Hey Gang, Let's Make Teachers Work for Sub-minimum Wage Plus Tips!

Chalkbeat, originator of teaching competitions it fancies reminiscent of Top Chef, lover of and advocate for all things reformy,  zeroes in on merit pay. Naturally, despite abundant failure, they find something good about it.

This is because there's some new government study favoring merit pay. Why? Because they say it raises test scores, which is of course the only factor worth considering in education.

It's not hard to find reason to question merit pay. For one thing, it's not remotely anything new. Diane Ravitch writes that it's been tried since the 1920s and has never worked. Nonetheless, the Trumpies, an entire stable of geniuses, declare that merit pay works better than class size reduction. Why get more attention for the students when you can give a few extra bucks to very few extra teachers and pretend you've done something?

Here's Diane:

The most rigorous trial of merit pay was conducted recently in Nashville by the National Center on Performance Incentives. It offered an extraordinary bonus of $15,000 to teachers if they could get higher scores from their students. Over a three-year period, there was no difference between the scores obtained by the treatment group or the control group. The bonus didn’t matter.

Roland Fryer of Harvard University just released his study of New York City’s much-touted school-wide merit-pay program. Fryer says it made no difference in terms of student outcomes and actually depressed performance in some schools and for some groups of students.

But hey, if numerous decades of studies don't produce the desired results, why not just keep repeating them until you find one that does? While I don't trust the Trumpies at all, Obama's education policy was almost as terrible, and of course there's a good chance this study was initiated while he was President. Sadly, I wouldn't trust any study sponsored by his people either.

Merit pay assumes that some teachers have merit while others don't. I'd argue that any teacher without merit ought not to be teaching. But if you want to prove merit pay works, you find a way to prove it. Test scores generally show little more than zip code. It's not generally a great challenge to get kids from, say, Roslyn NY, to pass more tests.

I wonder whether I've just been holding back all these years. Maybe if I could make an extra thousand bucks a year I'd be able to give this teaching stuff 100%. Maybe it would take 5,000. Maybe ten. Who knows what the magical number is that would make me do my job instead of phoning it in? I mean, we don't have merit pay, so that's what I must be doing.

There is an overabundance of dunces who wish to control education. Sometimes they're just stupid, but usually they also have a lot of money. The money thing leads them to think they must know everything and are therefore instant and final authorities. Oprah didn't feature Bill Gates just for his good looks.

In our school, as in all city schools, we have to figure out exactly which form of junk science is used to rate teachers. We choose, whenever possible, to have teachers rated by department or school wide measures. That's because we don't want kids coming to teachers for tutoring and being turned away. I mean, if I'm the sort of person who actually cares about ratings or merit pay, why the hell would I want to help one of your students? Why should I bother helping your kid when it would raise your rating, or your salary? I'm in this for me, so go screw yourself. That's the Merit Pay Way.

We kind of think, our administration and our chapter, that it's our job to help children. We kind of think that's why we wake up in the morning and do this job. Now I like money, and I wouldn't be surprised if our administrators like it too. I mean, they get paid more than us, but that's fine with me. I'd rather make less and keep the job I have. Nonetheless, we agree absolutely that it's an idiotic idea to put teachers in open competition with one another over test scores.

Of course, we haven't got the red hotline phone to Bill Gates, like Arne Duncan probably did.

Now even if money really is the root of all evil, I can always use a little more of it. I just got a new dog, and he has vet bills. He can chew through bones pretty quickly. Poopie bags don't grow on trees. In fact, I don't happen to live in a tree, and the choice not to has often proven costly. So yes, I would like more money. If I go to one of those 300-member committee thingies and Mulgrew asks me, "Would you like more money?" I'll say, "Yes I would, thank you very much."

But I'm a teacher. Like all teachers, I need a salary. If I wanted to work for tips, I'd be a waiter. And make no mistake, that's precisely the sort of job merit pay advocates would like ours to become.

The Renewal Plan

9 percent of NYC's public school population is literally homeless, In some schools, the number can run as high as 40%. Governor Cuomo, rather than trouble himself with such trivialities, works tirelessly to demonstrate it's teachers and schools that are failing our children. Of course, being impoverished in a city like New York is far from limited to those who lack a consistent home.

But that issue is being disregarded altogether in favor of fixing the schools and teachers at the root of the more pressing issue, which Andrew Cuomo and his Heavy Hearted Assembly have determined to be low test scores. After all, when you're seething with ambition, indifferent to absolutely everything else, and you've taken millions of dollars from people whose agenda entails squeezing further millions out of those costly public schools, you tend to do what they say.

The city, containing dozens of so-called Renewal Schools, has got to do something about it or have Cuomo take over those schools. That's basically the plan. If de Blasio can't figure out how to get the homeless, the hungry, the tired, the poor, the non-English speaking huddled masses to get better Common Core scores, MaryEllen Elia will get busy and do it herself. It isn't easy to ignore root issues, but she's determined, and she can't wait to turn those money-sucking community schools over to her wealthy and therefore worthy BFFs.

The city plan to deal with test scores directly related to homelessness, learning disabilities, and lack of English entails merit pay, which has not worked anywhere in over 100 years. Perhaps that's why no one's calling it merit pay, but since the entire project revolves around solving the wrong problem anyway the point is moot. Each school will get $27,500 to offer as bonuses to the teachers who will help raise the test scores and save the schools. It doesn't matter if your school has 20 teachers or 200 teachers because that doesn't matter either. The problem is test scores and the solution is $27,5000.

A principal can take that 27K and distribute it among up to three teachers. These lucky duckies will then set about the task of raising the test scores of kids, because that is the only way New York needs to help its children. Once their test scores are higher, they won't mind being homeless anymore. That they have disabilities hindering their ability to read, write, or do math will no longer be of any consequence. And kids who don't speak English will no longer find that an obstacle. (I actually spent several years teaching ESL students how to write formulaic nonsense so they could pass the English Regents exam, without which they couldn't graduate. I'm absolutely certain they would've benefited more from my teaching them English conversation, grammar, usage, and actual writing.)

Would you move to a school facing extinction in order to make an extra $7500? I wouldn't. I don't believe in miracles, and every educational miracle I've seen thus far has entailed either juking the stats, changing the grades, selecting the students, getting rid of those whose scores weren't high enough, or some combination of the above factors. In fact the most recent fantastic charter success I've seen occurred when the staff decided to grade their own state tests, something illegal in public schools.

It's pretty easy to fabricate miracles. It's unconscionable that the United States is so determined to scapegoat communities, schools and teachers in its effort to ignore a basic and fundamental issue affecting our people.

