Studies Show Teach for America Teachers Are...

Is it 2 times or 100 times better?

A growing body of research shows Teach for America instructors' impact on student academic achievement is two to three times that of teachers who have three years of experience.- The Detroit News


A new federal study on teacher quality has found that teachers who enter
teaching through an alternative route have roughly the same impact on
student achievement as teachers who come from regular teacher education
programs.


What's the Best Way to Make Teachers?


February 11, 2009 01:28 PM ET | Eddy
Ramírez
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A new federal study on teacher quality has found that teachers who enter
teaching through an alternative route have roughly the same impact on
student achievement as teachers who come from regular teacher education
programs. The results of
the study, commissioned by the federal Department of Education, could spur
more states to consider changes to teacher training and hiring practices.

For years, a debate has raged over the effectiveness of teachers who come
from programs that prepare noneducation majors for the classroom. These
alternative programs allow recent college graduates or midcareer
professionals to teach-in many cases at the most challenging schools-while
taking classes to obtain a teaching certificate. The most well-known
alternative certification programs are Teach for America and New York City
Teaching Fellows. (This study measured the quality of teachers from less
selective programs.)

Some education leaders argue that teachers from alternative certification
programs are less effective and less likely to stick around because they
walk into a classroom with little, if any, preparation. Teachers from
traditional certification programs are fully certified by the time they
start teaching. (Read more about the
he-grade-at-challenged-schools-criticism-aside.html> teacher quality
debate.)

But the new study by researchers from Mathematica Policy Research found that
students of teachers who chose to enter the profession through an
alternative route performed the same on tests as students of teachers who
chose a traditional route to teaching. It made no significant difference
whether traditionally certified teachers had taken more coursework or
received more training than teachers with alternative certification.

Researchers analyzed the math and reading test scores of 2,600 students in
63 schools in six states. They compared students from the same schools who
were randomly assigned to teachers from alternative certification programs
or regular teacher education programs.

How much do you know about the credentials of your child's teacher? Did he
or she enter teaching through an alternative or traditional route? Do you
think it makes a difference?






Friday, February 20, 2009
Editorial: Bring 'Marine Corps' of teachers to Detroit schools
The Detroit News

Imagine America's best instructors happily coming to work in Detroit's poorest, toughest classrooms -- and the city throws them out. It has happened once before, and it could happen again if Michigan doesn't get smart.

This week Teach for America -- a nonprofit that prepares and places highly talented educators in struggling schools -- met with Gov. Jennifer Granholm and other state leaders about coming back to Michigan.

Teach for America members served in the Detroit Public Schools from 2001 to 2003.

As the district's student population fell, union leaders argued the Teach for America members were taking jobs and demanded their ouster. The school district capitulated, and about 50 Teach for America instructors left.

The ouster was not only wrong for the Teach for America members, it also robbed Detroit students of what was likely their best chance at a high-quality education comparable with suburban schools.

A growing body of research shows Teach for America instructors' impact on student academic achievement is two to three times that of teachers who have three years of experience.

For example, a Louisiana state report last year found many of such Teach for America-trained educators were more effective at teaching math, reading and language arts than other teachers with two or more years of experience.

Consider them the Marine Corps of teachers for America's poorest urban and rural schools.

This alone is enough for Granholm to insist Teach for America comes back to Michigan, but there are other reasons for its return.

Teach for America is a two-year voluntary program that recruits high-achieving young college graduates expressly for placement in schools that are difficult to staff -- precisely the schools where many union teachers become burned out. And Teach for America members pay union dues.

New Detroit Federation of Teachers union President Keith Johnson often says he wants the most talented teachers in Detroit classrooms. He needs to back up his verbal commitment with action. He can start by supporting Teach for America.

A trickier obstacle: Michigan doesn't allow people to become teachers through an alternative pathway such as Teach for America's rigorous training program, rather than a traditional teacher certification program. (The nonprofit wants such a pathway because many of its members still want to teach after they finish their two-year service.)

Granholm should push policymakers to quickly address this problem by pointing out that traditional teacher-preparation programs do not equate with teacher quality.

Michigan should be moving toward a teacher certification system that weighs teachers' impact on student achievement, rather than on the classes that they take.

Teach for America is enthusiastic about a return to Detroit. "Frankly, there is a clear need to see that community close its achievement gap," says Ify Offor, Teach for America's vice president of new site development.

The United Way of Southeastern Michigan is working to bring Teach for America volunteers to the region's worst schools -- including those in Oakland and Macomb counties -- by fall 2010.

To do that, Teach for America needs Lansing's support now. Michigan, bring on the Marine Corps of

EIA: AFT Active Members Total 725,000

Mike Antonucci reports in an EIA Exclusive
http://www.eiaonline.com/communique.htm

AFT Subsidies Kept Some Affiliates Alive. An examination of the financial disclosure report of the American Federation of Teachers reveals the national union spent a large percentage of its funds on local organizing projects, along with subsidies to keep troubled locals afloat.

Most of AFT's organizing expenditures were in support of its traditional membership – teachers, nurses and public employees – though the union is making a concerted effort to organize early childhood education employees, particularly in California.

