On Inconsistent Agendas and Shifting Scores

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Best Way to Help "Budding" Teachers

At the mere cost of $5 billion, Bill Gates once had the brilliant idea to train cameras on every teacher in every classroom.  What better way to improve teaching...or is it testing?  No matter what ed. "reformers" say, surely, the two are not the same.

Well, just when you think Mr. Gates could not possibly outdo himself, along comes another brainy idea.  After all, if he can finance turning poopy to drinkable water, there must be no end to his natural brilliance:  Why should Big Brother just watch you, when he could be telling you what to do?

Let teachers wear earbuds.  They're experimenting with it in Memphis, Tampa and New York.  If you're doing something wrong, like looking too relaxed, why study the play-by-play later, when it's too late?  Why wait for an outside observer to hold a private conference with you?  Why wait for a written formal observation?  You ought to know right then and there, in front of your kids, what's wrong with you and how to fix it.  And students should see teachers following orders like so many dogs.  There's surely a lesson to be learned here!

Earbuds are all the rage today.  We've seen them in classrooms around the world for everything from replacing boring lectures or test prep with the music of one's choice to cheating on exams via electronic transmitters.  Usually the buds are hidden beneath a cap, hood or long hair, but sometimes they're flaunted.  Now, let teachers flaunt them, too.  Let them be put straight via wireless technology.  Let them perform like circus animals because, surely, teachers are incapable of thinking for themselves.  There's surely a lesson to be learned here!

This earth-shattering idea has so many unrealized possibilities...

Have you ever asked your kid to do something...like clean up a mess in his or her room?  Does it seem that your voice is filtered out like white noise?  Well, who's to say teachers won't act in the same vein?  Big Brother, coaching, perhaps, from thousands of miles away should have the power to transmit an excessively shrill noise into a teacher's ear.  And, if that teacher will not "wake up" to a better way of teaching...or prepping, perhaps, an electric shock would do the trick!  Remember, coaches never need to be coached.

The potential of ear buds is only just beginning to be realized.  So many markets are left untapped.

Politicians should be given ear buds.  Give one to every governor.  Why not give two to the president?  Let some hedge-fund operator, Jenny Sedlis or even Michael Bloomberg tell our elected politicians what to do.  Let the highest campaign donors coach us out of democracy.  There's surely a lesson to be learned here!

Suppose you're a Unity hack.  You have a really nice office job and a double pension.  You don't care much for your classroom and you're not sure how much you should fret over ed. "reform."  You live in perpetual fear of failing to move up the Union ladder.  What if you fail to back Unity's line?  What if you say the wrong thing at the wrong time?  What if you accidentally stand up against the Core or you think annual testing is shameful?  Well, there's a way to allay your fears.  You need someone up the totem pole to talk down to you and tell you what to do.  When teachers ask why the sub-par contract is so good and if there are any copies in print, let your ear bud answer for you!  "There's strength in Unity."  And, maybe some day, you'll be dictating policy down the line!  There's surely a lesson to be learned here!

If you're a charter school operator or a politician in Albany, you, too, probably want an earbud.  What if you're being questioned by the FBI?  You might not know what to say.  You might not know where all the money went or even where it came from.  You, too, can be coached.  Just plug in your earbud 'cause anything you say can be held against you in a court of law!  Your earbud, of course, could deal you expert legal advice...or it might make you the next fall guy.  But, then, an earbud would never lead anyone astray.  Right?

We Never Learn Anything

We keep voting in the same people, they keep doing the same things, it failed before, it's failing now, and it will fail in the future. Yet we hope against hope that this time it will work. We give the reformies a little bit to show them how flexible we are. We buy into one of their awful ideas, and then another. Then we sit and wait for them to say thank you. But that just doesn't happen. The time we let Bill Gates keynote and AFT convention, he thanked us, walked out, and then started attacking our pensions.

Now the UFT and AFT are waist deep in this PROSE program, the one that enables huge class sizes. It's the bestest thing ever. It means, instead of that silly old contract we negotiated, we can run schools like charters. How cool is that? Maybe once the Post columnists read about that, they'll say, "Hey, those union leaders are not so bad. Maybe we should give them a shot at running the Moskowitz schools."

Only that's not the way it works. Every time you give the reformies a millimeter, they want a kilometer. That's why there are multiple suits attacking tenure. That's why the Supreme Court is now eyeing a suit intended to pretty much crush public unions as we know it. And that's why you'll find this piece, in the NY Post, ridiculing Weingarten and Mulgrew as self-serving clowns.

Basically, the piece moves from the absolutely false premise that charters are a solution to the low test score issue to the conclusion that the PROSE program emulates them. Maybe it does. And it's been bandied about as a solution to various problems by not only Mulgrew, but also Weingarten. Now here's the problem--the low test score crisis is caused NOT by the UFT Contract, but rather by high concentrations of poverty and high needs students. Charter schools tend not to take severe special ed. cases or beginning ESL students, and have various screening methods to ensure they don't just take everyone (like we do). They also dump kids and don't replace them. This system is hardly a miracle.

By being flexible we buy into the false assumption that it is the teachers and schools failing the students. That's problematic because it gives our enemies more ammunition to attack us and our schools. We also allow Post polemicists to write pieces like this, telling the public the privatization schemes are the obvious solutions. How does he thank the helpful union leaders?

It’s not really about education, then. It’s about control — top down, contractually mandated control. Put another way, “We’re fine with innovation, as long as it’s our innovation. We’re good with bureaucratic flexibility, as long as we say it’s OK. And anybody who tries to do this without approval shall face our wrath!”
 
This is progress?

Thus, Weingarten and Mulgrew receive no credit whatsoever for their willingness to compromise on our Contract. The writer throws in a nice little strawman about how reformies will face the wrath of union leaders if they don't cooperate. Not only did Weingarten and Mulgrew fail to say any such thing, but the assumption they even implied it is preposterous. UFT supports charter schools and has done for years. UFT runs charter schools, though one failed rather spectacularly last year, and has even co-located them. UFT proudly brought the odious Steve Barr's Green Dot to NYC. We're up for anything! We're the cool kids! We do charters, mayoral control, co-location, two-tier due process, whatever!

Here's the thing though--whatever we do, they want more. Even when we stand up for reforminess instead of common sense, we are reviled. These people hate us and everything we stand for. We are the last bastion of vibrant unionism in these United States and they mean to destroy us. We have seen over and over that it's not only counter-productive, but simply idiotic to play nice with these folks.

Yet this is what we do, again and again. We endorse presidential candidates, and ask nothing in return. We hear our presidents say, "This candidate said this and that." And then when they fail to do this or that, when they work against us, they talk to us like Squealer from Animal Farm. "Strategy, comrades, strategy."

How many times does the strategy have to fail before we at least try out a new one?