Why the Budget Agreement Doesn't Suck

Hi folks, it's me, your old pal "Punchy" Mike Mulgrew! Don't try and take my Common Core from me! I'll punch out your stinking face and push it in the dirt! But seriously, folks, let's talk turkey. First of all, don't believe anything you read on those blogs. I'll be nice, which is hard for me because I'm an ex-carpenter, a regular blue collar guy who can't help but walk around spouting obscenities for no reason. So I'll just say they're purveyors of myth, rather than call them a bunch of despicable liars.

Anyhoo, the new agreement does not suck. Cuomo wanted probation to take five years, and now it only takes four. And all due process rights remain in place, as long as you don't get rated ineffective twice in a row and need more than 90 days to prove your case, as long as you don't get rated ineffective three years in a row and need more than 30 days to prove your case, and as long as you aren't an ATR who needs more than one day. Sure tenure used to take three years, but you gotta admit four years sucks a full year less than five years. Score another victory for us!

Governor Cuomo demanded more charter schools, and whoopee! He didn't get them as part of the budget agreement! How much does that not suck? Instead, he'll negotiate it later! It would suck if they had done it now. Now, we will talk about it later and no one can say just how much it does or does not suck until then. So, in review, doesn't suck now. Another victory! Plus we've always supported charters, and we've even opened and co-located one, and the part of it that didn't suck is still open. Another feather in our cap.

As for placing schools into receivership, the Governor won't do that. Instead, local chancellors will choose receivers. How bad could it be if the city took over closing schools, or had someone take them over? That's much better than Cuomo doing it, and it sucks way less. Of course it's never happened and we have no idea what it will be like when it does, but it is our considered opinion that it will suck less. After all, what's a few thousand ATRs between friends, and who even knows if that will happen? Clearly the amount of suck cannot be quantified here, so, no suck, no foul.

As for merit pay, Cuomo wanted 20K in merit pay. But that won't happen. In NYC, we have master and model teachers, and the rat squad which goes out and determines whether the burden of proof to fire you is on the DOE or you, but that's not merit pay, just like our last failed schoolwide program wasn't merit pay either. And since merit pay sucks, that isn't merit pay, and Cuomo didn't give us merit pay, this also doesn't suck.

As for funding, Cuomo wanted to give 1.1 billion in increases if we sucked up his sucky programs, which would suck. We went out and demanded that Cuomo pay us the 5.6 billion he owed us from the CFE lawsuit, and even paid valuable lip service to the notion of taking him to court over it. But we got 1.6 billion in aid, which sucks a lot less than 1.1 billion and a bunch of sucky programs. Sure the bloggers will ask why we didn't go for the 5.6 billion, but screw them because they're a bunch of lying bastards and we will never, ever allow them to influence us in our mission to accomplish things that don't suck as much as they could otherwise.

As for evaluation, we have of late been suggesting that the 1-100 measure, the one we had Leo Casey defend passionately on Edwize, sucks, and that we're looking for something new. Of course we don't want 50% of your rating to be based on test scores, because that would suck. Instead we will have multiple measures, which we already have, which suck way less than the 50% Governor Cuomo wants. What will they be? Who knows? And sure you might get observed by strangers from the state, but who can judge your skills better than someone who doesn't know you from a hole in the wall? That doesn't suck, does it?

Like Governor Cuomo, we loved the current law when it came out, but when people started to suggest that it sucked, we listened, and dumped NYSUT President Richard Iannuzzi, contending that he sucked for passing the law in the first place. And believe you me, if there are any further problems, we will step up and declare Karen Magee sucks and dump her too. We are not afraid to dispense blame for things that suck. Just bear in mind that nothing is ever our fault, and that every change is a victory in that it could have sucked even more without our valuable input.

So thank you for everything you've done. In retrospect, it sucked that we scheduled the rally for March 28th coinciding with the budget agreement. Perhaps it would have been smarter to do it a week earlier when we might have gotten massive press coverage and actually influenced someone. Believe me, I will blame someone for that, maybe the bloggers, maybe Karen Magee, but someone will pay. And maybe we should have actually endorsed someone against Cuomo when he was running for governor, rather than sitting on our hands and letting Zephyr Teachout lose twice. However, we have already decided to blame NYSUT for not making that decision, so again, it's not our fault and it doesn't suck. And those bastard bloggers won't mention this, but under my leadership we haven't had a catastrophic natural disaster in over two years.

So, in conclusion, things suck much less than they could suck, we've reduced suckiness to a bare minimum, anything that does suck is not our fault, a thousand points of light, and God bless the United Federation of Teachers.

Dueling Special Interests--Public Schoolchildren v. Andrew M. Cuomo

One of the most encouraging things, for me, at the recent Bayside forum to discuss Governor Cuomo, was that some of his minions were out distributing pamphlets defending his crappy programs. This means they are worried about us.

They're clearly pulling from the bottom of the barrel, which I suppose is the only way to go when defending the indefensible. Andrew Cuomo takes millions of dollars from hedgefunders and their ilk, battles to make sure they don't pay taxes to support our state, and finds the audacity to label public school parents and teachers special interests.

What's really sad is that, if people don't examine his claims, or if they read the op-eds, they may think he's right. They may believe that Andrew Cuomo, who enables the crushing Gap Elimination Adjustment that deprives most kids of substantial state aid, who concurrently makes it almost impossible for localities to raise taxes to compensate for it, is the student lobbyist he portrays himself.

First of all, Governor Cuomo boasts of "historic funding" for all schools. he offers 1.1 billion in aid if we get behind his voodoo. But as a result of the CFE lawsuit, he now owes us 5.6 billion. He's throwing us scraps and demanding not only compliance, but also gratitude. 

Governor Cuomo speaks of "better pay for our best teachers." Merit pay has been around the United States since 1920, and in England since 1865. It has never worked anywhere. That doesn't dissuade the governor, on marching orders from his hedge fund/ charter school pals.

He speaks of "fair teacher evaluations," but they're based 50% on test scores. Studies show teachers affect test scores by a factor of 1 to 14%. But no studies for Andy Cuomo. He's busy marching with Eva Moskowitz, who pays herself half a million dollars a year of NYC tax dollars. She is not a "special interest," because her BFFs have given Andrew Cuomo 1.6 million dollars. Anyone who hasn't donated is a special interest, and thus should be disregarded. VAM is junk science, yet another program Bill Gates pulled out of his ample ass and imposed on the entire country.

Cuomo boasts of job protection for our best teachers. Actually, what he means is he will deny due process to teachers who don't score "effective" five years in a row via Gates-imposed junk science. As far as I know, all he's doing is placing obstacles to tenure in front of already overwhelmed new teachers.

