Social Justice Is for Everyone, Including Teachers

Norm Scott says it's hard to "out social justice Randi," and in a lot of ways he's right.  AFT and UFT leadership are certainly diverse. And Randi hits every note when she speaks. There is no doubt whatsoever that she's aware of racial inequality. She's a great advocate for the LGBT community. Communities are well-represented at the AFT Convention. In fact, the only community I know of that has no representation whatsoever at this convention is UFT high school teachers.

That said, social justice does not apply only to race, national origin, religion, or sexual orientation. Social justice applies to all groups, and one of them is working teachers. Another is unions. I'll admit to being a little biased here, as I'm unabashedly in favor of both. I oppose things that hurt working teachers and unions, and I think it behooves us to fight them with everything we've got. And if we haven't got what we need to fight them, it's on us to go out and get it.

That's why I am mystified as to how Hillary Rodham Clinton can stand in front of us and babble nonsense about how we can learn from "public charter schools." I don't even know what that means, or what we're differentiating. The fact is every charter school is privately run, judged by different standards, and no charter is on a level playing field. For charters to boast of their stats when people like me are teaching kids who have been in the United States only five minutes is ridiculous.

I'm also mystified as to how my union, the most powerful in the country, can support things like mayoral control. How on earth do we support giving absolute power to a fanatical ideologue like Michael Bloomberg? And when we finally get a mayor who is not insane, why do we not fight tooth and nail when they demand he pay rent for the likes of Eva Moskowitz?

How do we not only support, but also have our President take part in writing a law that has us rated via value-added junk science? How does our President determine the reformiest man on God's green earth, John King, is a reasonable and unbiased arbitrator for our evaluation agreement?

How can UFT leadership attack the opt-out movement, a grassroots uprising of parents outraged about reforminess? How can those who control our union call allies of the movement "reckless and feckless," and make ridiculous arguments about how they cost schools money they don't even have?

I could go on, but here is the point---MORE fights for social justice for teachers. That's why we took the high schools, and that's why we will move ahead and win further. MORE opposes judging teachers by test scores. MORE opposes using our kids as puppets who sit for tests just to prove how much we suck. MORE believes teachers are under assault and need help.

We reach out with both hands to working teachers. We want to help, and we want to force our leadership, if necessary, to help too. I am an open book. I don't work behind the backs of Unity to thwart them when they are trying to support children. But I will fight them with everything I've got if they want to block social justice, say, for ESL students just because they can. MORE believes our working conditions are student learning conditions, and I couldn't agree more.

If Unity wants to play stupid games and write baseless nonsense to discredit us, that's fine. But we are standing up for teachers, we are standing up for children, and we are standing up for communities. We are not afraid, we will not be deterred, and we will not be intimidated by the usual nonsense.

We're open to working together, but we expect nothing. You can't have any social justice unless you include working teachers, and you can't put children first if you put teachers last. And you can't represent teachers if you sign loyalty oaths to leadership and vote as told.

Democracy is from the bottom up. UFT Unity is top down. We will fight for the voices of high school teachers and all teachers. Social justice applies to us too, we aren't going to forget it, and we aren't going to let UFT Unity forget it either.

Trump Jr. Shares His Insights On Public Education

Nothing like watching the GOP Convention.  It turns out that we teachers are to blame for almost everything. The whole narrative about money moving more and more to the 1% is completely false. Otherwise, how could Donald Trump Jr. say this?

The other party gave us public schools that far too often fail our students, especially those who have no options. 

It has nothing to do with the fact that politicians, likely as not Republicans, have cut funds to enable tax cuts for the likes of Junior and his orange Daddy. But the real whopper is below:

Growing up, my siblings and I we were truly fortunate to have choices and options that others don’t have. We want all Americans to have those same opportunities.

Well of course they had choices and options with a Daddy who's known mostly for being rich.  Make no mistake, neither Daddy nor Junior is proposing that we be rich, and if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. The vouchers the Donalds love so much are not going to enable the riff-raff, i.e you and me, to attend the schools their kids go to. You'll have a choice of a crumbling public school or maybe a Moskowitz Academy where your kids can pee themselves.

Our schools used to be an elevator to the middle class, now they’re stalled on the ground floor.

There he may be right. In Detroit the schools are rat-infested and falling apart. In Chicago a Democrat, Rahm Emanuel, closed 50 schools because he could. Kids understand what it means when you send them to a place that looks like a pile of trash. When I started teaching in the trailers, I started wearing suits to work. I wanted to send kids the message that even though Mayor Michael Bloomberg thinks this pile of junk is good enough for you, I think you're important.

Now maybe it's a Trump family tradition to plagiarize, and Junior just wants to get in on it too. Maybe it's OK for them, and maybe it's OK for Republcians, as Chris Christie says, if you keep it at seven percent. Maybe he got away with it in his elite private school. Could he have paid off the teachers? Who knows? Were Junior in my class, I'd give him an F. Maybe someone did and that's why he hates us. Anyway, let's see what other words of wisdom he has:

 They’re like Soviet-era department stores that are run for the benefit of the clerks and not the customers, for the teachers and the administrators and not the students. 

Yes, teachers are having a big party. There's nothing we love better than being observed and rated on a checklist. And best of all, we get judged on test scores! What teacher doesn't love being judged by a system that has no validity whatsoever? All we care about is ourselves, and that's why we took this gig! We're all fabulously wealthy, do nothing whatsoever, live in mansions and drive obscenely expensive cars. Okay, that's a joke. I'm not describing teachers, but rather the Trumps. 

You know why other countries do better on K through 12? They let parents choose where to send their own children to school.

You know why other countries do better in K through 12? Because, unlike us in the US, 51% of their kids do not live in poverty. Because they have nationalized health care. Because they have day care that parents don't have to work second jobs to pay for. In fact, we made one minor move toward health care for all, and Orange Daddy wants to kill even that.

That’s called competition. It’s called the free market. And it’s what the other party fears.

That's called an outright lie. No country has a successful voucher system and those who've tried it are not jumping up and down about it. In Finland, regarded by even Bill Gates as the best public education system, everyone goes to public schools. There are not even the elite private schools that Junior went to. I'd argue that if folks like Junior had to go to public schools, there would be none that look like those in Detroit.

They fear it because they’re more concerned about protecting the jobs of tenured teachers than serving the students in desperate need of a good education.

Wow. What planet is this kid living on? I live in New York, supposedly a bastion of liberalism, and we have a Democrat Governor who pushed an evaluation system specifically designed to fire more teachers. When that system didn't work as designed, he called it "baloney," and proceeded to push a new system, which hopefully will fire even more teachers. That's what Democrat Andrew Cuomo considers a victory.

Every teacher I know is acutely aware of this. That's why we're all so fidgety. We don't mind doing our jobs. Let me tell you something--this guy is stereotyping teachers just like Daddy stereotypes Muslims. In fact it's not teachers who are stalling the progress of the middle class. This started with Saint Ronald Reagan, and now Republicans are all about cutting taxes for the wealthy.

Who picks up the slack? We do. We teachers pay what people like Trump and Baby Trump used to pay. Our children pay what they used to. If Baby Trump gave a golly gosh darn about folks like us he'd have been out on the streets working for Bernie Sanders instead of driving his Lamborghini to gala luncheons.

It's absurd and obscene that we who devote our lives to helping children are vilified by the same people who make it impossible to fund their schools. It's even worse that their remedy for public schools is making it easier for zillionaires to profit from them.

In Which a UFT Unity Member Lectures Me on Democracy

Here's something I posted on Facebook:

They just voted a dues increase for AFT. There are exactly seven people chosen by UFT high school teachers to represent UFT high school teachers. I'm one, and another, Jonathan Halabi, is seated at my right. Five are in New York. Zero got a vote.

A Unity person took exception that that, saying that the union selected other members to represent us at the convention.  I pointed out that the high school teachers did not choose those people. As James Eterno points out, UFT high school teachers number more than the entire Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. The number of people at this convention selected by UFT high school teachers, again, is precisely zero.

I'm pretty sure that represents taxation without representation. In certain circles that has been referred to as tyranny. My Facebook friend pointed out the name of one person I know who voted for him, but did not seem to grasp that one person, sadly, does not constitute a majority when we're looking at a pool of 20,000.

