From the Grassroots - GEMNYC October Newsletter Available

It's a beaut.

Diamonds to Karen Lewis, Coals to Eva Moskowitz. 

Fall into the Gap:
High Stakes Testing, Mayor Bloomberg, and the Dismantling of Public Education

Charter Schools:  Myths and Truths

Parents, Teachers Rally at Twenty Schools

Profile of a GEM member: Sam Coleman

Upcoming GEM Events: 

How is high-stakes testing being used to dismantle/undermine public education and what we can do about it? What do the changes in test scores really mean for parents and teachers?

An open panel and follow-up analysis and discussion focusing on solutions.

September 28, 4:30-7pm

CUNY Grad Center

34th St. & 5th Ave. Rm 5414

(Bring id)

Hard copy is a one page folded booklet. Downloaded it is a 4 pager.

Ask and ye shall receive. Contact gemnyc@gmail.com for copies.

Reviewing Waiting for Superman: A Real Reformer Stands Up

The following review was written by a teacher with a decade of experience teaching special ed who got to see an advance screening of "Waiting for Superman" the other night. The teacher is one of the GEM people working on the response: The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman. See the trailer at: http://www.waitingforsupermantruth.org/

Still Waiting

by RR (Real Reformer)

Sept. 22, 2010

I had the opportunity to attend an advanced screening of “Waiting for Superman” tonight.  I fully expected to be nauseated by what I perceived to be corporate-backed propaganda, with the predictable message of teacher unions as the villain and so-called reformers as heroes.  The film’s premise and claims are uninformed and drastically miss the boat in terms of creating a narrative regarding the real issues our public school system faces.  Further, the film completely neglects to engage in any meaningful discussion of the real reforms needed to improve educational opportunity for our children. 

Some highlights (or lowlights if you will)… 

Claims vs. Truth 

Claim:  “We know that it is possible to give every child a great education,” (based on the success of charter schools).   

Truth: Charters in general, and in particular the ones featured in this film, sort and select students, serve far less ELL students, students receiving special education services, and students who qualify for reduced and free lunch compared with their neighboring public schools.  The truth is, charters do not outperform public schools, even with every advantage, including smaller student to teacher ratios, the ability to discharge students at will, and increased autonomy.

========

Claim:  “There is usually only one mainstream school in every school district in America that is above average.”   

Truth:  I do not presume to know the stats on this, but the claim is completely unsupported in the film and would venture to say untrue.  As a perfect example, District 15 in Brooklyn has many schools that are above average.

========

Claim:  “If you don’t go to college, you are screwed in America.”   

Truth:  One of the purveyors of this claim in the film is Bill Gates who says we cannot have American innovation without our kids going to college.  This from one of the most significant innovators of our time, who, that’s right, didn’t get a college degree.

========

Claim:  “KIPP schools are better schools because they won’t let kids fail.”  “You can’t argue with KIPP’s data.” 

Truth:  KIPP students and parents sign a “Contract for Excellence” and if the contract is not followed, they can be dismissed from the school.

========

Claim: “Even progressive educators believed that the achievement gaps in our education system could not be closed.”   

Truth:  As a progressive educator, I am horrified by this claim made as a general and factual statement, and can personally attest that it is untrue.

========

Claim:  “Kids that go to charter schools (featured in this film I believe is the context) do not just do better than poor kids, they do better than everyone.” 

Truth:  Some charter schools do better than public schools, some do worse, the majority, do the same.

========

Claim:  “If we replace bad teachers with average teachers we can catch up to Finland in just a few years.” “Unions are a menace and an impediment to reform.”  “Teacher union contracts say you can’t fire them.” “Good teachers teach 150% of curriculum in a year, bad teachers only teach 50% of curriculum in a year.” “Teachers get tenure if they just breathe.”  “It should be simple, put teachers in a school house where they fill children’s heads with knowledge, but we have made it more complicated.” 

Truth:  The simple blame game, painting teachers and teacher unions as villains is a completely unsupported claim.  Virginia, a right to work state, has some of the worst educational outcomes in the country.  Finland, touted with some of the best educational outcomes in the film, is a pro-union system.  Teachers do matter, but their tenure is not decided by them, it is decided by principals.  Teachers do matter, but we do not write the standards, curriculum, and tests.  Teachers do matter, but we live in a climate of extreme external pressure that prevents us from actually teaching.  Teachers do matter, but so do parents, principals, education officials, economic opportunity, school and community programs. The list goes on and on.  The fact is, the vast majority of teachers are good teachers, who work hard, and whose ability to speak out with parents and advocate for children is protected only by their tenure. Imagine a system where teachers could not advocate with parents for children!

There are many more claims I could refute in the film, but this has already served as a spoiler for anyone who actually wants to see the film, and frankly, I’m tired.   

I taught all day, met after school with parents and educators working on an initiative for our school, and then went and saw a film that basically said:  ‘Teachers and their unions bad.  Charters good.’  I’ve had enough for one day!

 I will end this with one final note…

One of the children in the movie, the story I found to be most touching and compelling, lived with his grandparents, never really knew his mother, and his father died at a young age because of drugs.  The tenderness of this child, the wisdom he shared well beyond his years, and the hopes he has for his time at SEED ( he dramatically finds out he has been accepted at the very end of the film after being on a waiting list), quite literally moved me to tears.  One of the last scenes in the film is him on his bunk bed at SEED; he leans over, and tacks up a picture of him with his father from years ago.

I have known countless children who share his story, I have had the privilege to teach many, to love them all, and one of them, who I’ll call Junior (who is now nineteen), came to visit me last week.  At first he talked about how he was looking for a college to go to. He clearly wanted me to be proud of him. But then put his head in his hands and said, “I can’t lie to you, you was my best teacher, I dropped out of school before I finished.”  

My heart sank. All of the deformer attacks on teachers rushed through my mind.  Does this make me a bad teacher?   Through my tear filled eyes, I asked him why.  He told me that his parents had been in and out of jail, on and off drugs, and in and out of shelters from the time he left me in fifth grade.  He explained that it became too difficult to keep up. He said he had been waiting for a transfer from a high school in the Bronx. He waited for the DOE to take care of his paperwork for two months, and eventually he gave up.  I checked with a few contacts, found him a program that will support him with getting his GED and job training, and reminded him, as I do with all of my students, that I am always here, whenever and if ever you need me. 

I have worked in one of the neediest communities in Brooklyn for over ten years as a teacher of children with learning differences.  I have students in jail.  Students I have never heard from again.  Students who come to see me regularly.  Students who got scholarships to private schools.  Students who scored high on tests.  Students who scored low.  Students who are tickled with their job pushing shopping carts at a local store.  Students who shed their special education label and navigate or navigated their way through general education programs. 

What is the measure of my success as an educator?  Is my worth narrowly tied to student outcomes like test scores and graduation rates?  Is an educator only successful, if his/her students are successful?  What is the definition of successful?  Junior may not be a success in the so-called reformers eyes, but given the insurmountable odds he has faced and the countless adults who have disappointed him in his life, the fact that he found me again after all of this years and felt safe enough to tell me the truth, to make himself vulnerable, and to ask for help to improve his life highlights the narrow lens with which this film, and we as a people, view education in our society.   