Two locals required large subsidies. The United Teachers of Dade (UTD) still owes AFT $2.4 million, part of the hangover still remaining from the Tornillo scandal. UTD repaid only $47,520 of that loan during 2007-08, though AFT did list an additional $525,000 received from UTD as "miscellaneous income."

United Teachers New Orleans (UTNO) was depleted in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (see item #2 here) and still owes $802,573 to AFT. The national union spent $1.1 million last year in an attempt to organize more members for UTNO.

The report provides other interesting facts about AFT. It isn't widely known that AFT has fewer than 725,000 full-time members, a large plurality of whom live and work in one state – New York.

AFT took in $152.5 million in "per caps" (the equivalent of national dues) in 2007-08 and spent $31.6 million on its payroll, plus another $11.9 million in employee benefits. Outgoing president Ed McElroy received a salary of $298,581 plus $32,890 in allowances, outgoing secretary-treasurer Nat LaCour received $239,931 in salary and $33,190 in allowances, and executive vice president Antonia Cortese received $229,267 in salary and $37,600 in allowances. The highest paid employee was Ronald Krouse, who received $213,704.

The union sent $1 million to its regular PAC account and an additional $3.7 million to a special PAC account, presumably for expenses related to the 2008 campaign.

One other entry of note: AFT received $38,015 in "salary reimbursement grants" from the Hillary Clinton for President campaign.

The Education Intelligence Agency conducts public education research, analysis and investigations. Director: Mike Antonucci. PO Box 580007, Elk Grove, CA 95758. Ph: 916-422-4373. Fax: 916-392-1482. E-Mail: mike@eiaonline.com

STOP THEBUDGET CUTS: Saturday Feb. 28 Conference

Come to a discussion with a panel of NYC activists discussion how we can...

STOP THE BUDGET CUTS!

Speakers

Marvin Holland: TWU 100*, founder of "Take Back Our Union" movement
Ajamu Sankofa: Private Health Insurance Must Go Coalition*
Doug Singsen: CUNY Student Union*
Kit Wainer: UFT*, Teachers for a Just Contract*

Moderator
Megan Behrent: UFT*, Teachers for a Just Contract*


Saturday, Feb. 28th 5:30pm
Local 802 Union Hall
322 W 48th St.
between 8th and 9th Avenues

You've heard it before: Tough times are ahead, so as much as it hurts, we're all going
to have to make do with less. Major cuts will have to be made to programs and
services that were already underfunded to begin with.

President Obama has proposed $3.4 billion in aid to NY for education and Medicaid,
but this will only soften the blow. It won't stop the cuts (it won't even affect areas
outside of healthcare and education—like the proposed MTA fare hike, for instance).

But in a city like ours—the financial center of the United States—it's painfully obvious
that not everyone is tightening their belts. When their stock-market gambling habit
nearly left the economy in total collapse, the same politicians who said we need to
do with less rushed to pass legislation giving Wall Street a $700 billion handout—no
strings attached.

Where's the bailout for us? We should demand NO CUTS!

Join us for a discussion about how these budget cuts are impacting working people,
and how we can turn the anger against the Paterson-Bloomberg cuts into action.

*Speakers will not necessarily appear as official representatives


Sponsored by: (List in formation) Independent Community of Educators, International
Socialist Organization, Solidarity, Take Back Our Union Movement, Teachers for a
Just Contract, Teachers Unite

For more info or to endorse, call 646-452-8662 or
email nyciso@gmail.com

NY Times: Bloomberg Si, Chavez No!

Who's the Real Dictator, Chavez or Bloomberg?
At least the Venezuelans get to choose!

NY TimesEditorial
Venezuelans' Right to Say No
Published: February 13, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/14/opinion/14sat2.html?ref=opinion

"Hugo Chávez apparently doesn't believe Venezuelan voters, who just
more than a year ago rejected his bid to eliminate the term limits
that are blocking his continued rule. On Sunday, he is giving them
another chance. For the sake of Venezuela's democracy, they should
again vote no on changing the nation's constitution. . . . .

Voters should not yield. Mr. Chávez needs to be reminded that
Venezuelans believe in their democracy and cherish their right to say no."

NY Times Editorial
Term Limits and the Council
Published: October 22, 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/opinion/23thu2.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=editorial%20term%20limits&st=cse

"The City Council is expected to vote on Thursday on Mayor Michael
Bloomberg's proposal to revise New York City's term-limits law. The
proposal would allow the mayor and most of the city's elected
officials to run for a third four-year term. We urge the Council to
approve it. . . .

We are fully aware that this proposal has stirred great controversy,
not least because New York City voters twice voted for term limits, in
1993 and 1996. . . . . . "

Wireless Generation and ARIS Training

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "DOE Tech Reorganization All About HAL -er -ARIS":

Do you know anything about a DOE contract given to Wireless Generation to do ARIS training? This company was hiring people in August to be trained to give ARIS training. What did this cost, and was the training given, and to whom?