Not only that, but since he brought it up, I watched the controlling AFT Progressive Caucus meet last night. I'm not exactly sure why they chose to meet in the same room as the actual convention, why that's appropriate, or why they didn't choose to meet in private. But what the hell, I was there, Randi was talking to people in the press, and I listened.

The man running the meeting promised it would be short. He said we're voting up on this and down on that. He said this thing, we have no position, and therefore you may vote as you wish. It was unbelievable.

Truth is stranger than fiction. but it is because truth is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn't. ~Mark Twain

I wasn't paying attention that closely, but another thing the leader mentioned was that UFT had 100% enrollment. Think about what that suggests--that our alleged representatives have not only signed a loyalty oath to do whatever UFT leadership instructs, but that they also sit at AFT and do as they are told as well.

So this guy, who is not a high school teacher,  is suggesting to me that he represents us. Sorry, but in a democracy, we choose the people who represent us. I watched the President of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers speak in support of Hillary today. We, the high school teachers, who number more than his entire union, have no vote or voice in the national union we support with our dues.

In fact, even the High School Vice President we chose, James Eterno, is not our Vice President.

You tell me how that remotely resembles democracy.

Clinton at AFT--Let's Learn from Public Charter Schools

I listened intently to Hillary yesterday. She hit a lot of notes that were clearly aimed to resonate with teachers. We need to pay you more. We need to fix crumbling schools. We need to support unions. You'll have a seat at the table.

I think Randi also mentioned the seat at the table thing. I am bone weary of hearing about that seat at the table. I mean, why the hell are we even at a table with the likes of Bill Gates, who places millions of dollars behind every baseless whim that crosses his mind? Why are we subject to the caprices of a man who sends his kids to a school that uses none of the methods he inflicts on our children? What the hell is this man doing at the table and what qualification does he have besides all that money?

Here's one thing that's already on the table--Hillary Clinton supports charter schools, the preposterous competition to our public school system. She makes a ridiculous distinction--that she supports "public" charter schools. Now what the hell are public charter schools? Charters, by nature, take public money and then do whatever the hell they please. If you allowed a kid to pee her pants in your classroom you'd be subject to CR A-420, corporal punishment.

Let me ask you this--what would you do if a teacher allowed your kid to pee her pants for test prep rather than go to a bathroom? Me, I'd want to throw that teacher out a window or something. I don't send my kid to school for that. In fact, I'd be upset with you if you caused my dog to have an accident.

But Hillary doesn't have these issues. After all, her campaign manager is a longtime reformy. Beyond the whole pants wetting thing, don't believe for one minute that "public charter schools" take the same kids we do. I teach beginning ESL students, and you won't see them at a Moskowitz Academy anytime soon. You see, kids who don't speak English tend not to achieve the test scores around which the Moskowitz Academy is built. Nor do special education students, for the most part. Eva can take kids with mild special needs, but you won't see her taking the alternate assessment kids my school accepts as a matter of course. Not on this astral plane anyway.

Charters can make all sorts of demands on working parents. You have to show up to help every now and then. You have to take the day off and come to Albany to lobby, along with your kids. And if you don't show up, they can toss your kids. If your kid is too much trouble, they can be placed on a got to go list. I mean, I guess you can sue the Moskowitz Academy if they do that to your kid, but why should you be placed in such a position at all?

Reformies used to push vouchers, but communities almost always voted against them. They quickly learned that charter schools were easier to sell. And they've done a fantastic job of selling them. Who'd have expected Hillary could push "public charter schools" without a whimper from the AFT crowd?

There was just a little hubbub during the speech. At one point, a group behind me started chanting, "Black lives matter." A larger group started chanting, "Hillary." During the back and forth, Hillary kept speaking. For a while I couldn't hear her, but I kept wondering whether she heard the protestors. After a while the protestors changed their chant to, "Stop the deportations."

I can't say whether or not it would have been a good idea for Hillary to engage the protestors. What I can say is that Hillary, who sent her own kid to an elite private school that does not embrace reforminess, said a test of a good school, for her, was whether or not she'd send her children or grandchildren there. The fact is she had exactly one chance to choose a school, and chose one that was not public, that most of us could not afford, and that certainly did not embrace programs famously used by the "public charter schools" we could "learn from."

And what can we learn from them?

Learn how to privatize public education for the poor to make it bare-knuckled, segregated, and very lucrative. https://t.co/abOzallD6k

— Jim Horn (@MismeasureOfEd) July 19, 2016

I think Jim Horn is right on the money here, and I'm not inclined to learn that. I treat kids I teach better than that, and all kids deserve better than that. How we in the AFT can look the other way while Hillary blurts out such outrageous nonsense is beyond me.

From AFT 2016--Resistance is Futile--Prepare to Be Assimilated--Or Maybe Moved a Little

I'm here at the AFT Convention in Minneapolis. When Norm Scott and I arrived, we were met by several unionists from Chicago and Boston. They were very excited about our modest victory in the UFT. They, of course, have had more significant victories.

They're kind of in awe of the machine that runs the UFT. They can't believe it when I tell them retirees control around half of the votes in the UFT. (In fact, in 2013 they represented over half the voters. In 2016 they were a little less.) How can retirees vote on who gets to negotiate contracts for working members? Do they care about what working teachers go through?

I still can't believe we placed that little crack in the monolith that is UFT Unity. We worked very hard for around 16 months, in and out of the MORE Caucus, and managed to get the word out enough to squeak out a victory. We were very fortunate that New Action finally came to its senses and worked with us. We would not have been able to pull this off without them.

In a few hours Hillary is gonna be here, and it's quite clear that she is the star of this particular convention. Not everyone is enthusiastically on board just yet:

"The only choice in this election is Hillary Clinton" 50% rose, semi-standing ovation. #aft100 RW asked 4 a warm welcome when HRC arrives

— Jonathan (@Jd2718x) July 18, 2016

Of course that was just a rehearsal. I will try to tweet the speech as it comes, and if you want to read it, I'm @TeacherArthurG.

Regular readers of this blog know that I'm not in love with Hillary. I have not been persuaded at all by friends of Hillary who've beseeched me to vote for her. Usually these efforts at persuasion entail telling me how stupid I am and that I don't understand high school civics.

I don't expect Hillary to change my mind today, but I am coming around for two reasons. The second best reason came from Fred Klonsky, who lives in Illinois. Like me, Fred could vote third party and have no effect whatsoever on the general. But Fred wants to pile on against the odious Donald Trump.

The best reason I've seen to vote for Hillary came from two conversations I had on Facebook. I was bemoaning Trump's vile bigotry, particularly his decision to ban Muslims. Several people argued with me. One defended the Japanese Internment, which I thought one of the most shameful episodes in American History. Then he said we'd banned German and Japanese immigrants during World War II. I thought the fact that we were actually at war with those countries was a fairly good defense. Banning Muslims would be almost waging war against a major religion.

Another Facebook friend said that Trump no longer took that position, and that he now only wanted to ban people from certain countries. That didn't much impress me. The thing I really don't like about Hillary is that she talked school closings. Yeah, I know, she explained it, it was a mistake, it was out of context, whatever. The fact that her brain could formulate the words that came out of her mouth, saying she would not keep any school open that wasn't above average, well, that was too much for me.

On the other hand, you have Donald Trump, who likes right to work, who has actually ruined lives of working people in Atlantic City and elsewhere. You have this guy who wants to bounce countries from NATO if they don't pay, and if they don't pay all what they've owed in the past. On the other hand, he's personally had multiple bankruptcies and bounced back to the point he may be President. He wants to do something similar with our national debt, and that's pretty odd, since one thing the US has never done is default on our debts.

But the ban Muslim thing is beyond the pale, more beyond even than teacher issues I hold dear. For a nations Presidential candidate to stereotype an entire religion is an atrocity. For folks to tell me it's a good idea to practice active discrimination is even worse.

Those are the people who are now pushing me toward voting for Hillary and piling up against the execrable bigot Donald Trump.

Best Parental Contact App

I saw a headline saying that on Twitter. I like apps. I like new things. Now maybe you can find an app that will do all sorts of stuff. Maybe it will send emails. Maybe you can check off a list of stuff you want the parent to know. Maybe you can make one report and send it to ten parents at a time.