His next bullet point speaks of "fair due process," which is, in fact, the same thing as tenure. Cuomo speaks of teachers involved in "crime involving sexual or physical abuse." Governor Cuomo is perhaps unaware that criminals are subject to prosecution, and often wind up in prison. I'm not at all certain whether having tenure helps you out in a place like that, but apparently Govenor Cuomo thinks it does. I'm pretty sure you lose your job when you're sent to prison, but Governor Andy can't be bothered dealing with such trivialities.

Finally, the governor claims he will give support for our struggling schools. The way he proposes to do that is by placing them under receivership. State takeovers of schools have not worked here in Roosevelt NY or in Newark NJ, but since history means nothing to Andrew Cuomo, he's not bothering with it. Schools are the beating hearts of neighborhoods, but Governor Andy would happily rip them out and hand them to self-serving demagogues like Eva Moskowitz.

When Sandy hit my community we gathered at our high school. Though our homes were in shambles, this was our place. We didn't have to ask Eva's permission to get together there. We, the community, ran the school and ought to continue to do so. It ought not to be for sale to those who contributed most to Andrew Cuomo's most recent campaign. 

Does Eva take kids like those I serve, who arrived from Egypt, El Salvador, China, Korea, and Colombia yesterday? Does she take the alternate assessment students my school serves, the ones who will never get a Regents diploma, the ones we teach to deal with jobs they may get when they leave us, the ones whose stats count against us? Hard to know. Although charters will boast they take this or that percentage of ELLs or special ed. students, a source reports they fail to let us know what level these kids are, and routinely ignore FOI requests to fill us in.

Cuomo's right about one thing. We, the public school teachers and parents are indeed a special interest. Our special interest is the children of New York. But Governor Cuomo is also a special interest. His special interest, and clearly his only interest, is the advancement of Andrew M. Cuomo.

Which side does NY want to take? Time will tell.

UFT Unity and Sunlight

Last night was interesting at the DA, to say the least. We're under siege, and the very first thing on the UFT President's mind was tweeting. Oddly, Mulgrew said people, surely me, were tweeting "to the press." I'm not sure how you determine the direction of a tweet, but of course I'm not part of the UFT Unity Caucus. This elite, invitation-only club makes rules for the rest of us, and evidently deems itself capable of reading minds of those who disagree with it.

Actually, Michael Mulgrew can no more read minds than he can negotiate a fair contract. I can't help it if journalists read my blog, or my tweets, and I can't help it if they, unlike Mulgrew, actually talk to me. If Mulgrew wishes to set the record straight he's free to join Twitter too. After all, he specifically asked us to, and there is such a thing as leading by example. The fact is all UFT decisions are made in private and in secret. Anyone who thinks the loyalty-oath dominated DA is democratic, or that Mulgrew even pretends to be an impartial chair, is laboring under a misconception.

There were a few things at last night's DA that were notable. One is the handout, basically talking points, that went out. It didn't reach my section but it's right here, and it's pretty good. Of course anyone who reads Diane Ravitch knew these things long ago. Will it persuade devoted followers of the NY Post? I'm not sure. It really doesn't go into much detail, and if that's all you have you won't be able to sustain much of a discussion. I'm also not entirely sure, with such short responses, that everyone will warm to the sarcasm. The pamphlet will help inform people who already hate Cuomo, which likely includes most working teachers. It ought to raise the consciousness of those who haven't been paying attention so getting it in their hands will be a good idea.

Mulgrew spoke of addressing PTA and parent groups, and wants those who do so trained. It's pretty odd because I would have no issue addressing our school's PTA without being instructed how, and I've done so many times in the past. I'm curious whether UFT Unity will send a loyalty oath signer with no ties to my school or our PTA. I'm not at all sure why they think our parents would be impressed by that, but who knows the mysterious ways of UFT Unity? Hopefully they have an argument more detailed and sophisticated than that laid out in the pamphlet.

Though there were several other meetings on the same day that covered the same ground, apparently my tweeting live goes beyond the pale. And if UFT Unity says it was directed at the press, well, I guess they can make up whatever they like and 800 people will jump up and vote for it. After all, there's likely as not a trip to somewhere coming up soon, and how could anyone risk losing such an opportunity?

Personally, I don't reveal deep dark secrets in rooms filled with a thousand people, and I wouldn't do it even if all of them had signed loyalty oaths. But that's just me. And I'm absolutely certain there was a plan for last night's DA.

Too bad the plan didn't include actually opposing Cuomo when he was running for election, or getting behind amazing Zephyr Teachout.  Too bad they thought sitting this one out was a wise move. Too bad we didn't oppose value-added crap from the outset. They can ridicule merit pay, but there's absolutely no validity to VAM either. Or mayoral control, or common core, or Bill Gates, or any of the reformy crap to which we've given our imprimatur. I guess those things simply did not come up inside the top-secret Unity echo chamber, where the real secrets are, but we lowly working teachers will just never know.

It's been obvious to me what Cuomo was since the first time he ran for governor. Too bad UFT leadership didn't get hip until last month.

Cuomo, Alas, Not Clueless at All

One of the brilliant ideas of Revive NYSUT was the hashtag #CluelessCuomo. I guess name-calling feels good. Certainly there was an awful lot of it directed at President George W. Bush. He was a buffoon, a moron, and he would never accomplish anything. Yet here we sit, in the still-smoldering debris of his education programs, and Barack Obama, no one's fool, has placed them on steroids and made them considerably worse.

Cuomo is no fool. He's ruthless, calculated and cunning. He has his goals and will stop at nothing to achieve them. He grew up in the shadow of his father Mario and watched him fall, likely as not a victim of his own principles and conscience. Andrew lets neither principle nor conscience get in his way, ever.

We can certainly argue that Cuomo's policies will not improve public education. Indeed, merit pay has been around for over a hundred years, and it has never worked anywhere. Sure, it feels good to say some teachers suck and shouldn't get a raise. The whole teacher-bashing thing has wide appeal, what with racism not half as chic as it once was. Hateful morons can't even indulge in gay-bashing anymore, so they need a target. Why not us? Works for Andrew Cuomo. Anything for a vote.

It's entirely possible Cuomo doesn't know that there is no scientific basis for the value-added nonsense he wishes to inflict on us. That appears to be the assumption of Revive NYSUT leaders. But really, that's of no importance whatsoever. Whether or not Andrew Cuomo knows his ideas are baseless doesn't matter one way or the other. The fact is he gets millions from donors who favor this stuff, and he couldn't care less if this stuff works for schools. It works for Andrew Cuomo, and that is the only thing in this universe that matters to him.

Cuomo's dad Mario, may he rest in peace, took a principled stand against capital punishment. It costs more to give someone the death penalty than life imprisonment. Most developed countries have discarded it as barbarism. If we make a mistake, like we did in this case, and the prisoner has already been executed, what do we do? Issue a posthumous apology?