Comment on your post "Why I Hate Teach for America"

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Why I Hate Teach for America":

I have been teaching in a rural, high-poverty school for the past 10years. I am a member of the community, and planned to raise my family here. I have been going to school continuously for 14 years in order to become the kind of teacher my students deserve.
I graduated a year ago with a masters in curriculum & instruction with a reading specialty. And as a result was able to significantly raise my students' reading levels. Unfortunately, this created a great deal of animosity among my colleagues, because, as will always happen in certain close-knit communities, jealousies can run high.
A few years ago, my school began hiring TFA's, but as we had none in our area of the school at the time, I knew little about them. This past school year, a literacy coach position came open, and one of the TFA's was given the job under the table before contracts were given. I turned down other opportunities fully believing I was being considered for the position.
Once everything came to light, this girl approached me requesting that I hand over to her methods I had developed so that she could pass them on to "her teachers," and perhaps they would be more receptive if presented in a "different way." Essentially, she wanted to steal my techniques and put her name on them.
I resent these "teachers," mostly for the fact that they have no qualifications and no training. It is extremely disrespectful to the teaching community to insinuate that these "bleeding hearts" can be lauded as the best teachers in the school, and chosen for positions over those of us who have invested years of our lives to doing what we love.
To call themselves teachers is like saying someone with a bachelors in education can do two years of volunteer work in a hospital and call themselves a doctor. It is insulting to veteran teachers who have lives, families, and children of their own to watch everything they have worked so hard for be trivialized by putting young single college students in their place.
There is one TFA in my grade level this year whom I passed on much of what I had created to help her feel more comfortable, but now I wish I hadn't been so giving, as she too is being held up as an example as "The perfect teacher."
Because of this, and the fact that trying to advance in a career I love is nothing but a popularity contest, My family will be moving away after this year. It's sad really, how these young people come into a different culture and lifestyle for only 2 years, believing they can single-handedly undo the socioeconomic damage of these communities, and effectively drive away qualified, educated professionals who are actually invested in the school and communities. In my opinion the TFA program is unethical, and These "alternative routes" to teacher certification are a joke.
Teaching is a highly underappreciated and underpaid profession, and those who truly love to teach children can succeed in making a difference in communities like mine. If these TFA's want to make a difference they should be willing to be truly committed to the profession and the community for the long-term. Watching these children grow up, and living their struggles with them. That's what being a teacher is; not volunteering for what amounts to short term community service points on their resumes once their time is up and they can move onto bigger and better things.

Chicago Teachers Organize Against Privatization

Published on Labor Notes (http://labornotes.org)
Chicago Teachers Organize Against Privatization
By ellis
Created Jan 28 2009 - 11:14pm
Author(s): Jackson Potter
Excerpt:

As the CEO of Chicago Public Schools heads to Washington to run the nation’s schools policy, a new reform caucus of Chicago teachers is glad to see him go. But with their union in chaos, and city leaders hell-bent on privatizing schools, what’s a teacher to do? . . .

Story Body:
Chicago Teacher Protest
Parents joined teachers to protest another round of school closings in Chicago, announced in late January. photo: Jackson Potter.

As the CEO of Chicago Public Schools heads to Washington to run the nation’s schools policy, a new reform caucus of Chicago teachers is glad to see him go. But with their union in chaos, and city leaders hell-bent on privatizing schools, what’s a teacher to do?

The Caucus of Rank and File Educators formed this summer to fill that void. Frustrated with the union leadership’s inept response to Mayor Richard Daley’s privatization scheme, CORE and its community partners called a city-wide public hearing on the plan January 10, attended by more than 500 students, parents, community members, and teachers representing 81 schools.

The organizers are trying to head off a Board of Education announcement of 20 school closings and 12 “turnarounds,” a euphemism for school privatization that entails firing every teacher in a building and rehiring new staff.

One of the schools slated for closure under the plan—marketed as “Renaissance 2010”—is Peabody Elementary School, where three generations of Lillie Gonzalez’s family have attended.

“It’s a school that should not close,” she said. “We used to have 40 children in a class and now that we have 20 in a class they want to close it.”

Chicago’s school closings target poor neighborhoods temporarily drained of population as public housing is destroyed and residents are forced to move wherever they find landlords who accept housing vouchers.

The caucus is demanding that the board put a moratorium on school closings and turnarounds and shrink class sizes in neighborhood schools.

They want to strengthen Local School Councils, elected boards originally designed to give parents, community leaders, and teachers a role in allocating money and personnel at their schools. Since the mayor took control of the schools in 1995, the councils’ power over school budgets and hiring has been stripped.

MR. DUNCAN GOES TO D.C.

Arne Duncan, now the Secretary of Education, left Chicago under a tattered flag. Since he was named schools CEO in 2001, he has presided over the largest destruction of public schools in Chicago’s history, closing almost 70 neighborhood schools.

Jesse Sharkey, a teacher and member of CORE, said Duncan’s Renaissance 2010 plan worsens Chicago’s unequal two-tiered system, where high-quality selective enrollment schools and charters are preserved for better-off “model” students while schools for low-income children of color languish.

Duncan has replaced shuttered neighborhood schools with non-union charter and contract operators that screen out low-income students and exclude children with disabilities, providing them with substandard services when they do admit them.

At one of the district’s flagship charter schools, Urban Prep, only 14 percent of the student body comes from the surrounding Englewood community. Charters have pushed out students with disciplinary records and youth whose first language is not English or whose parents are not active in the community.

