery his policies have wrought.

Today President Obama plans to stand with his two corporate stooges, Arne Duncan and John King, and pretend that he is taking action on this issue. Arne Duncan famously stated that Hurricane Katrina was the best thing to happen to education in New Orleans, and for that drew not a single word of reproach from the Commander in Chief, who appointed Duncan and threw Linda Darling-Hammon under the bus at the behest of huge campaign contributor, so-called Democrats for Education Reform, an astroturf group formed by Mc Donalds and Walmart-loving hedge-funder Whitney Tilson. Pedantic, thin-skinned John King is the guy who canceled NY Common Core forums when he found NY State parents and teachers had the temerity to disagree with him. He called us "special interests." President Barack Obama saw fit to promote him.

AFT President Randi Weingarten had this to say:

"It's a big deal that the president and the secretaries of education-both current and future-are saying that they get it and are pledging to address the fixation on testing in tangible ways," Weingarten said.

But, she added, "the devil is in the details."

To my memory, this is at least the third time I've heard Weingarten praise the President for words. But words are not deeds, and in the deeds department Obama is sorely lacking. Obama enabled and supported Race to the Top, which waved money before the noses of cash-strapped states and pretty much forced them to accept Common Core and junk science-based teacher evaluations. Even then, after pretty much making teacher jobs dependent upon test scores, Obama was saying things like we shouldn't teach to the test. Does he think we should set ourselves up for dismissal based on the junk science his programs have enabled and mandated? Who knows? That's just one of many factors he hasn't bothered to consider.

I voted for Obama the first time he ran, though I had deep reservations about his obvious ties to reformy astroturf groups with suitcases of cash to offer candidates they could buy. It quickly became clear that Obama not only gave GW Bush a third term in education, but was also willing to sign off on pretty much any program self-appointed education expert Bill Gates was able to pull out of his abundant hind quarters. The second time Obama ran, Randi Weingarten's AFT endorsed him, asking no concessions whatsoever, but I was unable to vote for him. The explosion in testing Obama now bemoans is a direct result of his policies.

It's not enough to talk about non-binding policies now that he's a lame duck. On education, Barack Obama's legacy is the very worst of any President since the inception of public education. He's moved us backward and extracted the joy of learning with almost surgical precision. And despite his words, demagogues like Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie are not going to move toward reasonable policies anytime soon. Though they're also willing to drop a few words here and there, they don't want to make any reasonable changes and read about themselves in the NY Post.

It's pathetic that, in the United States in 2015, the President, not even facing election, is too timid to appoint a Secretary of Education who isn't insane. Even worse, the best he can do for us is advise us we don't have to kill our kids with testing. The fact is neither Obama's kids, nor Duncan's kids, nor King's kids are subject to the hurtful policies they've imposed on our kids.

And that is nothing less than a national disgrace.

Related: Principal Tim Farley points out we already have a 2% cap on test time in Andrew Cuomo's NY, and that it's not nearly good enough. 

Meet the New Boss, Even Worse Than the Old Boss

There's a very interesting piece up at US News by Andrew Rotherham, AKA Eduwonk. I don't agree with Rotherham about a whole lot in education, but I find myself wishing I agreed with a whole lot of this particular column. Rotherham certainly has a way with words, whether you agree with him or not:

It's too soon to fully judge Duncan's tenure. There are lots of strong opinions in Washington and around the country about Duncan. Privately, insiders' views range from "he's the most committed and effective secretary of education in the department's history" to "he's a jock who's in way over his head on policy."

Wow. I wish I agreed with that. But with the entire country embracing Race to the Top, Gun to the Head policies like Common Core, I'm not feeling the love. The high-stakes testing and developmentally inappropriate tasks for our children (and not his, or Duncan's, or Obama's) are intolerable. That's not to mention the junk-science teacher ratings that have been foisted upon us, rejected by none other than the American Statistical Association.