I can imagine all sorts of possibilities. But no matter how good they are, I wouldn't use any of them. Since I began teaching, we've had paper checklists we could send out. I've never much trusted them because when I was in high school, I went through the mail and tossed them all in the trash. Once or twice, when supervisors insisted on it, I may have used them. I don't even remember.

In our school we put all grades online, so any parent who's interested can see a kid's grades at pretty much any time. That's fine, but alas, a whole lot of the parents we wish to get in touch with couldn't be bothered. I've sat with parents at conferences and shown them step by step how to use it. I've watched as they installed them on their smartphones. And yet, often things don't change.

So now I come to my favorite app. OK, the one in the picture is pretty old. It's been a while since I used a dial. But I still find that to be the very best way to get in touch with a parent. I mean, sure, it's inconvenient. Email and texts are much cooler, because I don't need to look at them right this minute. I can look at it when I get out of class, off of work, out of the car, out of the bar, off of the plane, or away from wherever I am now. I can look at it tonight, tomorrow, next week, next year, next millennium, or whatever it takes.

But hey, when your kid has a problem, I want to talk to you right now. I don't want to leave you a message and wait until you feel like getting back to me. I want to let you know that I'm worried about your kid, and that I know you are too, even if you aren't. I want you to know that I have great faith your kid can do better, and that I'm sure you do too, even if I'm not at all sure you do. Mostly, I want you to know that we can work together to fix this, and that we'd better do it right now.

I can't wait until you sign in to some program, check your kid's progress, consult the tea leaves, or whatever it is you need to do. I need to let you know that I'm really concerned about your time, and that I know how inconvenient it would be for you to come in during work hours. That's why we need to work out this situation. Oh you can't come? That's too bad. I would hate to have to complain to ACS. That would probably be even more inconvenient than coming in. Oh, you'll talk to him for me? Well thank you very much, I knew we could work this out.

Actually I don't usually need to have those conversations, though I have had them. Mostly I just ask parents to give good advice, and they agree. Mostly I see positive effects, and if I don't I call back. I really believe the phone is the very best app there is for contacting parents, and I've yet to see one that improves on it. Sure, it's time-consuming, but it cuts down tremendously on time I'd have to spend dealing with nonsense in class.

Now nothing is perfect, and this won't always work. But so far it works better than anything else I've seen or tried. If you have a better suggestions, I'm all ears.

Teachers--Guilty Until Proven Innocent

The NY Post knows a failing teacher when it sees one. Anyone who wasn't hired back at John Adams, to the NY Post, is a "failing teacher" and "inept." One good thing, for the NY Post is this--they make these assertions with no evidence whatsoever, and evidently the libel laws in this country are lax enough that they do so with impunity.

I worked at John Adams for about seven years. I transferred because my supervisor gave me an ultimatum. She had a Spanish teacher who threw kids out of the class all the time and I never did that. So she wouldn't have to be bothered with the kids being tossed out, she wanted me to teach all Spanish. Otherwise she was going to give me a schedule late enough that it would preclude the second job I had taken to pay my mortgage. I left on a UFT transfer.

If I hadn't done that, the NY Post would likely be calling me inept and failing. I don't think anyone with a choice would hire me as a teacher. While I don't get complaints about my actual teaching, I am fairly confident my principal would back me up when I say I am a pain in the ass. Seriously, who wants to deal with the likes of me when you can pick and choose anyone you wish? It's a lot easier to run a school when you can just ignore the contract and do whatever the hell you like.

Actually I was not such a pain in the ass when I worked at Adams. My then boss had no reason to be upset with me. But the fact that I love teaching English, as well as the fact that I am much more competent in English than Spanish meant nothing. I was gonna teach Spanish, because it was convenient for her, and that was it. Decisions like those don't factor into the equation, as far as the NY Post. So what if teachers are assigned where they are not their best? Administration is not to be questioned, and anything wrong in the building is the sole province of the teachers, who suck and must be called out for it.

Naturally the Post enlists the opinions of pro-charter folks. Their opinions are of paramount importance because they, unlike us, know how kids should be treated. Clearly children should pee their pants doing test prep and not be subject to namby pamby liberal gobbledygook like bathroom passes.

“Shuffling ineffective teachers from one school to another isn’t a sign that the administration is willing to prioritize students above the bureaucracy,” said Jeremiah Kittredge of Families for Excellent Schools, a charter backer.

Isn't it cool that you can say stuff like that with no evidence whatsoever? In fact there is an agreed-upon standard for declaring a teacher ineffective. Well, there's one in the public schools. Charters aren't subject to that, opting to do any damn thing they please. They aren't subject to chancellor's regulations about corporal punishment, verbal abuse, or pretty much anything. They can dump students, not replace them, and not include them in their stats either. And despite their claims, lotteries are most certainly not random. A parent has to be proactive enough to apply, and agree to whatever extra demands the charters have.

But hey, FES says we suck, and if that's not enough for Post readers, they round it off with some predictable blather from the same Students First NY mouthpiece who seems to comment on everything.

In fact, public schools take everyone, every kid, every special need, every kid who doesn't know a single word of English, every kid with interrupted formal education. They are then subject to the baseless and abusive comments like those of Mr. Jeremiah Kittredge, likely as not taken as gospel by readers of the NY Post.

I'm fairly confident that John Adams wouldn't want me back either. Maybe I'd be an ineffective Spanish teacher, though I'm appointed to teach ESL. And even if I weren't, I would fight to enforce our Contract. Well, who needs that? Not charter school supporters, who generally can't be bothered with union. Here's what the NY Times says about Moskowitz Academy teachers: 

For teachers, who are not unionized and usually just out of college, 11-hour days are the norm, and each one is under constant monitoring, by principals who make frequent visits, and by databases that record quiz scores.

Why are they usually just out of college? Doesn't that suggest that their predecessors didn't last? Doesn't that mean, by NY Post standards, that their predecessors were failing and inept? And if the new teachers don't last, as history suggests, aren't they failing and inept too? Heavens to Betsy, how can that be, with the high standards FES and all the reformies hold so dear?

We're on a merry-go-round of arbitrary standards and random vilification. If we want people to become teachers and hang around longer than they do at the Moskowitz academies, we're gonna have to start treating them like human beings rather than convicted felons.  By their standard, I'm as failing and inept as any teacher labeled by the Post, and so are we all. 

PROSE and Its Mysteries

Politico just did a feature on the PROSE schools. After reading it I have no idea why they are an improvement over the SBO feature of the standard contract, which allows schools to change class time, rearrange schedules, and basically do whatever they need to achieve their unique goals. I also see no advantage whatsoever in allowing the program not to sunset at year's end. What if it turns out to be a disaster?

I can only suppose it's an effort to compete with charters in doing things differently. Unsurprisingly, those representing charters decline to sing its praises: 

The program has been largely dismissed by the city’s influential charter sector; its leaders call it an unproven strategy that has not yet shown tangible improvements for schools.

Of course, "tangible improvements" are open to interpretation. Last I looked, charters had not only failed to show them, but in NYC were also not subject to Chancellor's Regulations that prohibit, for example, allowing children to pee themselves rather than granting the fundamental dignity of allowing them to go to the bathroom.

A Daily News story from last year has some less than encouraging words on the PROSE program, from none other than sitting Chancellor Carmen Fariña:

“You see something here that in some other schools would raise people's eyebrows,” she said. “You have one teacher with almost 40 kids in the class and you have another teacher with eight kids in the class. And no one is saying this is how many I have, this is how many you have. They're saying in order for me to do my job here, you're gonna do your job there.”

I'm not sure when it was that Carmen Fariña last worked as a classroom teacher, but I still do, and I also represent over 200 working teachers. I can tell you with 100% certainly there are a whole lot of things teachers don't tell their immediate supervisors or principals. The likelihood they would tell such things to the school chancellor hovers somewhere below nil.

So we have 48 kids. Eight of them, according to someone or other, require individualized attention. 40 of them evidently do not. In this scenario, over 80% of the students are in an oversized class and we're supposed to celebrate that because the teachers, as far as Fariña knows, aren't complaining. That's not the most persuasive argument I've ever heard. Why couldn't there be two classes of 24 without the PROSE initiative? In fact, if she feels so strongly about it, why doesn't Fariña ante up so all those kids could work in groups of 8?