Andrew, on the other hand, took a principled stand against a millionaire's tax. Perish forbid that anyone making tons of cash should have to fork over a few bucks to support public schools. That wasted money could have ended up in the Cuomo campaign coffers (and probably did, too). You won't see Andy risking his career on anything so trivial as people being killed for no reason.

Andy has no problem getting elected with 53% of the vote and demanding that districts who wish to support their children in school get 60% to do so. He has no problem withholding money from districts with a GEA that his unconscionable tax cap makes it impossible to make up for. He'll stand with demagogue Eva Moskowitz as she drags her kids like little pawns to Albany on a school day for a political rally. If you or I did that, we'd be facing dismissal if not prison time.

So you can call Cuomo many things. You can fight him in many ways. But if you opt for empty name-calling, it's abundantly clear someone is clueless.

That someone is not Andrew Cuomo.

DA Report

Mulgrew preached gloom and doom to the faithful on Wednesday night. Cuomo, having taken millions from reformy types, appears to wish to eviscerate union. While this is really nothing new, Mulgrew has decided it's time to take action. To wit, he asks us to:

a. Sign up for a UFT action alert campaign, entailing joining Twitter and using a few pre-approved hashtags,
b. Like UFT on Facebook, and
c. Follow UFT on Twitter.

This, in the view of the President of the United Federation of Teachers, will somehow help to halt Andrew Cuomo's attempt to circumvent tenure and collective bargaining by placing troubled schools into receivership. This will help stop him from eliminating the charter cap. This will further, hopefully, prevent merit pay, pension deterioration, and five year renewable so-called tenure. None of that old-fashioned mobilization nonsense for us, particularly since over 80% of us can't even be bothered voting for leadership.

Mulgrew pointed to the odd NY State legislative laws, and said that if the budget is rejected Cuomo would have enormous power to enact changes via executive order. He pointed to Cuomo's planned tax refunds, which will lock in a whole lot of suburban legislators. Everyone loves getting money in the mail, and Governor Cuomo has no issue buying off whoever needs buying off.

Mulgrew says we will not fight over evaluation, because then Cuomo will contend we didn't want it. This is an odd position, in my view, because there's now a movement, supported by our insane governor and private-schooled Merryl Tisch, to make state measures 40%, and to rate any teacher ineffective who doesn't meet the junk science standard. A large tenet of the Revive NYSUT campaign to overthrow leadership was that Iannuzzi had initiated the APPR law. They always seemed to forget that he did so with the express cooperation of Mike Mulgrew. The problem, of course, is that teachers really don't want a junk science evaluation system. Evidently, what teachers want is not a factor we consider during a substantive battle.

Another big idea from UFT leadership is to improve the perception of struggling schools. Such schools have large populations of ESL and special needs students. Mulgrew says if we do that, something that's never been done, we will immensely enhance our credibility. I did not hear arguments about addressing, for example, poverty. Nonetheless, given that we heard very similar arguments about UFT charter schools, and given they have not proven to be the magic promised, I'm not sure precisely what fuels the President's rampant optimism.

Mulgrew says Cuomo does not wish to fight over school funding and exploding class sizes, and that this will therefore be a more promising area in which to fight. This is curious to me, since we've done absolutely nothing to improve class sizes in my entire 30-year teaching career. Every chapter leader knows the only instrument that really regulates class size is the UFT Contract. Mulgrew himself just negotiated his first contract, and while we were successful in getting us the raise most city employees got ten years late with no interest, we did absolutely nothing to improve class sizes. I'm not sure how credible we are making class size demands.

Mulgrew referred to a pretty well-bandied about fact--Cuomo is angry about his pathetic margin of victory, and vindictive that we and NYSUT failed to support him. He clearly failed to appreciate our bizarre tactic of failing to oppose him. The largest threat to Andrew Cuomo would have been a serious opponent on the left, to with, Zephyr Teachout on the Working Families Party. Unions, including UFT, were adament that WFP support Cuomo, threatening to withhold support of the party altogether if it didn't.

And, of course, when Teachout redirected her energies to opposing Cuomo in the Democratic primary, AFT President Randi Weingarten made robocalls for Cuomo's running mate, Kathy Hochul, after the NY Times endorsed Teachout's running mate, Tim Wu. Oh, the ingratitude of Andrew Cuomo. He even vetoed his own initiative for a temporary safety net for teachers against the results of the Common Core tests that fail 70% of our students.

So was it a bad idea for us to usher in mayoral control that closed almost every comprehensive high school in the city? Should we not have supported the failed quasi-merit pay program, charter schools, Common Core, colocations, and the ATR? Will a bunch of UFT-endorsed tweets stop Cuomo from bribing the taxpayers and appeasing his multi-million dollar contributors?

If we hadn't done all that, would it now be as easy for Cuomo to push his odious corporate agenda on a misinformed public? Tough to say for sure, but I've seen no evidence our go-along-with-whatever policy has helped anyone but the reformies who bought and paid for Andrew Cuomo.

Why We Need Merit Pay

by guest blogger Educator for Excellence

First of all, it's important for teachers to be recognized. That's why I'm so glad we're no longer rated satisfactory or unsatisfactory. I, for one, am excellent. That's just one reason I don't teach anymore. Another is all that money I get to run this organization. Let me tell you, we have offices all over the country. I fly here, I do this, I meet rich people, and I go to gala luncheons. You better believe it beats the hell out of that school cafeteria.

There are lots of us E4E folks around. The important thing to remember about us is that we don't really want to be teachers. For example, Rubin Frisbee, a good buddy of mine, didn't even get tenure. Rather than bother trying again, he quit, took an Ivy League course, and now runs the whole damn school. Isn't it great that someone who never earned tenure can just tell everyone else who did how to teach? Only in America!

So anyway, on this merit pay thing. For one thing, we still have people out there teaching, and I can assure you they won't hang around waiting. And between us, I happen to know they're holding back the good stuff until they can get that bonus. OK, to tell you the truth, they won't hang around even if they get the bonus. There are higher-paying jobs than teaching, and they will get them. They will go into administration, or they will come and work with me at E4E, or maybe they'll get jobs at the DOE.

Actually, with de Blasio in, we can't be altogether sure about those DOE gigs. But it doesn't matter because they're always looking for people over at the Gates Foundation. And if there's nothing there, there's always the Walton Foundation and the Broad Foundation. And then there are those hedge funders always looking for glitzy ways to invest their disposable income. It's a win-win-win-win-win.

Just like cockroaches after a nuclear blast, we will always be around. Unless you want us to teach, because we move away from that stuff ASAP. But the important thing to remember is you won't keep us in the classroom unless we get merit pay. And if we get merit pay, we are still leaving the classroom.

And that is why we need merit pay.