The Maspeth Mystery

I get a newsletter from the UFT every week or so called "The Organizer," written by UFT employee Gene Mann. I don't always agree with everything in it, but this week I was very struck by the dueling comments about Maspeth High School and its principal (who scored 10 points lower than average in the staff poll). Gene does a feature called, "The Grapevine" for potential transfers or ATR teachers to give them the lowdown on Queens schools they may visit. 

Maspeth High School had been receiving fairly abysmal reviews on this newsletter for a while. My source tells me, after some sort of staff meeting with the chapter leader and principal, that the tone of the reviews began to change.

I'm fascinated by the assertion that staff stays an extra thirty minutes beyond contractual requirements, and the response asserting they do so voluntarily. Like a whole lot of teachers, I come in early almost every day, and frequently stay late too. However, I don't do that on anyone's schedule but my own. I question the coincidence of an entire staff staying an extra thirty minutes each day. I can't help but note that the commenter defending the practice does not actually deny it.

I also note the assertion that every teacher teaches four periods in a row. That's a blatant violation of Contract, and I fail to see how it helps kids. If there were some compelling reason to change the time schedule, the school could've held an SBO, but I fail to see any evidence of that either.

 It's a little long, but I'm going to simply post all the comments and let you draw your own conclusions.  Feel free to post them in the comments.

Maspeth H.S. Q585 (District 77)

Principal Ranking: 75.6

Vacancies: Physics, English

(2014)

-The staff, all under 30 and without tenure, lives in fear of its principal, who demands that all stay an extra half-hour Monday-Thursday, beyond contractual requirements.  The staff is so afraid of losing its jobs that it complies without protest or per session (they didn't even know the term). The teachers' lounge is on the third floor but elevator use is prohibited without a doctor's note.  The building is nice and new, just in case that matters to you.

Another view…

The teachers are given 4 classes back to back and because they are in fear of the Principal they do not stand up for their own rights.    I was in that school twice.  The first time they tried to give me 4 classes back to back and when I refused I was told that every teacher is required to do so. There is no UFT representative in the school.

And another…

The tension among the teachers here is palpable.  This is the poster child for a Bloomberg School.  The dirty secret is that their Regents scores are way lower than expected.

And a story…(from Gene)

I received an e-mail from a fellow I remember as a teacher at another school asking me to pull the Maspeth HS posting because this growing school needs to attract new teachers.  I told the writer that I do not write postings and will only accept postings from folks who have worked in a school, either as appointed members or ATRs. 

         Subsequent inquiry led me to the discovery that my correspondent was no longer a teacher in a school, but worked for the network!

 (2015)

        My child attends Maspeth HS and the Principal is a total jerk in my estimation- I have more than 10 years in the system teaching , and have rubbed shoulders with numerous principals.  He is rude, not a friendly man, and definitely not a good communicator.  One teacher there has shared that she actually likes him-shocker!  Let me leave it at this without going into any more details, which could always cause possible backlash in our highly politicized system!

Another…

A member of our staff has requested that we address the posting in the Observer about Maspeth High School in Queens.


As a teacher at this school, I can say that all of the comments listed are true. There is a clear division between how some staff is treated versus others, which would lead to the conflicting experiences you may be receiving in your e-mail. The average staff age is very young and new to teaching (http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/wrong-experience-common-nyc-schools-article-1.2152634). *These are traits valued by administration, who regularly overlook qualified and experienced candidates in favor of young, inexpensive, and inexperienced professionals willing to overwork themselves. The students are great and so are many of the amenities but caution should be taken if expecting fair staff treatment or aboveboard practices.

·      The Daily News reported that Maspeth has the least experienced staff in the city (“…Maspeth High School in Queens - where a staggering 88% were on the job for under three years.” March 17, 2015) Of the 69 teachers in the school, only 8 are tenured.  24 are in their first year, 18 in their second, 22 in their third, 4 in their fourth, 2 in their eight, 2 in their 10th, and 1 in their 14th.

·      The average experience is 2.78 years.  For comparison purposes, the other schools which I have visited most frequently this year:

·      John Adams (Q480) 12 years

·      John Bowne (Q425) 11.7

·      Queens Gateway (Q680) 12

·      William Cullen Bryant (Q445) 12.9

·      August Martin (Q400) 12.8

·      Queens HS of Teaching (Q566) 11.1

·      Townsend Harris 14.5


And another…

Maspeth is a second home for teachers and students. Teachers have created such a positive attitude for students and choose to give up their free time just to further help out the students. The principal gives us clear directives and goals to hit that are very attainable and every teacher should strive to achieve those goals. It is a wonderful school that I will be sending my children to.

And another…

I am writing in hopes that you retract the false accusations made about not only Maspeth High School but about Principal Abdul-Mutakabbir. I am currently a teacher at Maspeth High School. The review that I read does not accurately depict my school and I am offended by the remarks stated by others. Speaking as a current member at Maspeth HS, I believe the administration, including Principal Abdul, and teachers have made Maspeth H.S. one of the best high schools in Queens. The hard work and determination is seen throughout Maspeth, which has allowed every student to have an opportunity for success.


One of the values that we stress is, "Student's First." Principal Abdul has never turned a teacher down for anything that would benefit the student's well-being. He stresses the importance of putting the student's first and that has been instilled in every teacher's mindset. The accusations made in regards to staff members being fearful is not true. Principal Abdul is always open to communicate and encourages his teachers to approach him with any ideas or concerns that they might have. We have established an excellent culture inside and outside of the building and that can be illustrated by the hard work of the students and the staff.


The idea of teaching being a 8-3 job is incorrect. Every teacher who has worked in a school setting understands that the job is not over when the last bell rings. The idea that Maspeth teachers are forced to stay after school hours is not true. These actions taken by the teachers are choices that we have all made on our own. The reason is because we strive to provide the students with the best possible learning environment. As an educator, my number one goal is to allow my students the best opportunity for success. This idea transcends with every educator at Maspeth H.S. We will continue to provide our students with the highest level of education inside and outside of the classroom and we hope that we can make a difference in the lives of every student who currently attends Maspeth H.S. and in the future to come. 



Warmest Regards,



Justin Lacoff

History Teacher at Maspeth H.S. 


And…

There are teachers here who have gotten tenure because they deserve it. So, the statement saying that no one has tenure is a lie. I know that I personally do not live in fear of the principal because he is very supportive to new programs and activities and is always willing to listen to your ideas and to help implement them in any way that he can. I know other people feel the same way as well. For the person who said we don't know what the term "per session" means - we certainly DO know what it means and if a person is running a club, coaching a sport, or doing anything else that the principal asks them to do, they get compensated for it. Obviously, he cannot just throw money to everyone who stays a minute after 2:35pm but he does give it when it is deserved and required. There are some teachers who complain and are disgruntled but that is because they are lazy and are here for a paycheck, not for the students. Those teachers are the ones who bring the negativity into the school and they allow that negativity to give us a bad reputation. Some of the things said on here are ridiculous. I have NEVER been asked to do more than 3 classes in a row and how are our regents scores lower than expected when we are in the top 3 for highest scores in our district? These things have been written by people who are clearly miserable and/or misinformed. Maspeth High School does not deserve this reputation because it is a place that fosters growth and learning in students. It is a place where students feel welcome and cared about. It is a place where teachers are supported and encouraged to be creative. I can honestly say that the only bad thing about this school is those few negative teachers who want to bring the rest of us down because of their misery. The opinion of those disgruntled teachers should not outweigh the opinion of the majority of teachers who love Maspeth and enjoy spending their time at work, doing what teachers should be doing - caring about the students.