In fact, an SBO could be used to enable an oversized class. We had a strings class in our school that was one over the limit, and we had an SBO to allow it to stay that way throughout the year. In exchange, the teacher was relieved from his C6 assignment, repairing instruments. Admin agreed not to overbook the class in the future, and it seemed a better decision than removing a kid at that point in the year. The teacher even did his C6 assignment, as no one else was gonna do it if he didn't.

If the PROSE programs are so fantastic and innovative, why are oversized classes their calling card? How about letting us see, now, each and every program so we can assess them? How about letting us know why these things could not be achieved via a regular SBO process?

Are these programs just a propaganda tool to show that public schools can do new things just like charters? For my money, that's nothing worth aspiring to in the first place. Also, the UFT has already kowtowed sufficiently to charters. Not only did we drag the trash talking Steve Barr and Green Dot to NYC,  but we also opened and colocated our own charter. Just how far backward do we need to bend in order to prove a point?

If it's about showing we are flexible with the contract, I absolutely don't believe the contract favors us. In fact since 2005, I've seen it favor us less and less. This notwithstanding, it happens to be constructed by both the union and the city. I've seen it work in favor of UFT members, and I've seen it work in favor of administration. I don't think we need to hold it in contempt, and show our enemies we're willing to push it aside to show how open-minded we are.

If there is some great value in the PROSE schools, I'd like to hear about it. What exactly is it they can do that a general SBO cannot?  Why are they better than the UFT Contact, and if they're so wonderful why isn't everyone using them? When are we going to see exactly what goes on in these schools rather than vague allusions in Politico?

If they are as good as Mulgrew and Fariña say they are, they have nothing to lose by showing us the full picture.

The Shocking Teacher Shortage

It looks like Governor Cuomo's plan of painting targets on the backs of all teachers has not worked out as well as planned in NY State. Evidently there is a shortage, and to ease it, the geniuses in Albany are relaxing standards. Their thinking, evidently, is people from other states will be anxious for the chance to judged by Governor Cuomo's matrix, and potentially be guilty until proven innocent. After all, there aren't many opportunities like that in the United States.

Another point of view, of course, is that Governor Cuomo is bought and paid for by Eva Moskowitz's BFFs at Families for Excellent Schools, and that he pretty much jumps at their beck and call. Maybe that's why he was so happy to appear at Ms. Moskowitz's field trip, you know, the one where she boarded all her students on buses and dragged them to Albany to lobby for her own political cause. If you or I did that, we'd be fired. But of course we didn't, so that's not why there's a teacher shortage.

There's a teacher shortage because we're tired of being used as punching bags. We're tired of being vilified in the press, and by every tinhorn politician that takes suitcases of cash from DFER and FES. We're tired of hearing people like Cuomo enact rating plans to fire teachers, call them "baloney" when they fail to fire enough teachers, and revise them for the express purpose of firing more. We're tired of being judged by test scores which the American Statistical Association correctly asserts have little or no validity.

We're tired of being told the only way to teach is like this, like that, or like whatever Bill Gates wakes up and decides children other than his own must be taught. We're tired of endless testing and being forced to teach nonsense that does not help our children. We're tired of underlying assumptions by people with no credentials or credibility that the children we serve lack "grit" and must be treated with "rigor."

I'm particularly tired of so-called leaders who create problems and then try to solve them in ways that don't address the problems at all. When I started teaching, pay was particularly low. The city didn't bother addressing the huge disparity in pay between the city and surrounding suburbs. Instead, there were ads in the subways and on buses to try to attract teachers. There were intergalactic recruiting campaigns. It turned out, though, that people from other countries and universes just couldn't afford to live in NYC.

And then, of course, there is the issue of quality. I was one of the people who saw a subway ad and took a teaching gig. I had no idea what I was doing. On my ninth day of teaching, my supervisor wrote me up and said I had no idea what I was doing. But I had told her I had no idea what I was doing when she hired me. To this day I wonder why she expected more. She wrote that I should try to be more "heuristic" when I taught. Naturally that cleared up everything for me. Doubtless with excellent advice like that every teacher will become instantly excellent, no matter how much they raise or lower the standards.

Cuomo is an empty suit, with loyalty to no one but Cuomo. He just said he won't support his party in its effort to retake the State Senate. This is they guy Hillary's people have representing the DNC for New York. He has no moral center whatsoever, does whatever the people who pay him say, and happily supports whatever the privatizers tell him to. And, oh, if the people rise up and say screw your ridiculous tests, he can always make some empty gesture, like a partial moratorium, and say, "See? I care what you think, sort of."

This is step one in addressing a teacher shortage created by Albany. There will be more. But until they start listening to teachers and learning why people no longer pursue this job, they will be empty gesture after empty gesture, likely helping no one but those who see education as an opportunity for profit.

Fork in the Road

I don't know about you, but I'm horrified when I see racism coming from people who teach children. I didn't plan to go to the Garner march a few years back, but when I saw the comments on the UFT Facebook page I knew I had to stand up. Our job is to serve children, not white children, not black children, not green children, but all children. It's beyond the pale that people with our job should judge others by their skin color.

It's atrocious what's going on in our country today. No one should live in fear because of their skin color, and no one should be shot for being a police officer either. I can't see how any reasonable person believes otherwise. To stand up those who lose their lives for no reason is in no way a critique of police who do their jobs. To attack all police for the actions of a minority would be to condone what the reformies do to teachers. I'm kind of used to being stereotyped and I don't love it one bit. That's why I try really hard not to do it to others.

On this blog, if you post a racist comment, I'll delete it with a warning it's unacceptable here. If you do it twice I will ban your ass. You can go somewhere else and spew your vitriol. I'm not going to argue with you. One of the things I love about my job is that I see stereotypes disproven each and every day. I once had a boy in a beginning ESL class who was very smart. He further thought all people from his country were very smart, and told me so. But smart as he was, I remember a young girl from Colombia who outscored him on each and every test.

That didn't fit at all into the boy's worldview, what with her speaking Spanish, and being a girl, and he complained bitterly to me about it. But the Colombian girl couldn't have cared less. She did what she had to, achieved what she needed to, and didn't surrender one solitary moment of her young life to thinking about that guy. Her smile lit up the room and she was happy wherever she was. The guy, not so much. He could've learned from her but opted not to.

I don't know what UFT is planning, if anything, in response to recent events. But I won't hesitate to join them. I grew up the only Jewish kid in a Catholic neighborhood, and I got to experience discrimination as a child I will never forget. That was bad enough. Living in fear for your life is something else altogether.

When I see people murdered for no reason other than their appearance I'm not inclined to blame the victim. I'm inclined to blame the perpetrators. There's a great book by the late Jimmy Breslin called World Without End, Amen. Spoiler alert---If you're planning to read it, skip the rest of this paragraph. It's about an Irish cop who discriminates against children of color. As I recall, he goes to Ireland, where he finds he is the victim, then comes back to New York, evidently having learned little.

We need to learn all the time. Jack Nicholson said, "The minute that you're not learning I believe you're dead." I agree. If we are to inspire children to learn, we need to set an example. We need to be open to other points of view and we need to stand up and admit when we are wrong. In fact, by doing that in front of the kids we serve we're setting an example. There's simply no better way to deal with being wrong. And if you are judging children by skin color, religion, sex, language, or country of origin, holy crap are you wrong.

In fact, if we've gotten to the point where we are professional teachers and can't think any more clearly than bigoted galoots like Donald Trump or Rudy Giuliani, we need to take really close looks at ourselves and find jobs more suited to our talents. Despite all the crap foisted upon us by the reformies, teachers still deal with people.

Hey, it's part of my job to defend teachers who get in trouble, and I'm ready and willing. If you're in trouble, I will advise you as best I can, do whatever research I can, represent you to the best of my ability and absolutely enforce the contract. I'm not in love with Danielson, I don't believe there's a bit of objectivity in using rubrics, and I have as little respect for incompetent supervisors as anyone I know. But between us, if you can't judge kids based on what they do rather than who they are, you ought to find another line of work.

Mediocrity Rules

 Sometimes I think we need to teach our students what logical fallacy is. Lately I think that more and more. I often find myself debating with adults who quickly resort to ad hominem and strawman arguments. I'm really amazed that adults, teachers, and union leaders jump to name calling and nonsense so quickly.