Tyrone Jones’s academic struggles at Perspectives Charter School in 2007 were enough for the school to expel him. Perspectives had created a rule just before the start of the school year allowing the administration to remove students who failed to maintain a 2.0 average for two academic terms.

Jones’s mother, LaTanya, attributes her son’s fate to murky standards at charters, which allow children to be abandoned due to low grades.

“This is not ‘Survivor,’” Sharkey said.

UNION TROUBLES

As Chicago’s school district has become increasingly run by private contractors, the 31,000-strong Chicago Teachers Union, an AFT affiliate, has seen its rolls plunge by 6,000.

CTU leaders initially advised teachers at closing schools simply to seek new work. As closures rose the union sought community coalitions, but downplayed public campaigns as rank-and-file pressure mounted. CTU officers, seeking re-election, are now latching on to that momentum.

Court battles and allegations of financial impropriety wrack the union as President Marilyn Stewart seeks to dismiss Vice President Ted Dallas. CTU headquarters unilaterally released Dallas’s financial records—littered with questionable filet mignon dinners on the union’s dime—but refused to release other officer records.

The CTU has been forced to scale back its budget to pay off a $2 million deficit. Union coffers had a $5 million surplus just four years ago.

CORE helped organize a protest at CTU headquarters during the summer that demanded the union “stop the crooks and open the books,” calling for a transparent, member-driven union.

Al Ramirez, a delegate and teacher at Ruiz Elementary School, expressed frustration.

“While teachers suffered from massive job cuts,” he said, “their leadership was not asleep at the wheel—they were joyriding.”


Jackson Potter teaches at Little Village Lawndale High School of Social Justice in Chicago. Read more, and join the group, at CORE [1].

Available Online:
Yes
Source URL:
http://labornotes.org/node/2056

Links:
[1] http://www.coreteachers.org/

NYCORE: Out with the old, in with the neo-?

Out with the old, in with the neo-?

It's true. Bush's regime has finally come to an end and the masses are abuzz with excitement over the historic inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama and the possibility that his administration truly is "The Change We Need." But what kind of change are we talking about?

The President's new Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, is clearly not a representative of NYCoRE's views. At the same time we seem to be entering a new era of hope, with calls for social action from the federal level. How do we read all this? And what should the Left do in terms of organizing when we see that our agenda is still not being represented?

NYCoRE's next OPEN MEETING will be dedicated to discussing related issues and questions.*

Come get down with us!

Friday, February 6^th 5:30-7:30

Location: CUNY Graduate Center, 365 5th Ave @ 34th st

Room 5414

(must bring photo ID)

Planning on Joining Us? Here is what you do:

1. RSVP at info@nycore.org

2. Read the articles attached to this email or download them at www.nycore.org

A note regarding the readings for the discussion:

Attached here are two short articles written about Arne Duncan that we are asking participants to read prior to participating in the discussion.

These articles provide one perspective on Arne Duncan. We (NYCoRE) do not necessarily ascribe to this stance but will use these articles, along with other information that will be provided during the meeting to help all of us sharpen our analysis at this crucial point in the struggle over education.

For questions email: edwin@nycore.org

Thanks,

NYCoRE

UFT Primer

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

Flashback: Young Bill Gates, Steve Jobs Play 1983 Mac Dating Game (Video)

http://www.switched.com/2009/01/29/flashback-young-bill-gates-steve-jobs-play-1983-mac-dating-gam/?icid=200100397x1217173023x1201209244

L.A. teachers' union calls for boycott of practice testing

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lausd28-2009jan28,0,5869383.story

From the Los Angeles Times
L.A. teachers' union calls for boycott of testing

Axing 'periodic assessments' would save money, UTLA says. But district leaders want teachers to give the exams, which a Times analysis suggests are boosting scores in algebra and English.

By Howard Blume

January 28, 2009

The Los Angeles teachers union and the city's school district are battling over a district practice that, a Times' analysis suggests, contributes to higher scores on state tests.

The practice is "periodic assessments," a bureaucratic name for exams administered by the Los Angeles Unified School District. The goal is to give teachers insight into what students need to learn while there remains time in the current school year to adjust instruction.The union Tuesday directed teachers to refuse to give them to students on the grounds that the tests are costly and counterproductive.

But there could be a downside.

The local exams, given three or four times a year at secondary schools, appear to be boosting state scores in 10th-grade English and Algebra 1 -- the two subjects examined by The Times -- and therefore perhaps other subjects as well.

The district tests, which have gradually permeated most core academic subjects and most grade levels, have become central to a debate over the proliferation of testing, whether it interrupts instruction and can narrow the depth and breadth of what's taught. The philosophical dispute sharpened this week amid protracted, stalled negotiations over a teachers contract and the need to slash millions to address an ongoing budget crisis.

Axing these district assessments would spare jobs by saving millions of dollars -- and would improve instruction at the same time, said A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles.

The union's call for a boycott of the tests has emerged as an early trial for new Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, who took over Jan. 1.

