Vicious Cycle of Teacher Recruitment

When I started teaching, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, NYC would hire anyone. I'm sure of this, because they hired me. I hadn't ever taught in my life, and I hadn't even taken an education course. But I had a college degree, I majored in English, and I passed a basic writing test over at Court Street. That was good enough for them to give me a job and pay me something like 14K per annum.

Years later, I watched Rudy Giuliani explain on TV that he didn't want to give teachers a raise because a lot of them "stink." He didn't cite any stats or figures, but in his mind, such as it was, that was good enough. Then we had Michael Bloomberg, who degraded us on a regular basis and sought to make us at will employees. After that, of course, came the new evaluation system. I can't think of a single working teacher (excepting the shills at E4E) who supports it.

Every day teachers wonder if there's gonna be a drive-by. Will the Boy Wonder come in with his little iPad and make up things that never happened? Will he tell you face to face the lesson was wonderful and then trash you in the actual evaluation? Worse, will he walk in while you're having a bad day? Will he make it a point to observe you on a half day when only eight students are present? This is what teachers walk around thinking about. I go on Facebook and read teachers say they will pay for the education of their children unless they pursue careers in education.

So, fewer people want to go into teaching. There appears to be a shortage in NY State. Perhaps we ought not to continue draconian "gotcha" plans to rate teachers, you conclude. Maybe Cuomo is coming to his senses. Well, you conclude wrong. Sure, there is some sort of temporary moratorium on rating teachers by VAM junk science. But it only applies to certain 3-8 teachers. We high school teachers are rated by the same nonsense we've suffered through for years.

Here's what NY Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia has decided--she'll let teachers from out of state teach our children without meeting certification requirements. OK, now I'm not saying that meeting the requirements makes anyone a good teacher. Still, it's hard to see how failing to meet them makes anyone a good teacher either. It's certainly unfair that those of us who live here and know the area are held to a higher bar than those who don't.

But what's the inevitable outcome of a policy like this? Well, for one, it may keep them from having to  raise compensation to attract people. That's bad for those of us who have to work for a living, and despite the inane chatter about putting "students first," it doesn't benefit our kids to have lower-paying jobs either.

Another issue, though, is probably further opportunity to blame teachers for education failures. What if teachers from Utah are ill equipped to deal with kids from New York? Inevitably, this will lead to tinhorn politicians to keep up the chants about how public school teachers suck, how union sucks, and how taxes suck and therefore teachers shouldn't be paid. Then, instead of making the field more competitive, they can lower standards even further and hire people even less equipped to do the job.

Then the op-eds can cry for more charters, more TFA, and more McTeachers who get thrown in the trash after a single use. It's ridiculous.

We need a reasonable standard for teachers, reasonable working conditions for teachers, and reasonable compensation for teachers. If the reformies don't wish to be reasonable, this shell game will go on forever. That's no way to place children first, and in fact it's no way to treat them at all.

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. 

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.

Michael Mulgrew Said "Thank You" for Longer Hours and No Seniority

In Buffalo, the new state receivership law is being tested. It's an important test, because teachers there are expected to work longer and dump seniority rules. This is in direct conflict with the Triborough Amendment to the Taylor Law, which states that if a new contract is not negotiated, old contract terms remain. The BTF will have to sue if it wishes to maintain its current contractual terms.

This is not anything Mulgrew didn't know. I watched him tell the Delegate Assembly that this new law, if passed, meant the receivers could pretty much do anything they wished. He told us all that, under receivership, collective bargaining agreements would be null and void.

As of now, the decision about whether to allow the hacks who run Buffalo schools to violate contracts is in the hands of MaryEllen Elia, hardly a voice of reason. Even now, her Gates-funded, budget busting program in Hillsborough is being dismantled. That does not appear to have diminished Elia's enthusiasm for junk science teacher rating. It's hard to imagine she will do the right thing here, but we will soon see.

There are reasons why kids do poorly on tests. Sometimes the tests are inappropriate. If you insist on giving millions of kids the same tests regardless of their background, that's gonna happen. Kids with learning disabilities are different from those without them. Kids who speak English are different from those who don't. And kids with parents who need to work 200 hours a week, each, may need a different sort of attention from those who actually see their parents every now and then.