It's like junior high school all over again. I thought I was past all the rank out sessions, but I'm not, evidently. As life is short, I cut these conversations as quickly as I possibly can.

But politics is kind of a third rail.I've gotten a lot of flack about my decision not to vote for Hillary. Thus far, no one's really addressed my reasons, but rather I've been accused of supporting Trump via my lack of support for his opponent. That's simply ridiculous, as is Trump. Trump is amoral and reprehensible, for my money absolutely unacceptable. On the other hand, I've long felt a whole lot of GOP pols were pretty much the same as Trump, but found little weasel words to avoid saying outright what Trump does. Trump shouts the bigotry other Republicans know to only hint at.

Were I in Ohio or Florida I'd think twice about it, but if Hillary's NY race is competitive enough that she needs my vote, chances are she's lost anyway. Our Electoral College system is bizarre and undemocratic, and votes in my state are just not worth that much.

I'm a public education advocate, and if you want my vote you'd better either share that priority or be so good on everything else that I'm willing to overlook it (as was Bernie Sanders). I'm sorry that people are so upset about this, and I fully expect UFT to run an all-out, no-holds barred push for Hillary over the next few months. I believe that Hillary will likely not be as awful as Trump, but I fail to understand why we didn't extract significant concessions before going all in.

I voted for Barack Obama in 2008, he broke my heart, and I made a personal decision not to vote for reforminess anymore. When Cuomo ran on a platform promising to go after unions, I voted for Green Howie Hawkins. In 2012, I voted for Green Jill Stein for President, and I expect to do so again in November.

But I'm really shocked at some of the pushback I've gotten lately. A local union President from somewhere or other got on my Facebook page and called me names. That's not argument at all. I mean, if you can show me that Hillary will really work for us, you might persuade me. Personal insults are the province of people bereft of ideas, and we need to do better. You know, we're teachers, role models. Are we raising our children to thoughtlessly insult one another?

That's not the first time I've heard such nonsense, and I'm sure it won't be the last. Though there are a handful of people I really respect in leadership, I'm not seeing that as a rule. I have no problem engaging people, and I respect people's opinions. What amazes me is people approaching me with no argument whatsoever and absolute conviction that they are right. Why are they right? Well, they went to a meeting and someone told them this was right, and that's good enough for them. How can they be like that?

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. ~Upton Sinclair

When people tell me what a threat Trump is I understand. He would be an awful President, full of bluster and baseless ideas. And those who follow him blindly are really dangerous, as they could follow him into some pretty bad places. I found it ironic that someone, in defense of Hillary, would call me a "loser," as that's what Trump calls everyone and anyone who disagrees with him. What does that even mean anymore?

But I wonder how a leader of teachers can skate by with an inability to muster an argument that rises above juvenile name-calling. What does that say about us? I've met a whole lot of chapter leaders who got the job simply because no one else wanted it. I see places where the gig appears to be passed around like a hot potato. That's kind of understandable. Who's crazy enough to argue with the principal?  But someone has to do it.

Why can't we get good people? There are reasons, of course. One is that our system kind of encourages and perpetuates mediocrity. I mean, UFT leadership takes a stand, sort of. They supported mayoral control. When it came up for renewal, they asked for changes, didn't get them, and then supported it anyway. Now Mulgrew says they support it, but not as is. What does that even mean? If they don't support it as is, why the hell did they support it ever?

Leadership sort of sits on the fence on testing. Mulgrew's gonna punch all our faces out if we don't support Common Core, but they complain about the rollout, which is the same nonsense Cuomo rationalizes it with. They're against excessive testing, but when opt-out actually does something about it, they spout the same crap as Reformy John King. When opt-out places fear into the alleged heart of the Cuomo, and inspires him to make a few superficial changes, they declare it a victory (and take credit). But as they declare absolutely everything a victory, that's got kind of a hollow ring.

They attack everyone and anyone who disagrees with them. If they can't think of a good argument, they dredge the bottom of the barrel, and spit out whatever they come up with. Who cares if it's accurate or not? Anyone who's signed a loyalty oath will believe it or lose their free trip to Schenectady next year. Or maybe an after school gig. So they don't contradict it, and just as likely don't even bother to think about it.

What is the quality of representation you get when you hire people who won't and possibly even can't think? What is the quality of representation you get when no one is allowed to question the Great and Powerful Oz, and everyone just runs around pretending how mysterious he is?

Sadly, you get what we've got now. You get some very good people, and a lot of others who blindly do as told and fully expect never to have to explain it. When put in uncomfortable positions, they blurt out whatever nonsense comes into their heads.

If you read this blog I have to assume you know that we, teachers, are under assault. We are the last vestige of vibrant unionism in these United States and as such folks hate us. Some of those folks are Eli Broad and the Walmart family, and they donate heavily to candidate Hillary Clinton. Well, if Hillary is so great for teachers, why the hell are the reformies-in-chief donating to her?

Hey, if you want to vote for Hillary, go right ahead. I won't call you names. But if you want to be a leader, if you aim to persuade, you'd better be prepared to stand up and explain why you do what you do. There are certainly plenty of capable people. But we're not gonna inspire them to work with us if we're represented by those who behave like 12-year-olds.

When Chalkbeat Needs an "Expert," They Consult Students First NY

I am consistently amazed at what Chalkbeat regards as expert advice. Evidently, if you have enough cash to start an astroturf group, or if Bill Gates gives it to you, that's good enough for them. I found this tidbit in my email today, courtesy of Chalkbeat:

COLLEGE READY? City officials are hoping to ensure at least two-thirds of its graduates are "college ready" but experts disagree about how exactly readiness should be measured.

Wow. Who are they gonna ask? Aaron Pallas? Longtime principal Carol Burris? Ravitch herself? Here's the very first "expert" opinion Chalkbeat offers:

...StudentsFirstNY, in a report released last week, argues the city should include in its calculation students who don’t make it to graduation, which would knock the citywide rate down to just over one third.

Now that's very interesting. It's particularly interesting because I'm always reading about these amazing charter schools at which 100% of their grads go to four-year colleges. Incredible right? But what these stories don't say, ever, is precisely which percentage of the students who started these schools didn't finish. (That includes the ever-popular Dr. Steve Perry. I don't like to brag, but he recently banned me on Twitter because I retweeted something critical of him. How dare I?)
 I mean, if you start out with 100 kids, and 50 don't graduate your high school, doesn't that mean that half weren't college ready even if the other half ended up in 4-year colleges?

But I don't read these stories on Chalkbeat. I generally see them on Gary Rubinstein's blog. You see, while Gary is a full-time teacher at Stuyvesant and a father of small children, when he gets a story he doesn't just go to Students First NY and ask what they think about it.  He does research,  crunches the numbers, writes graphs and charts to make them accessible to folks like me who wouldn't understand otherwise, and presents a picture we wouldn't have otherwise.

Now in fairness, Chalkbeat also went to "Research Alliance for New York City Schools, a nonpartisan center based at New York University." 30 seconds of research revealed they were funded by Gates and Walmart. So you get both sides of the story at Chalkbeat. Reformy Students First NY, and a Gates funded entity that Chalkbeat calls "nonpartisan." We should take their word, right? (The fact that they didn't bother to label Students First as partisan should count for nothing, I suppose.) They also ask someone from Gates-funded "Achieve." So if you want a real spectrum of Gates-funded views, Chalkbeat is your go-to.

Also in fairness, they do acknowledge another view:

Yet some critics argue that test scores are not the best way to judge whether students are ready for college. Studies show that a student’s GPA is often a better predictor of success in college than his or her SAT scores, for example, though GPA isn’t standardized across schools.

You see that? "Some critics argue," they say, though they can't be bothered to cite a single one. And though it says "studies show," it doesn't mention who made them, or interview a single person who believes it. But then we resolve this issue.

Meanwhile, groups like StudentsFirstNY believe a metric that counts only graduates, rather than all students who start in ninth grade, artificially inflates the numbers.

Of course you have to not only give the last word to the astroturfers, but also fail again to mention they are partisan. Because journalistic standards. 

Though there are tens of thousands of teachers, though said teachers have a union, Chalkbeat New York could not be bothered asking them. Though Gary Rubinstein actually is an expert, and though he actually does research, they haven't bothered asking him either.

Chalkbeat NY's double standards are showing, and it appears they can't even be bothered to pretend anymore.