Student Lobbyist Andy Cuomo Is a Moron

Well, perhaps that's strong language, but the Andrew "I am the government" Cuomo is floating a merit pay scheme of "up to" $20,000 for the best teachers. Personally, I'm not persuaded Governor Cuomo would know a good teacher if one were beating him over the head. Nonetheless, were that to happen, it probably wouldn't change anything.  For one thing, the governor can't be bothered to do basic research. Merit pay has been around for a hundred years, and it has never worked.

For another thing, "up to" $20,000 means a number somewhere between zero and $20,000. While there are reports that a lot of teachers around NY State have been rated "highly effective" based on junk science VAM, that's no assurance formulas can't or won't be revised so as to not pay out.

Newark, for example, adopted a merit pay scheme. 190 of Newark's 3200 teachers got bonuses. That's fewer than 10%. Of course, 80% of Newark teachers chose not to give up tenure in order to participate. And those teachers, being smarter, were more likely to have been rated highly effective. Personally, I would question the competence of any teacher who gave up anything to be thrown upon the tender mercies of Chris Christie. It appears there's a whole bunch of money in Newark, but it does not appear the teachers are going to be receiving it.

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio has come out and stated flatly that he does not believe in merit pay. Perhaps the mayor actually reads the research. Perhaps the mayor knows that any teacher who's holding back waiting for merit pay is incompetent and ought to be fired. I can't really say why the mayor believes this, but it's certainly refreshing to see a rational opinion in City Hall, rather than fanatical ideology based on whatever came out of Bill Gates' hind quarters this morning.

And here's the truth--city teachers have been without a compensation increase for five years now. We aren't looking for a tip.

We want the same raise that NYPD and FDNY got, and I don't know a single non-E4E teacher who says otherwise.

NY Times Uncritically Hypes Corporate Agenda

The next time I read or hear that education is the civil rights issue of our time, I'm going to projectile vomit. So you'd best get out of my way quickly. Reformy John is no Dr. King, no matter what the paper of record may believe.

Tonight John and Silent Merryl have yet another meeting with New Yorkers. They will sit, nod their heads, pretend they care what people say, and then go on their golly gosh-darn way doing whatever the hell they please. They'll say we need to stay the course, and perhaps they will make some adjustments, and blah, blah, blah.

Then the self-righteous corporate columnists from the NY Times will continue to claim, with no evidence whatsoever, that we need to move ahead with this untested and unproven Common Core mandate, because no one can possibly learn anything unless the hundreds of millions Bill Gates invested drive American public education. That's odd, because Gates himself has no idea whether the ideas he's forced on our children will work. He says it will take ten years to find out, and has no compunctions about using our children as guinea pigs.

Meanwhile, the great minds at the NY Times are keenly focused on helping education. The only way to do so, in their view, is to use not only reformy curricula that's never been tested, but also to use things that have never worked anywhere, like merit pay. Though it's been around for over a hundred years and has failed everywhere it's been tried, the NY Times editorial board can't be bothered doing any research whatsoever. After all, many of them wear bow ties, and if that isn't credibility, what is?

The Times has also had it with all this seniority nonsense. After all, it's better to use criteria like value-added, which has also never been proven effective anywhere. Perhaps the Times wishes us to use multiple measures, like who washed the principal's car most recently, or who spent last Tuesday at a Comfort Inn with the odd AP.

The Times also has issues with salary increasing as teachers spend more years in the system, because who the hell wishes to foster long-term commitment in a job like that? Better to declare TFA 6-week wonders highly-qualified, sweep them out after two or three years, then open up an entire new can of teachers to experiment on public school children.

Let's fire all the ATR teachers, most displaced for the crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's a much better idea than actually putting them to work. Why should we use working teachers to help children or reduce class sizes when we can simply fire them? Won't that be more beneficial to our most important educational goal--reducing the tax bill of Michael Bloomberg and his cronies?

And hey, let's make public schools more like charter schools. We've learned it's OK to drop entire cohorts, like Geoffrey Canada did, and to resist accepting representative populations, or public scrutiny, like Eva Moskowitz does. We've learned it's OK to pay obscene sums to charter leaders, and to share the wealth with Mike Bloomberg's other BFFs. Why not exclude high-needs kids from not only charters, but public schools as well? That will certainly raise those test scores, which are clearly the only measure of student achievement.

And let's give up on how many hours teachers work. Let's give them cell phones so they can answer questions 24-7, because teachers don't need private lives. They don't deserve social lives or families and neither do any working Americans. Such frivolities should be the exclusive province of writers who can't be bothered doing the most cursory research before issuing pontifications on how the rest of the world should live.


Because that's the sort of crap you get from the New York Times. And if they're this abysmal on education reporting, who knows what sort of crap you get if you rely on them for national and international news? They've blundered in the past, and their lame reporting may have been largely responsible for the wasteful debacle that is the Iraq war.

What will they surprise us with next?

Bill Gates Experiments on Millions of American Children...

...and he has no idea whether or not his ideas will work. He says he won't know for ten years, in fact. So meanwhile, too bad if you lose your job. Too bad if your kids spend all of their time prepping for tests that may or may not be valid. Too bad millions of kids hate to read because we feed them train schedules instead of inspiration. Bill Gates wanted to try his stuff out, and you can't expect him to try it on his own kids. They have needs.

Bill Gates' kids need the best. Like Obama's kids. Like Klein's kids and Bloomberg's kids. Like at least one of Michelle Rhee's kids and Reformy John King's kids. They need smaller class sizes and something other than constant testing. They need music and arts. They need fiction and poetry. They need to be part of a community, not simply one task to be executed. You can't expect their kids to be paraded around like tin soldiers in one of those charter schools Bill so adores.

Because this is an emergency. American children can't wait to find out whether or not the Gates way will work. He wants to try it, and he has billions of dollars, so every public school child in the country must do whatever they hell he says. And it doesn't matter that ideas like merit pay have been around for a hundred years and have never worked anywhere. Who's to say they won't work now?

Sure, excellent teachers may be fired based on VAM, which has also never been proven to work anywhere. But at least we can say we tried something. At least we can say we did something. Because, to Bill Gates, the important thing is to do something.

But it's like the old song:

Once the rockets are up, 
who cares where they come down?
That's not my department,
says Wehrner Von Braun.

And that makes about as much sense as Bill Gates performing his voodoo on our children. It's incredible that a President who promised hope and change would instead give us Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, a veritable ventriloquist's monkey for Bill Gates.

If Bill Gates gave a golly gosh darn about our children, he'd demand for them the same thing he demands for his own kids.  And make no mistake, that's what Matt Damon, Leonie Haimson, and Diane Ravitch do. People who take his money vilify them for it. Yet they don't say word one about Gates, because that would jeopardize the gravy train.

Bill Gates has about as much integrity as Bela Lugosi turning people into zombies in some ancient B-movie. And his methods are hardly more sophisticated. Our children are not guinea pigs.