Cortines asserted that the assessments are part of teachers' assigned duties -- they are not optional. He also said he has and will amend aspects of the tests that need fixing. But he won't toss them out because, he said, they have contributed strongly to rising performance on the state's own annual tests.

He may be right, based on a Times' analysis of last year's improved state test scores in 10th-grade English and Algebra 1.

The Times found that greater participation in the district assessments was associated with better scores. In 10th-grade English, the correlation was fairly strong, accounting for nearly half the improvement.

The link was more moderate in Algebra 1, explaining about one-third of the gains for high school students in that subject.

The Times looked at these two subjects in part because the data were available -- it isn't for all subjects -- and also because of importance of these courses. Algebra 1, for example, is considered a "gateway" course to academic success.

The district has not produced its own analysis on the effect of increased participation but has collected less-conclusive data showing that students who do well on the district's tests also excel on the state's tests.

Duffy remains skeptical.

"The pig does not get fatter when you weigh it 10 times a day," Duffy said. "And if the test scores do go up, isn't it phony? Because what you are doing is teaching to the test, teaching a subject that has been narrowed down radically. We're not creating smarter kids. We're creating smarter test takers."

Duffy announced the boycott Tuesday at Emerson Middle School on the Westside, where teachers said the district tests were too burdensome on top of already mandated state and federal testing.

"We are supposed to be teaching, not testing," said Emerson English teacher Cecily Myart-Cruz. "We can come up with our own assessments in our classroom, and we do -- every day."

Top officials, however, had concluded that too many instructors failed to enforce high standards or didn't focus properly on teaching the specific skills and knowledge required by the state.

"This is not to be onerous for teachers and principals and schools," Cortines said. "It is to be helpful."

Unraveling the apparent benefit can be complex, said retired district official Roger Rasmussen, who long headed the district's analysis unit. Schools that are able to perform the assessments correctly, he said, may be those that have developed a cohesive staff, for example, which may be the real driver of improvement.

Cortines' predecessor, David L. Brewer, a retired Navy vice admiral, tackled inconsistent participation in the tests at high schools by ordering a 95% participation rate. He credited that directive with last year's rise in test scores, the biggest jump in five years.

But districtwide, the high school participation rate in English barely budged, and while the increase was greater in math, it still fell far short of Brewer's target.

Yet, the schools with increased participation generally reaped benefits. The lackluster overall response resulted in part from problems at schools. The assessments have occurred at the wrong time, for example, at some year-round campuses, where students start their school year at various times.

"My students would be tested on Mendelian genetics when we're just getting to how chromosomes separate," said Joseph Rowland, who taught science at Roosevelt High School for 22 years before moving to Franklin High this year. "It's ridiculous."

Rowland once found that his class' data had been combined with that of another teacher, rendering it pointless as a guide to future instruction. Like other teachers interviewed, he also complained about never getting data back or getting it late, though the current process is for teachers to go online and retrieve the data themselves.

Manual Arts High School English teacher Travis Miller said two rounds of his own class assessments did not count last year. Once, his tests weren't picked up on time, and once, he didn't receive all materials until the period for submitting them had closed.

Miller also knows teachers who simply refuse to give the assessments. Manual Arts' official participation rate last year was 61% in English and 14% in math.

Emerson's record on giving assessments is relatively strong, despite its prominence at the center of Tuesday's protest.

On state tests, Emerson ranks a little below average overall but well above average when compared with schools that serve a similar student population.

"This school is full of creative people and they need to have their hands untied to shine," said UCLA professor Allen F. Roberts, the parent of an Emerson 8th-grader.

The district puts the cost of the assessments at $3 million to $5 million per year. The teachers' union offers a so-far unsubstantiated figure of $150 million -- based on its interpretation of indirect costs, such as the related use of math and reading coaches to assist teachers.

howard.blume@latimes.com

Times staff writer Doug Smith provided data analysis.

CTA president to run Chicago Public Schools

http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/1398272,huberman-appointed-cps-chief-012709.article

CTA president to run Chicago Public Schools
NOT DUNCAN'S PICK | Huberman gets Eason-Watkins to stay as 'partner'

January 26, 2009

BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter/fspielman@suntimes.com
Convinced that Chicago public schools need a proven manager at the helm, Mayor Daley today will name CTA President Ron Huberman as schools CEO after convincing bypassed chief education officer Barbara Eason-Watkins to swallow her pride and stay on as Huberman's partner.
A tireless mayoral trouble-shooter with no background in education, Huberman, 37, replaces Arne Duncan, newly-appointed U.S. education secretary.
» Click to enlarge image
Despite having no background in education, CTA President Ron Huberman will replace newly-appointed U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan to run the Chicago Public Schools.
(John H. White/Sun-Times)