Education is apparently on the president's "Eff-It" list. At this year's White House Correspondents Dinner, President Obama said that he didn't have a bucket list, but with time running out on his administration, he did have something that rhymed with it. The president's choice of John King* to oversee the department after Duncan is a signal he's not that concerned with education politics at this point.  

That's clever, but not precisely accurate. It appears to me that President Obama, who's certainly in a position to say "Eff-it" to pretty much anything, has decided to continue with the reformy policies that are King's signature. While it wasn't clear to UFT President Michael Mulgrew, who deemed King suitable as an independent arbiter for our evaluation system, it's quite clear to anyone paying attention that John King supports all things reformy, specifically including Common Core and junk science evaluations.

The education debate is about to get nastier. John King is an accomplished African American educator who helped found a highly regarded charter school in Boston. His personal story is as compelling as any education official in the country. Most reform critics don't want to tangle with him publicly, if for no other reason than they have sense enough to recognize the gross optics of well-heeled white people explaining to an African American man why we shouldn't have demanding expectations for educators serving low-income minority youth.

I'm not sure the education debate can get any nastier. For one thing, our unions are under attack, and SCOTUS may reduce us to virtual "Right to Work" status. For another, accomplished though King may be, I've seen precious little evidence of thoughfulness from him, Diane Ravitch goes so far as to call him "brilliant" based on his academic credentials. But King is remarkably thin-skinned and unable to deal with criticism. He thinks it's beyond the pale when people comment that his signature programs, Common Core and junk science, are not good enough for his own children, in private schools.

Furthermore, John King shows little evidence of being able to play well with others. He actually canceled a series of public meetings when people dared disagree with him. In fact, he went so far as to call teachers and parents special interests. That's what we get for advocating for the kids we love, I guess. In Spanish, they say, "Tiene doctorado pero no es educado."  This means, roughly, he has a doctorate but he isn't educated. In Spanish, being educated means not simply sitting through some classes, but rather behaving well. King's been to Harvard but treats the people he ostensibly serves with a sorely limited scope ranging from indifference to outright contempt.

There is no way to read King's ascension other than as a slap in the face to teachers unions, especially the New York-centric American Federation of Teachers, which has been sharply critical of the future secretary.

If it's a slap in the face, that's not precisely the "Eff-it" Rotherham mentioned earlier. If Obama is "not that concerned" with education politics, why would he bother to slap us in the face?

The thing I'm saddest to disagree with is this:

Look for them to ratchet up the pressure on Hillary Clinton to distance herself from reform in a visible way, particularly in a primary fight where she needs labor's support and her political problems lie to the left.

I've seen no evidence of pressure on Hillary Clinton to do anything but smile as both AFT and NEA endorsed her.  In fact, though we had ample evidence of Barack Obama's reforminess in 2012, we endorsed him unconditionally. This was very odd, as LGBT and immigrant groups managed to extract concessions from him. If Hillary Clinton has distanced herself from reformy Obama policies in any way, I'd love to hear about it.

How about it, AFT, UFT and NYSUT leadership? Is Rotherham right? Have you got any demands for Hillary?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Thanks to Sean Crowley for the photo.

Don't Let the Golden Parachute Hit You on the Way Out, Arne

It appears Arne Duncan, US Secretary of Education, is stepping down. Duncan famously said Katrina was the best thing to happen to New Orleans because all the public schools were closed  and replaced by charters run by his fabulously wealthy BFFs. He also said something about white soccer moms learning their children were not so smart after they were given Common Core tests for which they were not prepared. Arne was the choice of DFER, and thus the choice of the President of the United States, who threw Linda Darling-Hammond under the bus to accommodate their request. Who knows how many suitcases of cash it cost to buy Arne that gig?

In any case, he doesn't want it anymore, and clearly has plans to whore himself out elsewhere. He can go give speeches to the Walmart family, or Eli Broad, or even for the great Bill Gates, who Common Cored the entire country. Well, not the entire country. After all, Bill's kids go to the same elite school he himself went to, and the ideas he sees fit to impose on our children are not quite good enough for his own.