If Gates wants to throw children in the air and watch with intense curiosity to see where they fall down, it behooves him to start with his own. And no, I don't wish that on them. I only wish they had a father with a conscience instead of a program.

Diane Ravitch, Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos

According to Jim Hightower, yellow stripes and dead armadillos are the only things you'll find in the middle of the road. And yet Jessica Levin, happily bad-mouthing Diane Ravitch over at Huffington Post, paints corporate reformers as occupying some middle ground. Levin, ruminating on Ravitch's book while showing little to no evidence she understands it, actually cites Michelle Rhee as one of these moderate voices. I'm reminded of another quote:

When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.

~Jonathan Swift

Ms. Levin appears to represent one of the first dunces to venture forth into the arena after having purported to read Ravitch's book. Levin finds hitherto unsung nuance in reforminess:

Ravitch claims all education reformers are bent on promoting privatization, vouchers, and for-profit schools. However, most of those I interviewed have little faith in market solutions to improve schools systemically. They won't actively oppose vouchers because they refuse to tell poor parents what they wouldn't tolerate hearing themselves: "Your kids must stay in this failing school while we spend a decade trying to fix it." But many talked about vouchers and for-profits as distractions more than game changers. 

So let's understand this. The corporate reformers oppose vouchers, but won't say they do. The important thing is what they think, not what they do, and of course to move the kids from so-called failing schools. Whether or not they address the underlying issues that cause low test scores, like poverty, learning disabilities, or lack of English, is of no consequence. Whether the schools prove better, equal, or worse than the "failing" schools is also unimportant. Note also that Levin says nothing whatsoever to suggest these "moderates" oppose privatization or for-profit schools in any way whatsoever. Yet she has the audacity to refer to Ravitch as "simplistic." Simplistic is a word I'd use for anyone uncritically viewing Levin's piece.

Levin further contends that reformy folk does not overemphasize testing. I'm not sure which astral plane Ms. Levin resides in, but in this one high-stakes tests determine whether or not schools stay open, and whether or not teachers remain employed. Levin praises Race to the Top, which enables this. She seems blissfully unaware there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that there is any validity whatsoever to value-added ratings.

Even as Teach for America inductees actively steal the jobs of laid-off Chicago teachers, Levin musters the audacity to suggest that it does not endorse any radical agenda, and implies that Ravitch is delusional to suggest anything of the sort.  Doubtless if scab labor took Levin's job, or jobs or her friends and family, she'd beam with approval.

What really amazes me about this column is the complete and utter ignorance of the role of unions. Levin characterizes them as obstructionist, but I've watched as my union embraced mayoral control, and then supported it again after it was fairly well-established as an anti-democratic disaster. UFT had a hand in writing the state evaluation law and boasted that "objective" measures only made up 40% of a teacher rating. They must have forgotten that any teacher failing that 40% must be rated ineffective overall. UFT supported charters, and even co-located to start one. UFT supported a failed merit pay program. Of course, that's not all that unique, since all such programs have failed. And UFT supports Common Core, which adds yet another layer of testing to the tangled web that appears to have eluded Ms. Levin.

If this is the best they can muster against Diane Ravitch, they'd better hope that absolutely no one reads her new book.

Why Is Unity/ New Action Waving White Flag Without a Fight?

It's remarkable to see where we've come over the last decade with Mayor4Life Bloomberg in charge. We have a Board of Education in which he's got 8 of 13 votes, and it's served as a rubber stamp for the richest and most reformy guy in the richest city in the world. Worse, Unity/ New Action leadership endorsed mayoral dictatorship not once, but twice. If  I'm not mistaken, the UFT offered measures to improve the system, but then chose to support it anyway when those measures were not included.

Now we're facing an evaluation system substantially based on junk science. Though the crisis of teacher evaluation is wholly manufactured by reformy types like our esteemed mayor, Unity/ New Action bought into it and decided we needed to participate in Bill Gates' MET program, designed to mold Bill's vision of junk science into reality. We were promised that junk science ratings would be completely confidential so that we could ignore them in the privacy of our own homes. Instead, Bloomberg broke yet another promise to the union and successfully urged papers to sue to make them public. As a result, Murdoch's Post blared headlines about the worst teachers in the city, based on ratings with 50-80% margins of error.

Now, Unity/ New Action boasts that we have less junk science than other municipalities. This, supposedly is an accomplishment to be proud of. Their reps tell us that maybe we'll earn a good junk science grade and that it will therefore be tougher for a principal to fire us for no reason. This is akin to advising us to smoke because we may not get cancer.

If you don't see VAM as enough of a cancer to worry you, there's more. A column in today's Gotham Schools quotes people suggesting the end of step pay may be inevitable. What does this suggest? It suggests, of course, that the reformy wet dream of merit pay may be coming to NYC. Now it's not surprising to hear reformy types making such suggestions, so that in itself is not altogether worrisome.

What is disturbing is when Peter Goodman, the only significant Unity/ New Action voice on the blogosphere, agrees:

 The days of automatic step and seniority increase may morph into other negotiated metrics.Surviving will require nimble union leadership.

In case it's not clear to you what that implies, this is the very first hint that Unity/ New Action is prepared to accept merit pay.  That, in essence,  suggests that those who are lucky with previously negotiated junk science will get paid more than those who are not. In case you're wondering, merit pay has never worked anywhere. Apparently, reformy types find that less than persuasive, and it would appear Unity/ New Action doesn't care either. 

The fact that PERB has previously insisted on the pattern is of no consequence either. Non-educator unions received compensation increases in excess of 8% in the 2008-2010 round of pattern bargaining.  So it appears "nimble union leadership" entails giving in to not only the abysmal 2005 contract, mayoral control, itinerant ATR teachers, people being fired on the basis of junk science, but also merit pay.

So here is my message to the Unity/ New Action monopoly, and it's very simple--working teachers have been without a compensation increase for four years. What we need is not a tip, but a raise.

And in case it's not sufficiently obvious, said raise should not be based on junk science.

Daily News Inspired by Merit Pay Fairy

Since Newark teachers ratified a contract full of unspecified bonuses for evaluations that don't exist, the Daily News editorial board thinks we ought to do the same thing. You know, we should be paid like professional athletes. This is not a new argument. I've been hearing it for years. Except, of course, that no one, ever, has remotely suggested we be paid on any such scale.

Blogger Jersey Jazzman has been consistently brilliant on this issue, and wrote a fairly definitive history describing its various incarnations and failures. Regrettably, the Daily News editorial board either hasn't heard, or more likely doesn't wish to hear about them. They'd prefer to interview some defeated ex-union chief who no longer believes seniority ought to mean anything for working people.