Platitudes Ahoy from Hillary at NEA

Writer Dana Goldstein is highly impressed by Hillary's talking points at the NEA. She says it represents a new beginning for teachers, and calls her "the teachers' candidate." Yet she's also highly impressed by recent actions of the Obama administration.

Former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan issued a mea culpa of sorts on the overuse of standardized testing, and his successor John King has drawn attention to racial segregation and overly harsh school discipline.

While it's nice that these guys have finally taken the crucial step of paying valuable lip service to these things, the fact is they've done jack squat on the testing front, and John King is, in fact, trying to subvert ESSA to ensure that more testing be done, spirit and letter of the law be damned. And despite the alleged philosophical evolution of President Obama, I haven't heard him raise a peep over King's disregard for the law.

You'll pardon me for not getting overly enthusiastic here, but I've watched our AFT President Randi Weingarten very carefully, along with our local President Michael Mulgrew, and I've heard a lot about what President Obama has said. Those words have not changed much for those of us who actually do the work. Things seem to get worse each and every year, no matter what they say. Here's more on our commander-in-chief:

Two years later, in a speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Obama referenced teacher tenure more harshly, saying, “I reject a system that rewards failure and protects a person from its consequences.” If we could fire bad teachers and replace them with better ones, the thinking went, we could narrow the academic fissures between rich and poor children.

Obama wasn’t wrong about the excesses of teacher tenure.

I love that Goldstein feels no pressure to, you know, offer any evidence for that statement. In fact, tenure does not give teachers jobs for life. Tenure just means, or at least used to mean, that admin has to prove teachers are unfit before they fire them. Generally no one, including Goldstein, questions why these teachers received tenure if they were indeed unfit. And no one questions why administrators didn't bother to go after these teachers before. But now that Cuomo has managed to place the burden of proof on teachers to prove they are not unfit, a virtually impossible burden, perhaps writers like Goldstein find things improved. Who knows? She herself feels no need to even offer an explanation.

And while it's nice that Obama pays lip service to factors other than teachers, and it's nice that Hillary does as well, there's no evidence here that anything is going to change, and no promises to actually, you know, do anything about it. Were Hillary saying she was going to do away with all VAM junk science, it would be something worth talking about. But I didn't hear that, and Goldstein didn't report it. Here's the important part of Goldstein's argument:

I wrote a book on our historical tendency to blame teachers for society’s ills.

That's what you call an appeal to authority, a logical fallacy, if not a self-serving advertisement. I don't care if she's written ten books. Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein have written books too, and they're still still full of crap. Show me why I should listen to you. Here's what self-appointed expert Goldstein has learned:

Teacher accountability isn’t a bad thing; any functional system has mechanisms in place to remove low performers and, even more importantly, help them improve. 

You see that? It's more important to help them improve, but despite all the nice words about external factors from Hillary and Obama and her uncited sources, there's still that bad teacher floating around the pool polluting the water for everyone else.  And here's Goldstein's conclusion:

It’s safe to say it is a new day for the Democratic Party on education policy. But here’s hoping that Clinton’s turn toward the unions doesn’t mean she lets go of some of the Obama administration’s more promising recent ideas.

Despite the fact that Hillary was addressing an audience of teachers and clearly catered her remarks to evoke applause, despite the fact that this was a speech, not an act, and despite the fact that teachers booed her remarks about charters, which she clearly plans to support and expand, this writer, who "wrote a book," is  certain it's a new day. Frankly, I didn't even see how Hillary's promise of "a seat at the table" has any meaning whatsoever. I've been to many legally imposed public meetings where those who were supposed to listen had their minds made up and did whatever they came to do anyway. I've joined entire communities to speak at that table as Bloomberg's operatives played video games below it, ignoring us entirely.

If Hillary becomes President, it's incumbent upon activists like us and opt-out to keep the pressure on. We already know that AFT and NEA are content with status quo and unconditionally accept every word that comes out of the mouths of educational demagogues they wish to support. It's what they do, not what they say, and thus far Hillary Clinton has done nothing but sit idly by while her former boss followed each and every reformy druther of Bill Gates. She's accepted money and support from Broad and the Walmart family, and this teacher does not believe reformies are paying for any "new beginning" that involves improving the lot of public school teachers or students.

Go ahead and prove me wrong, Hillary. But don't take me for such a fool that, after decades of reforminess, I should just take your word things will be better even as you offer no specifics whatsoever.

Boy Wonder Writes a File Letter

Another grievance. This wasn't right, that wasn't right, blah, blah, blah. When I was a teacher I never filed a grievance. I just did whatever the hell I could to look good, and in two years I moved out of that crappy classroom, not that I ever wanted to be there anyway.
 
Look at this. Oh man this sucks. How the hell can anyone put up with this crap? That bastard Chapter Leader got Walsh's letter removed to his file just because it wasn't a file letter! What the hell is up with that? He was all, "Oh, they have to write a Counseling Memo, and oh, the teacher has to sign and say I understand a copy of this is going to my file." What a bunch of crap. I can do whatever I want!

Give me a break. Who the hell needs to write Counseling Memos, with all that extra gobbledygook on the bottom? Do they think I have time to search for that template instead of just using a blank one? Don't they know I have observations to do? What, do they want me to use this template instead of that template? I tell you, in the small schools they don't have these stinking Chapter Leaders to say do this and don't do that. 

It was just an oversight. Just a little note to let Walsh know what an asshole he was for leaving the voluntary mandatory meeting five minutes early. How the hell am I supposed to run a voluntary mandatory meeting when people think they can leave five minutes early? There's a lot of important stuff going on at those meetings, and if they don't do those things I will have to do them myself. And I'm busy!

In fact, right now I could really go for one of those Italian heroes. They call them The Godfather and it's on this amazing semolina bread. They put mortadella on those things, but I tell you, to me it tastes like bologna. Not that it's a bad thing. But what the hell is really the difference other than the big slices with that funny looking stuff in them?

Anyway, I just checked a bulletin board he put up and there's no rubric on it. Who the hell wants to look at a bulletin board without a rubric? How are we supposed to impress the superintendent if there aren't rubrics all over everything? I will show that bastard. I'm writing a file letter now. I'll have a meeting with him, listen to whatever crap they have to say, date the thing after the meeting and put it in his damn file.

I know, they're gonna be all blah, blah, blah, it's no big deal. Walsh is a big hero, and the newspapers wrote about him. Well I don't care. I will get that son of a bitch one way or another. As soon as all the hooplah dies down I will rate his sorry ass ineffective again. Meanwhile, I'll write this letter, staple the old one to it, and then they will both be in his file. I'll say it's all about his attitude. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Let Chapter Leader blather on about progressive discipline and whatever crap there is in the contract. It's all the same to me. "This is what I choose to do," I'll say. Maybe I'll say, "with all due respect" first. It always sounds better when you say "with all due respect,"not that I give a flying hoot what it sounds like.

What does it feel like to mess with me and have it blow up in your face? You will know, Walsh, and no stinking Chapter Leader is gonna get in my way. It's like in my favorite song:

We hope Neil Young will remember Southern men don't need him around anyhow.

This will teach them to mess with folks from the South Shore of Long Island. We don't stand for that kind of guff from losers who can't make it past school teacher.

Familes for Excellent Schools Does an Analysis

I'm always amazed when E4E finds 100 signatures demanding more work for less pay and Chalkbeat NY's subsequent article reports it as though it indicates something that isn't painfully obvious. I can garner 100 signatures on a petition in 90 minutes. Not only that, but if I do such a thing, it's to actually help students rather than advance the druthers of Bill Gates or some other billionaire.

That's why I'm kind of amazed when so-called Families for Excellent Schools, well-known BFFs and staunch supporters of Eva Moskowitz, does one of their studies and it ends up in the Daily News. In fairness, the News specifically portrays them as a pro-charter group, which is a lot better than what Chalkbeat does when they blather about the latest adventures of E4E.

You don't need to be a genius to know that they aren't necessarily families, or that their idea of excellent schools is whatever Eva wants, or whatever Bill Gates happened to pull out of his abundant and fruitful hind quarters on any given morning.

Nonetheless, I read with interest the results of their most recent revelation in today's Daily News.

