What Is a Regent?

A Regent is a person.  I'm capitalizing it because when I use it, I'm referring the the Regents from NY State. The word itself may have other meanings. From the dictionary:

re·gent

ˈrējənt/

noun

noun: regent; plural noun: regents

1. 1.

   a person appointed to administer a country because the monarch is a minor or is absent or incapacitated.
2. 2.

   North American

   a member of the governing body of a university or other academic institution.

Under definition two, there is a Board of Regents in Albany, and they deal with education. Betty Rosa, for example, is a Regent. In fact, she's the Chancellor of the Regents. Take a look at her. You see? She has eyes. She has a nose and a mouth. And though they are somewhat veiled by hair (which she also has), she has ears as well. I've actually spoken to her, and she's responded. For me, that's proof enough she has ears, whether or not they are actually visible.

A test, approved by the Regents, is a Regents exam. It is not a Regent. If it were, it would talk. Perhaps it would even make sense. A Regents exam may or may not do the latter, but as far as I know, it cannot do the former. For one thing, a Regents exam does not have a mouth, or ears, or any of that other stuff I've attributed to Betty Rosa.

I first heard the word regent used to describe a test from an administrator whose knowledge of standard English is questionable at best. As he was not in my beginning ESL class, his usage was not my immediate concern. I therefore thought it best to ignore it. But then an administrator who seems perfectly lucid used it. When I presented her with the issue, she  told me this usage emanated from DOE, which used it regularly in correspondence I'm grateful I need not read.

The English language is not dead, and therefore it evolves. It changes as people use it. But when people misuse it out of sheer laziness or an overarching assumption that rules do not apply to them it's kind of disconcerting. It's especially disconcerting when it's misused by people who ought to know better, like educators for example.

Don't misunderstand me. I have very low expectations for members of the New York City Department of Education. I can't say I'm surprised when they misuse language. After all, logic has been an object they've uniformly reviled every since they changed their name and became the embodiment of reforminess.

They're certainly entitled to think lazily and dishonestly. They can certainly close schools and decimate neighborhoods. They can take good teachers and make them long-term ATRs. They can stand up, in front of God and everybody, and declare, "It's a beautiful day," when there are five feet on the ground and it takes five hours to drive twenty miles. They can endorse programs called "fair student funding," that prevent veteran teachers from teaching, and they can award less than 100% of the funding they deem "fair" to a whole lot of schools.

But they don't get to alter the English language, not deliberately, and not out of sheer lazy thinking either, unless of course we let them. I say we don't.

What say you?

The Paradox of the UFT Voice

I'm going back and forth with Norm Scott over attending the AFT convention in Minneapolis this summer. I think I'm going, and I think it's going to be pretty expensive. Of course, while I shoulder my own expenses, I'm also covering the cost of 800 UFT rubber stamps who will go there and do Any Damn Thing They're Told. Now there's a price they pay for that trip, and that price is their voice. But voice is not important to those 800, or they wouldn't go.

You see, here's the thing. Certainly I find it outrageous to be among the very few people elected by New York City high schools and yet be shut out of AFT, NYSUT, and NEA, all of whom collect my dues notwithstanding. But I do have options. One would be to join the Unity Caucus. Now I'll grant you no one has asked me to do that, but that's because I write this blog every day and spare no one my opinion. I have no doubt had I simply been elected chapter leader of the largest school in Queens I'd have received an invite.

But what's the price for joining Unity Caucus? The price, very simply, is your voice. If you're a follower of Diane Ravitch, and you believe that value added adds no value, you can't be a member of Unity Caucus and say that. After all, didn't Michael Mulgrew come back from creating the original APPR law and boast he had a hand in writing it? If you've signed a loyalty oath you can't just come out and say what a bunch of crap that is. Now a few years back, when leadership vociferously opposed judging teachers by test scores you could have, but once they decided their seat at the table was dependent on junk science, well, so was yours, and you had to believe otherwise.

The UFT transfer plan was a great thing, and the UFT even said so when it initiated it. I was for it, because it got me away from an abusive and self-serving supervisor. And so was UFT Unity. But in 2005, their position evolved, and they decided it was better to close schools and dump teachers into the ATR. Of course, if you were in UFT Unity you had to support that, even though it directly contradicted the last thing you supported. Because that's the price of admission into the elite, invitation only Unity Caucus. Members support Any Damn Thing They're Told.

So what's in a voice? Would it sound the same by any other name? Well actually it doesn't matter what it sounds like. Of all the 800 people we're shipping to Minneapolis, none of them have a voice. They will vote as they are told, assemble when they are told, and shut the hell up when they are told. They will represent the interests of their members if told to do so, and represent any other damn thing if told to do that.

I can't join Unity and sign a loyalty oath because leadership frequently acts against the interests of my members. I can't say it's good for them to be judged on a cookie-cutter rubric when there are better ways. And sure, the UFT can toss out the strawman that those of us who oppose junk science want 100% of an observation in the hands of administrators. But if administrators are so bad that observation reports are improved by the addition of random junk science, the problem is decidedly not the observation system. It's time for the UFT to get active identifying and trying to remove supervisors who are insane. Why should teachers be the only ones to enjoy the thrill of having targets painted on our backs?

Now UFT leadership can huddle together at 52 Broadway and plot and scheme how to keep working teachers from influencing their plans to get that coveted seat at the table. Or they can invite us in and let us use our voice to save our profession. Either way, my opinion is not for sale, nor should anyone's be. If UFT Unity really believed in Unity, they'd take down the wall they use to keep us out, and value the fact that we are not restricted by ridiculous oaths to speak as we are told.

Either way we will follow them where they go and represent our members. Because that is, in fact, our job. Too bad our leaders don't agree.

But they might come around, one way or another. And if there is any way on earth, we're gonna find it.

Imagine Help for Newcomers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Medals of Honor

One of the things you get to do when you're a chapter leader is distribute UFT award certificates. At years end, you get a pile of them in the mail for various subject areas and you have to find people who will give them out. There are a few, though, that you get directly from your district rep, and they come with medals. I figure since I spend all year doing this job it ought to be my students who receive the medals.

But there are more complications of late. Beginning last year, the certificates were available online. So instead of saying, "Sorry, that's all there are," you have to say, "Well, if you can find me some parchment paper I'll print more for you." Last year I printed so many for others that I never got a chance to give out my own. So here I was with four medals this year. I gave away three of them, to three girls from three different countries.