And..

It was recently brought to my attention that false and upsetting information has been posted, through your facilitation, in The Organizer.  As a teacher at Maspeth High School, I would like the opportunity to set the record straight about our school and community.


I'd like to start by addressing some of the comments that were recklessly posted.  First of all, yes the staff here is on the "younger" side of the spectrum.  However instead of being ageist, people should understand that this school gives new teachers the opportunity to grow as professionals.  Our age does not equate to inexperience; it makes us motivated, energetic, and enthusiastic individuals who have the drive to work hard and do everything possible for the benefit of our students.  Does that make other teachers in other schools angry because we do not leave at 2:35 as they would like to?  Of course.  But that speaks to the nature of other schools compared to ours.  At 2:35 when 8th period ends, this building is still bustling with students and staff who are engaged in clubs, sports, extra enrichment programs, tutoring, and much more.  We WANT to be here and it shows based on the number of students who flood the halls well into the evening.


I'd like to next address the comments about our administration being unapproachable.  That couldn't be further from the truth.  Teachers who feel that way are disgruntled and bitter about their own personal problems and set backs within the DOE.  The majority of teachers however, have beneficial relationships with administration.  They offer support and advice when solicited and are happy to help in ANY way when it comes to student needs and success.


Lastly, I'd like to clarify things for the public by explaining what it is REALLY like at Maspeth High School.  Students are enrolled in programs that suit their needs, allow them to explore their interests, and help them become college ready.  Teachers work tirelessly to help students  meet success by going above and beyond.  They treat everyone student as their own.  Parents are actively involved in the school through our flourishing Parent-Teacher Association.  And administrators are constantly providing feedback and resources to help teachers take-on leadership roles in the building.  The proof is in the pudding... if Maspeth High School was not operating effectively, why would parents be knocking at the doors to get their children into this school?  If I was able to send my future child here, I wouldn't hesitate.


Please share this when discussing Maspeth High School.


And…

As a Special Education and Social Studies teacher at Maspeth High School I felt I had to respond after reading the reviews you recently posted about our school. It would be offensive to let false, negative comments posted by anonymous writers diminish the extremely hard work put in by our students, staff and parents alike. I will not sit by and let the opinions of clearly disgruntled individuals represent how the entire staff feels.


First off, I can honestly say I am excited to go to work everyday. I know for a fact that most colleagues I work closely with feel the same way. This excitement is driven by our amazing students, equally amazing co workers, and our supportive administration. I have worked in many schools and have never been a part of more dedicated and passionate staff. The central idea of putting students first that is preached by our principal can be seen everywhere.


I believe that anyone who complains about the Maspeth High School experience whether it be faculty, parent, or student is doing so because they simply don't know how good they have it. If something will benefit the students, the answer from our principle will always be yes. This can be shown via a coach bus to Albany for the basketball state finals or a simple pizza party to celebrate a club's accomplishments. The false accusations of our principal instilling fear into teachers to stay after school is laughable. Teachers stay after because they truly care about their students' success and students stay after because they know their teachers concern is genuine. A good look in the mirror is necessary if your classroom is consistently void of students after school and you feel awkward leaving the building while other staff continue to work with the future of our generation.


I hope these statements make it clear that the previously posted comments about working at Maspeth are false. Maspeth High Schoool is doing right by the students and that is why we are all in this field after all,

right?


         And..

We teachers are not cowering in fear, and subsequently are not being forced by fear to work those long hours and apparently teach four classes in a row (again, untrue). Maspeth, and especially Principal Khurshid Abdul-Mutakabbir, respects teachers' voices and is always very clear with our rights. The school is extremely transparent about its expectations for the teachers. Are the expectations high? Yes, I personally would say so. But are they exploitative like how the publication implies? Absolutely not. The teachers at our school are young, but that explains why so many of us do go above and beyond in our time spent at work--we are motivated and healthily encouraged because of our supportive administration's high, respectful expectations and optimistic belief in us.


There are many more objections I can make, such as the one regarding Regents scores, but I think the numbers speak for themselves. For instance, the English department has a 99% pass rate and an 86% mastery rate for the year. And that is not just due to our amazing students and hardworking teachers--it's due to the support and encouragement from our administration, and especially from Principal Abdul. He is an extremely effective principal who is greatly respected and recognized for his skills and leadership by most, if not all, the faculty and staff.

And more!

Maspeth defenders don't seem to understand that the Grapevine is composed of the observations of ATR's. The Grapevine is not about disgruntled students or lazy teachers. It is about the fly on the wall with years of experience at understanding the unwritten rules which are part of a school's culture. Not only does a typical ATR have more experience with education, supervisors, and children than the typical teacher, but he has had an opportunity to visit many schools and in doing so has gained perspective. As an outsider, the ATR makes judgements on schools based on how the schools treat outsiders as well. The personal experiences of individual teachers may be colored by the attitude of the principal towards them; the ATR considers how the least favored as well as the most favored teachers are treated. Looking at how the least are treated is an indicator of how everyone could be treated. Personally, I found the negatives were borne out by my own experiences at the school. I sense that the children are enabled in their behavior (by the principal as much as any other) and have been led to believe that they are developed and well-prepared, but then again that charge could be applied to most schools. Maspeth is like Stepford and I advise all to stay away from the Koolaid.

And…

I have read the comments from a few teachers about Maspeth High School and the ATRs.  Well, that is a lot of bulls*** because I was given assignments which had 4 periods back to back.  When I questioned I was told that teachers work 4 periods back to back.

What Do Mulgrew and Christie Have in Common?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blogger's Day Off...

...but you can read my open letter to Carmen Fariña at Huffington Post instead, if you like.

Double Whammy

For years we've had the APPR system hanging over our heads. Gates thought it was a swell idea, and the UFT participated in the MET program that enabled it all over these United States. But since VAM is based on nothing resembling science and has no validity whatsoever, the geniuses who enabled it decided to balance it with actual ratings from supervisors. Since VAM is pretty much a crap toss, and pretty much rates students rather than teaching, it's supposed to be objective. The subjective balance is the supervisor rating.