It’s complicated.  There are no easy answers.  Charters are not a panacea.  Teachers and their unions are not villains, nor are we superheroes.   It is true Junior is a “drop-out”, but I do not consider him to be a failure, nor do I consider myself to be a failure.  As a teacher, there are many factors I cannot control.  While I cannot be superman, my students have shown me year after year that to the vast majority of them I am their hero, and they are mine.  That is all the ‘data’ I need.

If we want to begin to have a real dialogue about real reform, we must address the economic benefits for some that come by excluding large portions of our population from economic access via equitable educational opportunities.   If I believed for one second that the current reform agenda held the promise of equalizing educational opportunities for all, I would embrace it, and would be the first standing on the front lines fighting for it.  Instead I find myself firmly planted on the other side; the side of real reform with the belief that we can have great community public schools for ALL children if only we stopped waiting and started taking authentic action.  We allocate on average $33,000 a year per prison inmate while we allocate an average of $9,000 a year per pupil in our public schools.  Something is gravely wrong with these numbers.  If we can hold teachers accountable to data, shouldn’t we hold our policy makers to the same standard?  It is time to take the long view.  Will the Real Reformers please stand up?

Trailer for The Inconvenient Truth About Waiting for Superman Released

There's a new web site for the film GEM is doing (Thanks Mona):

http://www.waitingforsupermantruth.org/

Here is the trailer.



Press advisory coming tomorrow.

Movie Trailer to be Released- The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For Superman

There's been lots of excitement in GEMville over the last few days. We finally finished the trailer for our film last night and expect to release it within the next 48 hours. We are also working on our performance art and will announce a rehearsal and follow-up performance tomorrow of our song "Will the Real Reformers Please Stand Up?"

I got a call from a teacher going home on the bus yesterday who said she was so excited when she saw the lyrics. We hope people can join us as we announce the dates. Imagine a performance of hundreds of people on the steps of Tweed? Maybe only a dream but not impossible.

As for the film, now that the trailer is done we have to start editing the massive amount of footage we have accumulated. There is a story line being developed. We expect the film to run about 28 minutes and hope to make it available to schools and groups that request it - would be a great lunchtime event. We're aiming for an end of October release but since all the other people involved other than me are working educators, we will see how it shapes up. And then I also got a part as Vinnie the whinney, whimp, henpecked card player in Rockaway Theatre Company's upcoming production of The Odd Couple and rehearsals are starting - and all the other actors have been in scads of shows and this is my first. So why do I feel that I never retired?

I'm going to be at the UFT Chapter Leader meeting today passing out the new GEM newsletter and more info about the film and performances so stop by and say hello if you will be there.


Here is what I posted the other day.

Will the Real Reformers Please Stand Up?

Real Reformers have been working to counter the Waiting for Superman and MSNBC Education Nation (see NYC Educator today: Ship of Fools.)

GEM has been organizing around this and working with parents and teachers around the city to produce out own movie. Look for the trailer to be released at the GEMNYC blog and Ed Notes in a few days. GEM will also be organizing performances at various locations in the city of the eminem song "Will the Real Slim Shady Please Stand Up?" with lyrics rewritten by the GEM crew. While singing, some people will stand up for Real Reform with these signs:

7 "real reforms" 

     

Real Reform #1:  Smaller class size

Real Reform #2:  Excellent community school for ALL

Real Reform #3:  More teaching less testing

           

Real Reform #4:  Parent empowerment and leadership

Real Reform #5:  Equitable funding for all schools

Real Reform #6:  Anti-racist education policies

Real Reform #7:  Culturally relevant curriculum

Here are the lyrics. Start warbling (and if you want to know when and where these "surprise" performances will be taking place, email me off line.)

May, I have your attention please?

May, I have your attention please?

Will the real reformers please stand up?

I repeat, will the real reformers please stand up?

We might have a problem here…

These deformers don’t gotta real plan in their pack, but we do

We reject their agenda and you should too!

You think they have ideas for real reform?

Half them been looking for ways to make cash since they were born.

“But guys, what if its not lies, wouldn’t it be great?” (nerdy voice)

Why, so these guys can sell their charter plate?

Mess with our kids’ future fate?

Naw, Superman is here and not too late. (sarcastic)

Klein, Rhee and Duncan better switch us jobs,

So we can put an end to those hedge fund hogs.

They put teachers on blast in the newspaper?

“ all you need is quality teachers…. deerrrr!” (mocking voice)

We will expose their agenda and open your eyes

And show the world their drive to privatize… (yell:  ahhhhhhh)

sick of the law and pr groups all you do harms kids

So we have been sent here to expose you,

And there’s a million reformers just like us,

Who teach like us, who have kids like us,

who care like us, real reformers for just’us

just trust us, parents and teachers unite like us…

Cause we the real reformers, yes the real reformers

All you other deformers are just speculating

So won’t the real reformers please stand up,

Please stand up, please stand up? (reapeat 2x)

GEM Meets September 28: High-Stakes Testing and The Attack on Public Education

Join GEMers in this rousing discussion at the first general meeting of the new school year

High-Stakes Testing and The Attack on Public Education

• In NYC, test scores have made the headlines once again.  Last year, test scores were bandied about by Michael Bloomberg as evidence of his effective "stewardship" over NYC schools.  This summer, ELA and Math test scores dropped precipitously due to re-scaling of the tests, causing widespread parent outrage.

• In NYC and across the country, new systems of teacher evaluation are based more and more on student scores on a single high-stakes test.  Dozens of schools are closed on the basis of low test scores leaving these communities without neighborhood schools and displacing experienced teachers, thereby adding to the ATR pool. Teachers, students and parents are now being told to judge the basis of a quality education on these dubious test scores.

• What do the changes in test scores mean for NYC teachers and students?
• How is high-stakes testing being used to dismantle and undermine the public education system?
• What is the effect of incessant testing on our educational system?
• What can we do about it?

Bring your experiences and ideas to a discussion with the Grassroots Education Movement (GEM).  Join with others in attempting to counter the effects of high-stakes testing mania.

September 28 4:30 - 7 p.m.
CUNY Graduate Center
34th and 5th Ave. Room 5409
(Bring ID)
Trains:  N, R, D, F, Q, B, W, V, 6, 1/2/3

Stuart Varney Show on Faux Business Network Invites South Bronx Teacher After Evan Stone Appearance

AD: Listen to South Bronx School internet broadcast on Evan Stone and Faux Educators 4 Excellence  at 9pm tonight: The Mind of a Bronx Teacher
Take part and get a gift certificate.

Okay. I'll admit it. Sometimes even I am afraid to look into the mind of a Bronx teacher, who runs the South Bronx School blog, never sure exactly what will fly out. But I love the guy. And not just because he joined the ICE/TJC slate in the UFT election. Some people find him a little rough at the edges, but it works for me. So follow these developments and don't forget to listen tonight.

The Evan Stone/Sydney Morris faux anti-union E4E group with the Missing 700 have been publicized by the faux press at the Wall St. Journal and Fox - from now on to be known as Faux - News.

Real teacher/blogger South Bronx Teacher, who took exception (Little Evan Stone Unfair And Unbalanced).

So did other bloggers:

NYC Educator: Ship of Fools
Miss Eyre (Educators 4 Actually Being Educators)
I took my shots too in these posts: 
She's Coming For The Ed Deformers - and ... 

The Stuart Varney show on Faux Business Network, so wants to work over teachers, they gave Evan a nice long slot to spout his position. He does have time on his hands after leaving teaching after 3 (or is it 2) years. Children first, you know. Interesting how Faux Business Network doesn't seem to be using value added for all the analysts in the business world who failed to call the financial crisis. Ahhh, that business world version of tenure. And how about that Alan Greenspan?