The first was to a girl who was very quiet, but always tuned in. I couldn't count on her to jump up and do the things that Charlotte Danielson has orgasms over, but she was always right there. I think she was taught not to volunteer or interrupt, and no amount of encouragement from me or observations of others was going to alter that. I also felt that she probably didn't receive a lot of acknowledgement from others, so I thought it would be a good idea to change that. She was completely surprised by it, and had no idea why it was coming. She asked me what it was for, and I told her it was for being an excellent student. Perhaps she was the most traditionally excellent, having the best grades of anyone I chose.

My second award went to a girl whose average was in the eighties, but who really did excel in less traditional ways. One thing I really love to see in my students is a willingness to interact with anyone from any background. This girl thrived on that. She was happy to be with people who spoke her language, but equally happy to be with anyone who spoke any language. This made her an excellent English learner, and I think also makes her well-equipped to deal with college, work, or pretty much any situation that should come her way. She also has a real joy for living, evident in her smile and pretty much everything she does. This meant whenever she did group work, which was usually an excuse to make students talk, talk they did. It may or may not have been on topic, but her groups were always lively.

The third plastic gold-medal winner went to a girl who always interacted with speakers of other languages. Now sure, this was largely because no one else in the group actually spoke her language, but that worked very well for her. She was always jumping up and down and volunteering to do absolutely whatever. She would show up for first period ten or fifteen minutes early and either talk to me or study furiously for whatever test she was taking. She also had test grades in the eighties, but showed me something that I thought would work for her wherever she went in the future.

This girl did something that none of the others did. While she was happy to have received the award for herself, she came to me the next day lobbying for why a friend of hers ought to also receive it. I won't go into why I disagree absolutely with her, but I'm very impressed that she's thinking of someone other than herself. This is a quality I really cherish, and something I don't see that frequently in young people. In fact, I don't see it at all enough in adults.

Now I wish I could tell you that she learned this quality from me, but I very much doubt that to be the case. I loved seeing that in her, and love it even more because it was so unexpected. This girl will one day do great things not only for herself, but for others as well.

NY State Senate Thinks Mayoral Control Is Gubernatorial Control

I'm really pretty gobstruck by this story. For the 12 longest years of my life, Michael Bloomberg had mayoral control. This basically meant Michael Bloomberg could do what he wanted, when he wanted, how he wanted, and as much as he wanted. The three-year-old child in him must have been thrilled. No more of that ridiculous democracy impeding him getting things his way, and no more communities voting in people who thought they should have control over the schools in their communities.

But then, after Bloomberg bought himself a third term against the twice-voiced will of the people, he couldn't or wouldn't purchase a fourth. And the people of New York rose up and voted for a mayor who was against charter schools. Of course, Andy Cuomo, who took tons of cash from charter schools, wasn't having any of it, so he passed a law, applicable only in New York City, that said we had to pay rent for the charters we didn't want. This, of course, was after they tried to pass a bill killing seniority rights for teachers in New York City only.

Anyway, Governor Andy's BFFs in the State Senate decided they'd offer mayoral control to de Blasio, that hippie commie weirdo, for only one year. But it was important that he have an "inspector" so that Cuomo could question every move he made in case it weren't reformy enough. And waddya know, this bill would sunset in a year so that Bill de Blasio could interrupt campaigning to beg Andy, who hates his guts, to renew it again.

You know it's funny how little faith people have in all the We, the People stuff nowadays. I mean, Bill de Blasio could stand up and say that the people who, you know, actually patronize the schools ought to have a voice in how they're run. That's what I think, and that's why I oppose mayoral control. Of course I also oppose it because it's really designed to circumvent democracy and allow the reformies to do Whatever They Damn Well Please with our students. That's why I really wish de Blasio would let it go.

But Andy Cuomo wants to make it worse. You see, what with all that money Andy takes from Moskowitz BFFs, he wants to make sure that de Blasio, who was overwhelmingly elected, doesn't get to actually do what he promised he would when elected. Essentially mayoral control is absolute. The mayor gets the last word and that's it, no questions asked. Unless the mayor doesn't do what Eva Moskowitz wants in which case Daddy comes to the classroom and embarrasses you every time you make a decision.

Now if Andrew Cuomo gave a golly gosh darn about We, the People, he'd create something other than the ridiculous PEP, where the public gets to say a few words and the fake school board then does whatever the mayor has told it to. But what Andrew Cuomo cares about is Andrew Cuomo, and he wants everyone under his thumb, not just We, the People, but also He, Bill de Blasio.

As far as Andrew Cuomo is concerned, We, the People, can go straight to hell. And frankly, it serves us right for allowing such a megalomaniacal, narcissistic, self-serving, self-centered, grasping, juvenile windbag to be our governor. Mayoral control was always a mistake, and the best outcome here would be its expiration. I won't mourn it.

Changing the UFT Constitution

New York State will put up a Constitutional Convention next year. I oppose it, and my union leadership will oppose it too. It should be clear that changing the constitution is a big deal. For one thing, all of us in public service work toward our pensions, and few of us want someone like Andy Cuomo to take away what we've worked for all our lives. But if it's passed, he could do that, and maybe pass on the savings to his BFF Eva Moskowitz to build charter schools. So UFT will fight it, and I'll support that fight.

After all, it's about what's best for the people, not what's best for Andy Cuomo, whatever he may say otherwise. And what's best for the people, in my opinion at least,  is democracy. I may have written recently about how I'm a fan of democracy, and as such, I kind of feel those of us in high schools should, you know, select our own vice president.

I thought we on the Executive Board could make UFT vote on that, you know, either for or against democracy, but it turns out, I'm hearing,  that you need a third of the Executive Board to vote on that, because it would entail a change to the UFT Constitution. That would be tough to pull off with all but seven of us beholden to UFT Unity via loyalty oath. And after all, UFT opposes drastic constitutional changes.

That is, unless they themselves make them. In that case, all bets are off. They did indeed change the constitution once they got rid of that upstart New Action VP Mike Shulman. If they had not done that, James Eterno would now be the Academic Vice President of the United Federation of Teachers. In fact, the only reason to have changed the constitution would have been to ensure that an opposition party not take that office. The fact that high school teachers could no longer choose their Vice President was of no consequence to UFT Unity.

It's disappointing, because I thought it would be a good idea to have the Delegate Assembly express whether it was for or against democracy. Now all we can do is ask the Executive Board whether or not they they support a vote to enable democracy. And if the Unity loyalty oath signers determine that a vote to enable democracy is not in the best interests of UFT Unity, high school teachers will continue to be utterly disenfranchised among UFT officers.