Of course, if your supervisor has an agenda counter to yours, hates you and everything you stand for, or gets peeved when you report her for grade-fixing, that part of your rating could end up swirling the bathroom bowl. In fact, the DOE recognized just such a case and has demanded that several poor ratings be reversed.

When the junk science APPR first came into effect, I complained loudly at a UFT meeting that it was nonsense. A district rep. I do not know get very angry with me. He said that if the principal gave him a bad rating, that maybe the test scores would bring his rating up. (That's unlikely since district reps teach only one class and are not included in junk science ratings.) I did not bother stating the obvious--that if his principal gave him a good rating, that maybe the scores would bring it down. The argument, though, endorsed a crap shoot for a high-stakes teacher rating. A colleague remarked it was akin to telling people to smoke cigarettes, because maybe they wouldn't get cancer.

But there is, in fact, a cancer in our system, and it is the high-stakes testing system Gates pushed, and we, the UFT and NYSUT, swallowed hook, line and sinker. It claimed another fatality last week but the casualties are too numerous to count, and are everywhere. Neither teachers nor supervisors ought to be in a position where they need to falsify test scores to satisfy nonsensical quotas.

But as long as we are, not only are the test scores unreliable, but the supervisor ratings are as well. For example, I am clearly a terrible teacher. My students, having arrived from every corner of the world yesterday, last week, or six months ago, don't even speak English. There is no question whatsoever but that they will fail every single English-based test they attempt. And since the tests have nothing whatsoever to do with the basic English I teach, there is no way I can ever get a good rating.

So what is my supervisor to do? If I get a good rating, if she thinks I'm a good teacher, she must be wrong because my kids failed the tests. If she gives me a bad rating, how are we to know she isn't just covering her own behind so as to shirk responsibility for the miserable test scores of my students?

Mulgrew defended the system to the DA, suggesting that those of us who criticized it, like me, like Diane Ravitch, were simple-minded and contrary, fretting that the sky was falling. After all, only a small percentage of us got poor ratings. There were a couple of points he forgot, though. One, of course, was the high stakes attached and that those with poor ratings were looking at job loss. Another was the consequence of the paucity of poor ratings, to wit, the draconian Cuomo/ Heavy Hearts plan facing the entire state. It was rolled out for the express purpose of firing more teachers, and if it fails it's likely as not we'll see an even worse plan.

The entire system stinks. The test scores are meaningless as to actual teacher quality, and the supervisors are under so much pressure to produce test scores that they simply cannot be objective. Can you imagine being a supervisor in a school with poor test scores and fighting for the careers of teachers whose kids got them? It would be like wearing a big red "Kick me" sign. Or, more likely a "Fire me" sign.

Rubrics most certainly do not guarantee objectivity, not for supervisors, not for teachers, and especially not for kids. It's insane to take all kids, no matter what learning disability, no matter what home environment, no matter whether or not they know English, and say, "You're 12 years old, and therefore must know A, B, and C." It's even more insane to say if the kids don't know A, B, and C that their teachers are incompetent and must be fired.

And yet now, in 2015, that is precisely where we find ourselves.

Another Fatality of Ed. "Reform"

Perhaps you've read the recent story of a NYC principal who committed suicide on the eve of being exposed for filling in answers on students' 2015 Common-Core NY State Exams.  Although the news is certainly dramatic, and you could view it as an isolated incident, it is not.  It is symptomatic of the gross failures of more than a decade of ed. "reform."

By promoting the idea that standardized tests, now aligned with the Common Core, are the best ways to measure students, and that the quality of teachers, administrators and schools can best be judged by these standardized tests, stupidity has been turned into a "science."  This stupidity fosters a sense of desperation and, ultimately, it destroys lives.

Desperation has exhibited itself in various forms.  Many experienced teachers have jumped at their first opportunity to retire.  And how many more might have chosen the 55-25 option several years back, if they only could have predicted the direction things were headed?   How many others might have turned to another profession twenty years back if they could have seen what was coming?  How can you blame anyone though for failing to predict that stupidity would be turned into a "science"--and their Union would appear to buoy the worst of it?  

Many teachers have thrown their arms up and quit.  The average years of experience now held by the average teacher has taken a dive.  Fewer people flock to the profession.  Others, stuck in the middle of their careers, wonder what changes will come with each passing year.  How much more stress will be thrown into a community built on nurturing young people and helping them become lifetime learners?  Who wants to be made to feel after a life of relative success that they are personally responsible for the failures of kids (some under-privileged and others over-privileged with time-consuming devices) with whom they spend forty minutes a day?  Who wants to feel a failure when the test questions, themselves, sometimes seem the work of frazzled brains?

Desperation exhibits itself when schools try to meet statistical goals.  Not many of us became teachers to try to manipulate statistics.  Grades must go up or schools will close down.  Remember Rhee's smiling face, handing out big checks to "miracle" teachers who helped kids' scores soar--albeit at the expense of an ungainly amount of erasures from wrong to right on student answer sheets? Remember Atlanta?  There are other reported cases in which schools seem to have fixed scores.  Doubtless, many more cases go unreported cases.  

Desperation exhibits itself when kids must be made to pass at any cost.  Classes are created to help kids recover credits.  Some of these classes may be legitimate, but far too many in the Bloomberg era seem excuses for manufacturing the wrong kind of "miracles."  Read about them online.  "Education Mayors" are apparently built on such stuff.  Teachers feel pressure to raise kids scores.  It is now more the responsibility of teachers to raise student scores than the students themselves.  How ironic!  Is it any wonder that cheating scandals--which used to involve just students--sometimes now involve teachers, principals and superintendents driven to acts of desperation?    

Given this new climate, teachers are forced to spend increasing amounts of time on prepping kids for tests.  Forget about textbooks, works of literature or newspapers.  When statistics are supreme, academics are out the door.  All you need these days are review books--and just the right ones.  Forget about projects to help the community.  Forget about focusing on current events.  Forget about it all, even though such things might make learning more meaningful to your students and possibly rebuild lives and/or the environment.   The school could be shut down for your idealism.  Get with the program!

So, while it is sad that a principal was driven by desperation to acts of dishonesty, it is no surprise.  Rather than face penalty and shame, she took her own life.  The recent example could only have been possible against the backdrop of ed. "reform."  Ed. "reform" is killing the teaching profession; it kills the will of some students to learn.  It closes schools, rips communities apart and, apparently, takes lives.  I would argue its long-range damage will be far more severe and, sadly, that damage remains to be seen.

Perdido--Fariña Unwittingly Admits VAM Is Invalid for All

Perdido Street School nails Carmen Fariña to her own words. Fariña thinks there should be an asterisk to so called highly effective teachers who move into renewal schools. After all, if they're highly effective at one place, how can they be developing or ineffective at another? If they do the same things, they should receive the same rating, Shouldn't they? Don't we have a rubric, and don't rubrics make everything equal all the time? Haven't we eliminated human error?