More than half of all charter schools located within public school buildings are overcrowded compared to only 16% of district schools they share space with, according to the analysis of data conducted by the pro-charter school group Families for Excellent Schools.

The group’s look at city enrollment data also shows that more than half of all charter school students attended overcrowded schools in the 2014-15 school year, compared to only 17% of students in co-located district schools.

Naturally, I'm shocked and stunned. Why aren't the public schools overcrowded? I can only conjecture that's because the city decided not to place charters in overcrowded buildings. Can you imagine? The audacity! But by counting only the buildings containing colocations, the astroturf group misleads the public, and the public are likely to not make this important distinction.

Nonetheless, I can think of several ways to alleviate the issues raised in the piece. If 16 or 17% of the public schools are overcrowded, throw the charters the hell out so that our public school students can have some damn space. What moron decided to overcrowd the schools? Said moron should be fired. And if it's Governor Andrew Cuomo, so much the better.

Families for Excellent Schools CEO Jeremiah Kitteredge says the numbers show that Mayor de Blasio is swindling students of privately run, publicly funded charter schools.

“Even with 150,000 empty seats, this administration chooses to discriminate against public charter school students by granting them less space,” said Kittredge, referring to the number of empty seats projected in a city tally of public schools from 2015.

The notion that de Blasio is giving preferential treatment to public schools, though I wish it were true, is a pants on fire lie. As I pointed out, the FES figure does not take into account public schools that do not have colocations. My school has been over 200% capacity for most of the 20 plus years I've worked there. I have very little sympathy for the largely fabricated and wholly misleading plight Mr. Kittredge bemoans. What, exactly, constitutes overcrowding in a charter? And being as charters commonly shed students without replacing them, haven't they got the means to relieve it? Why the hell don't they if they care so much?

The answer, of course, is they take as large a group as possible, keep the ones they like, and dump the ones on the got to go list. As someone who works in a school that takes everyone, from the high achievers to the alternate assessment, as someone who teaches high-needs kids who wouldn't make it into a Moskowitz Academy on a bet, I have little sympathy for the poor rich charter schools.

The piece refers back to the last revelation FES had, that there are supposedly 150,000 empty seats somewhere in the city.  I have no idea what sort of biased nonsense FES may have utilized to reach that conclusion, but if there are any empty seats, Jesus, send them to us. We have kids sitting in trailers, in converted book rooms, in gyms with basketballs bouncing off the walls, and pretty much everywhere and anywhere we can find space. How about giving our kids a break?

Let Eva Moskowitz take the 35 million bucks she raised and buy a damn building. Why the hell aren't we reading about their spring benefit in the News, the Post, or for Christ's sake in Chalkbeat NY, which writes a feature every time Moskowitz sneezes or E4E announces a bathroom break?

The complaints manufactured by FES are self-serving and ridiculous. Why are they able to play the media like a violin while our leadership sits on its hands? Perhaps because leadership is so busy fighting genuine activists they haven't got the time or inclination to fight our real enemies or reach out to make sure the real story is told.

We certainly can and should do better.

UFT Unity's War on Logic

An interesting by-product of joining the Unity Caucus and signing the loyalty oath is you have to rationalize everything Unity Caucus does. OK, well not everyone has to. But if you want to move up and impress those who need impressing, you'll do any logical contortion necessary to make their actions appear rational.

A very good example of that was their attack on MORE at the last Delegate Assembly. When you're sworn to defend anything by any means necessary, you aren't restricted by things like truth, logic, or common decency. You say any damn thing and as long as it makes you look superficially good, that's good enough. Unfortunately for Unity there are people like Jeanette Deutermann, who actually think about things before accepting them, and they are liable to publicly call you out.

Even worse, there are entire organizations intent on facing reforminess with truth, and one is NY State Allies for Pubic Education, or NYSAPE. And boy, is it inconvenient to lead a teacher union and be called out by a grassroots education group:

In addition to providing your members with false information, you have demonized the brave and outspoken NYC educators who have encouraged opt out. You have inexplicably labeled these educators as “reckless and feckless”. This begs the question, why would an experienced educator and union leader dismiss and insult a historic act of civil disobedience? Surely, you are aware that the opt out movement has yielded the only successful means of resisting harmful “test and punish” policies that hurt not only your members, but all educators and students around the state.

It is no secret that you have failed to support efforts to reject the increased focus on test scores in the new teacher evaluation plan (3012-d), or that you have publicly vowed to defend the common core standards (standards that even the Governor’s skewed CC task force found to be flawed) with violence, if necessary. In addition to your disparaging comments aimed at those who support the opt out movement, your actions as president of the UFT would appear to reveal whose side you are really on.

When teachers, students, and unions were being abused, demonized, and demoralized, a call to action rang out from grassroots parent and educator organizations. Many teachers and local unions heeded the call. Progressive caucuses within the UFT such as MORE and the statewide caucus Stronger Together immediately stepped up and worked alongside parents to fight for the best interests of our children. Where were you? - See more at: http://www.nysape.org/nysape-mulgrew-response.html#sthash.oxAFE1tA.dpuf

In addition to providing your members with false information, you have demonized the brave and outspoken NYC educators who have encouraged opt out. You have inexplicably labeled these educators as “reckless and feckless”. This begs the question, why would an experienced educator and union leader dismiss and insult a historic act of civil disobedience? Surely, you are aware that the opt out movement has yielded the only successful means of resisting harmful “test and punish” policies that hurt not only your members, but all educators and students around the state.

It is no secret that you have failed to support efforts to reject the increased focus on test scores in the new teacher evaluation plan (3012-d), or that you have publicly vowed to defend the common core standards (standards that even the Governor’s skewed CC task force found to be flawed) with violence, if necessary. In addition to your disparaging comments aimed at those who support the opt out movement, your actions as president of the UFT would appear to reveal whose side you are really on.

When teachers, students, and unions were being abused, demonized, and demoralized, a call to action rang out from grassroots parent and educator organizations. Many teachers and local unions heeded the call. Progressive caucuses within the UFT such as MORE and the statewide caucus Stronger Together immediately stepped up and worked alongside parents to fight for the best interests of our children. Where were you?

Not particularly flattering, and a hell of a question for people whose jobs, ostensibly, entail representing those of us who work in public education. And that's not even an aberration. A recent Unity propaganda effort was a strawman, that is, because MORE opposes teachers being judged by junk science, they therefore must favor principals having 100% power. This, of course, ignores the fact that principals can sink evaluations in the current system anyway.

A worse factor of the new APPR is that the burden of proof is no longer on the DOE--they need not prove you are incompetent. Under the current system, if the UFT rat squad determines that the principal is right, burden of proof shifts to the teachers, who must prove they are not incompetent. Lawyer friends of mine tell me that proving a negative is very, very tough, and it isn't very hard for me to see why that's correct.

Of course if you're Unity, it's your job to rationalize everything Unity does. I know of several Unity folks who defended this saying it's better that we own it. This hasn't appeared in any official Unity publication yet because first, they don't publicly acknowledge the shifting of the burden, ever, and second, I suppose, because it's an incredibly stupid argument that even the idiots who write Unity propaganda can't bring themselves to use. Here's what Eric Severson, UFT Chapter Leader at Clara Barton, commented:

No it's better that I've been imprisoned without trial and presumed guilty, now I can own it!

Because, in fact, this makes teachers guilty until proven innocent. To me, that's fundamentally un-American. But to great minds of UFT Unity, intent on rationalizing absolutely anything leadership does, it's a gift!

It's remarkable that Unity propagandists are so inept at argument, though it explains a lot about why they negotiate contracts the way they do. I certainly hope they keep placing their collective feet so firmly in their mouths. It's fabulous for blog material. Better, though, would be for them to get off that high horse and work with us toward improving education for teachers, students and communities.

Only time will tell whether UFT Unity will risk its "seat at the table" to work with real activists like us and NYSAPE. But hope springeth eternal.  

In addition to providing your members with false information, you have demonized the brave and outspoken NYC educators who have encouraged opt out. You have inexplicably labeled these educators as “reckless and feckless”. This begs the question, why would an experienced educator and union leader dismiss and insult a historic act of civil disobedience? Surely, you are aware that the opt out movement has yielded the only successful means of resisting harmful “test and punish” policies that hurt not only your members, but all educators and students around the state.