So, in short, changing constitutions is a dangerous practice, unless it's in the best interests of UFT Unity. Then it's fine. And of course we all support democracy because it is after all a fundamental social justice issue. Unless it's for high school teachers, who don't vote the way UFT Unity wants them to. In that case, they can all go to hell and they get no representation whatsoever among UFT officers.

And for good measure, despite the great honor of permitting us to pay dues, NYC high school teachers get no representation in AFT or NYSUT either. Except perhaps a few board members and blogs. I'll keep you posted.

Never Been to Minneapolis

Jonathan mentions that he's going to the AFT Convention in Minneapolis this July.  I'm thinking of going along too. I mean, after all, I pay dues to this organization that help support it. I ought to have a voice. Of course I won't, as the only UFT members allowed to participate will be members of the Unity Caucus. Each and every one of them has signed an oath to vote as they are instructed.

A couple of years ago they went elsewhere, and Michael Mulgrew told the whole world that if anyone laid a finger on his much-cherished Common Core he'd punch their faces and push them in the dirt. This, I suppose, was in response to the CTU's insistence on opposing things that actively hurt teachers and children. When I pointed out how ridiculous that was, Unity apologists said, more or less, "You see? You don't like it when he stays silent and you don't like it when he gets passionate either."

Actually I'm fine with passion. I'd just like to see it used to fight for things we all need, like smaller class sizes, less testing, and better education. Common Core achieves exactly None of the Above. And in fairness, while I'd like to see him work actively to eradicate it, Mulgrew is no longer speaking in support of Common Core.

Here's the thing, though. Along with half a dozen others from MORE/ New Action, I've just been elected by New York City high schools to represent them. We are, in fact, the only people the high schools elected. They chose us to be their voice, and that we shall, in UFT.

But every single AFT rep was chosen "at large." That means that elementary, middle school, retirees, functional chapters, nurses, and who knows who else made this choice. So my question is this--who represents the dues-paying high school teachers at the AFT convention our dues support?

And the answer is crystal clear--no one whatsoever. The UFT reps will vote as a bloc, in any damn way they are told to. The concerns that moved high school teachers to choose us shall be ignored utterly.

Is there any reason why our voices shouldn't be heard at AFT? We high school teachers represent more members than those in many NYSUT-affiliated unions. If fact, my school itself is as large as some. Why are we paying dues to NYSUT and AFT if we have no voice whatsoever?

I may go anyway, because it will be really easy to blog as a UFT Executive Board member shut out of the convention. I can specifically identify all the things that happen in which we have no voice.

And I guess I can see the house that Mary Tyler Moore pretended to live in when she did that great TV show many, many years ago.

Threats and Schools

What do you do when a kid threatens you? It's tough to answer, since the DOE doesn't appear to take threats against teachers seriously enough to merit more than a five-day suspension. What did the student say?

“I’m going to beat the s-t out of you,” Ghastin quoted him as yelling. “I’m a boxer, so I can ­really f-k you up.”

Doesn't sound all that collegial, does it? What do you say to something like that? According to the article, what this teacher said was, “If you hit me, I’ll kill you.”

Now that's a clear threat, and under CR A-421 you can be disciplined for it. On the other hand, if the events in the story are reported correctly, this is an excited utterance blurted out in self-defense. One of the things I found oddest about the story was that it seems to have worked. Would it have been better to say let's sit down and talk about it? What would've happened? I don't know, and I don't suppose we ever will.

On one snowy day, I had a guy in Brooklyn object to the way I parked.  I was going to tell him to go to hell, but then he claimed to be a cop, and showed me his gun. I didn't ask for his police ID, and I didn't argue or object. I just nodded, got in my car and moved the hell away from there.

You can't really know what you're going to do in a situation like that until you face it. I once had a student offer to blow my head off with a 45 at my school. He was a little upset because he walked into my classroom and I'd told him in no uncertain terms to get out. For whatever reason, I didn't actually expect him to follow through, so I guess I wasn't feeling the same thing as the teacher in the story. I did a little legwork, identified him, and reported him. He was a special education student, and the school did absolutely nothing beyond calling his parents, telling me he was brain damaged. I told them that I didn't think any kid who walks around threatening to kill people belonged in the same building with my students. But I was overruled. 

Meanwhile, the teacher in the Post story sits in a rubber room, and the kid goes back to class.

I'm very curious to see how this plays out. If the kid said that in front of a roomful of witnesses, I'd think that the teacher has options. Personally, if I wanted to call the police, I wouldn't ask permission from a dean. I'd do it myself. I suppose this teacher still has this option, and I wonder why she doesn't exercise it.

I understand that the mayor doesn't want to go overboard with disciplining students. But personally, I don't see how you look the other way when kids say things like that.  I also don't see how you fault a teacher for blurting out a response when her physical well-being was being threatened.

Especially if it worked. Maybe there was a better way, but I don't know what it is.

Do you?

One Way UFT Unity Rigs the Election

UFT leadership, or perhaps AAA at their behest, hasn't released the slate results for our election. This is odd because they usually come out as a matter of course. You need not be a genius to conjecture why this is. Along with six of my colleagues, I won a seat on the UFT Executive Board. The only reason that happened was because these seats were voted on by high school teachers, and high school teachers only. And this happens to be an uncharacteristic sign of life and joy in the otherwise monolithic and predictable UFT leadership.

But the HS Vice President position is "at large." This means that elementary teachers, middle school teachers, and pretty much everyone else who votes in the UFT election helps us choose who our Vice President is. It's quite clear to me that, if the slate results were released, they would show that high school teachers chose James Eterno to be VP. (Correction--I'm now told slate results are released, though not by division.)

So why didn't that happen? Well, I think it was 1985 that New Action's Mike Shulman won the post of Academic High School Vice President. As a brand new teacher, I saw him as the underdog, voted for him out of sheer instinct, and he won. This was quite upsetting to UFT Unity, which fought the result. For a year, Shulman was not permitted to take his seat. After another election, and a year with no VP, the high schools elected Shulman again.

UFT Unity then determined that the high schools had no right to choose their own VP, since they might choose someone like James Eterno (and of course they were right, because we just did).  Imagine if someone like GW Bush decided that New York should no longer elect its own governor, because they might vote too liberal. Imagine he therefore granted votes to Oklahoma and Texas to balance it out.

There would be outrage. It would be an affront to democracy. But that is precisely what UFT Unity did.