Well South Bronx's diatribe led to an invitation from the Varney show:

Would you be willing to come on our show next week and tell us why Evan Stone is a “dog?” We want the other side of his argument and you seem quite passionate about it. Feel free to email me anytime. We’d love to do this Wednesday, Thursday or Friday next week.

Jake Novak
Senior Producer
Varney & Company
Fox Business Network
212 601 7991

Now lots of people would jump at the chance. But SBS has a few issues. First he is anonymous and a target of the DOE. At one point he used his blog to expose his school admins for covering up their own abuse of children. They sent him away for awhile but he as exonerated and they are gone while he is still there. A rare win for the good guys. Do you think the Varney show is really interested in a veteran teacher who put his career on the line to protect children?

SBS replies:
Hmmmm. Interesting. First thing that comes to my mind is what General Ackbar said as the Rebel Alliance came out of hyperspace.*

Will Stuart Varney climb into my colon as deep as he did for Stone?

SBS asked a bunch of fellow bloggers for advice:
Here's some Advice from the advisers:

1. They want you not to be vulgar but to defend what they term vulgarity. That's a no-win.
2. No way would I take that bait... Publicity is great, but fox news? What is the point of going on- its not news, its not even real debate- its all manufactured, scripted, and preplanned. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction
3. even if he has facts and arguments prepped they won't let him go there. They will use this as an assault because he has been so graphic. They will flash stuff on the screen about past even if he did good by exposing his admin and was punished for it. They have an agenda and want him because it fits their agenda.
4. I think it's a trap. They will bait you by extracting some of the most outrageous stuff you wrote and will try to make you look bad as a way to smear all teachers. I think Arthur Goldstein or Michael Fiorillo or Leonie. But I bet they wouldn't go for a sub which would reveal their true intention.

What did South Bronx School Decide to do?

Not taking any bait. Rule #1 is control the message. And that is how I plan to proceed. Their request will be honored but instead of doing it on FAUX News it will be honored on my internet radio show Tuesday night at 9PM. It will be an hour of rebuttal. Forthright, lucid, intriguing, yet delightfully and blissfully tasteful. If any wishes to join me in the deconstructing please feel free. I am offering a $5 gift card for Dairy Queen.

Earlier this week in my blog; http://southbronxschool.blogspot.com/2010/09/little-evan-stone-unfair-and-unbalanced.html I wrote about an artificial turf organizer Evan Stone appearance on FOX Business Channel https://www.dropbox.com/s/9wzwn2b25lwkt77/FBN_09-14-2010_10.16.47.wmv Evan and Educators4Excellence bill themselves as an alternative for teachers. An alternative for what should be asked. In this broadcast, I will discuss why I think Evan and his cohorts are not good for education, and most importantly students. The call in # is (917) 932-8721
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bronx-teacher 

I'm going to take that Dairy Queen offer and add a few shekels and go get myself a Dairy Queen Blizzard.

But I'll offer my Blizzard to Jake Novak if he shows some balls and invites Goldstein and Fiorillo (both of whom also ran against the Unity Caucus leadership - so they have some chops as critics of the UFT - on the show.

*It's a trap!!!!!!

Has education reform jumped the shark? A teacher says 'yes'

We are all excited at the Grassroots Edcuation Movement here in NYC (GEMNYC) as we prepare to release out trailer for out movie: The Absolute Truth About Waiting for Superman, which we hope to have ready by the end of October. Not bad for a bunch of NYC teachers and an old fart retiree doing a movie that so far cost about 8 bucks.

Our movie has Real Reformers - parent and teacher voices - the real heroes -  along with some ed policy people. And original music and lyrics written and performed by pros just for our movie.

Later I will post the lyrics of a Slim Shady song that was rewritten by our crew - Will the Real Reformers Please Stand Up?

Oh, Valerie, how do I love thee?

In today's Answer Sheet by Valerie Strauss at WAPO, we have more of the sense that the ed deform movement has hit the wall.

This post was written by Anthony Cody, a science teacher in inner-city Oakland for 18 years who now works with a team of experienced science teacher-coaches who support the many novice teachers in his school district. It originally appeared on the Teacher Magazine’s website, here. Cody is a National Board-certified teacher and an active member of the Teacher Leaders Network. You can read more by Cody at his website, Teachers Lead. 
 
By Anthony Cody

Education reformers have invested billions of dollars in numerous ventures that promote their vision, and we'll see them in the next few weeks. The release of the documentary Waiting for Superman, NBC’s Education Nation specials and teacher town hall, and D.C. Schools Superintendent Michelle Rhee and Bill Gates on The Oprah Winfrey Show -- all will create a crescendo of voices, images and the master narrative that has been carefully developed over the past decade

That narrative goes like this: Our schools are failing. The only way to save them is to expand charters, remove due process for teachers so they can be fired, and further raise the stakes on standardized test scores.

But ideologically driven projects like this have a way of over reaching, over-promising, and overestimating their strength. And the moment that they reach their apex is actually the moment they begin to collapse. Education reform has finally jumped the shark.

The signs of its imminent collapse are all around us.
Continue reading this post »

Harlem Village Academy Retained Only 4 Full-Time Teachers While Losing 75%

This piece came in over the transom tonight. While exposing the disregard some charter schools hold for their own teaching staffs, this piece also exposes the shameful NY Post reporting on the phony grad rate. And of course the exposure of the force-outs and other manipulatives.

Last year Mayor Bloomberg visited Harlem Village Academy high school and called it "the poster child for this country."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/regional/item_qM5tLTxv4VD6iAzd2A8pcJ;jsessionid=B6F2EB5549FF300018C58001CDD43800

Here is a selection from the Post piece:
Another student offered a stark comparison between her experience at Harlem Village and her former public school. "The teachers didn't care (in the public school)," she said. Asked by Schools Chancellor Joel Klein how many planned to attend college, every hand shot up. Harlem Village achieved national prominence last year when 100 percent of its eighth-graders passed the state math exam.

Nice to see her teachers cared more than her public school teachers even though most of them left.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/regional/item_qM5tLTxv4VD6iAzd2A8pcJ;jsessionid=B6F2EB5549FF300018C58001CDD43800#ixzz102Qc7dI3

Can a school that can't retain 75% of its teaching staff be considered a poster child?

This year Harlem Village Academy opened its doors with only 4 full time teachers returning, a turnover of more than 75%. There are office staff, department heads and and administrators that returned (some of them teach one period) but only four full time teachers returned.  Teachers were told they would be working 9 hour days when they were hired, but the week before school started they were told they would be working 12 hour days. School starts at 7:30 so teachers arrive around 7.  School ends for children at 4:15 and there is a mandatory meeting for teachers from 5-7pm from Monday-Thursday.  Can be called a model that can't retain 75% of its teaching staff. The school sent a letter home addressing parents' concerns over the turnover without saying what caused it or how it will be fixed.