But Bill Gates has declared he can't deal with poverty or its effects. He has therefore decided to focus only on standardized tests. And because Bill Gates druthers are more important than the needs of millions of American children, that's where we are today. What's truly shocking is that UFT President Michael Mulgrew has not only accepted the premise that kids must be judged by test scores, but that he's also bought into the notion that schools must be judged on them. He's repeatedly told the DA that we are going to fix the Renewal schools and show it can be done. Unfortunately, the only metric for this "fix" is higher test scores. So far, the only way I've seen that raises test scores is choosing which students take the tests. That's not helping kids, and that's not improving education.

Worst of all, Mulgrew actually thanked the Heavy Hearts Assembly for passing the bill that enabled receivership. That is insane, and I find insanity a very poor quality in a leader. That's why I'm glad I have a choice this spring. I've going to vote for Jia Lee, the candidate who is not insane, for President of the United Federation of Teachers.

If you agree with me that it's time to have a President who is not insane, you'll vote for Jia too.

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.

Hypocrisy, Thy Name Is MaryEllen Elia

 I was pretty shocked when NY State Regents unanimously nominated MaryEllen Elia to be NY State Commissioner of Education. For one thing, I had heard Michael Mulgrew speak of the great hope he had in the Regents to modify the new and draconian APPR law. Given that, I was surprised they'd select someone with such enthusiasm for testing, junk science, and all things reformy. It makes me really wonder exactly how much interest (if any) the Regents have in doing the right thing.

It's true Elia gave lip service to being a teacher, and to seeing herself as a teacher. But every teacher I know abhors the new system that judges us, now even moreso, on student tests. It's not even a secret anymore that the state takes these tests and manipulates the cut scores so they show whatever it is the state feels like proving that week. The only teachers I know of who support this stuff at all are those in Educators 4 Excellence, you know, the ones who take Gates money just like Elia did in Florida. And while their leaders, Evan Stone and Whoever the Other One Is, were briefly teachers, they aren't anymore.

And that's exactly who Elia went to speak to yesterday. And let's be clear--that is a political statement. If Elia wanted to speak to teachers, she could have tried for an audience with NYSUT or UFT. There's certainly precedent for reformies getting audiences with unions, like Gates addressing the AFT. (When that happened, Randi Weingarten seemed to encourage the troops in ridiculing the protesters. Gates thanked AFT by trashing teacher pensions just days later.)

.@MaryEllenElia says she is a commissioner who will never bash teachers #e4eNY

— Ben Chapman (@NYDNBenChapman) August 20, 2015

That's great to hear. I hate it when politicians, op-eds and editorial boards bash teachers. I'm acutely aware of it because it happens almost every single day. Teachers don't want to be accountable because they object to having their jobs dependent on junk science. Teachers shouldn't talk to one another in teacher lounges. Teacher unions should be punched in the face.

Of course, the clever politicians who bash us often differentiate between teachers and teacher unions. "I would never bash teachers. I love teachers. My mother was a teacher. Yes, I had a mother." They blather on as though only Satanists are in teacher unions, and they only hate Satan. I suppose someone should inform those pols that teachers are in teacher unions, and that when they punch unions in the face they punch us in the face. Of course Elia hasn't yet broadcasted her intention to punch teacher unions in the face. Instead, she came up with this little gem:

.@MaryEllenElia says any teacher who encourages opt-out is unethical #e4eNY

— Ben Chapman (@NYDNBenChapman) August 20, 2015

Now, here's the thing about stereotypes--they are always hurtful, and they are always wrong. It doesn't even matter if they're positive. And make no mistake, Elia's statement is not positive at all. She's calling me and thousands of my brothers and sisters unethical. She's saying Diane Ravitch, Leonie Haimson, Carol Burris, Jeanette Deuterman, Beth Dimino and Jia Lee are promoting evil. And yet it's Elia herself who takes a salary several times that of any working teacher to carry out an agenda based on junk science.