 I didn't even know about it until years later. On the one occasion where I spent 45 minutes splitting my vote, I wrote "NA" on the part where I was asked to vote on Elementary and Middle School VP. And few teachers, even now, are aware that VPs are elected "at large," or why that is. Three out of four of us, in fact, still couldn't even be bothered to walk to a mailbox with a ballot.

Furthermore, though the high schools chose us to represent them, we still have no vote in NYSUT or AFT. This is outrageous. We pay dues to both organizations, have no voice whatsoever, and this is nothing less than taxation without representation. And though the high schools chose MORE/ New Action, the high school VP is Unity. (To be clear, this is not a personal attack on the High School VP, but rather on a system that denies us the right to choose our own representative by ourselves.)

We will work to make the UFT an organization that gives voice to working teachers rather than entrenched leadership. That's democracy 101, and we believe it applies to UFT members too.

Chalkbeat NY Misses Big Picture, Shows Outrageous Bias

I sent an email to the writer of this piece in Chalkbeat NY, but she has not seen fit to respond. Here's what I said:


Fascinating though it was to learn what Educators4Excellence thought about the UFT election, I saw no mention that MORE/ New Action, a group of real, non-Gates-funded working teachers, took the high school seats on the UFT Executive Board. 

This is significant to me because I won one of those seats, and ought to be significant to UFT members, who now have opposition voices at 52 Broadway.

Color me disappointed.

Sincerely,

Arthur Goldstein, UFT Chapter Leader/ ESL teacher
Francis Lewis High School

Of course it was important to note that Mulgrew got 76% of the vote, such as it was. They got that right. As you can see, I found other factors significant as well. Perhaps Chalkbeat did not notice. But it's kind of their job to notice, isn't it? I mean, they are reporters, at least ostensibly. In fairness, the Daily News didn't seem to notice either.

But Chalkbeat took it a step further by going to E4E for their opinion. Why anyone who doesn't actually take Gates money should care about their opinion is a mystery to me. But Chalkbeat values E4E opinion so much it once ran an piece about E4E garnering 100 signatures for something or other, perhaps more work for less pay. I can gather 100 signatures in half an hour, so when Chalkbeat promised to run a piece in which I did that, I sent them something in support of ESL students. Of course, I'm not E4E, so evidently keeping their word wasn't important, and they never bothered writing about that.

Another issue that bears looking at, another issue neglected by Chalkbeat, is the outrageously low turnout. While it's up from last time, we still have three out of four members failing to vote.  This should concern us all, and both Unity and MORE/ New Action should work to activate membership. Voting takes a moment, and perhaps a walk to a mailbox. If we can't rouse our members to do that, we are absolutely doing something wrong. Apathy ought not to win the election.

If you read this, you'll also note that among working teachers Jia Lee scored one third of the vote. That's very significant to me, at least. While Mulgrew can hop on a plane pretty much any time to go to Boca, or wherever UFT Florida is, Jia has to show up and work each day. She can't campaign to retirees.

But that's okay in a way. Retirees ought to have a voice on retiree matters, but ought not to be determining who negotiates contracts that do not affect them. To me, that's common sense.

Of course, they say common sense is the least common of all the senses.

Boy Wonder Grapples with an Issue

Oh man what a day! Why does this stuff always happen to me? Let me start from the beginning. Today, 5th period, I'm observing old Mrs. Weiner, and I'm drifting off. Everything was peaceful, and I'm doodling a pic of Wendy's ghost pepper chicken sandwich on my low inference notes. And they have ghost pepper fries too! I could go for some of them right now.

Anyway, old Wiener is droning on about some book or something, or whatever, and I'm trying to figure how to get out and back with enough time to hit Wendy's, and all of a sudden Weiner starts shaking and stuff. I mean wow, it was weird. And then the kids are all, "Mr., call 911," and "Mr., do something!" And I'm here, taking notes and Jesus I've still got 15 observations to do and just a week to do them.

Anyway, one of the kids pulls out a cell and calls 911 and they take old Wiener to the hospital. I confiscated the phone and reported the student, of course. And the AP Security is all, "No, you can't suspend the kid for that." And I noted in my low inference notes that students were using cell phones right there in the classroom. Ineffective. No one was on task and Old Wiener is just doing nothing about it. Ineffective.

Anyway, it turns out Old Wiener had a stroke right there in the classroom. Who knew? Never saw anything like that before. So anyway, Chapter Leader is all, "You can't use that observation," and I'm all, "Hey, there's nothing that says I can't." If I didn't use it, he'd be the first one to be all over my ass about rating someone ineffective with only three observations.

After all, once they carted off Old Wiener I didn't hear any, you know, higher order questions, and I sat there until the bell rang. The kids were completely off task. Was there learning going on? I mean, the kids were panicked and running all over the place and there was really no classroom control at all. Plus none of the kids were doing the reading. How am I supposed to rate that anything but ineffective?

I mean, you don't see me having a stroke in the middle of the class or anything, not that I actually teach one. But if I did I would make it my business not to go having a stroke in front of my supervisor. I mean, who wants to actually watch stuff like that? And to do it in front of the kids? That shows absolutely no consideration. Ineffective again.

And Chapter Leader is all blah, blah, blah, about this. Jeez, why doesn't he go bother someone else?  I don't see him bothering anyone except me. It's harassment is what it is. You know what's wrong with old people? Well, aside from the obvious. They are always complaining. Oh, this hurts, and oh that hurts, and I'm so tired. Well guess what? I'm tired too. I'm tired of listening to all your crap. How about leaving me alone and letting me do my job? Isn't that what I'm here for?

Maybe I don't have to bother trying to become a principal. When the superintendent sees how many high-salaried teachers I'm getting rid of, through retirement, 3020a, or whatever, maybe he'll see I have a place in Upper Management. I hear they go out to lunch in fancy restaurants every day, and that they even have expense accounts. Man, imagine wearing a nice suit every day and going someplace with white tablecloths.

That would be a real draw. If I can get my high school girlfriend a teaching gig after I get rid of Old Weiner, I'll bet she'd be really impressed if she saw me move up into the supe's office. Maybe I can get her to come out to lunch with me. Maybe she can be my assistant.

Good times, and they're only getting better. 

Social Justice Isn't Crap

All due respect to my friend Chaz, you can't discount social justice. We are not living on a remote island. We are part of a community.