Before departing for Washington, Duncan recommended Eason-Watkins as his successor to continue the slow, but steady momentum they had built together toward improving test scores and graduation rates, upgrading neighborhood schools and turning around chronically-troubled schools.
Duncan felt so strongly about Eason-Watkins, he recommended her repeatedly -- so often that he was told to back off.
Sources said Daley ignored Duncan's advice because he's convinced Huberman's management experience -- honed at the Chicago Police Department, the Office of Emergency Management and Communications, the CTA and as the mayor's corruption-fighting chief-of-staff --makes him an ideal fit to run the Chicago Public Schools.
Sources said one of Huberman's first tasks will be to take a closer look at safety procedures for team sports in the wake of an outbreak of violence that forced CPS to ban visiting fans from away games. Huberman also plans toconduct a broader review of school security.
To placate Eason-Watkins, sources said top mayoral aides at first approached her about becoming City Colleges chancellor. When she refused the consolation prize, Huberman convinced the popular former principal to stay on as his "equal partner" instead of bolting for Washington.
"Barbara's the key to all of this," said a source familiar with negotiations that ended Monday.
Sources said Huberman's annual salary will be $225,000, roughly $20,000 more than Duncan's. That's because Huberman has decided not take a pension from the Chicago Public Schools and, instead, to buy time and take his CTA pension at a later date.
A mayoral confidante, who asked to remain anonymous, noted that school reform in Chicago picked up steam, only after Daley "broke the mold" of having "recycled educators" run the nation's third-largest school system.
"The mayor so values the educator, he wants that job to be undiluted by administrative work. Those jobs need to be separate," the confidante said.
The Huberman appointment is vintage Daley. The mayor has long believed that "good managers can manage anything" -- even if they don't have a clue about the agencies under their command.
As chief-of-staff, Huberman endeared himself to Daley by cleaning house in the wake of the Hired Truck, city hiring and minority contracting scandals and by installing an elaborate performance accountability system at City Hall patterned after the one pioneered by General Electric Corp.
At the CTA, Huberman has made a series of budget cuts, technology and customer service improvements; survived the threat of "doomsday" fare hikes and service cuts with a new labor deal and a Springfield bailout; and raised fares when expenses rose, tax revenues declined and Gov. Blagojevich ordered free rides for seniors.
Daley has had a progressions of fair-haired boys -- from Forrest Claypool, David Doig and John Harris to Paul Vallas and Bill Abolt -- who have hop-scotched from job-to-job before falling out of favor with the notoriously demanding mayor.
Huberman is the latest fast-rising start to follow that meteoric path. He can only hope he doesn't flame out like most of his predecessors.
Contributing: Rosalind Rossi


http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/content/education/chi-school-chief-27-jan27,0,2627479.story

Duncan's Last Move: Close 25 Schools

25 schools set for shakeup
6 CLOSING | Parent-teacher forum rips CPS chief Duncan's last move
Comments
January 11, 2009

BY MAUDLYNE IHEJIRIKA AND CHERYL JACKSON Staff Reporters

In his last major act before heading to Washington as President-elect Barack Obama's pick for education secretary, outgoing Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan wants to close or consolidate 25 "underperforming" or under-enrolled schools, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

The proposal -- which Duncan plans to unveil Wednesday -- would be the largest wave of school closings in Chicago in one year since Mayor Daley gave the schools chief the authority through the "Renaissance 2010" initiative to replace 70 underperforming schools with 100 new schools by 2010.

As expected, Duncan's plan has ignited community protest.
"This reform is not about education. It's about regentrification," angry parent Virgil Crawford said Saturday at a Malcolm X College forum on Duncan's strategy called by the Chicago Teachers Union.

Six schools would be closed under Duncan's plan, details of which were obtained from information provided to parents groups and the CTU.

Five more schools would be consolidated, or merged into other schools. Five would be phased out. And nine would become "turnaround" schools, where students remain but staff replaced.
Many of the 400 parents, students and teachers attending Saturday's forum ripped Duncan's appointment to a national post.

"He's unqualified for the job," charged moderator Karen G.J. Lewis. "I'd like to know what his vision is. What's he going to do without Daley telling him what to do?"

Poor academic performance or under-enrollment generally are being cited as Duncan's reasons for the changes, but some schools also were given new criteria for being targeted, union reps said.

"We were informed [Friday] as classes were beginning," a union source at Peabody Elementary on the Northwest Side said. "Our principal told us, 'We're on the list.' And there's brand-new criteria. The rules change as they go along."

Central school administration officials would not comment on the targeted schools except to call briefings to those schools "preliminary conversations."

"Our position is pretty clear that president Marilyn Stewart and the officials of the Chicago Teachers Union really oppose any closing of schools," CTU spokeswoman Rosemaria Genoa said Saturday .

On Thursday, word that Duncan would move to close Carpenter Elementary -- where the student body is 97 percent low-income -- and turn its building over to Ogden, a Near North Side elementary approved for a new high school, sparked outrage.

"They [CPS] put money where they want to put money," student teacher Terry Rudd complained.

Since taking the leadership of CPS in 2001, Duncan has aggressively pushed the Renaissance 2010 plan over protests from some parent groups and the teachers union. With 61 schools closed and 75 new ones opened, Duncan will have met the mayor's closings goal if his swan song list is approved. Earlier, he had proposed 20 new schools to the Board of Education, but only 13 were approved in October.

"We must take a stand and make a statement about why Mr. Duncan's model is not the model for America," former CTU president Deborah Lynch said Saturday.