In an exhaustive search to find someone even worse, President Obama appears to have settled on thin-skinned, Reformy John King. You no doubt remember King for having mandated version one of the junk science evaluation system we all love so dearly.  King famously had a listening tour on Common Core that he canceled when he found some New Yorkers dared disagree with him. He called parents and teachers "special interests," and indeed we are. Our special interest is the children of New York State, and it's unfortunate that King failed to share that interest with us.

Like Duncan, he sends his kids to private schools where there is neither Common Core nor junk science teacher rating. King did such a terrible job in New York that people barely seem to notice how execrable his replacement, MaryEllen Elia, is. It's not easy to locate fanatical ideologues with absolutely no knowledge of or interest in research or practice, but both our state and national governments are up to the task.

But the thing with reformies is this--you cut off one head and another just pops up right in its place. King will be an awful education secretary, even with his three years of teaching experience, one of which was in an actual public school. He will continue the corporatist hurtful policies embraced by Barack Obama, because really, you gotta admit they work for him. With a gig like this, he can continue to send his kids to elite Montessori schools while our kids do close reading and learn to hate just about everything about reading, school, and all that we value.

Doubtless E4E, Families for Excellent Schools, DFER, and all the phony grassroots groups are having a field day as we meet the new boss, same as the old boss. They've clearly bought themselves the most profitable education system in these United States.

Teaching in a Right to Work State

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From time to time in this space, you may note a disparaging word or two about UFT leadership. There are several reasons for this. One is that leadership has supported a host of counter-intutitive measures that hurt working teachers in its perpetual bid for a "seat at the table." Mayoral control is a biggie. We supported it when it came out, and then, after it was proven an unmitigated disaster, we demanded a few changes. When we failed to get them, we supported it anyway.

There is our support for APPR, which forces teachers to be judged on test scores largely beyond their control. There is our support for charter schools, which operate on a completely different playing field and yet are used by politicians and journalists to undermine those of us who teach all of NYC's children. There is our support for and participation in charter colocation, which reminds me of nothing more than a cancer to public schools. There's our abject failure to support opt-out, and our misguided trust in the Heavy Heart Assembly, Cuomo, Gates, John King, Mary Ellen Elia and the like.

And then there is a rigged election that deprives high school teachers the right to choose its own VP, not to mention the UFT choosing district reps who chapter leaders used to elect. Democracy finds it hard to breathe, let alone prosper, under loyalty-oath driven representation, as the UFT ensures those of us who follow the philosophy of Diane Ravitch get no voice whatsoever in NYSUT or AFT.  

But as we face a real threat in Friedrichs. The fact is, if dues retrieval becomes voluntary, the massive apathy engendered over decades by union leadership will cause massive losses in revenue, and will render collection the number one, if not the only priority, of the leadership that's failed to represent the feelings and struggles of working teachers for decades. Will it become the lot of chapter leaders to skulk around begging people for $1200 a year so Michael Mulgrew can negotiate sub-standard contracts, two-tier due process, and punch us in the face if we don't support Common Core? That's gonna be a tough sell.

On the other hand, it's not a whole lot of fun being in a so-called Right to Work State. Take a look at North Carolina, where teachers can't even make ends meet. The environment is not a whole lot different from that here, in that teachers and public schools are routinely blamed for all the ills of humanity. But the funding has been rolled back to the point where public schools can barely function, and the teachers are on long-term exodus from the state. Make no mistake, that's the agenda of the reformies, and Cuomo would do it in a New York minute of the parents and citizenry were less aware.

Union is our bulwark against this, and we must work to make UFT an organization responsive to those of us who see what's coming. Flawed though our union is, we must work to improve it rather than lie down and watch it be destroyed. As bad as things are, they could be much worse. A lot of us are working to make things better, and I expect to give more detail on that in this space in the coming weeks and months.