Hey, I love to get a raise. I want a new Mac, pretty much all the time. I have a kid and she is expensive, what with going to college and stuff. And man, life in general is expensive, what with property and school taxes and fixing stuff. I live 23 miles from my workplace and without a reliable vehicle I'd be hitchhiking back and forth. Pretty sure my principal would be less than sympathetic if I missed classes because I couldn't thumb a ride.

But my job is serving the children of New York City. I advocate for them collectively and individually. I'm very proud that UFT VP Janella Hinds and I were able to put our differences aside and produce a resolution at the DA to support the kids I serve. Our resolution, in supporting kids, also supports teachers. And I am trying to build on this. Aixa Rodriguez and I were on television talking about it. I'm trying to get Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa to get involved, albeit without much success, and I'm working on reaching out to multilingual communities to fix what hurts us and our students.

The very "reforms" that Chaz and I abhor are an affront to social justice. In fact, by making working conditions so awful for teachers we are gradually robbing our children of a great opportunity--that of doing the best job there is. I don't know about you, but I want my kid and my students to have opportunities other than making eight bucks an hour at the BJ's cash register. One of the surest ways to support that is by supporting union. Union itself, in fact, is a form and facet of social justice.

One of my former ESL students is now a math teacher in my school. She comes from a family that works very, very hard just to get by. They scrimped and saved and put her through Queens College. She's as smart as anyone I know, and for all I know in a few years she'll be my boss. She is the American Dream personified, and I want her story replicated. That's why I support social justice.

The opt-out movement, in my view, is the most important movement there is against the insanity that is reforminess. John King could run around, spout baseless ideas, and refuse to subject his own kids to them, sending them to a Montessori school. He could even walk out in a snit,  refusing to defend his ideas to the public, dismissing teachers and parents as "special interests." But the parents were demanding social justice for their children by attacking the ridiculous tests that labeled not only their children, but also their children's teachers. The activist parents in New York State are our best friends and our most ardent supporters. If we demand better conditions exclusively for ourselves, we will lose that support.

And let me add that I absolutely support better working conditions for teachers. I absolutely oppose the ATR and the conditions imposed on teachers stuck there. I've been writing about the ATR since its inception, and if you search this blog you'll see it mentioned literally hundreds of times. I advocate for ATRs and several of them are now permanently employed in my school. Fighting for them is, in fact, fighting for social justice.

We fight such things not only because they hurt us, but because the very existence of such idiocy hurts our children as well. We are part of something larger than ourselves, and if we fail to acknowledge that, we cut ourselves off from our community.

And community is vital. When I attended multiple sessions at Jamaica High School and others, I saw communities up in arms. It wasn't just us alone. When I held demonstrations at my school, I did so in coordination with our PTA. On a small level, when my students have issues and run into red tape, I run interference for them. I don't have to wait on lines the way they do.

Social justice is standing up for our communities, and it's a win-win. If we don't stand with them, why should they stand with us? And if we don't stand up for those we serve, how are we even doing our jobs? We are role models. Do we want to foster a generation that cares only for itself and no one else?

I don't know why everyone does this job, but I want to make a difference. If all I cared about were imparting subject matter and making kids pass tests, I'd support the reformies. But we are something more, and we do something more.

Again, this is the best job there is. But it's certainly not because it's the best paying or easiest job there is. It's because we make a difference, right there in the classroom. And if we think about keeping this job the best job there is, we have to think about improving our communities. We have to fight folks like Bloomberg, folks who care only about folks like Bloomberg. It may not be laid out in black and white in the UFT Contract, but that's part of our job too.

Update: Chaz answers that social justice is crap indeed. My response is below:

You'll pardon me, but I am a strong advocate for smaller class sizes, and have been for years. And I've spoken out about the contract all over the place. When Mulgrew said bloggers were "purveyors of myth" on health care, he was certainly talking about me. He turned off Eterno's mike as James said we'd negotiated the lowest pattern in history, something he's yet to refute.

I read the comments on the UFT Facebook page on the Garner march. They were overtly racist and I was disgusted. I joined the march and I'm proud to have done so. And far from being "strangely silent" on the discipline code, I had a piece in the New York Daily News a week or two ago absolutely opposing it.

Most importantly, by painting everyone with MORE with one brush, you do us a great disservice. We don't sign loyalty oaths, and we are free to believe as we wish. We are not a group of fanatical ideologues, and we are diverse in our beliefs. Saying we believe this and that is nothing but a stereotype, and you've actually not addressed anything in my blog post. I'm pretty shocked you seem not to know me better than that.

I don't actually know much about restorative justice, but someone on my blog yesterday told me it entailed tolerating assaults on teachers and students peddling drugs. Seriously? You're gonna tell me this is what I support? I write and work in defense of members every day of my life. I advocate for ATRs on multiple levels, and have helped several to get hired permanently. I'm not always successful, but it's not for lack of trying.

I take it very seriously when members are abused. That's not any kind of justice, and I'm not at all shy about standing up for members. Being chapter leader of the largest school in Queens is not precisely a walk in the park, and I take the implication that I tolerate such nonsense as a personal insult.

More/ New Action Victory Is a Win-Win

I'm sure Michael Mulgrew is happy to hold on to his job for another three years, and I congratulate him on his victory. I'm not at all sure he will be happy to see MORE/ New Action on the UFT Executive Board. And I'm sure that a lot of Unity members are not happy at all.

But the smart ones ought to know better. We are activists, and we are the real deal. If you don't believe that, why have we decided to forgo the easy route? It would be a whole lot easier, and a whole lot less time-consuming to just join Unity. We could be up for union jobs and go to conventions. What's better than that?

What's better than that is an activist union. What's better than that is being represented by people who do this work every day. What's better than that is having people who have experienced the Danielson thing speaking for us. The last time Michael Mulgrew was judged by the Danielson rubric was never. And that's not a dig, but a fact.

Now you may say, hey, NYC Educator, that may be true but there are hundreds of chapter leaders and teachers who go to these conventions. They're working in schools and they know what's going on. And you're right. But what difference does it make what they know if they've actually signed an oath to do whatever the Unity Caucus tells them to?

Change is hard. But a union needs to work for its members. And that involves moving out of the comfort zone from time to time. You can't move forward if you live in an echo chamber filled with people sworn to utter only good news. And from my vantage point, close to the ground, I see teachers suffering under the weight of idiotic rules and laws that leadership has consistently supported. I see an unfair and unreasonable evaluation system, easily manipulated by crazy supervisors. I see teachers crushed under the weight of ridiculous mandates that help neither them nor their students.