It's Elia who supports giving every child in New York the same test. It doesn't matter to Elia if that results in a developmentally inappropriate curriculum. If the kids have learning disabilities, if they don't speak English, if they're malnourished, if their parents both work 200 hours a week, if they live in rotating shelters, too bad for them. The State has spoken.

Just because you're selective about the group of teachers you bash, you're still a teacher-basher. And with all due respect, I've seen absolutely no evidence that MaryEllen Elia is in any position whatsoever to lecture anyone about ethics.

MaryEllen Elia--One, Needy Kids--Zero

Showing all the sensitivity of a sledge hammer, MaryEllen Elia demonstrated forcefully that all her talk about meeting with concerned parties and listening was just that. Otherwise, why would she threaten to withhold Title 1 funds from the neediest students in the state for the offense of opting out of state exams?

This comes just after Elia met with a group of activist parents and Diane Ravitch. So clearly she's willing to sit down and listen. Unfortunately she has a corporate agenda and doesn't give a golly gosh darn about common sense. In Spanish, actually, there's a saying that common sense is the least common of all the senses.

I'm not sure what sort of a person would take money away from the poorest students in the state simply because parents from their school, maybe theirs, maybe not, would see fit not to make their kids sit through largely meaningless tests. But it's absolutely clear Elia is that person.

And Elia does not need any sort of extensive program to determine who does well on tests. The trend is clear, and it has been ever since we've embarked upon this nonsensical program of making all kids college ready, whether or not they intend to go to college. It's been clear ever since we decided that all kids, no matter what their disabilities, no matter what their backgrounds, no matter whether or not they knew English, were going to take the same tests no matter what.

That pattern is this--where there is high income, there are high grades. Where there is low income, there are low grades. Where there are few disabilities, there are few low grades. Where there are many disabilities, there are many low grades.

What Elia proposes to do, of course, is to take money away from districts. This money is specifically earmarked to help kids who need it most. Any person who actually cared about the progress of our neediest students would never, ever consider such a thing.

Last year, there was a resolution in the UFT Delegate Assembly to vote no confidence in MaryEllen Elia. It failed. This year we know that MaryEllen Elia is capable of threatening the most vulnerable of our children. I now have no confidence in her whatsoever and frankly, I question why anyone who cared about children would.

Of course if I were Andrew Cuomo, bought and paid for by the reformies, I'd be jumping up and down. If I were Bill Gates, who gave her a ton of money back in Hillsborough, I'd be doing cartwheels. If you want to decimate union, reforminess is just fantastic. If you want to privatize education and make money for your hedge-funder BFFs, reforminess is a bonanza.

But if you want what's best for the neediest children in NY State, you don't want MaryEllen Elia's ideas anywhere near a public school.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

For years I've felt the NYT has provided us with the very worst education reporting in NY. There have been exceptions, like Michael Winerip, but in general they seem way too highfalutin' to bother with what's actually happening in NY. I first noticed this years ago, when some genius reporter criticized us for the February break, saying the city didn't want it. Actually the city wanted non-attendance days for kids and us in school, and had the reporter bothered to speak with a single teacher to prepare his article, he'd have known that.

Occasionally, though, there's a ray of sunlight in the morass of nonsense and reforminess. In fact, this particular ray of sunlight focuses on a truth many teachers know--that it is income and not teacher quality that is a general predictor of standardized test scores. Not only that, but the gap has widened considerably since Ronald Reagan became union-buster in chief. In fact, this disparity affects not only test scores:

These widening disparities are not confined to academic outcomes: new research by the Harvard political scientist Robert D. Putnam and his colleagues shows that the rich-poor gaps in student participation in sports, extracurricular activities, volunteer work and church attendance have grown sharply as well.

So if we're really serious about helping kids, perhaps we ought to address poverty and income disparity. Maybe we should, you know, help struggling families rather than just spouting the same old reformy talking points. Maybe the fact that, after decades of reforminess, we still have all these so-called failing schools indicates that we ought to try something new. Instead, we hire MaryEllen Elia, who walks around pretending to listen to people and promises more of the same anyway.