Friedrichs can hang over our heads like the Sword of Damocles, but we cannot give up. We cannot become North Carolina. If you think it can't happen here, take a look at Michigan and Wisconsin. No one thought it would happen there either. Because even if we win Friedrichs, that's just cutting one head off the monster. Surely another will grow in its place.

We need to be smarter and quicker than the reformies. Our current leadership has not proven up to the task. One way or another, we are going to help them, whether they like it or not.

What Do Mulgrew and Christie Have in Common?

Chris Christie says it's time to punch teacher unions in the face. This isn't surprising coming from the bombastic lunatic he is. This is a guy who makes agreements to fund pensions in exchange for higher contributions from state employees, and then turns around and says, "Screw you, I'm not paying." This is a guy who shouts down young teachers in public. This is a man who will take a state helicopter to watch his son play in a little league game. And I don't suppose we need to discuss the Fort Lee traffic issues any further.

We know that Christie means us no good. We know he has no regard for public education, and that he has contempt for public school teachers. We know he thinks we only work part time and are therefore overpaid. So it's not very tough to oppose Chris Christie, or indeed any and all of his fellow GOP contenders for President.

What's really striking here is that Christie appears to have taken a cue from none other than UFT President Michael Mulgrew, who suggested that people who tried to take his precious Common Core would get their faces punched and pushed in the dirt. It's incredible to be able to draw a parallel between someone who clearly hates us and everything we stand for and someone whose job entails representing our interests, but there you are.

Sometimes, it's good to be angry. For example, when we went five long years without a contract, a lot of teachers were pissed off, and justifiably so. A rep from UFT came to my school a few years ago when we were hanging tough on teacher evaluation. I was very supportive of that. I believe I upped my contribution to COPE to show my approval. A member asked when we were gonna get the raise that the cops and firefighters got. The UFT rep said union leadership was very smart, a line I often hear at the DA. He said that Bloomberg could not get the new evaluation system until he negotiated a contract, and that the member would get the contract.

Shortly thereafter, the smart leadership agreed to an APPR system without a contract, and if I recall correctly it was to help ensure NY State got Race to the Top money. This money went toward things that were of no assistance whatsoever to NY teachers and students, but for some reason we supported it. Not only did we fail to negotiate an APPR system, but we placed our faith in Reformy John King as an impartial arbiter. Anyone who's followed the King's career, one year teaching public school, two years charter, then running a charter school to running NY State education, knows he's just about as impartial as Bill Gates or the Walmart family.

So what's the point? Is Mulgrew just like Christie simply because they both wish to punch us in the face? No.

The point is this--no one should be talking about punching teachers in the face. It's a little more outrageous when it comes from the President of the largest teacher local in these United States, but it's absolutely unacceptable from everyone.

And while it's clearly necessary to fight demagogues like Christie, we ought never to have to be threatened by our union leaders. It is their very job to support us, not the nonsensical corporate programs foisted upon us by the likes of Christie's BFFs.

MaryEllen Elia and the Middle of the Road

Florida, land of Jeb Bush, is one of the least teacher-friendly states in the union. So it's kind of surprising to read that Revive NYSUT leadership is encouraged by Florida import MaryEllen Elia as state education commissioner. What would it take to discourage them? Attila the Hun? Perhaps the Regents considered him but rejected him for having been dead for centuries. But why should that deter them, since dead ideas are pretty much what NYSED trades on?

For example, here's a snippet from reformy Chalkbeat NY's piece, from which their "Rise and Shine" characterizes Elia's tone as "middle of the road."

Elia emphasized that, in her own view, state tests should not be the only metric used to rate teachers and principals...

Actually, I know of no one who says state tests should be the only metric used to rate teachers and principals. But let's look at what "middle of the road" entails. Apparently, it means you are somewhere between the highly regarded American Statistical Association, which has determined that teachers account for somewhere between 1 and 14% of test score variation, and no one. This is what passes for reasoned discourse on education nowadays.