TARGETED SCHOOLS
These 25 Chicago schools are targeted for closing, consolidation, "phase out" or "turnaround" in 2009, under plans by schools chief Arne Duncan:
CLOSING
* Las Casas Occupational High School
* South Chicago Elementary
* Peabody Elementary
* Carpenter Elementary
* Nia Foundation Elementary
* Princeton Elementary
CONSOLIDATION
* Abbott Elementary (Hendrix)
* Schiller Elementary (Jenner)
* Medill Elementary (Smith-Joyner)
* Global Vision High School (New Millennium)
* Davis Developmental Center (Hughes)
PHASE OUT
* Key Elementary
* Lathrop Elementary
* Hamilton Elementary
* Best Practice High School
* Reed Elementary
TURNAROUND
* Dulles Elementary
* Johnson Elementary
* Bethune Elementary
* Ross Elementary
* Holmes Elementary
* Yale Elementary
* Curtis Elementary
* Lavizzo Elementary
* Fenger High School

PEN Applauds WASL Replacement Plan

Press Release-- January 21, 2009

For Immediate Release:


PARENT EMPOWERMENT NETWORK/MOTHERS AGAINST WASL APPLAUD SUPERINTENDENT DORN’S WASL REPLACEMENT PLAN BUT CALL FOR SUSPENSION OF WASL GRADUATION REQUIREMENT FOR CLASS OF 2009



Contact: Juanita Doyon 253-973-1593 Jedoyon@aol.com

www.mothersagainstwasl.org



Ten years of protest and petition have finally paid off for members of Mothers Against WASL.



“Our members and supporters have been at the forefront of the battle over this flawed, harmful, costly test that has been the sum and substance of Washington’s accountability system,” said Juanita Doyon, who founded the grassroots Mothers Against WASL, beginning with a two-mom corner rally in 2000. “Superintendent Dorn is to be commended for acting so quickly to fulfill his campaign promise to replace WASL with a test that is more useful, less expensive and less cumbersome.”



Though students, parents and educators will benefit greatly from the changes Superintendent Dorn has planned, a major harm to students and families remains unaddressed. Thousands of students in the class of 2008 are still struggling to gain their high school diplomas, working in a system that was not ready to impose the high-stakes WASL graduation requirement and ensure that all students had the opportunity to meet standards in reading, writing, and math. Thousands of students in the Class of 2009 will soon be in the same situation, unable to continue with their life plans due to the lack of a high school diploma.



The need to replace the WASL was clear to voters, who elected Mr. Dorn to serve as our new State Superintendent. Students in the Class of 2009 should not be held accountable through a test that is obsolete.



Parent Empowerment Network (PEN) calls on Superintendent Dorn, legislators and Governor Gregoire to suspend the WASL graduation requirement, particularly in light of the economic outlook for our state and our families. PEN maintains that the promise of HB 1209 to provide needed funding to assist struggling students and struggling schools remained an empty promise for the past fifteen years. Current economic hardships will increase the inequity between students served in upper and middle class districts and students served in districts in lower economic categories. Increasing numbers of low income, special needs and minority students will be denied high school diplomas through no fault of their own.



PEN continues to receive calls from parents of students who have proven their skills and abilities through passing scores on military exams, acceptance into community and technical colleges, promise of gainful employment, etc…, but who have been denied post high school opportunities because they have been failed by the WASL system.



It is time for the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Legislature and the Governor to heed the advice and disclaimer provided by Pearson, the company that develops, publishes and scores the WASL, in the test’s technical report:



“While school and district scores may be useful in curriculum and instructional planning, it is important to exercise extreme caution when interpreting individual reports.…Scores from one test given on a single occasion should never be used to make important decisions about students’ placement, the type of instruction they receive, or retention in a given grade level in school,”



Parent Empowerment Network (PEN) is a nonprofit organization with members throughout the State of Washington. Mothers Against WASL is a project of Parent Empowerment Network.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.k12.wa.us/Communications/pressreleases2009/Advisory-NewAssessment.aspx

Superintendent to unveil new assessment system

OLYMPIA - January 16, 2009 — State Superintendent Randy Dorn will announce his plans to change the Washington assessment system, including the replacement of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, in a press conference at 10 a.m., Wednesday, January 21, 2009, at the office of the state superintendent in Olympia.

In recent years, a consensus has developed within the state Legislature and the public that changes to the assessment system are needed. A less complex and more responsive system of measuring students’ progress is critical to help them achieve the basic skills they need.

While the WASL will be administered as planned in 2009, by spring 2010 the state assessment – including its name – will change and resemble what lawmakers, educators and the public want, Dorn said.

Members of the media interested in scheduling interviews with Superintendent Dorn after the press conference should contact Nathan Olson, media relations manager, at (360) 725-6015.

WHO:

Randy Dorn, State Superintendent of Public Instruction

WHAT:

Announcement of assessment system changes

WHERE:

Office of state superintendent, Olympia

WHEN:

Wednesday, January 21, 2009, 10 a.m.