On the other hand, there's this article marveling at the impending teacher shortage. They're looking everywhere, they're taking anyone, they're lowering standards and you don't even have to bother with credentials, you know, like a degree. Learn as you earn. Who cares?

It is mind-boggling to me that a reporter for the paper of record fails to account for the reforminess that's led to an unprecedented attack on teachers. I see this ignorance amplified over at Eduwonk. Nothing to see here, it's the economy. All this reformy stuff we're doing has no effect whatsoever.

They're wrong, of course. Teachers are being judged by test scores. There is no reliable research to suggest that standardized test scores reflect teacher quality. In fact, the American Statistical Association suggests teachers have precious little to do with these scores. But what's a reformy to do? Bill Gates has invested a gazillion dollars in a Measures of Effective Teaching study. UFT leadership supported it, told us how important our participation was, but its result was a nation of teachers judged by junk science.

There are few things I find more inspiring than seeing my former students become teachers. One of them is now teaching math in my school, and I could not be prouder. I love this job and it's brought me great gratification. I can't promise, though, that it will be the same for my students. We're on the third new evaluation program in three years, and I see no evidence of improvement. Teacher morale is the lowest I've seen in 30 years, bar none.

We are regularly trashed in the media. NYT's Frank Bruni likens us to pigs at a trough as his BFF Campbell Brown attacks our tenure. (In fairness, Bruni's job entails coming up with 800 words not once, but TWICE a week, so who can find time to do fundamental research?) SCOTUS is now looking to break our union.

We are standing against a wall with targets on our backs. The ignorance of professional reporters who don't know that is simply mind-boggling. If they're purposely wearing blinders, that's even worse. Either way, it is them, not us, who are incompetent.

Of course, it's easier to forget about the truth and blame teachers. Bill Gates said poverty was too tough to deal with, so he, along with the happy NYT reporter, ignores it and goes on his merry way. And you can't fire parents or children, so why not just blame the teachers and whistle a happy tune?

This is the new paradigm in education. We need to change it. And if leadership just keeps going along to get along, we need to change them too.

MaryEllen Elia, Magician

It's fascinating to read about NY State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia and her listening tour. "Fix your schools or I will," sayeth she. There are a whole bunch of schools on the list. In Long Island, where I live, there are several districts facing receivership. Here they are, along with the percentage of students poor enough to qualify for free lunch.

Central Islip - 91%
Roosevelt - 91%
Wyandanch- 80%
Hempstead - 78%

Do you see a pattern here? I do, and the pattern is replicated all over these United States of America. For some odd reason, every time there are large percentages of impoverished children, there are also large percentages of low test scores. What can we conclude from that? Well, MaryEllen Elia, like Governor Andrew Cuomo and his Heavy Hearted Assembly, has concluded there are two fundamental issues.

1. The schools suck, and
2. The teachers suck.

This is why we now have a system that rates teachers based on the student test grades. You see, if I spend 40 minutes a day with Johnie, and he doesn't learn English instantly, and he can't answer Common Corey questions, I suck. If Arwen teaches a student with no food at home, and the student has issues staying awake in class, Arwen also sucks. The only solution, in the view of geniuses like Andrew Cuomo and MaryEllen Elia, is to test the kids, and based on their scores, get rid of teachers like us who suck.

Because NY State knows what to do with a troubled school district. Well, they've never actually been successful, because they spent a decade in Roosevelt and Roosevelt is still on the list. But MaryEllen Elia knows what to do. She has a secret plan, you know, like Nixon did when he was gonna win the Vietnam War. OK, really it's not a secret. She's gonna fix everything.

Here's the thing. I've never heard of anyone doing that. Green Dot failed in their much-vaunted school takeover in LA. As far as I know, there is one way to be successful in raising test scores. You start your own school, cherry pick the kids, get rid of the ones who don't perform, don't replace the ones who leave, and then grease the governor's palm so he makes laws for you. (There are, of course, the alternate models of lying about the stats or changing the scores yourself.)