On opt out, here's how Elia came in:

"Opt-outs are no good for teachers or parents."

This, of course, was before she even began her gig. Now, according to Chalkbeat, she's really raised her game.

Asked about the New York’s growing number of parents opting their students out of the state tests, Elia cited her experience in Hillsborough County, the large Florida district she oversaw for most of the last decade. Town hall meetings there helped explain the changes to parents and keep opt-outs low, she said.

Doubtless Elia, not having troubled herself with the most cursory research, would be surprised to learn we've actually had town hall meetings in NY. The first resulted in testy, tone-deaf John King pulling out, calling public school parents and teachers "special interests." Evidently, we should listen uncritically to utterly objective billionaires like Gates, Broad and the Waltons, who know what's good for our children (but not theirs, of course).  Critical reading should be reserved for Common Core tests and eschewed in everyday life. Doubtless New Yorkers can't wait to have more meetings with yet another figurehead who made up her mind before even showing up.

The incoming commissioner also reiterated her support for charter schools — noting that Hillsborough County had 45 — if they are shown to be improving student performance.

That's middle of the road, right? After all, some charters get better test scores, and that is the only factor that's important. That's reasonable, isn't it? And as for the ones who don't, well at least they don't have those awful union contracts that give teachers due process, and what reasonable person opposes firing teachers? Elia continues:

“I think there’s a place for quality teachers to go in and give feedback to their colleagues and their peers,” she said. Exactly how much test scores should account for depends on the rest of the rubric, she said, adding that she did not yet fully understand New York’s method for calculating teachers’ value-added scores.

Well, who does? And why should she bother to have studied it? After all, she's only going to preside over the system. And maybe the calculation method is totally incomprehensible anyway. That's a good reason to not have kept up with it. Apparently the middle of the road position is to support a system that judges teachers on junk science while not even pretending to understand it.

Extreme positions, on the other hand, are quite different. There's the extreme position, evidently held by no one, that test scores ought to count for 100% of a teacher rating. Then there's the other extreme position, taken by wild-eyed radicals like Diane Ravitch and yours truly, that we ought to consider things like research and practice in education, and reject absolutely every form of junk science.

Therefore, MaryEllen Elia is in the middle of the road. It's quite gratifying it is to know that Revive NYSUT is "encouraged" by that.

Doubtless we're in good hands all around.

“During her first school visit, Elia told teachers, ‘Opt-outs are no good for teachers and no good for parents.’ It is concerning that she would make such a judgement prior to reviewing New York State Common Core tests or exploring why the resistance to those tests has been so strong.” said Ruth Quinn, a school board member from Ulster County. - See more at: http://www.nysape.org/albany-continues-to-ignore-parents-ensuring-the-optshyout-movement-will-grow.html#sthash.7BG9QqsK.dpuf

“During her first school visit, Elia told teachers, ‘Opt-outs are no good for teachers and no good for parents.’ It is concerning that she would make such a judgement prior to reviewing New York State Common Core tests or exploring why the resistance to those tests has been so strong.” said Ruth Quinn, a school board member from Ulster County. - See more at: http://www.nysape.org/albany-continues-to-ignore-parents-ensuring-the-optshyout-movement-will-grow.html#sthash.7BG9QqsK.dpuf

The Perks of Privilege

It seems every time I pick up the NY Post, some principal is committing an atrocity. The latest is from PS 120 in Flushing, which ran a carnival during school hours last week. That sounds nice, doesn't it? Except the price for this carnival was ten bucks, and if you didn't pay, you didn't get in. So 90% of the kids were outside having big fun while the rest sat in the auditorium watching a movie.

If I were to offer extra credit to Mary but not John, and John's Dad called the principal, I could be looking a disciplinary action. Maybe Mary has a 64 average and John has a 94 average. It doesn't matter. I don't get to pick and choose, especially if some parent complains. Of course I'm not a principal.