For some reason, a lot of people out there actually believe that folks on the Daily News editorial board, the ones who consistently support things like junk-science VAM, actually care more about kids than we do. After all, all we do is spend every working hour of our lives teaching them, watching them, caring for them. What the hell do we know about kids?

I think Lily Tomlin said, "No matter how cynical you get, it's hard to keep up." And every day, I marvel when I read about the latest untested or failed nonsense that's come down the pike, and how we must enact it right now. I kind of expect this from newspaper editorial boards.

What really disappoints me is when union leaders stand behind it, calling it innovative and worthwhile. I'm particularly irked when they call real teachers liars for opposing such nonsense. In this case, it is the New Caucus that opposes the junk sci-contract, and Jersey Jazzman has posted their position in its entirety.

The danger of nonsense like this contract is that it can spread like a cancer. It's no accident that Bill Gates' boy Arne Duncan has imposed crap evaluation on most of the country, and I don't doubt the man who stated Katrina was the best thing to happen to education in New Orleans would love to see us have contracts just like this one. Chris Christie and Eli Broad love it. That's just one reason for us not to.

Here's another--real working teachers need a raise, not a tip. Remember that when they tell you you can make "up to" whatever. Because the other side is you can also make "as little as" whatever.  A one time payment of "up to $20,000" for a degree approved by the likes of Chris Christie is no substitute for actual credit for education. We ought to encourage teachers to get more education, not have them spin the Wheel of Fortune to find out how much it's worth.

Is that what pro athletes do? If so, I've yet to hear about it.

Teacher Union Prez Auditions for NY Post Editorial Board

Joseph Del Grosso, head of the Newark Teachers Union, is endorsing a new contract that entails merit pay, value-added measures, and which is "secretive about financial details," though we know it hinges on $100 mill in Facebook bucks, which we don't know to be renewable.

Del Grosso is portrayed in the article as someone who's moved from a young firebrand to someone with a completely different position-- heroic by the writer's highly uninformed point of view, but questionable at best by mine. More disturbing, perhaps, is this quote:

“The teachers who come in early and stay late, and take the job seriously, are offended by the teachers who don’t,” he says. “They are the silent majority, and I think they will overwhelmingly vote for a contract that involves them in their own destiny.”

Can you imagine the things these offended teachers must be saying?

That damn Ms. Smith, always going home to look after her baby!

I hate Mr. White. Who the hell does he think he is, running to his second job at the carwash at 2:30 every day?

I'm a teacher who comes in early and stays late, but I certainly don't go around telling anyone else to do that. For me, it's a matter of convenience, avoiding traffic, and doing things that are more efficiently done on school grounds. Were I an administrator, I would not presume to judge a teacher by hours in building, quantity, but rather by what's accomplished in the classroom, quality.

It's quite disturbing to see a union head suggest that teachers ought to work for free, and that whether or not they choose to do so is indicative of the quality of their work. It's further disturbing to see Nixon invoked in his use of the term "silent majority." This was a rationale used by a criminal to support clearly failed policies.

Also disturbing is the possibility that teacher pay will be linked to whether or not they are "effective," and that their degree of effectiveness will be determined by something as inane as value-added, which has proven disastrous in other venues, most recently Florida. The article writer, apparently unaware of the difference between reporting and editorializing, offers this tidbit:

Workers in the private sector take it for granted that their performance will affect their pay, and that if they screw up badly, they will be fired. Teachers, like many other public employees, have been protected against that harsh, real-world stuff.

This, of course, assumes that teachers are never fired, an utter fallacy. It also fails to consider that value-added has no validity whatsoever. There is a lot of talk about teachers having "a seat at the table," but I heard that talk before the UFT got involved with Bill Gates' MET project, notions of which have been imposed on most of the country well before there was sufficient evidence to do so.

This contract has the "blessing of Gov. Chris Christie." If anyone reading this thinks Christie has the interests of teachers, students, or parents at heart, I can give you a very good price on a bridge in Brooklyn.

Mayor Bloomberg Revamps Merit Pay Plan

In a stunning turnaround, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced fundamental revisions to his proposed merit pay scheme.

"I've been reading the NYC Parents Blog lately," said the Mayor. "It turns out that test scores don't actually determine who is and is not a good teacher, and that none of this stuff is proven. Not only that, but merit pay has been kicking around for a hundred years, and it's never produced any results whatsoever. In fact our merit pay trial in NYC didn't work either, and I don't even know what made me want to do it again. Maybe one of those recently graduated education advisers. Who knows?"

The Mayor went on to explain that he'd been getting most of his information from pro-"reform" sites, and was dismayed to learn that the commenters he'd relied upon for information were largely motivated by the prospect of gift cards for free footlongs from Subway.

"How the hell can you rely on people who write things only because they want free sandwiches?" mused the Mayor.

The new plan will save money by making merit pay totally arbitrary. A wheel will be installed at Tweed, which will then be spun to determine the schools in which merit pay will be distributed. Then, lucky merit pay winners' names will be pulled out of hats in their respective schools.

"It's as good a method as any," said Bloomberg, running to meet the SUV that drives him to his preferred subway station. As we waited for the room air-conditioner to be installed in the SUV window, the mayor confided, "We'll save a lot of money and time this way. No one really understands the data, it's completely unreliable, and I personally hate the little weasels who have the patience to plod through it anyway."

Asked why he didn't simply give teachers the raise all other city employees got for the 2008-2010 bargaining period, Bloomberg said the expense was prohibitive, and pointed to the 80-million the city wasted on ARIS, due to be scrapped for a state system very soon. The mayor intimated that the entire notion of merit pay was specifically designed to spare the city the expense of raises, and he hoped that other unions would embrace it so as to make it easier to provide tax cuts for speculators, investors, and his neighbor Cathie Black.

Good Day AFT

As Vice-President of the United States, I'm pleased to address all you teachers! I know you're here because you have a calling, a dedication to teach our kids. Otherwise, why would you be facing pay cuts, additional fees for pensions and health care, and be buying supplies out of pocket?

When President Obama and I see the things Republicans are doing to you, we're horrified, and that's why we're out there every day, paying teachers valuable lip service. And let me assure you that, when and if President Obama finds his comfortable shoes, he may or may not be out there with organized labor, protesting the loss of collective bargaining rights!

Now I can see there are those of you who object to some of our programs, specifically Race to the Top. Sure, you say, it brings more testing, and that your very jobs depend on getting better grades on those tests. While that is certainly true, remember that our priority is to make the United States the best educated country in the world. That's why we do whatever Bill Gates asks us to, whether or not it's been tested or disproven. After all, if he didn't know about this stuff, why would he have all that money? And I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that President Obama said in his State of the Union speech that he wanted less testing! So what more do you want? For Chrissake, he's the goshdarn President of the United States!