All MaryEllen has is a list of schools. She has no plan other than getting rid of teachers and placing new people in charge. But hey, that's the law. The Heavy Hearts passed the law and Michael Mulgrew thanked them for it.

A lot of people will suffer. Teachers will be fired and the hearts will be ripped right out of communities. But hey, their test scores suck, so the teachers suck, the schools suck, and the communities must suck too. That's pretty much what the law says.

Time for MaryEllen Elia to wave her magic wand.

Turning a Building Around

Thanks to Andrew Cuomo and his Heavy Hearts Assembly, a whole lot of schools in NY State are looking down the barrel of receivership, i.e. state takeover. In a year or two, if Chancellor Fariña and her counterparts can't make test scores and graduation rates go up, Governor Andy and his hedge fund BFFs can turn over school leadership to Eva Moskowitz, or whoever they feel like.

I live right next to Roosevelt, where state takeover has been failing pretty much forever.  But why bother with history when all your programs are based on ignoring not only that, but also research and practice? If poor test scores are invariably aligned with poverty and high needs, why not ignore that utterly and blame the teachers? That's what newly-minted Commissioner MaryEllen Elia has done, blathering some hogwash about how these schools have been failing children for decades.

Here's the thing--there are ways to improve test scores. Eva Moskowitz and her corporate charter counterparts have one. First, you don't take the same kids the public schools do. You make extra steps to gain entrance. You make school a living misery, focused almost solely on tests. Then you get rid of those who don't measure up, and don't bother replacing them. Then you make a lot of noise about "no excuses" and vehemently deny the playing field is rigged.

Another route to school improvement is GW Bush's preferred methodology--the "Texas Miracle." Basically you just cook the books and base a national education program on fraud.  Or you could always erase to the top. We collectively assume programs like GW's and Eva's are models, things to be  admired and replicated. That, in fact, is why my neighbors, schools like Van Buren, Grover Cleveland and John Adams, are facing a very uncertain future.

In the two city schools facing these draconian measures this year, more than half the staff won't be returning. In an agreement with the city, these educators will get jobs elsewhere. I think those who left did a smart thing. They've avoided the ATR, and they've also avoided sitting around in targeted schools with guns to their heads. In fact the principal of Boys and Girls has so little confidence in his own ability to accomplish the turnaround, he took a big old bonus regardless of consequence and made a deal to be able to return to his old school if things go south.

I've heard Mulgrew say at the DA several times that we need to succeed in this venture. I certainly hope we do, but there are issues here that bear our attention. The prime issue is that there is no basis whatsoever to assume we will succeed. We cannot cherry pick, we cannot counsel kids out, and we cannot leave slots open as kids leave. It's particularly absurd to assume we're gonna reverse the trajectory of kids who've been attending school for a decade or more. Moskowitz doesn't just take on high school kids. In fact, the history of "miracles" has to do almost entirely with either outright fraud or using selected kids and comparing them to the population at large.

Until and unless we address poverty, the underlying cause of a whole lot of our problems, that isn't going to change. In a few years, they can fire me as an ESL teacher, but that still won't mean newcomers will arrive speaking perfect English. They can close or take over my school, but that won't mean the severely disabled kids we enroll (unlike Moskowitz and even most public schools) are gonna ace the Physics Regents.

The underlying assumption, that state tests are the only measure of what kids achieve, is ridiculous. For one thing, I'm no genius, and my tests are a whole lot better than state tests. My tests are written by me, in response to the needs of my kids. Conversely, the NYSESLAT, on which I will be rated, is designed to test Common Core skills. My kids need to learn English before they can deal with this nonsense, and the geniuses who run the country have just denied them extra time to do that. Bear in mind that the extra time was still not nearly enough, but better than nothing.

I'm very sorry to say that our schools are being set up for failure. It is an egregious error on the part of the UFT to accept all the false assumptions about our kids and schools and say we're gonna prove them wrong. The way to prove them wrong, in fact, is not to step on their rigged playing field, accept their rules, and hope for the best. We prove them wrong by doing our job, by teaching America.