The Post article also references a 100% passing rate on the state math exam in 8th grade.  In order to be promoted in middle school you must have an 80% in each class (I am not sure if this practice is legal.) A number of students that do not have an 80 in each class choose to leave the school rather than be held back or go to summer school. In fact DOE numbers show that they lose 32% of their students between 6th and 8th grades (See the link below.) Under standing their standards for promotion, it is easy to see that the 32% of students that leave are almost all the lowest performing students. If traditional public schools withheld students that got less than an 80 it would be easy to have high passing rates, but we would have to build 30% more schools. Essentially HVA dumps its lowest third of students back into public school system.

http://gothamschools.org/2010/06/09/left-behind-but-not-gone-forever-augmenting-the-ufts-vanishing-students-report/

E4E: The Missing 700

The Wall St. Journal's Barbara Martinez fawns and Stuart Varney and Fox News are jumping up and down. All of Rupert's gnomes and trolls have been drooling over the prospect of a 5th column within the UFT to undermine the union.

They talk in wonder at the 700 people, many of whom are not NYC teachers, have signed up on their web site to get updates. Gee, I am one of those 700. Whooopdeedo. Show me the money. I want to see what they've really got. Like real NY teachers with a few more than 2 or 3 years in the classroom.

To their credit NYC Educator, Miss Eyre (Educators 4 Actually Being Educators) and Michaal Fiorillo have been on the Evan and Sydney and their bogus Educators 4 Excellence for quite some time. The fact that Miss Eyre is of the Evan and Sydney generation that E4E us trying to attract and is so outraged is a bad sign for Rupert's game plan. The fact that Evan and Sydney have abandoned the children they love so much to build an anti-teacher union organization seems to be rubbing real reformers just a tad bit the wrong way, expecially those from their generation.

Here is an excerpt from NYC Ed:

Who Funds Ex-Educators 4 Excellence?

After reading the WSJ piece on the union-busting young ex-teachers, I had to wonder--how the hell do they pay the rent?  They aren't teaching, but rather spreading their new gospel.  What happens when that electric bill shows up?

It's remarkable that seems not to have occurred to the reporter.

Do they live with Mom and Dad?  Do they get an allowance?  Or do they get money from Whitney Tilson and DFER?  If so, is that really any way to run a "grassroots" movement?

Hey, NYC, the reporter works for Rupert. A lot doesn't occur to them.

Here at Ed Notes have tried to chip in when we can also.

The Ballad of Evan and Sidney

She's Coming For The Ed Deformers - and ...

In the latter piece we talked about the Real Reformers from the Evan/Sydney gen, people who are pro-union but also critical of the current UFT/AFT leadership, many of who ran against the Unity Caucus machine in the last election. Makes it tough to brand them as union flunkies.

No one has been more on the case more than South Bronx School, who rumor has it also ran on the ICE/TJC slate. So charges he is a Unity hack won't fly.

Here is an excerpt of his latest upset over the appearance of Evan on the Stuart Varney Fox Business News show. Evan is getting over exposed and beginning to look like one of those bad reverse negatives.

Little Evan Stone Unfair And Unbalanced

What a day. I was look forward to a nice relaxing evening at home. First day this week without some scheduled event. I plan on making dinner for my family, do the laundry, and then watch segue into watching The First 48. I was not planning on blogging tonight.

That changed when in my email inbox I got yet another newsletter from that "grass roots" organization, Educators4Excellence. And what is it that got my skin to crawl? Yes, Little Evan Stone appeared on Fox Business Channel's Varney & Co. Check it out here.It is amazing what a 26 year old boy can accomplish all by himself. How does he get himself on such shows?

Doesn't Evan know that he, just like Mongo, is a pawn in the game of life? That Little Evan is like a dog. Leashed and owned by the hedge fund gnomes and ed deformers?

The interview by Stuart Varney stating to Little Evan that E4E has 700 members. Wow! Impressive. I am one of those 700 members. In fact you can count me twice. I seriously doubt Little Evan that all 700 support what you and the Princess do. It's kind of like driving by the scene of a car wreck. You don't want to look, but you feel you must and you do. E4E is that car wreck.

Read SBS's entire piece which parses the entire Evan appearance.

There is some back story to this that I need to talk to South Bronx about before revealing. A back story that if it pans out will show just how low down and dirty Fox and the Varney people are in their attempts to promote their anti-union agenda.

Aftereburn
The Real Reformers will be up and running on some issues within the next week, with a lot more support from the same age group as E4E claims. Watch them get zero coverage.

Ich Bin Ein ATR

UPDATE: ATR MEETINGS THIS WEEK:

Bronx and Manhattan: Tues., Sept. 21, McGinley Ballroom, 441 E. Fordham Rd, Bronx 10 am to 3:30
Queens: Thurs., Sept. 23, Citi Field, 12-01 Roosevelt Ave., Flushing 10 am to 3:30

I'm often asked why teachers in Chicago seemed to rise up against their Unity-like union leadership and the Chicago ed deformers. One area if difference has been the way excessed teachers from schools being closed have been treated. They can be fired within a year. All Chicago teachers realize that anyone of them can be an ATR.

The fact that at this point they can't be fired in NYC - though treated in ways that might encourage then to leave - and that there are still a relatively small number of teachers affected compared to the majority, has kept the issue under the radar of most teachers and has allowed the UFT to sort of bury the issue.

Most teachers don't realize that their day could come even though as the charters school movement infiltrates neighborhoods and steals kids from public schools, more schools are feeling the pressure and teachers are getting more conscious as their schools shrink.

Here is a parsing of the UFT position on ATRs by Julie Woodward who teaches High School music - when she is not being bumped around her school as an ATR.

The UFT's position on ATRs in writing

“The ATR problem is a result of Tweed's mismanagement."

[JW comment:  Everyone except apparently the union knows this ATR thing is not a question of ”mismanagement" but unionbusting. And they're  very good at it. It's about the  only thing this chancellor  was actually trained to do and he's not bungling any of it.]

  

“The union will stand by educators in the ATR. They are good people who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they deserve our support."

[JW:   Good people?  How condescending and simplistic.  ATRs are about as good or nondescript as any other bunch of educators. 

          More importantly:  The union has in fact been exceptionally poor at supporting ATRs. The leadership sabotaged a rally for them a couple of years ago, and they entered into a Side Agreement that did nothing or worse to improve their continual marginalization and second-class status. It does seem, however, that the union is holding the line on Klein's wish to fire them all. For this contract they're negotiating anyway.  I've heard nothing to the effect that ATRs might be sold out.]

  

 “Don't think it couldn't happen to you. Any one of us can become an ATR if the DoE decides to downsize or close our school.”   

[JW:  Very true, but not nearly the whole picture. We can become ATRs for a host of other reasons as well: union activity, personality clashes, nepotism and playing favorites, directives from the DoE, etc. Almost at the snap of a finger. ]

The Rash

I'm married almost 40 years and I still can't tell you where my wife stands on religion. She just won't talk about it. Maybe because I've been an avowed atheist since I was 14 – call it post Bar Mitzvah trauma. I grew up in a mixed household. My mother was from Eastern Europe and a traditional Jewish family. My dad was born here and is also Jewish but his pop was some kind of Marxist/atheist and my father was never even Bar Mitzvahed. So I had no male role model and jumped off the wagon as soon as I could.

Now my wife is Jewish too, but grew up in a secular household where religion was barely practiced, if at all. So it is not surprising that I never hear one word uttered about Judaism or any other religion.

Except when it comes to Yom Kippur when a whole lot of fasting goes on in this house. Now since she seems to have no connection to religion otherwise, I probe for deeper meaning in this act of denial. Being perfect, she also has no sins to atone for. A shame since we live so close to the water and it would be so easy to stand at the sea wall facing Manhattan and just toss one sin after another into the bay. (I on the other hand, spend half my day there.)