Michael Mulgrew doesn't see that, because he has an army of people sworn to report that this is the best of all possible worlds on a daily basis. Michael Mulgrew can believe that the Open Market transfer system is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but who's gonna remind him of the thousands of teachers trapped in the ATR, living without hope of a classroom, and looking forward only to the light at the end of the tunnel--retirement. Who's gonna remind him of the teachers discontinued for no good reason, their careers and futures ruined? Who's gonna remind him of what working teachers feel each and every day of their lives?

We are, of course. And whatever Unity stalwarts may believe otherwise, this can and will only strengthen our union. Even with this small crack of light in the Unity Cone of Silence, only one out of four working UFT members found it worth the time to return their ballots. We are teachers. We are role models. Are we fostering a generation that believes voting to be a waste of time?

We can do better, and we need to show membership that we will do better. There needs to be some sliver of truth facing our leadership, and for now, that is us. We will endeavor to work together to improve our union and the education of the 1.1 million students we serve. We will reach across the aisle and try to accomplish things together.

Is that how Unity wants to do things? Only time will tell. But real teachers now have a real voice in the United Federation of Teachers, and that voice will not be silenced.

MORE/ New Action Wins the High School Executive Board!!!

Thanks to all who worked for this and thanks to all who voted for us!!!!

MORE later.

UFT Election---Sitting Here in Limbo

I'm kind of on pins and needles wondering what's going on in the UFT election. Voting is up, and UFT Unity is patting itself on the back for getting out the vote. After all, everything they do is a great victory. Three years ago, 4 out of 5 working teachers didn't bother filling out ballots. This year, only 3 out of 4 working teachers didn't bother filling out ballots.

The question is who actually got out the vote. Was it Unity or was it MORE/ New Action? We will know later in the day. I know I did everything I could think of in my building, and I know we got a much higher turnout here than three years ago.

But Unity has the edge in that a whole lot of their members don't have to, you know, show up and work anywhere. I can't really just say, "Hey, Mr. Principal, can I not teach today so I can run around and explain that the UFT is ruled by a 50-year-old monolithic caucus that allows for no dissent whatsoever?"

Well, I can ask that, but I wouldn't be highly optimistic about a favorable response.

Because there is quite a lot here that hangs in the balance. To wit:

Have we woken up and realized that our leadership aids and abets the reformies on a regular basis? Do we know that they supported mayoral control for Michael Bloomberg? Do we know that, upon its renewal, UFT Unity demanded minor changes, failed to get them, and then supported it anyway? Do we know that Michael Mulgrew boasted of co-writing the law that enabled the punitive evaluation system that makes life a misery for so many of our working members?

Do we know that most chapter leaders sign a loyalty oath to support whatever they're told to? Do we know that the last contract enabled second tier due process for ATR teachers? Do we know that, on top of the 4/4 that most city employees got, Michael Mulgrew negotiated a 10% raise over seven years, the lowest pattern in my living memory, and probably ever? Do we understand that putting off our back pay for ten years effectively reduces it considerably? Do we understand that a reformy mayor might renege after 2018?

Do we understand that the health care increases we've seen were not explained by Mulgrew when he sold the contract? Do we know that these are by no means the only ones we can see under the savings agreement Mulgrew bound us to in this contract? Do we understand that Mulgrew's tale that we'd have to get behind 150 other unions if we didn't take this offer was an appeal to fear, a logical fallacy? Do we know that logical fallacy is the Unity Caucus' prime and preferred form of argument?

Or were we bought over by the happy faces of loyalty oath signers who don't have to show up to schools and teach each and every day? Are we so afraid that we're unwilling to stand up and say we've had enough?

Are we unionists, or are we residents of yet another Animal Farm bought off by empty and ridiculous promises?

Or did we actually wake up, take a good look, compare Michael Mulgrew to Jia Lee and decide, hey, it's time to turn the page and stand up for ourselves? And even if Jia doesn't win, did we get ourselves seats in the Executive Board and finally create a genuine union voice for those of us who actually experience what it's like here on the ground?

We'll know the answer later today. Stay tuned.

No More Free Ride on Sixth Classes

Mayor de Blasio giveth, and Mayor de Blasio taketh away. In my school, there are a whole lot of teachers with six classes. That's because people get sick, take leaves, go on vision quests, quit, and do all sorts of things that humans do. When that happens, kids ask, "Hey, where the hell is my teacher?"

Now I can't say precisely why they ask that question. For one thing, I know an awful lot of kids with intense aversions to homework. When the gym teacher is covering your physics class, you tend to get much less of it. But they're young, and sometimes they just don't think things through. Administrators, though, take a different view. They might wonder how they get 90% of the kids to pass physics. They can scream at the gym teacher, or me, or whoever happens to be covering, but probably none of us could pass physics either.

That's when they start to look around. "Hey, Mr. Teacher, how would you like to teach a sixth class and pocket an extra 12K a year?" That usually goes over pretty well. A lot of people, in my experience, want twelve thousand dollars. Think of all the doggie biscuits you could buy for that. Or donuts. You could eat donuts every day, your doggie could eat biscuits, and the whole house could celebrate almost perpetually.

And the cool thing about it is Bill de Blasio picks up the tab! So principals haven't got a whole lot of incentive to stop giving six classes to everyone. After all, it's a win-win! The teachers get a crapload of cash and not one cent leaves the school budget. After all, with "fair student funding" it isn't like the good old days when central paid all the salaries.

But I just got a hot tip that those days are over starting next year. So if principals want to give out sixth classes, they'd best be prepared to lay out 12K per class from the school budget. If you were thinking about padding your retirement with those extra classes, better do it before June. This could be a big hit for schools that depend on this stuff.

Waving 12K in front of people can do some pretty bad stuff. Full disclosure--I've been offered an extra class for years and have declined it each and every time. My job is crazy enough already and it's all I can do to keep up. I just don't think I could handle it.

Of course, that doesn't stop everyone. Sometimes it's that people want the money, and they'll do whatever they have to. Other times it's a supervisor leaning on someone, saying we really need you to help out. But I've seen brand new teachers with six classes, and it doesn't always work out well. Teaching is a complex and always demanding job, and new teachers really need time to learn. How on earth are they going to be mentored when they've given up their woefully insufficient forty minutes of daily prep?

So there's a good-bad thing happening here.  It's good that this sixth class thing will likely be discouraged. In my personal, non-chapter leader opinion, having these things out there is divisive and destructive.  As a chapter leader, though, I can't much fight it because a whole lot of people really like the chance to make extra money.