Well, of course we haven't, but that's the theory. The other part of the rating, of course, is test scores. Since students bear no responsibility for their test scores, since environment is not a factor at all, since home life has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not kids pass tests, and since parents play no role whatsoever in the behavior of their children, it's important that teachers be responsible for the test scores of their students.

And to take it a step further, since teacher assessments are meaningless, even though teachers are rated for assessments, we can only rely on standardized assessments. The only true way to determine how kids are doing is to use tests written by people who've never met the kids in question, and do not differentiate from kids in Scarsdale or Roosevelt. Because while teachers are regularly told to differentiate instruction, the assessments are all the same and may not be differentiated at all. That makes sense, doesn't it?

The main point Reality Based Educator at Perdido makes is this--if the "highly effective" teacher moves to a troubled school and has a rating drop because of the school population, isn't it just as possible that the "ineffective" teacher from a troubled school might move to a better performing one and be "highly effective?" That's a great point. I know a social studies teacher who told me his passing rate on one of the Regents exams tripled when he moved to my school. He said he used the same techniques, and even suggested he might have been slowing down due to his advancing age.

The problem, of course, is public perception. In the Times today there's a piece about how Bloomberg's reformy initiatives are thriving in Albany, where Andrew Cuomo is on sale to the highest bidder.  Students First NY, Families for Excellent Schools, and E4E are the multi-headed dragon funded by those who wish to eradicate union, degrade teachers and teaching, and privatize education so as to enrich their shadowy funders.

Once again, I'm struck by the ignorance of the Times reporter who says teacher unions oppose this stuff. In fact, we're in bed with the reformies. Randi Weingarten helped negotiate a whole lot of VAM-heavy contracts around the country. The UFT has its own charter schools, and has colocated buildings. The UFT, in fact, partnered with Gates and the MET program that was the predecessor to the junk science nonsense we're living through nationwide.

Union has potential. Fast food workers have finally achieved something in NY State by edging a little closer to a working wage. This is because they stood together even without union and made a national noise. If we teachers are going to make progress, we have to start moving forward rather than backward. We have to get out a message like that at Perdido rather than inviting Bill Gates to keynote our convention. We have to tell Hillary Clinton that we want her to support science rather than voodoo before we endorse her.

It's common sense. But as they say in Spanish, common sense is the least common of all the senses.

Governor Andy's Thumbs Are Up for Working People (And Also Down)

Governor Cuomo has a new TV commercial, praising himself for supporting the $15 minimum wage. Make no mistake, this is a good thing. But it's not an accurate thing. In fact, NYC workers will not have that wage until the end of 2018, and workers in the rest of the state won't see it until July 1, 2021.

The restaurant industry has chafed at these decisions. “We continue to say that we think it’s unfair that they singled out a single segment of our industry,” Melissa Fleischut, the executive director of the New York State Restaurant Association, said.

They have a point, actually. The raise applies only to fast food workers in chains with 30 or more outlets.  So if the Donald opens 29 Trumpburger outlets, too bad for the folks who work there. And if you're working at Target, well, too bad for you. Perhaps this will cause more competition, or perhaps the best people will be working at burger joints. No more will you ask for extra pickles and find olives instead.

But Cuomo is disingenuous as always. He isn't getting $15 anywhere for years, and he isn't getting it for everyone. Worse, Cuomo is a miserable representative of working people. If he cared about us, he would not be at war with teachers and taking millions of dollars from enemies of public education. He would not be talking about taking control of schools away from communities, particularly poorer communities whose children earn low test scores for the apparently unforgivable offense of being impoverished.

In fact, if Cuomo were to be a champion for working people, he wouldn't have mustered the audacity to compare himself to his dad--Mario Cuomo took a principled stand against capital punishment, a stance that likely cost him his job, while Andrew took one against the millionaire's tax. While it's a pretty nice thing Andy did for his wealthy contributors, it hardly helped working people, who would have to cover the difference. In fact, the same Andy Cuomo who boldly fought for the 15 bucks an hour some people may get in a few years, if this thing stands,  came into office as a Democrat wanting to go after unions.

For those of you unfamiliar with history, and for all the flaws in UFT, NYSUT, and AFT leadership, unions negotiate better wages for working people. The more this happens, the more other employers have to compete. Union membership has been declining since Saint Ronald Reagan came into office and broke PATCO, the only union that supported him. And if you don't think Andy Cuomo has a knife as big as Ronald Reagan's to stick in our collective back, you haven't been paying attention.

This is Andy Cuomo's big liberal calling card, his attempt to present himself as a champion for working people. The only working person Andy Cuomo is concerned with is Andy Cuomo, and the only reason he does any work at all is for the advancement and preservation of Andy Cuomo.

Sadly, this commercial may persuade some New Yorkers of his good intentions. And should that happen, it will only go to show that there's a sucker born every minute.

I Gave $350K to the Mayor and All I Got Was This Substandard Contract

Oh, the tangled web our union leadership leads. They insisted on endorsing Bill Thompson four years too late, after Michael Bloomberg reversed the twice-voiced will of the voters to buy himself a third term (and won by such a small margin our opposition might have made a difference).

To thank us for stabbing him in the back he'd carried our water for so long, Thompson told the Daily News the city couldn't afford to give teachers the raise NYPD, FDNY and most other unions got. But that was water under the bridge, and UFT went ahead and made yet another spectacular losing endorsement.

They pulled out all the stops for Bill Thompson, aggressively recruiting people for the call centers. They had some sort of process to determine the nomination, and they claimed it was democratic. It was very reminiscent of the AFT process that ended up nominating Hillary. But there's always something going on with UFT leadership.

Almost concurrently with our contract negotiations, AFT, at the behest of UFT President Michael Mulgrew, donated 350K to Mayor de Blasio's nonprofit, Campaign for One New York. The nonprofit then spent 350K on commercials that praised the mayor's having achieved his promise to bring pre-K to NYC kids. This, of course, happened without the tax on the wealthy the mayor had previously demanded to achieve it. It's a well-established scientific fact that wealthy people are more delicate than those of us who actually pay the taxes. For example, had they been required to pay to support children of the bootless and unhorsed, they'd have been at great risk of becoming brittle, falling down, and perhaps breaking their hair, or even other less visible parts of their anatomy.

Now the thing about this story that got the attention of the reporter was that Mulgrew negotiated a contract only two months after this large donation. There is the hanging implication that somehow MIchael Mulgrew bought off the mayor. After all, there are a lot of teachers and the contract cost a lot of money. We waited years for that contract, even after 150 other unions got theirs, as Mulgrew repeatedly reminded us in the appeal to fear he used to sell the contract. If we didn't take it, we'd have to get in line behind 150 other unions! And retro pay was not a God-given right! De Blasio didn't need to hire people to scare UFT members accepting two-tier due process, or a ten-year delay in payment. He had the President of the UFT doing it for him.