I go along with this fasting business, not for religious reasons but to maybe lose a pound or two for at least one day. But beyond that is the fun of breaking the fast with a bunch of friends - oh that creamed herring with onions. And that giant tub of whitefish salad from Costcos, which has become the mecca of break the fast food - if you can't get into the lower east side to Russ and Daughters, where you can blow a years worth of pension checks on a pound of lox.

Well anyway, the source of this trying to be a Jew for one day a year goes back about 15 years I guess.

We used to go out the opening night of Yom Kippur with a bunch of other Jewish non-believers. Maybe it was an act of defiance. Or just that the restaurants are so empty. This one year we really went whole hog - we went to Tripoli, a Lebanese restaurant on Atlantic Avenue, on Yom Kipper eve. There must have been about 8 or 10 people - mostly all Jews. Just as the first course was being served, my wife broke out in a rash. Not a big deal. She is sensitive to certain foods and sometimes has a hive or two. But this rash really bothered her. Was it was just uncomfortable physically? Or was there a deeper psychological meaning for her discomfort?

Well that was all it took to take the yummy out of Yom Kippur. From that point on she has adhered to the basic Yom Kippur ritual of fasting. Nothing else mind you. No Shul or praying or anything like that. Even a bike ride is not out of the question. Maybe it is fear that if she eats anything on Yom Kippur the rash will return. So far it hasn't.

Special Ed Teacher Comments on Changes Being Pushed by DOE: It's not About Children

You always hear ed deformers say they are about children and accuse the Real Reformers about being about adults. Here a spec ed teacher shows what changes by the DOE are really all about.

Say a zoned school has 8 kids that need 12:1:1 on a given three grade section... how will the school fund the 12:1:1?  I very much believe the DOE would want the IEPS changed to "a least restrictive environment" (which is their code for make the kid fit the program not make a program for the kid)... which they are already doing in charter schools.  The charter in our building has counseled several families out of special education services, and there have been a few where it was VERY damaging to the child, and they were boomeranged back to their PS (mostly told their child wasn't a "fit" for the school) in even more dire circumstances.  The potential for the removing of student services and the usurping (and manipulation) of parents and their rights is truly troubling.

I do not believe one word the DOE says regarding their reforms for special education.  I fully believe this policy is about dollars, about increasing student to teacher ratios, about taking services away from special needs students b/c they are "too costly" and it is a "waste of money" to fund programs for "kids who will always be behind anyway".  The fact that the DOE could not complete one comprehendible sentence on this very important issue, regarding an initiative that is already underway, proves I/We have EVERY reason to be suspect... and must be vigilant!  (and btw, not just for our special education population, which should be enough, but for our general ed population as well... they too will be impacted by potentially increased class sizes filled with more high needs students who are not getting the support they need... both groups will suffer.)

My mom's boss (a physician) is always my bell weather in terms of what this administration is really thinking but won't say.  When I started teaching children with mental retardation and other health impairments, his response was, "Why bother? You are wasting your time, it doesn't matter what you do with those kids."  Disgusting and sad.... but there are MANY people who feel this way, and in a time of supposed economic crisis, in a time when the top 1% are scrambling to protect their disproportionate distribution of wealth, the most vulnerable in our capitalist society will be the ones to pay the price. 

Teaser: Coming later- accounts of exclusive Ed Notes interviews with Ravitch and Moskowitz

Strange encounters and Stranger in a strange land would both make good titles for the upcoming piece.

And it was a very strange day indeed yesterday at The Economist 2 day Idea fest at Chelsea Piers. Cost was $1500 to get in. No, I didn't break my piggy bank. Diane Ravitch helped get me a press pass and was gracious enough to give me some camera time afterwards for our film.

Shockingly, so did Eva Moskowitz even though I told her it was for a film debunking Waiting for Superman. And we had quite a nice chat off camera too as I tried to convince her to sign up for FIRST LEGO League robotics. (What the hell, I am in charge of team recruitment.) I gave her a copy of the new GEM newsletter which gives her the Coal of the month (Karen Lewis got the Diamond). Then she tells me her husband is a big fan of Ed Notes. I hope he isn't reading it while he eats breakfast or at least someone is around who knows the Heimlich maneuver.

I Got a Credit for Film Footage in Documentary on Channel 13

I caught the last half hour of an excellent documentary called The Bungalows of Rockaway shown Thursday night. I saw some footage that looked familiar - you know, too fast panning and other ills. I did shoot a meeting for the filmmakers. Low and behold they included a nice credit for me under "additional footage."

Here is a link: http://thebungalowsofrockaway.com/

Next showing at:
Wednesday, September 22nd, 7 pm,
on Channel 21, WLIW
Long Island public television

Follow Up on Leonie at NY Law and Exclusive Video Interview

UPDATED Sat, Sept. 18, 6am - info on Finland

There were some comments on the NYC Parent listserve about the actions of NY Law in relation to the Haimson/Suransky Smackdown. See my 2 previous posts if you missed them.

Leonie Smackdown Redux

Leonie Haimson KO's Tweed in a Knockdown

I'm printing the comments below along with a comment/correction Leonie left on my last post. And here's a link (NY Law School Ban on Taping) to the correspondence between NY1's Lindsay Christ and Nancy Guida (who I believe is the woman who gave me such a hard time) from the law school. Read in reverse order. Enlightening. [By the way, lots of people consider Christ one of the best ed reporters in town - did you know that she was a teacher for a few years before she got this gig? It shows.]

First, I have a bit of follow-up video I did with Leonie in her garden shortly after the NY Law appearance, which as you know they did not allow to be taped. We did it for the movie we are doing - The Absolute Truth About Waiting for Superman but this piece relates to some of the things she touched earlier that day - Finland, class size, teacher bashing - she calls teachers true heroes. Really eloquent stuff. It is a worthwhile 4 plus minute clip.

[Putting videos up seems to slow up this blog so I will leave it up here only for a day. Here is the you tube address if this gets slow. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSg8myiMhR4]

{A Chapter leader sent this in after investigating ed in Finland. Info from Ministry of Ed}

1)  What is the average age of a Finnish teacher (elementary through secondary, not university professors)?

 female 44 and male 47

2)  What is the average number of years a Finnish teacher has been working?

see question 1 and 3: about 20 year

3)  What is the average age of a beginning Finnish teacher?

26

4)  Do the teachers in Finland belong to a union?

about 95 % teachers belong to  union OAJ  

5)  Do Finnish teachers receive a pension after retirement?

yes

6)  What is the average age of retirement for a Finnish teacher?

now its 60 but it will be 65-68.

7)  How many months throughout the year do Finnish teachers work?

teaching time is 38 week / year

8)  What other benefits do Finnish teachers receive? (like healthcare)

healthcare

Yours,

Vesa Ilves

Vesa Ilves
tutkija
OPETUSALAN AMMATTIJÄRJESTÖ OAJ

Comments:

Thanks for the kind words Norm; but one minor correction. I said there was no standardized testing in Finland; of course the schools there have regular classroom tests. Your point about the teacher's union in Finland is very interesting. Shael went on about how Finland was successful because it attracted the best students to teaching; I talked about how in Finland they give a lot of respect to teachers,and alot of autonomy. And I contrasted that w/ the total lack of respect that this administration gives teachers, and Klein's very low approval rankings in teacher surveys. I said if this administration and the Obama administration really respected teachers, they would listen to their prescriptions for education. Over and over in national surveys, teachers respond that reducing class size would be by far the best way to increase teacher quality and teacher effectiveness, over salary increases, teacher performance pay, more professional development, or anything else. And yet they don't listen, because they don't respect teachers or care what they think. Nor do they respect parents or care what we think either!