The bad thing is there are a whole lot of schools that depend on this little break from the city to staff their schools and provide essential services. It's incredibly creepy that Bill and Carmen have decided to say, "Screw you, you're on your own now," to principals who've come to depend on this little perk. Make no mistake, there will be fewer teachers for kids and larger classes for all as a result of this.

So thanks a lot, Mr. Mayor.

What the Panorama Student Survey Looked Like to Me

In the original NYC APPR agreement written up by Reformy John King, 5% of our rating was supposed to come via student surveys. By the time there actually was one in place, last year, surveys were out and they didn't count. But NYC decided to fund another one anyway. I was pretty shocked at this one, most certainly not an improvement upon the last one.


What do you like better--cute puppies or this teacher?

How high do you jump when the teacher walks into the room?

How high does the teacher jump when you walk into the room?

 Does this teacher suck?

How often does the teacher ignore the other 33-49 teenagers in the room and pay you individual attention?

Who do you love more--your parents or this teacher?

What has this teacher done to make you love standardized testing?

Have you gotten 100% on every test you've taken in this teacher's class? If not, what has this teacher done wrong and how can this teacher fix what he or she has done wrong?

Does this teacher pay attention to the other 33-49 students in the class and ignore you?

No, really, does the teacher suck?

Does this teacher make you look forward to waking up at 4 in the morning and sitting on the train for two hours to get to school? Does this teacher make you feel it was a good idea to have closed the school across the street from your house?

If you have a little puppy you love, would you rather be with that puppy or this teacher?

Do you feel like this teacher is preparing you for college? Has this teacher filled out your college applications for you? If not, why the hell not?

If we were to charge you to come to school, how much would you pay to be in this teacher's class?

What do you look forward to more--seeing your lover or this teacher?

Does this teacher inspire you to spend 15 hours a day studying in the public library and give up not only sleep but also every conceivable form of recreation known to humankind?

If you could kill every teacher in the world, how many other teachers would you kill before you killed this one?

Come on, you can tell us if the teacher sucks. We won't tell anyone.

If there were a piano falling from the sky and you could either push this teacher or your favorite musician out of the way, who would you push and why?

How much would you pay for a plastic statue of this teacher to be placed on the dashboard of your car? If you don't want one, what has this teacher done to make you not want it?

Did you see that movie Freedom Writers? Is this teacher as good-looking as the actress who played that teacher? If not, why not? 

If you were falling from the Empire State Building, who would you want to rescue you? This teacher or Superman? 

Does this survey make you feel like the city cares more about you than this teacher does? Does it make you feel better about the rodent-infested building we placed you in? Do you think the rodents are the fault of this teacher? How about the moldy trailer we put you in? I mean, why doesn't this teacher hire a company to clean it if he or she cares about you? Think about it.

When we opened the schools despite there being five feet of snow on the ground, did this teacher make you believe Chancellor Fariña's pronouncement that it was a beautiful day?

Seriously, this is an anonymous form. You can tell us the teacher sucked. No one will ever know. So, come on. Go ahead. How does this teacher suck? Let us count the ways. If you don't know how, it's probably this teacher's fault anyway, right?

Mike Bloomberg and the Magic Mirror

Carmen Fariña is talking about consolidating her some schools. This is a direct reversal of the signature policy of her former boss, Mike Bloomberg. Bloomberg, of course, had to look in a mirror every morning and ask it who was the reformiest of all, and as long as he kept closing schools it said,

Working teachers drop and crawl cause you, Mayor Mike, are reformiest of all.

Now Bill Gates, whose assful of wonders produced the small school initiative, backed up on it when he found out it didn't work. But because NYC is the first to adopt the worst ideas, and the last to drop them, Bloomberg plodded on regardless. I mean, why have one principal in a building when you could just as easily have five? And why have students abide by one set of rules when you can have five? As an added bonus, you could always dump in a Moskowitz Academy, have the whole thing refurbished, and make students in the other four schools feel like total crap because they aren't worthy.

But that's not the only benefit of small schools as far as Mayor Mike is concerned. After all, with Fair Student Funding, whatever that is supposed to mean, the fact is that every school has to be concerned with teacher salary. After all it now comes out of the school budget rather than central. So wouldn't you know it, principals with very small schools tend not to hire teachers with big salaries.

That's just part of it, though. I talk to teachers in schools that have inquiry teams that meet each and every day. Every single person in the school does that. Now there's supposed to be a C6 menu, and if you don't get one of your first three choices, you get another three. That means there should be six choices, at the very least. So could it be that every single person in the school happened to make the same choice? That's quite a coincidence.

Actually, this tends to happen when there is no chapter leader and no knowledge that there is a contract, or rules, or any of those messy things. And if you start a school with 20 teachers, all of whom are untenured rank beginners, you tend not to have a whole lot of union activism. After all, being chapter leader can be like swimming in a pool of sharks, and you're unlikely to opt for that when you have yet to master the doggie paddle. Also, while I've seen untenured teachers as chapter leaders, I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone. After all, when you can be fired for a bad haircut (and new teachers are unlikely to find time to seek out a good one), you might not want to be bringing multiple grievances to your principal. Also, you may want to spend time learning your job rather than going to Multiple Meetings About Everything.

In fact, it's likely newer and smaller schools have no chapter leader. I've been to class size grievance hearings where I've met teachers from small schools who weren't chapter leaders. They'd tell me their principals asked them to go. Now I will grant you it's a special kind of principal who will appoint people to grieve school class sizes. And given that, I'd suppose that most of them just go unreported.

If you have no union presence, it's a Principal's Paradise. Do whatever the hell you wish, and no one raises a peep. Will the young teachers get tenure and decide it's time to rise up and enforce the contract? Or will they simply become accustomed to doing Whatever the Hell the Principal Wishes and stay that way?

Bloomberg's magic mirror told him this was the way to go, but I'm not sure teachers who just follow instructions and question nothing are ideal role models. Isn't it our job to not only teach, but also model critical thinking? How can you do that when you aren't permitted to question anything, let alone criticize it?

Fariña is looking at a more practical problem. Why is she paying all these people to do all these things that are redundant, wasteful, and unnecessary? Of course consolidation is a reasonable solution, and hopefully she'll see fit to restore community schools, and even communities themselves. I mean, sure her boss is still pushing mayoral control, which does the exact opposite, but maybe this is a baby step in the right direction.

So if we put together five schools, will one competent chapter leader emerge? Will one principal who truly understands leadership rise to the top?

Only time will tell.