America needs to learn that we do a whole lot more than prepare kids for tests over which we have no control. America needs to learn that, while MaryEllen Elia may indeed believe life is a big test, she has failed it by making such idiotic pronouncements. America needs to learn that the highly regarded American Statistical Association says that not only do teachers affect test scores by a factor of 1-14%, but that undue focus on test scores actually impedes us from helping kids, the most important thing we do. American needs to learn that the best predictor of college readiness is not the arbitrary crap the geniuses in Albany dream up, but rather teacher-issued grades.

There are, in fact, kids who do poorly on tests who can succeed because they get along well with others. There are some who get excellent test scores but who aren't really very good students.  Life is not, in fact, a test, and we don't spend most of our time figuring out which dot to blacken. Life is messy, people have feelings, emotions, and desires, and teachers who ignore them are not likely to be successful.

It was an egregious error for the Heavy Hearts to agree to Cuomo's draconian plan to fail our public schools. Worse still was UFT President Michael Mulgrew's thank you note for having done so. Whoever wrote that for him should be fired. We're in a very rough place, and we have no one but ourselves to blame.

Staking our reputation on doing what has never been done anywhere is not the wisest thing to do. Enabling the government to shirk its responsibility to the neediest of students is irresponsible on our part. We need to do better, not only for our own sake, but also for the sake of the children we are charged to serve.

You can replace the teachers and principal, but they're not the ones who need help. The kids need help, and they're not, in fact, the ones who are failing. It is us, their caretakers, who are failing, by ignoring their problems, studiously pretending they don't exist, and blaming their teachers and schools. 

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

Reformier and Reformier--Will the Regents Jump to Our Aid?

It's kind of amazing, after hearing Michael Mulgrew place his faith in the Regents month after month, that they would nominate this woman, MaryEllen Elia, as NY State Commissioner of Education. After all, we're still not feeling the love for Reformy John King, who preached Common Core for our kids but Montessori for his own. She comes from Florida, one of the worst places there is for working teachers. Here's what activist principal Carol Burris has to say about her:

“It is now apparent why the Board of Regents did not reach out to stakeholder groups and inform them that she was a candidate-if her support for merit pay, the Common Core, Gates Foundation grants,  the formulaic dismissal of teachers, and school choice were known, certainly there would have been an outcry from New York parents and teachers who have had more than their fill of test-based reforms.  The message of 200,000 Opt Outs has not been heard.”

Given that, it's very hard to imagine this board coming to our rescue over the Cuomo/ Heavy Hearts Teacher Unemployment Plan. Nonetheless, as she supports Common Core, she won't need to fear UFT Presidents punching her face out and pushing it in the dirt. Still, things like "formulaic dismissal of teachers" are not getting me dancing in the aisles anytime soon.

The old song says, of New York, New York, "If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere." This begs the question, if you can't make it in Hillsborough County, Florida, how the hell are you going to make in in NYC? I suppose that depends very much on what you mean by making it. If making it means pushing every reformy piece of crap that comes down the pike, then she's got a good shot.

On the other hand, if making it entails respecting research from, you know, researchers and scientists and the like, we're not looking all that great. When the American Statistical Association declares that teachers only move scores by a factor of 1-14%, it's not clear that what we need is more reliance on VAM, the growth model, and/ or whatever junk science is in vogue this week. In fact, here's a quote that may give you pause:

“The Board of Regents made a strong choice in selecting MaryEllen Elia as New York State’s next education commissioner,” Jenny Sedlis, executive director of the pro-charter group, StudentsFirstNY, said in a statement.  

In case you don't know, StudentsFirstNY is an offshoot of the group Michelle Rhee started before she moved on up into the fertilizer biz. It's not likely this blog supports anything StudentsFirstNY does, because this group represents Rhee, Gates, Bloomberg and a whole lot of people who don't give a golly gosh darn about the kids I work with. More disturbing is the assertion in the article that unions are enthusiastic about this choice.

Any union leader expressing enthusiasm for MaryEllen Elia doesn't represent my interests, those of my colleagues, those of public school parents, or those of the kids we face every day of our lives.