I don't see anything the least bit surprising in this, other than NY Law School's craven submission to the probable bullying from Bloomberg/Klein.

Leonie



For Klein & Company, It's all about controlling the message. THEY get to control the data, THEY get to decide how it will be spun, THEY get to control when, where, and how, and -- most important -- THEY get to limit or control, at least in their chosen forums, how much information is made available from "the other side." Knowing that they are probably well aware of Leonie's positions as well as her encyclopedic command of the facts and figures, they had every conceivable reason to suppress public distribution of this "debate." It would be OK for a few law school students to hear her side, but heaven forbid that it get out via NY1 or YouTube or EdNotes.

Just think about it for a minute. Had Shael been there by himself to make a presentation and do Q&A, does anyone honestly believe there would have been the least objection to it being taped by NY1 or anyone else? This was all about controlling the message and stifling the dissent -- nothing else. It's not rocket science, but it is smart, at least from their standpoint.

Steve Koss


New York Law School itself has a series of "Citylaw" breakfasts which are always taped for broadcast on cable TV--I forget at the moment whether it is on one of the City stations or CUNY TV (ch. 74 or 75 where I am in Manhattan). You can also access tapes of them at their website, www.citylaw.org. I just checked it and saw that, for example, the tape of Joel Klein's appearance there as featured speaker on 4/3/09 is still available, including the Q&A, where I successfully confronted him with several examples of how, given that he's essentially one of the Mayor's Commissioners, he does not have the ability or the inclination to stand up for the school system when other city agencies are pursuing policies that are harmful to the schools.

I bring this up to point out that it is curious that, in the case of yesterday, the School seemed so unwilling for a recording to be made.
richard


It was meant primarily for students, but the organizer (who was a student, but it was clearly taken out of his hands by the administration) had encouraged me to invite members of the public as well so I did. The moderator said they had never gotten so many RSVPs.

Check out Norm's column on how they were apparently pressured by DOE not to let the discussion be videotaped by either him or NY1.

I have never seen a PR person from an academic institution so nervous about getting publicity; usually they love the attention. First she said that taping was barred because they didn't get the permission from the participants; then she changed her story when I said that they had my permission, and that probably Shael would agree as well.

But in this case, Kathleen Grimm of DOE had apparently made their desires known strongly, behind the scenes to one of the deans. Whether another college or university would have reacted differently, and not given in so quickly, who knows.

The PR person came up to me afterwards, and demanded that I "remove" her email to Lindsey and me from the list serv about how they were barring any videotaping, as it was a private communication. I was astonished.

I said to her, not only do you want to keep the event private, but you also want to keep it secret that you want to keep it private?

If DOE didnt want Shael to be on a panel w/ me they should have asked him not to appear. But to prevent the wider public from being able to see the event is really shameful -- and I think it is esp. craven of a law school , that should be insisting on freedom of political speech to cave in this way..

Leonie Haimson

Leonie Smackdown Redux- Updated

UPDATED Sunday, Sept. 19, 11:30pm

See Leonie's account of the meeting at NYC Parent blog.

My debate with Shael Suransky of DOE

As many people have asked for it, she posted her powerpoint here, part 1 and part II. If you would like Leonie to present it to your organization, please email her at classsizematters@gmail.com.

The email exchange between Lindsey, the very testy VP for PR at NY Law School, and Leonie.

See my post game video interview with Leonie on you tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSg8myiMhR4]

 

Original posting, Thurs Sept. 16:
I wrote late last night about the New York Law School event featuring Class Size Matters' Leonie Haimson and the NYC Department of Education's Chief Accountability Officer Shael Suransky. But it was late and this piece, Leonie Haimson KO's Tweed in a Knockdown, didn't do justice to Leonie's spectacular work in  laying waste to the ed deform movement and BloomKlein as she took a wrecking ball and kept smashing it into their faces - boom, one blow after another until the virtual Tweed was not left standing.

Poor Suransky. He tried his best to defend Tweed but if this room semi-filled (more on this later) law students were a jury, BloomKlein would have been sent to the hangman's tree.

UFT/AFT Sidebar
How a one woman operation can accomplish such a feat while a hundred million dollar (or is it two hundred?) union operation flails helplessly does make people scratch their heads. But not me since I view the UFT/AFT as a virtual arm of the ed deform movement - whether they agree philosophically or not they take the position that it is here and they have to work within the framework. Thus my comparing them to the mentality of Vichy. (See UFT/AFT: Think Like Vichy)

 Ahhh, that felt good. Back to our program.
 As you all know, I am not a reporter and my scatterbrain mentality makes it hard for me to take notes, plus I can never read my own handwriting - think it's time for an Ipad? But here is what I have until I coral Leonie to do a voice over her presentation - and I should point out that she had to rush through it in her 15 minutes so a lot was skipped. One witness came over and suggested we do it as a series.

The symposium was titled "NCLB and the Effects of high stakes accountability systems (NYC and elsewhere)". I thought it interesting that Tweed was even willing to send one of their top people to get in the same arena with Leonie but maybe it is a sign of their desperate attempts to spin their side of the story after this summer's testing fiasco. It wasn't that Shael is not competent to defend them (I wish he were on our side) but that he has so little he can defend. However, he does seem to drink the Kool-aid.

His presentation went after Leonie and people were so wowed there was little he could do. He pointed to his experience at Morris HS where he claimed they graduated only 70 kids out of a cohort of 700 - when I challenged him later on this 10% grad rate he hedged, saying that some kids went to other schools and came up with a 25% figure. He claims that the 4 new schools, one of which he ran, had 75-80% grad rates with the same type of kids. Sorry, I don't believe it. That rivals Michelle Rhee's claims she performed miracles, raising her class' reading from 10% to 90% in a year. No don't get me wrong here. I do believe we can reverse the numbers. But Real Reformers (our new code name) know what it will take - smaller teaching groups to start - but I won't do the drill again.

Leonie talked about how the high stakes testing game has so totally distorted education. She laid waste the Tweed's report card system, how schools that got F's one year got A's the next, quoting Aaron Pallas, "A monkey could do a better job by randomly picking schools."

She devastated the value added approach, pointing to research that showed how the same teachers measured on student performance on different tests could turn up as the best on one and the worst on another. (See new Sean Corcoran study - link on my sidebar.) How high school grad rates were distorted by the pressure on teachers to mark up on Regents exams and credit recovery. And oh, those discharge rates. Campbell's Law in action.

Leonie went into the data that shows that lower class size is one of the 4 measures proven to have an effect on student performance - an obvious fact to anyone who spent time in the classroom. (Where does Suransky who says he was a teacher stand on this?)

She repeatedly returned to Campbell's Law: 

"The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor."^[1]

Yes, give people incentives to cheat based on rewards (bonus pay) and punishment (closing schools, loss of jobs) and people will do what it takes to assure high scores.

When asked later what was her prescription for the ills of schools? Reduce class size and do what it would take to cut the attrition rate of teachers - these are related, of course.