It is no secret that you have failed to support efforts to reject the increased focus on test scores in the new teacher evaluation plan (3012-d), or that you have publicly vowed to defend the common core standards (standards that even the Governor’s skewed CC task force found to be flawed) with violence, if necessary. In addition to your disparaging comments aimed at those who support the opt out movement, your actions as president of the UFT would appear to reveal whose side you are really on.

When teachers, students, and unions were being abused, demonized, and demoralized, a call to action rang out from grassroots parent and educator organizations. Many teachers and local unions heeded the call. Progressive caucuses within the UFT such as MORE and the statewide caucus Stronger Together immediately stepped up and worked alongside parents to fight for the best interests of our children. Where were you? - See more at: http://www.nysape.org/nysape-mulgrew-response.html#sthash.oxAFE1tA.dpuf

Happy Independence Day to All

Wishing everyone a very happy and healthy fourth. From what I hear outside my door it started yesterday. Let's be careful out there.

Chalkbeat NY Stands Up for the Gates-Funded Little Guy

I was pretty surprised to read that the NY Regents are passing policy without the input of the public. I mean, that's a pretty serious breach of basic democracy, isn't it? On the other hand, I've been to a whole lot of public hearings about schools and school closings, and I've spoken at them too. Several were at Jamaica High School, closed based on false statistics, according to this piece in Chalkbeat.

The thing about public hearings is this--yes, members of the public get to speak. In fact, at Jamaica and several other school closing hearings, I don't remember a single person getting up to speak in favor of school closings. I've also been to multiple meetings of the PEP under Bloomberg where the public was roundly ignored. In fact, Bloomberg fired anyone who contemplated voting against doing whatever they were told. While he didn't make them sign loyalty oaths, the effect was precisely the same.

State hearings are different, of course. When former NY Education Commissioner Reformy John King decided to explain to NY that Common Core was the best thing since sliced bread, he planned a series of public forums. However, after the public said in no uncertain terms they disagreed, he canceled them, saying they'd been taken over by "special interests." The special interests, of course, were parents and teachers. He may have implied they were controlled by the unions, but of course the union leadership actually supported the same nonsense he was espousing.

In fact, the only meeting King went to where he found support actually was taken over by special interests, to wit, Students First NY. Only one non-special interest actually got to speak, and that was my friend Katie Lapham. Other than that it was a pro-high-stakes testing party. Doubtless this was King's view of a worthy public forum, and given that it's taken until now for Chalkbeat to stand up to the lack of forums, I have to question whether it's theirs too.

The big change Chalkbeat points to is a link claiming that the Regents "wiped out" main elements of the teacher evaluation law. If you bother to follow the link, you learn that this is a reference to the fake moratorium on high stakes testing, which the article itself later admits to be limited to the use of Common Core testing in grades 3-8. The fact that junk science rules absolutely everywhere else, and will in fact be increased in importance next year, is evidently of no relevance whatsoever.

While Chalkbeat acknowledges these changes were urged on by Governor Cuomo's task force, it fails utterly to make connections as to what forced Cuomo to start a task force, let alone pretend he gives a crap about education or public school teachers. This, of course, was a massive opt-out, in which over 20% of New York's parents told their children not to sit for tests that Cuomo himself referred to as meaningless. But rather than speak to any of its leaders, Chalkbeat seeks comment from a Gates-funded group I've never heard of called Committee on Open Government.

After all, why go to Jeanette Deutermann, or Leonie Haimson, or Jia Lee, or Beth Dimino, or Katie Lapham, when you can get someone who's taken Gates money? And just to round out the forum, Chalkbeat goes to Reformy John King's successor, MaryEllen Elia, who's taken boatloads of Gates money and is therefore an expert on pretty much whatever.

Chalkbeat also makes the preposterous assertion that the Regents allowing children of special needs a route to graduation should have been more gradual because schools were prepping them for tests they didn't need. While that may be true, this did not remove their option of taking those tests. Announcing the allowance this year and enabling it, say, next year, would've helped absolutely no one. You don't need to go to a Gates-funded expert to figure that out.

While it may have been nice to have public hearings, the fact is the public has gotten up and spoken, and without that, none of these changes would have occurred. It's remarkable that Chalkbeat NY doesn't know that.

RIP Jimmy Moore

Not all teaching happens in the classroom. I learned a lot from the man at the center of this photo with the big old dreadnought guitar. I met him at a bluegrass festival maybe 15 years ago in Windgap, PA. Everyone was saying, "You have to go meet Jimmy Moore." I went, but I wasn't at all sure who the hell Jimmy Moore actually was.

He was sitting with his camper bus, the one he said you could actually watch the gas gauge go down with every inch it moved. I was a reformed guitar player who had just started focusing on the fiddle. After all, absolutely everyone seems to know how to play the guitar, and few are crazy enough to bother with a fiddle.

I sat with Jimmy, who told me, "Play it like this," and, "Kick it off it like that." He had very strong ideas about how I should play everything, and it was his way or the highway (or the next campsite, or something). He'd stop me and hum something, and I had to reproduce it until it matched the sound in his mind. It wasn't always easy, because his humming didn't sound a whole lot like a fiddle. But he was persistent, and didn't give up until he heard what he wanted.

Jimmy was a brave man, because I'd hardly been playing at all, and very shortly thereafter he asked me to play fiddle with his bluegrass band in public. which no one else had ever done before. There's a joke:

"How do you make a million dollars playing bluegrass music?"

"Start with two million." 

So naturally this was not a paying gig. But Jimmy Moore was the real deal, born in North Carolina (where he still kept a summer home), a great singer with perfect timing. I knew I had to play with him. On the Sunday he called a rehearsal, I was really sick with a fever. I dragged myself out of bed, drove to Jimmy's house in Marlboro NJ, anyway, and we went through his set. I went there again the following week, from where we drove in his white van to Albert Hall in Waretown, New Jersey.

To this day I have no idea why he took that gig. Jimmy hated the Albert Hall. He reminded me of that for the entire hour we spent driving there (and back). "They used to give you a hot dog. A hot dog. Now, they hand you a ticket and all they give you is a cup of coffee." He had this habit of elbowing me for emphasis, and he had strong opinions about everything. Jimmy, unlike a lot of bluegrass musicians I've met, leaned left politically, had serious issues with then-President GW Bush, and had op-eds in local newspapers giving chapter and verse as to why. Fortunately, all the other gigs we did were paying, he was a lot happier, and I didn't have to feel the wrath of that elbow anymore.

Jimmy didn't only write op-eds; he also wrote songs. Great songs. He wrote bluegrass songs and country songs. He won songwriting contests around the country. He had his songs recorded by various bluegrass artists, but alas, no big country hits. We'd play his songs at gigs and they were as good as the classic material with which we supplemented it.

You'd be on stage and Jimmy would ask you to kick off a song you'd never played before. It didn't matter to him. He decided that's how it would be, on the spot, and that's how it was. He'd ask me to play a fiddle tune I'd never played before. I'd say hey, man, I don't really know it. It didn't matter to him. You just had to do it, and you would. How could you not? Jimmy had decided you knew it, and so you did.

Jimmy ran through a whole lot of musicians over the decades he performed. I'm honored to have been one of them. I went to his memorial service on Wednesday night, full of musicians he'd influenced and with whom he'd performed. We heard from them and his children and grandchildren. One thing his granddaughter said really resonated with me. She said Jimmy had told her that if she loved what she did, she wouldn't work a day in her life.

This is an idea I try to teach my students. I love my job, and I'm talking about my primary job as teacher. I love my secondary job as chapter leader, which I may or may not devote more time to than teaching. I also love my job playing fiddle, although I do it a whole lot less than I did when I wasn't chapter leader. There are just so many hours in the day, and I want to spend one or two with my family now and then.

But I've never worked with a singer quite like Jimmy. He had a house full of musical instruments, and he could and would play all of them. He'd call me up and play me an instrumental he'd written on the mandolin. He'd instruct me to work out a fiddle part. He'd tell me about a CD he'd heard that I just had to hear, and I'd always find it on the net and order it, right after I got off the phone.

I'm very sad I won't be getting those calls anymore. It's too bad more people didn't get to hear him. But if you want to, here's a tune he recorded a long time ago. I'm thinking the sixties, but I really don't know. This is Jimmy, giving directions as usual, in this case, to play a little bluegrass music.