Boy Wonder Contemplates the Injustice of It All

Christ the damn principal is an idiot. His cabinet is like a bunch of jackals, all jockeying for his job. Well I don't want his damn job. I'm gonna get my own little school, with maybe a dozen teachers. You get paid the same and you don't have the headaches, like old Feinstein, or that bastard Walsh, complaining, being heroes, filing APPR complaints, grievances and Americans with Disabilities Act crap.

And dont think I don't know that damn Chapter Leader isn't egging them on. When I'm principal I'm gonna make sure every teacher is brand new so I can do whatever the hell I feel like without some damn old Chapter Leader breathing down my back with oh, the contract says this and the contract says that.  Contract, shmontract. They'll jump when I say jump, and they'll jump out the damn window if I tell them to.

And now the principal, after praising me all year, is telling me he doesn't like how I do the teacher teams, just because some superintendent says they don't like the way I do the teacher teams. How the hell am I supposed to get my job done if I don't have teacher teams to do it for me? Even with teachers sitting around in closets at 5 AM just to do their jobs I can't get my job done unless I have minions to do it for me. And of course that bastard Chapter Leader is supporting this too.

Christ I have the best teacher teams in the building! They ran the mock election. They checked out a bunch of online programs. They wrote the midterms. They hung up all the bulletin boards on the first floor, and have a damn rubric on each and every one. They've written all the curriculum, and they even rewrote the stuff that was no good, and the stuff that was good. But do I get thanks? Do I get a promotion? Do I get an attaboy? Oh, no, I get reamed out for having the best teacher teams in the building.

He should be kissing my butt, and everyone knows I have the best butt in the building. But NOOOO! The folks upstairs say it's gotta be inquiry. I'll give them inquiry. How the hell am I supposed to do this stuff if I have to work on it myself? Don't they know there are observations to be done? File letters to write? And Christ, when am I supposed to go out to lunch? It's not like there's anyplace good to eat in this neighborhood. And jeez, how am I supposed to get rid of all the deadwood if I don't even have time to write up all the things I'm accusing them of? In fact, if I have to do all this project crap I won't even have time to make up all the stuff I write up.

You know what I could go for? I really could go for a Pattimelt Supreme like they make over at the diner. You know, with the curly fries and onion rings and everything. Let me check petty cash. Twenty bucks ought to do it.

"I'm gonna go out and observe classes."

Now how can I keep the teams working on doing my stuff while making the principal think they're doing that inquiry stuff? Well, they're supposed to be looking at student work. Maybe I could hang some on the walls. No, I'll get them to hang the stuff on the walls.  They could do it during their teacher teams. After all, that's student work, and they are looking at it.

This is gonna be a pain in the ass. I'm gonna have to spend every minute in those stupid teams instead of just popping in every twenty minutes to make sure they're working. And if the principal walks in I could strike up a conversation or something.

"Hey, how about that differentiated instruction? Did you make sure every worksheet was optimized to the level of every student? Did you break the class into three levels? Why not four? Why not ten?"

I don't understand these ungrateful bastards. I mean, here I am, giving them chapter and verse on what's wrong with them and not even a thank you. Do you see any of them standing up and saying what's wrong with them? Of course not. Weak as water!

You know some of those schools in California have like, a Taco Bell in the cafeteria. Can you imagine that? You don't even have to leave work, and BAM! A Taco Supreme right there. Why the hell can't we do that in New York? When I'm principal, I'll bring a Taco Bell to my own school. And the principal eats the school lunch free, baby.

Not this principal. Does it occur to him to go out to lunch at all? No. He eats that same school lunch the kids eat. What's the point of being principal if you have to eat like that? And he goes to the cafeteria himself to get it. When I'm principal, I'll have some teacher pick up my lunch from someplace good. And that teacher can pick up the tab. Maybe for a C6 assignment or something. Maybe in exchange for an effective rating in 4E.

This will not stand! It's an outrage!  Man I hope those bastards at the diner don't overcook my Pattimelt. I'll send it back. For now maybe I can talk the principal into running a cooking class so that the kids can make my lunch. And if they don't cook it right I'll rate the teacher ineffective.

Yeah. That's the ticket.

How Part 154 Hurts ESL Students and Teachers

I'm pretty high on having had a hand in composing and passing a UFT resolution that may actually do some good. I don't consider a resolution in itself an achievement, but I'm hoping to build on it. In my DA notes, I wrote that I spoke in support, but didn't actually write what I said.

I go to the DA and furiously take notes. I try to show my readers and members what I saw. But when I'm speaking I can't take notes. Below, I've tried to reconstruct what I said:

Part 154 cuts direct English instruction by a factor of 33-100%, and actually hurts students in two ways. First, of course, they lose time that could be spent learning English. But it’s actually worse. No time is added for these students, not for anything. Instead, they take the same 40 minute American history class as everyone else, but it’s co-taught by an ESL teacher. So in the 40 minutes it takes for an American-born student to learn about the Civil War, the ELL is supposed to learn not only about the Civil War, but also receive instruction in English.

It’s pretty well known that language acquisition ability declines precipitously beginning at puberty. Young children are pretty much designed to learn language, and they soak it up like sponges. But high school students have it a little tougher. Taking time away from them to learn does them a great disservice.

Research shows the way to make students learn language is via high-interest and accessible subject matter. Giving newcomers three-inch thick biology books the day they set foot in the country is exactly the wrong thing to do. It’s really better to give them things just a little above their level, and no academic textbook I’ve ever seen matches that criteria.

There are also those ridiculous regulations. I’m in the largest school in Queens, and we have only two classes of beginners. I know because I teach them. The regulations say that students must not be more than one grade level apart. I have no idea why. Thus 9th graders cannot be in the same room with eleventh graders. The smart thing, in a high school, is to group students by language level rather than age. But the geniuses who wrote Part 154 have other ideas. Where they come from is a mystery to me.

This law renders most ESL teachers into co-teachers. These are people who’ve devoted their lives to helping newcomers. I actually have young colleagues who are considering resignation because they want to teach English, not stand around in a classroom where their job entails supporting another teacher making all the decisions about curriculum.

Worst, though, is the assumption that we don’t actually have a subject matter, and that the only way to teach English is via coupling it with academic content. Of course direct English instruction supports academic achievement. But there’s actually more to life than taking tests. We help kids figure out how to buy a pizza, meet a girlfriend, or take their grandmother to the doctor.

Then I asked the Delegate Assembly to support our resolution, and they all did, unanimously.