One very interesting interchange took place between Leonie and Shael over a question about how the international standing of the US has fallen. Shael fell into this trap by talking about the higher standing of European schools - how teachers are so much more respected than here.

Duhhhh! European teachers have some of the strongest teachers unions in the world. Maybe that has something to do with how they are respected while also calling out our own AFT/UFT as bearing a major share of the blame for the lack of respect in the US.

In Finland he said, the top quarter of college grads went into teaching while in the US it is more like the bottom third.

Leonie pounced. Finland is the highest performing nation in the world. No high stakes testing at all, though there are some tests.

And how about those teacher unions there? Think that has an impact on luring the top college grads into the profession as opposed to the US where the lure is to go into finance so you too could take part in destroying the economy?


After burn: NY Law Mopes
I won't go into it in depth because we finally got in. But the PR person from the Law School and the NY Law School Assistant Dean were some of the nastiest people we have met.

When I arrived I was surprised to see Lisa Donlan there as I thought she was still in Paris. But she had flown in the night before – there is dedication to the cause. She told me we would not be allowed in without reservations, which we didn't know we needed. Worse of all Lisa said, when she asked if there was room could we come in, she received a firm "no." That this event was for students and they expected it to be filled. And besides,  they ordered pizza. "I won't eat," I chimed in (but I managed to sneak a slice later - na, na, na, na, na, na.)

[This section updated and clarified]
I tried to get in as press and was told I needed a reservation. Just them someone without a reservation came up and said he was with Tweed and was there at Suransky's request. He was Deputy Press Secretary Matt Mittenthal and he seemed like a nice guy but got caught in my tirade once it was clear he would be allowed in. I raised a ruckus: if Tweed can have someone come why can't Leonie have people even if they don't have reservations? I was at my most obnoxious and during our interchanges I was threatened numerous times - "leave this lobby immediately," the PR person screamed at me. More than once (I had tried to take a picture of the sign at the entrance that talked about justice). I told her to call security and I would go kicking and screaming, taping all the way. Matt told me that if other press was upstairs he would argue to get me in (yes, there are some likable people at Tweed even with my pal David Cantor gone.)

Anyway, as more and more of Leonie's people arrived, few with reservations, the Law School people got more and more nervous, finally relenting and saying they would count seats and let us in. So we got in. And the joke is the place was half empty. Lisa did a chair count and came up with these numbers give or take a few: 62 attendees, 46 empty seats at around 1:30 (the numbers varied as people came and went). 16 of these were FOL - Friends of Leonie. Poor Shael only had a few friends, including one of my faves - James Merriman, uber charter school pusher. I love to tweak Merriman. "How did that Perkins/Smikle thing work out?" "Incumbency" he harumphed. He later told Leonie that Sam Hoyt was winning big in Buffalo as a sign of the charter school lobby influence. See Leonie's comment on this in Postscript below.


Did Tweed make demands?
We have info that the Law school was contacted by the DOE to keep press out. NY 1's Lindsey Christ was told she could not tape and was apparently not happy and didn't show (Leonie posted emails between Lindsey and NY Law that upset these mopes no end - I'm getting a feeling she won't be asked back.)

I heard through someone connected to the Law School who was present and not happy with the way we were being treated by the Law School officials that Kathleen Grimm had told them that Leonie was advertising the event as a smackdown - not true as Gotham's Elizabeth Green had done that - and the press should be kept out. NY Law people seemed so nervous we wondered whether there is some funding coming from Bloomberg.


Postscript from Leonie 
Hoyt is a big favorite of the charter school lobby and beneficiary of the hedge hog dollars. He outspent his rival by 4-1 and only is ahead by 250 votes out of more than 10,000 cast.  His opponent wants a recount. Bloomberg gave Hoyt big $, and he was one of DFER’s Hot List. He also briefly subscribed to this list serv, for reasons I could never figure out.

Hoyt Wins, But Golombek Wants A Recount 

http://www.wgrz.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=86801&catid=13

Postscript 2: After the event I walked Leonie home and interviewed her in her garden for our film. I'm heading for the city now to cover the Diane Ravitch/Eva Moskowitz panel at The Economist event at Chelsea Piers. If I can get a few sound bites from Diane for the film that would be awesome.

Leonie Haimson KO's Tweed in a Knockdown

I have rarely felt sympathy for BloomKlein. But the bludgeoning they took from Leonie Haimson at NY Law School where she appeared with the DOE's Chief Accountability Officer Shael Suransky almost made me feel sorry for them. Almost. Her amazing Powerpoint presentation was not directed at Suransky who seems to be well-liked and personality wise is an enormous improvement over his predecessor Jim Liebman (Suransky at least can claim some creds based on real teaching - he claims- in a NYC middle school) but took apart the entire ed deform program, point by point.

 Value added? POW!

Merit pay? SLAM:

Class size as one of the few true ed reform solutions? WHAP!

I was sitting next to Lisa Donlan and she kept saying, "Did you get that?" I missed so much but was trying to write as much down as I could during Leonie's 15 minutes. Now I have to get her to do an audio over her PowerPoint and put it up on the web. It could become a classic ed deform rebuttal.

The reaction of the people who organized the event at the Law School was curiouser and curiouser.
Terming the event a "Smackdown" by Gotham's Elizabeth Green probably didn't help. Leonie invited her thousands of friends to come and observe but most of them were working in and out of schools. We counted 16 that did show and 3 for the other side. I have a longer tale to tell about the press ban and the incredibly nasty PR person and Dean we encountered - the extent they threatened to call security on me - at least twice. I was bucking for a 3rd time when they finally let us in. We have hints of DOE interference to try to keep this from getting out to the public, but more about that in a follow-up.

ATRs: Many Called, Few Chosen

From an ATR's horses mouth. What a great inside illustration of not only the lack of respect from the DOE but also of their incompetence at even running an event like this.

A “mandatory recruitment fair” (or was it a futility festival?) was held in the main room of the Grand Prospect Ballroom in Brooklyn on September 14.  Teachers were initially directly to report at 10 o’clock in the morning.  Email messages went out the day before changing the time to 1:00.  Although the second floor ballroom is large, teachers weren’t permitted to enter until after one o’clock.  Some didn’t get in until around 2:00.  Teachers who arrived in the morning had to stand around waiting for more than three hours before going upstairs to the interview tables.

The DOE used a first floor lounge and restaurant as waiting rooms.  These side rooms were stuffed far beyond their room capacity (which is listed on the ballroom’s website as 320 persons).

Teachers were advised in the email messages that no lunch would be provided.  For those arriving in the afternoon there was not even water.  One teacher was stopped from entering the Skylight Room where administrators were being served a range of beverages by waiters in black jackets.  A handler in a monogrammed jacket told the teacher there wasn’t anything available for interviewees.  Asked what his position was the man explained that he was employed by a private company (a DOE “partner”) hired to provide logistics for the job fair.   Apparently these logistics didn’t include providing water for the hundreds of cattle call participants.  After a standoff of several minutes a Ballroom waiter brought the teacher a glass of water from the off-limits room.  Teachers typically seemed to be seeing about 3-4 vacancies in their licence area.  Some fewer.  Some found none.

Throwaway line:  Many of the participants were dressed like they would hope to be treated:  professional or at least semi-professional.  However, scores of others were more in keeping with the shabby reality.