So let me be the first to defend our President. There was most certainly no quid pro quo. Otherwise, why would this contract be such a piece of crap? Why would I, a lowly teacher, be lending the city 50 thousand bucks interest free? I mean, what working person can afford to do such things? Well, thanks to Michael Mulgrew's ingenuity, tens of thousands of UFT members found a way.

And who cares if ATR teachers can be fired for, as Mulgrew suggested, shouting in the halls on two occasions? Who cares if arbitrators can fire ATR teachers for pretty much whatever after a one-day 3020a process? Who cares if they can be fired for missing two job interviews they may or may not even know about? Most teachers aren't ATRs anyway. And who cares about the unresolved payments into health care to be judged by an arbitrator if Mulgrew's financial projections prove inadequate? What's the big deal if we lose the paltry increases we gained (or more)? Nothing's written in stone, and we haven't even bothered to write up an actual contract yet.

Personally, I do not believe Michael Mulgrew had any quid pro quo. If he had, our contract would have been more like the 4 plus 4 no giveback contract other unions got. If he had, we would not have foisted a 10% over 7 years pattern, the worst in my living memory, on our brother and sister unionists.

I wasn't born yesterday. I know there are quid pro quo deals in politics. But any implication that our union leadership indulges in such things is patently false. Unlike LGBT and immigrant groups, we didn't bother to extract any concessions from Barack Obama before we endorsed him in 2012. And indeed, if you don't believe that, just look at the shoddy and disrespectful treatment we've received from corporate stooge Arne Duncan for his entire tenure. I've seen no evidence we extracted any concessions from corporation-rich Hillary Clinton for our early endorsement either.

I absolutely believe we received nothing for our infusion of cash into Bill de Blasio's nonprofit. I absolutely believe we received nothing for our support of Barack Obama, and I'm further confident we will once again receive nothing for our support of Hillary Clinton.

That's one of the biggest reasons we need new union leadership.

The Worst Advice Ever

As NY State scrambles to follow the mandates of charter-owned Governor Andrew Cuomo and his Heavy-Hearted Assembly, everyone wonders how the hell NYC will deal with the specter of receivership. The geniuses who crafted this bill decided that if a lot of kids failed tests, it was because the teachers suck and the schools suck. Factors like the poverty infesting each and every district in which low test scores occur meant nothing. So what if it happened without exception? Haven't you ever heard of coincidence?

Who cares if the kids are learning disabled or don't speak English? Let's fire those lazy teachers, get all that school money into private hands, and feel better about ourselves.

And when I read articles like this one, I'm struck by how little even very good writers seem to know about our history. I mean, sure we're not closing schools, which was like shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic to escape the water. Instead we're getting rid of the teachers:

More than half the staffs at both schools will be gone by this fall; 67 percent of the staff at Boys and Girls were either not rehired for their positions or left voluntarily, and 58 percent of staff at Automotive are not returning.

Ask yourself this--how many times have we turned over a staff, left the kids in place, and changed the test grades? To my knowledge, the answer is never. For example, reformy Steve Barr, after befriending and then firing most of its staff, failed utterly in his bid to turn around a notorious LA high school.. So for UFT and de Blasio to place their reps on it, in my view, is shortsighted at best. For one thing, should they fail, they will be turning over our schools to MaryEllen Elia, a tool to carry out whatever the hell Cuomo's deep-pocketed owners need carrying out.

I think they will fail. There is, in fact, no research, no practice, and no precedent for their success. Imagine, though, if they do not fail. Should that happen, they will have lent credence to the teacher-bashing, union-hating lunatics who attack us relentlessly, who hate us and everything we stand for. They will let potential teachers know that it is simply not worth the risk to teach high-needs children like those I serve.

The most outrageous statement I see in this story, though, is this one:

Major teacher turnover in dozens of schools is not an initiative that most would associate with the U.F.T. But Joseph Viterriti, a professor of education policy at the CUNY Graduate Center, said this could be an occasion for the union to flaunt its progressive credentials.

“The smart thing [for the union] to do is to come up with ideas that say ‘we’re for reform,’” Viteritti said. “It’s more likely to happen with a mayor they trust than it would have been in the past. This could be that moment where something really positive happens.”

I'm not sure whether or not Professor Viterriti has picked up a newspaper over the last ten years, but hey, why should a professor of education policy need to follow what goes on in education anyway? First of all, New York suffered through 12 years of Bloomberg "reform," and what have we got to show for it besides 62 schools in line for state takeover?  Perhaps Viterriti is unaware that UFT has supported mayoral control, charter schools, co-location, failed quasi-merit pay, and the Absent Teacher Reserve. Perhaps he doesn't know we've supported the abolition of seniority placement. Maybe no one has told him that we helped write legislation that got teachers rated by junk science, or that we approved Reformy John King as an impartial arbiter to determine our version of APPR.

Perhaps Viterriti doesn't know that there is no basis to suggest these "reforms" will work. And why should he? Even in the unlikely event that he did read the newspapers, there's very little in them to suggest these are arbitrary procedures with no track record whatsoever.

But let's forget about Viterriti and look at ourselves. In fact, we have an extraordinary track record of saying, "We're for reform." Wasn't it us who invited Gates and his MET program into our schools? Wasn't that the basis for the junk science ratings he's now inflicted on almost the entire country? In fact, didn't the AFT invite Gates to be keynote speaker at its convention? Didn't every UFT Unity loyalty oath signer applaud? Didn't former UFT President Randi Weingarten ridicule those who protested Gates from the podium?

Here's why stating, "We're for reform," is the worst advice ever. First of all, as I've pointed out, we've said it over and over. More importantly, the results of such statements, even if they've gotten us a "seat at the table," have been nothing short of catastrophic. We give them an inch, and they sue us to take away our tenure. We give them another, and they go to SCOTUS to demand we allow freeloading in our union. It is outright ridiculous to suggest anything UFT does will appease its critics. If you're reading this, President Mulgrew, be advised our critics want nothing less than

a. our total destruction
b. our utter irrelevance,
c. our total capitulation, or most likely
d. all of the above.

I understand what politicians mean when they advise not to negotiate with terrorists. The principle here is very much the same.

You Don't Need No Stinking English

I continue to be gobstruck by the idiotic nonsense that passes for leadership in NYSED. Someone told me yesterday about a DOE employee who did not believe in standalone ESL. This person self-represented as an expert. This is incredible to me, as I've been teaching ESL for decades and do not consider myself an expert. I know experts, though, and I've read experts.

The notion that my class exists so that kids can do better in core classes is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard in my entire life. The notion that it's expendable brings the stupid to a level I had not yet contemplated. Now it is possible to squeeze English instruction into subject classes. With time, it may even be a good idea.