If I were principal, I could drive around in my BMW and wear a fur coat while the school crumbles around me. Or I could have sex with an AP on my desk. I could give teachers ratings for lessons I'd never seen, even on days when said teachers weren't even in the building. Maybe I'd get my hand slapped. Maybe they'd ship me off to some office where I could count paper clips. Who knows?

There's no Campbell Brown going after principals. Students First and Families for Excellent Schools and all the other groups that are one and the same don't run commercials about them. But you have to ask yourself--if indeed there is a zombie-like plague of bad teachers, who hired them? Who granted them all tenure? Who failed to observe them and write them up for their myriad sins? Well, it wasn't me.

So I guess I'm a little jealous. Except for these occasional tidbits in the Post, I feel like I'm Public Enemy Number  One. Apparently what I do each and every day is destroy the lives of children, and the only remedy is to place them in Moskowitz Academies where they will pee their pants, fill in endless bubbles, and wear t-shirts that say, "Don't Steal Possible." Me, I've got bags full of Possible, all stolen from hapless children.

 I had no idea that was what I was doing until I started watching the commercials. Apparently the best way to help children now is to give tremendous tax credits to private schools and break the Public Monopoly that Governor Cuomo finds so egregious. I'm a little curious how they're a monopoly since there are private schools all over the country. Otherwise, how could Governor Cuomo, Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates, John King, Michelle Rhee and Barack Obama send their children to them?

The bill gives huge tax credits to billionaires, but a stinking 500 bucks to families making less than 60K if they want to send their kids to private schools. That way, they won't be hobnobbing with the children of the Important People mentioned above. It's Montessori for them and Common Core for you.

I can't believe principals get away with such nonsense. But it's even harder for me to believe any sentient being thinks Andrew Cuomo is a Democrat.

Bonus perk: principal spends 145K of public funds and keeps job.

What Merriment Is the King Pursuing Tonight?

Modern-day ed. "reformers" invariably deal in inconvenient contradictions.  First, there was Rhee, former head of Students' First, jovially describing how she had her class tape their lips shut to the point of bleeding.  Then there are a whole spate of reformers who preach the Common Core, high-stakes tests and junk-science teacher evaluations, yet refuse to send their kids to schools that practice the same.  One such reformer is NY State Ed. Commissioner John King, now on his way to D.C.  King's kids had been schooled at a private Montessori in Greenbush, NY, dubbed Woodland Hill.

In the wake of the oxymoron, Susan Kambrich, head of Woodland Hill, attempted to explain it away.  According to her, "When I looked at the pedagogical shifts that are part of the Common Core, it felt like we were already doing those things."  She followed up, "Montessori education lends itself very well to the initiatives of the Common Core."  Not all agree.  Some are quick to point out that Maria Montessori was more about teaching to the whole child, allowing greater latitude for unstructured play and exercise.  She never would have stood for a punitive test-based learning culture.

Teachers at my school have also looked at the standards and remarked that we do all these things.  Some say it without realizing our kids will be Common-Cored alive in Global History and Geography come the Spring of 2015.  When it comes to pass (or in this case fail), perhaps we will be comforted by the fact that even Woodland Hill's fifth-grade class failed its 2013 State math test miserably.

That is what happens, I guess, when it seems you have been doing Common-Core-type things all along.  Like an unsuspecting deer, you walk into the headlights of a high-stakes test.  It is the equivalent of a rapidly firing machine gun.  You marched off to war with a bounce in your step, but when the guns fire, it's hit the ground and good luck!

Now, that King is on his way to D.C., he will have the opportunity to put his money where his children's mouths are.  Will he become a public-school parent?  Will he subject his kids to classes focused on test prep?  Will he subject his kids to tests made to drain the living spirit from them?  Will he subject his children to tests that academically drown even reputable swimmers?