Follow-Up

Pakter on Callaghan: UFT Canned Its Conscience When It Fired Jim Callaghan

DOE to ATRs: Jump Off a Cliff

Angel Gonzalez and I went over to the big ATR job fair for Staten Island and Brooklyn ATRs (Absentee Teacher Reserves for the uninitiated) held in Park Slope to hand out the just published Grassroots Education Movement (GEMNYC) newsletter.

So we discovered some fun facts. The meeting was mandatory. Some notices said 10-4. A follow-up said to report at 1pm. Those who reported at 10 were made to sit around until 1pm and then had to line up to be registered one by one. Hundreds of people were there to be interviewed for jobs. We hear that some people weren't notified and if they didn't show look for Tweed to leak some leaky statistics to the NY Post or Wall St. Journal about how people refused to look for jobs.

Even if they are "hired" they are still at-will employees subject the the whims of principals. Their position is so precarious they have to do anything in the hope of staying on. I know one ATR who tells people she will move their cars during her preps and lunchtime just to curry favor.

Angel and I talked to them about forming an ATR committee to put pressure on the UFT to relieve the situation. They seemed receptive to a rally in November to commemorate the one held 2 years ago, the threat of which forced the UFT and Tweed to try to undercut it with a deal - still a lousy one but one that doesn't charge the school for the cost of the ATR - that expires on Dec. 1. Even if they get a job under this deal they can be released at the end of the school year if they didn't wash the floors with a toothbrush to the principal's satisfaction.

The funniest response came from an ATR who refused to take out newsletter, proclaiming he was in Unity Caucus. "They screwed you too," we shouted. But I guess those free trips to Seattle were worth it.

Actually, the funniest response came from the UFT's Ann Rosen who has to schlep over from UFT headquarters for the event. Usually we are on friendly terms but when Angel and I joked that this is all her fault she got a bit testy telling us how she worked her ass off for these people. I pointed out she was making a pretty nice salary for working her ass off and the alternative was going back to teaching. Here is what she makes for working her ass off:

Here are some comments from yesterday's blog post
Mid Day Snack: The Great ATR Musical Chair Swap Game

Once again the blame is placed upon the teachers who due to no fault of their own are left dangling in the wind. The contract is clear, excessed staff shall be placed into vacancies within license with district. The UFT should be filing an immediate cease and desist Article 78 on behalf of the atr's. Let the Dept and Klein explain this to voters and parents as class size rise throughout the city.

I am not a math person, but this just doesn't add up. The DOE cuts budgets, teachers get excessed, but the DOE is still paying for them, but won't put them in schools, class sizes rise, the DOE saves no money anyway... ???? Why not just place the ATRs in schools (especially given testgate, schools could use an extra teacher for intervention, given that generally schools lost at least one position -depending on individual principal decisons- due to cuts). The placed ATRs would not come out of school-based budgets. The ATRs would be 'working', and kids would benefit. If the ATR is a "bad teacher" they are subject to the same rating system as everyone else and can be given a U and go through due process. The DOE could always offter an 'opt out' to principals who do not want to deal w/ 'hiring' someone not of their choosing. Done and Done. Instead the DOE is using this issue to paint teachers as sucking the life out of taxpayers and doing harm or at least neglegence to children. UFT: Do your job and tell the proper narrative to the citizens of our city. Push for ATRs to be placed in their licensed positions in a school. With the extreme rise in class sizes across the city, the budget cuts, and testgate... there is more than enough political capital to spend on this issue, if you (the uft) really wanted to solve it in a way that benefits children and teachers.

AfterBurn
I still have to post the election results- Fenty/Rhee lost, Perkins won BIG. But I have to go see Leonie debate a Tweed lug and naybe get to tape it.

In the meantime if you don't read Reality Based Educator you are missing some of the best political commentary from a teacher perspective (yes, RBE teaches in NYC).

Perdido Street School

Bill Perkins Beats Charter School Stooge: 76%-24%

And then our pal NYC Educator takes Evan and Sydney to task in his usual fabulous manner. Teamed with his cohort Miss Eyre who used a cannon on them the other day, this amounts to a dismemberment.

NYC Educator

Who Funds Ex-Educators 4 Excellence?

 

Waiting For Superman Challenged by Teachers in San Francisco: An insult to teachers and students

Before I get to this report, I wanted to give you an update on our own actions here in NYC in response to the film – at least what I am at liberty to say right now. GEM (Grassroots Education Movement) is moving ahead on our own film – The Inconvenient Truth About Waiting for Superman – which we hope to have completed by the end of October. Hopefully the trailer will be finished in time for the Superman release next week. We will debut it here on Ed Notes. We are also working on some songs around the theme of the "Will the Real Reformers Please Stand Up" and might even perform it in various locations and meetings. We will be looking for volunteers to join in so start gargling. We may even have instruments. If you are planning to see the film it is opening in LA and NYC on Friday, Sept. 24 and will be showing at the Lincoln Square cinemas near Lincoln Center. I can write the rave reviews from the anti-union press right now. Some of us are going that night so we can produce a fact sheet to refute the inconvenient truths for our movie. Email me for details if you want to join us.

An insult to teachers and students

September 14, 2010

A NUMBER of members of Educators for a Democratic Union (EDU) and a few leaders from our union, United Educators of San Francisco (UESF), attended the advanced screening of Davis Guggenheim's Waiting for Superman.

We were there to pass out some leaflets and challenge the director of the movie, who would be speaking at the end.

What about the movie?

Yikes! Let me try and summarize: The problems with public education is bad teachers, the tenure that protects them and the unions that protect tenure. The problem is not funding, because plenty of money has been thrown at schools to succeed. The solution is charters. Also, there is some criticism of "tracking," which is probably the only part of the movie I agreed with.

That's about it. When Guggenheim took questions afterward, he opened with the fact that he was a "friend of public education," that he liked unions, and that he was not saying charters were the answer.

The problem was that the entire thrust of his movie contradicted that. It was crazy.

UESF leaders and EDUers were able to get questions out to him that challenged the frame of his movie: Why are you attacking unions? Why don't you mention funding? Or the larger political questions facing the country?

Guggenheim was mostly patronizing, saying that he couldn't include "everything." Regarding unions, he said he was in a union (the Director's Guild) and he supported unions and the protections they provide. Presumably, he is for protections for everyone except teachers. He also called himself a leftist, saying that believed in social justice...after bashing unions and teachers.

I stuck around afterward to invite Guggenheim to come to Mission High School and actually see how public education works to serve our neediest students. I also told him that I was disappointed by his attack on unions, which had been the only protection many of us had this year when the budget ax came swinging down.

I overheard him talking to an aide saying "Wow! This was a tough crowd." She replied, "Well, it is San Francisco."

I was surprised by this, because he had only fielded four or five questions at most. We hadn't even started!

Finally, for a movie titled Waiting for Superman in which "Superman" is supposed to be a great teacher (white and male, I guess), this movie did not contain a single interview with a teacher. It had a grainy camera inside a class which showed teachers reading a newspaper. It showed clips from School of Rock and the Simpsons but no teachers

Who was interviewed? Principals of charters, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and, of course, Bill Gates' ugly mug was all over the movie.

My final question to Mr. Guggenheim is, if you are really "Waiting for Superman" why do you spend so much time in your movie interviewing Lex Luthor?

Andy Libson, San Francisco

http://socialistworker.org/2010/09/14/insult-to-teachers-and-students