Leadership Academy Is Dead. Long Live the Leadership Academy!

I've spent quite a bit of the last year mystified as to why I needed to spend hours, days, months and perhaps years fighting blatant violations of the UFT Collective Bargaining Agreement. Given that we can no longer grieve letters to file, you'd think that the few exceptions we know about would be respected. 

For example, the CBA says incidents not reduced to writing within three months cannot be later placed in the file. I think my school has three grievances outstanding over that. There are others, but I'll spare you for now.

Why does Mayor de Blasio hire a legal department that has no respect for the contract he's agreed to with teachers? Is he mad that UFT originally supported what's his name, the guy who told the Daily News editorial board that teachers didn't merit the same raise police officers and firefighters got? I mean, we did support de Blasio after what's his name lost. 

Personally, I supported de Blasio before what's his name lost, despite a series of phone calls urging me to do otherwise. He seemed like the perfect alternative to Bloomberg. He opposed charters, was going to slow them down, and won a pretty persuasive mandate. Of course, when he actually tried to stop charters, he learned that Andrew Cuomo was willing to push laws forcing the city to pay rent for charters it rejected. Maybe that's what changed.

Now, certainly, there could be other factors. One might be his senior education policy advisor, Karin Goldmark. Who is this person? Well, she used to be the Vice President of the NYC Leadership Academy, And why shouldn't she be instrumental in training principals? I've read she has three years of teaching experience.  She also seems to have worked for Tweed in some other capacity. So what if she's never been principal herself? You don't have to be a dog to read Call of the Wild.

I was pretty surprised to learn this. It might explain why de Blasio has never cleaned house at Tweed. I mean, if his senior education policy worked there before he got there, is she gonna say, "Hey, I have a great idea. Why don't you fire me and everyone else who worked here for Michael Bloomberg?" Alas, it doesn't appear that idea crossed Ms. Goldmark's mind.

We've all heard the horror stories about Leadership Academy principals who know everything despite having little or no experience. Goldmark seems to personify that. It's kind of remarkable that a senior education policy advisor can have as little (or less) school experience as Leadership Academy grads, some of the worst principals anyone's ever seen, but that's evidently good enough for Mayor Bill de Blasio. 

Is it good enough for new Chancellor Richard Carranza? I suppose it had better be, since he serves at the pleasure of the mayor. You can tell how smart Carranza is just by listening to him speak. He has a great memory and thinks on his feet. Yet he repeatedly says charters are public schools, and that's just not true. Charters are public in the sense that they take our money, and that's pretty much it. How many times do public school leaders bus children to Albany to push their agenda? How many public schools don't follow chancellor's regulations and therefore allow kids to pee themselves rather than take a test-prep break? How many public school leaders refuse to sign city agreements over pre-school? 

Eva Moskowitz does all of the above and more, and Carranza says she's running a public school. Hey, it's a pretty good deal to take public money and be answerable to no one.

I really have no idea what role, if any, Karin Goldmark plays in any of that. But I was pretty shocked to learn that a former Leadership Academy big shot is advising Mayor de Blasio in education. It really explains the "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" feel so many of us have these days. 

Bloomberg's gone, but judging from teacher morale you'd hardly know that. Does Carranza want to change that? Will de Blasio let him? Is Karin Goldmark keeping all of Bloomberg's pawns in place even as de Blasio deludes himself that he's making a mark?

Only time will tell, but de Blasio's had four years to leave an imprint on Tweed. Thus far, few if any teachers are feeling the difference.

Tweed Selectively Enforces Contract and Enables Teacher Bashing

In the Daily News today there's a story about a teacher who lost his job. That in itself is interesting, since renowned legal expert Campbell Brown asserts it never happens. Also interesting is the fact that what this teacher is accused of appears far worse than the few cases Brown is constantly blathering about.

It seems reasonable that the story recalls the recent case of the Brooklyn Tech teacher who's sitting in jail right now. But I'm a little surprised by the concluding sentence of the story, which involves the Brooklyn teacher rather than the story's ostensible subject:

 Education officials have acknowledged it could take up to a month to fire him — and he’ll continue to collect city checks in the meantime.

There's not really any good reason for that. First of all, assuming the teacher is guilty of the charges, he's not in a classroom, and that ought to be what's important. Second, I'm pretty surprised that no one has sought to find out how anyone guilty of such charges could get a job in the first place, let alone maintain it. Most notably, no one has bothered to point out that there's no reason whatsoever for this teacher to be drawing pay. Here's an excerpt from Article 21 of the UFT Contract:

The parties agree that certain types of alleged misconduct are so serious that the employee should be suspended without pay pending the outcome of the disciplinary process. Serious misconduct shall be defined as actions that would constitute:

• the felony sale, possession, or use of marijuana, a controlled substance, or a precursor of a controlled substance or drug paraphernalia as defined in Article 220 or 221 of the Penal Law, or
• any crime involving physical abuse of a minor or student (crimes involving sexual abuse of a minor or student are addressed in paragraph 6 below.),...

Given that, why on earth has the DOE not acted upon it? A reliable source tells me that Tweed says this does not apply to untenured teachers. It's ridiculous to assert that contractual clauses do not apply to untenured teachers. If the city chooses not to exercise its contractual rights, it ought not to assert contractual issues that restrict them.

I'm tired of stories framing the contract as a culprit, particularly when they suggest things that are patently untrue. I remember this clause of the contract, and I remember objecting to it. Basically, we're talking about charges which are as yet unproven. In America, at least theoretically, you are innocent until proven guilty. Being suspended without pay or health benefits based on unsubstantiated charges is not reasonable, in my opinion. I believe there was at least one Queens teacher who was suspended on false charges a few years back.

However, they can't have it both ways. If they city and media wish to complain about the contract, they can't blame us when they, through ignorance, incompetence, or simple malice toward working people, choose not to use it.

High School Students Expose Tweed Incompetence

You read this, but you just can't believe it. The geniuses at Tweed thought it was a good idea to give those tests to find out how badly city teachers suck, and decided to post the answers online. Curious high school students, who got to think about the test answers overnight, looked it up online and voila! There it was. The city's reaction:

“This should not have happened. It was a mistake, and there will be no negative impact on students or teachers,” said spokesman Devon Puglia. “Principals will have latitude to deal with any problems this causes and, as always, we will thoroughly review any anomalies in the data and make adjustments if necessary. We are assessing the situation and thank the students at Curtis High School for bringing this to our attention.”

If that doesn't inspire confidence, what does? Your students have taken a baseline test to see what progress you'll have made by June. Only on the baseline, they got to look up sample responses online.  It's pretty clear that would alter the results. It's also pretty clear when you give thousands of kids a test on All Quiet on the Western Front, there are all sorts of online resources they could use for commentary and suggestions.

So even if the geniuses who posted answers on the website had not done so, it's ridiculous to assume that you can fairly assess the interpretations of students. If you let me read something today and answer questions about it tomorrow, I can read CliffNotes, SparkNotes, BookRags, and 500 other things online that will make undue thinking on my part thoroughly unnecessary.

And let's be honest here--if the geniuses who designed these assessments are stupid enough to put them online, how good could the tests be anyway?

Take a good look at the two students in the picture, because they're among the best education reporters in New York City. They attend public school and managed to do this largely without the benefit of Common Core.