But learning a language is very much like learning to read. This is what self-declared ESL experts cannot get through their incredibly thick heads. You want people to love the language, not dread it. You therefore focus on high-interest materials. You personalize things so that students can express themselves immediately. You focus on the practical. Once they love the language, you will be far more successful in asking them to read an essay about ancient history, or whatever it is you wish the students to know about.

I'm a good reader. I often am asked to plod through the UFT Contract to find this or that. For me, this is a necessary task. It's not something I jump up and down thrilled about. But it has to be done and I can do it. The reason I can do it is not, with all due respect to David Coleman, because I started reading contracts when I was six years old. The reason is because I grew up reading comic books.

I graduated to reading paperbacks my parents left lying around the house, and eventually learned what sort of books really did appeal to me. In fact, the picture above happens to be the book I'm reading right now. Doubtless David Coleman would think I'm wasting my time, and that it would be better-invested perusing The History of Cement. Here's the thing, though--I'm not much inspired by humorless pedants. Nor are my students, or most kids their age.

By utilizing Common Core, by constricting reading to non-fiction, dry and tasteless, we are consigning our children to dislike reading. We are doing then a huge disservice, conscripting them to academic careers of rigor and grit rather than joy and inspiration.

By taking this same moronic philosophy and applying it to the acquisition of the language I love, we are increasing the possibility that newcomers will not love our language, or that they will at least hate school. I think kids should love school, and that newcomers should love English.

That's why I oppose Common Core, even at risk of being punched in the face, and that's why I will fight for the right of the kids I serve to get an education that acknowledges and celebrates everything we know about language acquisition.   

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.

Working for Free--Another Charter "Innovation"

Some charter schools are looking to unionize. That's not a bad thing, and I'm certain it would benefit not only the teachers, but also the students. I'm not remotely persuaded that people living in fear of being fired for a bad haircut are the best role models with which we can provide our children. Nor do I want our children to grow up and be in jobs like those.

For those of you who hope we lose Friedrichs so you can save a few bucks on union dues, take a gander at the thought processes of non-union bosses:

I spoke with someone, and he articulated the core of the tensions quite well. He said, “look, if KIPP decides that teaching on a Saturday is what’s best for the kids, and that’s going to get the best result, then they should just be able do that without having to go through a teachers union and negotiate and/or pay them more to do so.” I think that’s the core of these issues, which is that you can do all these things, but should you have to actually engage with these workers to make these decisions?

In other words, why should we have to pay people to work? Why can't we just tell them, "If you don't come in Saturday, don't come in Monday." Why should they have to negotiate anything? Why should working people have any voice at all? I'm pretty surprised that anyone who cared in the least for school employees would take an attitude like that, but even in charters that are unionized, it's apparently not uncommon.

@TeacherArthurG @rweingarten @UFT @uftacts @AFTunion that's what they say at bargaining table all the time

— Miles Trager (@TragerUFT) July 19, 2015

Now in fairness, when negotiating with management, it's your job to get as much as possible and theirs to pay as little as possible. But regardless of what you think of union contract negotiations, I wouldn't think there was an expectation of people working for free. It's very hard for me to accept that as a charter "innovation." It's not all that innovative to move labor back to the 19th century, at least not in my view.

But when you get in bed with dogs, you wake up with fleas. Here's a little flaw in the article:

And if you happen to think of teachers unions at some point during this education policy reverie, you’ll probably have them in the role they’re traditionally assigned by the media — as anti-charter and anti-reform. Just like Israelis and Palestinians, Crips and Bloods, Yankees and Red Sox, teachers unions and the charter movement simply don’t like each other. That’s just the way it is.

Actually, it isn't. UFT and AFT have supported charters and enabled this situation. UFT has gone so far as to open a few charter schools and indulge in the colocation so many of us find odious. The article also indulges in this nonsense:

A powerful narrative that has developed over the past decade and a half says that the reason we have these great disparities in our education system — huge, growing gaps between the rich and poor; etc. — is in large part because of bad teachers in the classrooms and the teachers unions fighting to keep bad teachers in the classrooms. So both liberals and conservatives have seen charter schools as a way in which they can either weaken the power of teachers unions, or just bypass teachers unions altogether.

It's remarkable that all the so-called bad schools full of so-called bad teachers are located in areas full of high poverty, high needs, or more likely both.  By ignoring that, someone's headed for failure, and inevitably schools and teachers will be blamed. I'm a bad teacher because my students, who speak no English, get low test scores. How many of my students could pass the Success Academy assessments? How many beginning ESL students do they accept? How many alternate assessment kids do they take? I'd wager zero. Therefore, there are no bad teachers like me.

Let me be very direct--lack of English is not a defect to be corrected. These are children, not defective used cars, and it's our job to help and guide them. We take everyone. That is not a flaw, but rather a quality to be emulated. It's pretty easy to pick and choose kids, eliminate the ones who don't work out, and then call yourselves geniuses because you got higher test scores. Oddly, a whole lot of charters cannot even manage that.

Charters are a band-aid on a gaping wound. If we really want the best for our kids, we'll help all of them, and that includes making sure they don't grow up in misery and poverty. It worked out very well in Finland.

Why can't we model our system on one that works, rather than one that puts more money into the pockets of the likes of Eva Moskowitz?

PROSE and Cons Part 2--Return of the Strawman

I had no idea the PROSE programs entailed enabling higher class sizes until the other day when Leonie Haimson tweeted it to Randi Weingarten. Leo Casey is consistently attentive to and protective of Randi, and I told Leonie he would claim she opposed teacher empowerment. I knew this because when my friend Julie Cavanagh opposed the latest substandard UFT Contract, that was exactly what he told her.

A few hours later, voila!

@leoniehaimson @TeacherArthurG @pfh1964 @lanecindy1234 @rweingarten Shame that u attack PROSE that empowers teachers to make positive change

— Leo Casey (@LeoECasey) July 19, 2015

When you misrepresent your opponent's argument, that's called a strawman fallacy. Leonie did not, in fact, say teachers shouldn't be empowered. Nor did Julie. When you oppose a contract containing an agreement for two-tier due process, when you oppose an agreement to wait an extra decade for the raise most unions got before 2010, when you disagree that ATRs should be fired for missing two interviews about which they may or may not be aware, it doesn't mean you oppose teacher empowerment. Who wants to be empowered in that fashion? Not me.

I certainly support teacher empowerment. As far as class size, it would be great to be able to dictate smaller class sizes. Because of what I teach, I've had classes ranging from 15 to the contractual max. In fact, I've had classes up to 50 in ESL, back when I was new and didn't know any better. I've also taught classes of 50 as a music teacher. I know about big classes, and I know about small classes. Class size matters.

Leonie Haimson also thinks class size matters, which is why she's an advocate for public school parents and students. That's pretty much her job. She wanted to know why the School Leadership Team of parents, admin, teachers and students didn't get a vote.

@leoniehaimson @pfh1964 @TeacherArthurG @lanecindy1234 @rweingarten @UFT Just curious Is there one real parent in school who has criticized?