Let me conclude with a quote by Maria Montessori.  Perhaps when King is considering into which school he should enroll his children, he will be thinking more of Montessori's sentiments than his own promulgation of the Core:

“We cannot know the consequences of suppressing a child's spontaneity when he is just beginning to be active. We may even suffocate life itself. That humanity which is revealed in all its intellectual splendor during the sweet and tender age of childhood should be respected with a kind of religious veneration. It is like the sun which appears at dawn or a flower just beginning to bloom. Education cannot be effective unless it helps a child to open up himself to life.” 

― Maria Montessori

We Are the Bearers of Hope

It's a reformy world. All sorts of money seeks and follows demagogues like Michelle Rhee and Eva Moskowitz. They get in the media and spew their blather unchallenged about whatever they like. Always, the bottom line is unionized teachers as scapegoats. The only solution is more and more selective test prep factories. If they can pick the best kids and get rid of the undesirables, they can post better test scores, which in their world is the sole factor that determines whether or not a school merits existence.

But we won't shut up. Big voices like Diane Ravitch, Leonie Haimson and Carol Burris are out there, loudly proclaiming the truth. When Eva Moskowitz attempts to spout her nonsense in a fair forum, multiple voices of reason stop her dead in her tracks. There are more of us than there are of them, we love our children, and we will not give up no matter how much money they fight us with.

In our own schools we are dispirited by the junk science evaluation system, terrorized by the whims of imperious supervisors. Mulgrew, displaying no connection to what we feel, boasts of how few teachers are rated ineffective. Talk to one of those teachers, facing job loss, and you'll instantly see how little consolation it is. At the same time, Mulgrew boasts to the DA that John King finds our system among the best in the state because so many of us are rated developing and are on improvement plans. You see how that works? It's good because so few teachers have adverse ratings, but it's also good because so many teachers have adverse ratings. It must be a greatly comforting to reside in the Unity Caucus echo chamber.

Everywhere I go I see teachers afraid of their own shadows. They're terrified they'll get poor ratings for no reason. They're afraid their small-minded vindictive supervisors will target them. They won't sign grievances because they fear that will make them targets. Consequently the Contract means nothing. You want me to put up a bulletin board and include a rubric that parents will neither comprehend nor care about? Fine. You have no time for me to do it? That's fine too.

Mike Mulgrew still thinks the evaluation plan is the best thing since sliced bread, and it's likely as not because he's never tried artisan bread that you cut with your own knife. After all, he took part in the creation of the law. He's proud to have made junk science a factor in teacher evaluations. Though he, like just about everyone, doesn't understand the MOSL, he has people who do, and while none of us actually understand it, the formula somehow worked, spitting out only a tenth of NYC teachers as sub-par.

Of course the consequences for those teachers can be draconian. If your supervisor gave you decent ratings and you're on a humiliating "improvement plan" simply because of junk science, that can be incredibly demoralizing. Of course if you were rated ineffective, and face 3020a dismissal charges with the burden of proof on you rather than DOE, you're facing the loss of your very livelihood. And yes, junk science can be the deciding factor placing you there. Then you're at the tender mercies of some UFT member who saw fit to join the rat squad.

Mulgrew, unlike working teachers, has nothing to be afraid of except an election that's heavily rigged in his favor. He well knows that most teachers find it so ridiculous they throw their ballots in the trash.

That's where we are. But there's no advantage in being afraid, I'm afraid. If indeed your supervisor is a bully, tolerating abuse won't make him any less of one. I've seen people who have opted to keep quiet so as to avoid retaliation end up the subjects of retaliation anyway.  There's no upside to fear, be it justified or simply garden-variety paranoia.

Those of us who see the truth must speak it. Those of us who see what's right must preach it. We must prop up our brothers and sisters who are fearful and oppressed. We must point to others who say the truth. These are tough times and there are those who'd leave us for dead.

But we're far from it. And for our own sakes and for those of our children, we can't give up. The fight's not easy, and the fight's not fair. But we have the numbers and we will prevail. There is simply no other option.