Remember, the President's kids and my grandchildren go to the Sidwell Friends School, where there is less testing, so we're putting our money where our mouth is, and anyone else who wants to can just move to DC and pay 33K a year to send their kids there too! This is the land of opportunity!

So don't be a Gloomy Gus! Some things we do may not please you, but the important thing to remember is that the things Romney will do may be even worse! He doesn't care about class size! Arne Duncan cares deeply about class size, which is why he said class sizes should be raised just one week after Bill Gates said so. And I know you all admire Bill Gates, since he was the keynote at your last convention! Can I get an amen? No?

Well, anyway, I realize the whole merit pay, teachers getting fired for no reason, and school closing thing doesn't resonate among teachers, and I truly regret that those troublemakers from Chicago are actually saying so out loud. Honestly I was not prepared for that. So let's put our differences aside and take a real look at what I've done since I arrived here.

As I look around me, I notice many of you are smaller than me. In fact, I've seen many of you walking down the stairs, and I chose not to push any of you. Not only that, but I saw several of you walking by the fountain, and I didn't toss any of you into it. This was my choice. Could you say the same for Mitt Romney? Nobody knows, right? Let me tell you something about Romney. He supports high-stakes testing, charters, merit pay, privatization, decreased teacher voice, and vouchers. Let me make one thing perfectly clear--President Obama and I DO NOT support vouchers! That is a promise.

So God bless America, God bless teachers, and remember, when you're in that voting booth, Joe Biden has not pushed any teachers down the stairs, as far as you know. And thank you, AFT, for endorsing us without asking us for any concessions whatsoever! Those goshdarn LGBT and Latino communities actually pushed the President to change his positions, and that was pretty freaking inconvenient!

So believe me when I say this administration really appreciates teachers!

Consider This

In Topeka, you can make 5,000 bucks extra in merit pay if you get those scores up. So, the writer wonders, why would you help anyone who was not your student? After all, every minute you spend helping those other kids is a minute lost from propping up the test scores you need to survive.

That scenario could be even worse if demagogues Bloomberg and Cuomo get their way. Cuomo wants 40% of your rating to be based on test scores, and I've read that it would be impossible to get a favorable rating without favorable test scores. Bear in mind, of course, that these geniuses want to base these ratings on tests that, as yet, don't even exist. Forget about their validity. There are already ridiculous margins of error, and they'd likely get even worse on hastily prepared tests.

Now further imagine Bloomberg's 20K bonus were in place, and that principals actually had enough money to pay it. A colleague of mine, a math teacher, was busy and asked me to help a kid with her college entrance essay. I spent a whole period helping this girl rewrite an essay, explaining to her how and why she could do things better. Why would I do such a thing for any kid if I were competing with her teacher for not only a bonus, but my very job? I've read NY's system is based on a bell curve, and supposedly a bunch of teachers on the bottom would be discharged every year.

What a hellish job they want to create. Teachers do all sorts of things other than test prep. We spot problems, often huge ones, and take time out to help kids. We intervene for them with administration. We contact their parents and try to help out. We do so many things, anything that's called for, and those are the sort of things we're remembered for. I have fond memories of teachers who inspired me, not teachers who helped me figure out which circles to blacken on tests, and I suspect that's true for most of us.

If the "reformer" vision is carried out, inspiration will no longer be the province of a teacher. Teachers will fight for bonuses and jobs, and if they don't, they will have neither. Wall Streeters used that model to bankrupt the nation, and they can't wait to use it to destroy public education and our profession along with it.

Mayor Bloomberg and Merit Pay

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, after denying educators the 8-plus percent all other city employees got for the 2008-2010 bargaining period, is now touting a $20,000 raise for those teachers who can manage to be rated "highly effective" two years in a row. There are caveats, of course, including the fact that the evaluation system on which this is based does not yet exist, the tests that would help determine the evaluation do not yet exist, and the agreement with the union on which this would be based does not yet exist.

But none of those things matter to the papers, who plaster headlines about Bloomberg's big raise for teachers all over the place. You see how that works? You give away nothing and the whole world praises you for your generosity. It beats the hell out of actually doing anything.

There are, of course, other issues, like the fact that the last merit pay scheme failed utterly and was abandoned as a result. Now, as a teacher, if I try a new lesson and it bombs, it's not my first instinct to expand it into an entire unit. Of course, I'm not an indispensable genius like Mike Bloomberg, and I wouldn't thwart the twice-voiced will of the people in order to buy myself a third term either. Then there are those darn principals who find the entire evaluation process insane and unworkable, but that doesn't get in the way of Mayor Mike's plan.

Mayor Mike says it's absurd that regular teachers get paid as much as excellent teachers. Now certainly, there are those who say that neither Mayor Mike nor any of his Tweedie birds would recognize good teachers if they were beating them over their heads (which is not to say NYC Educator endorses this particular practice).  It's certainly true the biggest merit pay program, despite the nonsense in the NY Times, hasn't resulted in any gains in the only thing "reformers" care about--test scores. So now, with nothing in place to prepare for this system.

Mayor Mike and his minions insist that excellence is identifiable and tangible, and must be met with financial rewards. They say excellence or lack thereof is something that must be reflected in salary (though only in teacher salary, as it applies to no other municipal workers). An odd concept, considering it thus far applies to a system that largely exists only in the minds of raving anti-unionist NYC op-ed writers.

Still, it goes a long way toward explaining why Mayor Bloomberg gets paid one dollar a year.

Merit Pay for Reporters?

In an article that's largely a clarification of the nonsense that passes for news around here, a NY Times reporter still drops the ball in a large way. There is acknowledgement that the brouhaha over the evaluation system is not, in fact, over the system itself. The system, of course, is flawed in that it revolves around value-added, which has no basis of success either in research or practice. Personally, I'd hope a NY Times reporter would do enough research to know that, but here I'm asking for the moon.

A more fundamental error is the reporter's apparent ignorance that, since 2008, everyone but educators received an 8% plus increase over two years. Why does no reporter in NYC seem to know that? This leads to the outrageous contention, made by this reporter, that Bloomberg has offered substantial raises to teachers.

In fact, he's done no such thing. He's tossed 20 thousand dollars into the air and asked teachers to jump for it. The likelihood of getting it, for real live teachers, is remote at best. Principals tear out their hair every year when the annual budget cuts come out. How the hell are they supposed to meet Bloomberg's ever-shifting capricious demands when they haven't even got the means to run their schools? How is everyone supposed to perform the tunes demanded by our corporate overlords when are schools are run-down, crumbling, overcrowded, and class sizes are capacity or higher?

All due respect, it really behooves education reporters to be well-informed, particularly if they have the audacity to say, or even imply unknowingly, that teachers ought to be judged on so-called merit.