— Leo Casey (@LeoECasey) July 19, 2015

This is pretty interesting. Just last week, Leo was angry at those of us who opposed the Hillary nomination. There was a scientific survey, he said, and we were questioning the results. I still haven't seen the survey, or the pool from which it was given, but how dare I? This week things were different. The fact is, parents do not get a vote on SBOs, be they PROSE or otherwise.

Leo harped on this quite a bit. Evidently, if there is a poll or a vote, you are not to question it. That's the way it is. If you don't accept it, well, you think only you and your friends should make the decision and you therefore don't believe in democracy. If there is not a poll or a vote, however, it's on you to actually find out how people feel, all by yourself.  The standing assumption, evidently, is UFT leadership is always right no matter what. But you know what? There was a vote. In fact, there were several, and they all said the same thing.

.@LeoECasey @TeacherArthurG @pfh1 @rweingarten reducing class size #1 priority of NYC parents in DOE surveys; sorry if @UFT doesn't agree

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) July 19, 2015

Now you could assume, from what I say, that I oppose SBOs. Someone did.

There's one in my school this year. I'm pleased to tell you it passed at 97%. @rweingarten @UFT

— Arthur Goldstein (@TeacherArthurG) July 19, 2015

I most certainly do not oppose SBOs. Nor do I oppose teacher empowerment. Like Leonie, I oppose unreasonably large class sizes. If you want to empower teachers, give them the option to have smaller class sizes, even if the city has to pay for it. Don't tell me the only way to reduce what is already the highest class size in the state for some is to dump others into lecture-style classes. Don't tell me that some kids need attention and others do not.

Here's a fact--class size limits have remained the same in NYC for over 50 years, and class sizes themselves have been rising for 8 years. They are at a 15-year high in early grades. While UFT leadership devotes valuable lip service to it from time to time, they have done absolutely nothing to change it. I think some parts of the contract ought not to be messed with. In particular, class size ought to be inviolate. It's too high already.

Looking over some of these PROSE proposals, I note that it may be the teacher's option to teach oversized classes. That is simply a terrible idea. Can you imagine being a probationary teacher and having the principal ask you whether or not you want to teach an oversized class? What are you gonna say? In fact, given the terror many of us feel at the junk science evaluation system, which tenured teacher wants to face that?

There is a good reason why the chapter leader is given the task of grieving oversized classes. Once, I filed a grievance over them, and an administrator approached me. She said she asked Mr. Smith which kid he wanted removed from his class, and he said he wanted all of them to stay. What should she do? I told her it was not my problem, and it was not Mr. Smith's problem either. She overloaded the class, and it was on her to fix it.

When the chapter leader takes care of it, you don't have to pick which kid leaves your class. And you can't be made to feel guilty about it. Furthermore, you don't have to worry about the principal asking you for a waiver so he can dump extra kids in your class. You don't need to be put in the position of having to turn down his request to add students to what is already the highest class size in NY State.

Make no mistake--that is teacher empowerment. Allowing for exceptions to an already inadequate rule is precisely the opposite.

The Looney Tunes of Educational Deformity

So, what's your biggest surprise and saddest realization in this era of educational deformity?  Has it been that the likes of Michelle Rhee blame teachers for poverty in America?  Or, that a lady who taped students' mouths shut to the point of bleeding could become a corporate-backed spokeswoman for educational "reform"?  Has it been that schools--which need to be places of nurture and comfort for the well-being of society--have turned into engines of stress, demoralizing students and turning teachers from the profession.

Has it been that over-brained technocrats concoct supposedly scientific formulas to measure teachers based on student test scores--which common sense tells us is nonsense?  Has it been that test companies profit immensely by trying to sell the idea that test scores are minorities' tickets to freedom?  Or, that two-faced "reformers" in ivory towers refuse to send their kids to schools that preach their own gospel?  Is it that some people, short on humanity, think music, art and physical ed. should be slashed to make room for more test prep?

In my mind, although all of these things bother me immensely, the biggest surprise, and the saddest realization, is that, too many times, my Union has been a part of the problem.  Instead of working exclusively for the interests of my profession, at critical junctures, it has abandoned me and my peers.  It oversaw the creation of a two-tier system by which older teachers, working with underprivileged kids might become long-term ATRs, scapegoats writ large.  It set up its own charters with big help from the Broad Foundation and Steve Barr, even engaging, itself, in a hostile co-location.  It championed Bill Gates and his Common Core.  It originally gave us twenty-two domains from hell to supposedly "gum up" all of our works, complemented by test-based junk science.  And, it staunchly defends the annual testing that sucks so much joy out of teaching and learning. Our Union seems an entity separate from teachers with interests which differ markedly at times from our own.

But with a system set up so the ruling party in the U.F.T., Unity, doesn't need to please its rank and file, why would anyone expect anything different?  Unity has guaranteed its stranglehold on power by blatant and ongoing manipulation of the political process.  When high-school teachers elected a non-Unity rep, Unity changed the rules to make the position at large.  When fear set in that chapter leaders might elect non-Unity district reps., the position became an appointment.  In anticipation of the 2013 elections, Unity raised the weight of retiree votes--when most unions do not allow retirees to vote at all.  There is nothing subtle here.  If I am wrong or unfair in these statements, someone please put me right.  I would like nothing more.  It's depressing.

Instead of worrying about the fact that only eighteen percent of active members voted in 2013, Unity rejoiced in its victory.  Retirees made up 52% of the total vote.  In a winner-take-all system, Unity squelches some of the City's most intelligent, but independent-thinking pro-Union voices.  It squelches the voices of smaller locals on Long Island and upstate.  It squelches voices through its sway in NYSUT and the AFT.

When 750-800 Unity members all promise to vote the same way for their meal ticket, specifically as told, even if not told the specifics of what they're voting for, you can join Leo Casey in calling it "parliamentary democracy" (surely not a loyalty oath, for that term is offensive to leadership!) or you can see it symptomatic of a potentially fatal sickness.  I see it as the latter.

So, what will the Unity "yes" men and women say if the Supreme Court rules against Unions in the Friedrichs case?  What will they say when so many of the rank and file no longer think it worthwhile to pay their salaries--and, that independent opposition is among the few who truly understand the importance of a Union?

What will those who banked on advancing themselves, "professionally and politically," out of the classroom via their Union say?  What will all those people who fervently defend a patently non-representative system say when it's farewell to their double-pensioned jobs with pretty perks?  It will be full speed ahead with the propaganda engines, but they'll probably fail to realize that they--or the system they upheld--were part of the problem.  They'll probably fail to realize that they failed to adequately represent their constituency.  They'll probably fail to realize that a great many people fail to feel any connection with them or feel any particular fondness.  They'll probably fail to realize that "parliamentary democracy," Unity-style, hasn't worked.  Sadly, it may be too late for Unionism.