Parent Empowerment Network is a nonprofit, public charity continuing to fight the good fight thanks to tax deductible contributions from good people like you. Please consider becoming a member or making a contribution today. http://www.mothersagainstwasl.org/member.html
Parent Empowerment Network
PO Box 494
Spanaway, WA 98387

TAGNYC Advice on 3020A

Teachers, Counselors and Other Affected UFT Personnel:

The Book:
Teachers on Trial: Values, Standards, & Equity in Judging Conduct & Competency

The Author:
James A. Gross. He is a member of the National Academy of Arbitration and is on the labor panels of the American Arbitration Association, The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and the New York State Public Employment Relations Board. James A. Gross is a professor in the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University.

Copyright: 1988 ISBN 0-87546-142-5

The Bloomberg-Klein Administration is using the 3020a hearing as a way of removing teachers from their schools. Perhaps teachers will be returned to schools as ATRs after settlements or hearings. This also is part of the strategy because exits are being planned for the ATRs. An easy way to remove a teacher from his/her school is to charge incompetence. TAGNYC, along with every teacher, knows this. Randi Weingarten knows this. TAGNYC will speak out to expose this horrendous practice. The UFT will not. Also, OSI agents are complaining that principals are using OSI to remove teachers. If you fall in this category, demand charges immediately, demand to see incident reports, witness statements, and demand a hearing- and then demand an apology.

In 1988 Professor Gross issued an informed critique of arbitrators’ 3020-a decisions. What would he make of the way the 3020-a arbitrators are betraying their Code of Professional Ethics enabling Bloomberg-Klein to destroy teaching as a long term profession and to destroy tenure? `

TAGNYC on several occasions has advised strongly that you have a public hearing. You must ensure that your decision is available for review. You must request a public hearing. A private hearing keeps this aberration of justice alive and well.

Below is our Advice to 3020-a Participants. Remember that when you settle, you sign away your right to sue.

Once again, we ask “Randi, where art thou.”

TAGNYC


Advice to 3020a Participants

1. Do not be in a hurry to retire or resign. Have your hearing.
2. Do not be in a hurry to settle. Have your hearing.
3. Demand a defense built on “disparate treatment”.*
4. Demand a public hearing. Do not be persuaded to have a private hearing.
5. Exercise your right to subpoena witnesses.
6. Demand a ‘bill of particulars’. **
7. Script your own defense-know what questions you want asked of both your witnesses and the DOE witnesses.
8. Bring every bit of documentation possible to your defense- lesson plans, students’ work, etc. Submit everything as evidence.
9. Demand that the arbitrator apply the criteria of “credibility” to your case.***
10. Demand a definition of incompetence:
a. 3020a law and Klein define incompetence as being unable or unwilling to do your job
11. Demand a definition of “your job” from the DOE and from the arbitrator.
12. Demand a definition of ‘unable and “unwilling”.
13. Demand credible evidence of being “unable and unwilling”.
14. Demand that incompetence be proven.
15. Get in writing the rational for any fine that is levied or offered as a settlement.
16. Remember- defend on disparate treatment, disparate treatment, disparate treatment.

*disparate treatment-

EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES WHICH ARE APPLIED OR ADMINISTERED IN A DISCRIMINATORY MANNER. Although historically the term is used to denote unequal treatment based on race, religion, gender, etc., 3020a participants can use it to defend against their unequal treatment-: Did the principal hold the 3020a person to a standard (employment practices) to which other teachers were not held and which standard resulted in awarding u-ratings in an ‘unequal’ fashion? Yes, the UFT should have been monitoring if one of their members was receiving unequal treatment. That is what a labor union does. It is not a question of going after its own members. It is the principle that all members be treated equally.
**bill of particulars- A written statement that is submitted by a plaintiff at the request of a defendant, giving the defendant detailed information concerning the claims or charges made against him or her.

***credibility- Who do you believe? On what basis does the arbitrator believe the DOE’s assertion of incompetence over the documented career of the accused teacher?

DO NOT EXPECT the DOE to provide anything you request. The DOE refuses to respond to lawyers’ requests for information in the 3020a hearings. Ask for the information anyway. Build a case. DO EXPECT AND DEMAND that arbitrators’ judgments and rulings reflect adherence to their Code of Professional Ethics.


Where Can You Get It?
Amazon.com or ILR Press
NYSSILR
Cornell University,
Ithaca, NY 14851-0952

Why should you read it?
Because here we have a very eminent arbitrator concluding at the end of his book:

“This analysis of 3020-a decisions shows, for example, that without empirical evidence concerning the effect of different teaching styles on students’ learning, decisions have been made on the basis of personal opinion, personal moral views, unsubstantiated assumptions, and parental and community pressure.” pg. 108

“This study has demonstrated that decision makers’ conceptions of the way things ought to be and beliefs about the way things presumably are –unchecked and unverified by empirical evidence about the way things actually are- often lead to unjust decisions about teachers’ conduct and performance.... pg. 110 (italics added)

Serious allegations that put you into a Reassignment Center today include “holding a diet coke while in the hall” “yelling at a student”, “sitting down while teaching”, “wrongful laughter”, "using teacher driven board notes." AND THE ARBITRATORS WILL DESTROY YOUR CAREER AND REPUTATION ON THE BASIS OF THESE CHARGES.

UNIONS NEED UNITY, BUT MORE

UNIONS NEED UNITY, BUT MORE
By David Bacon
New America Media 1/12/09
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=0c2996367123ca87ed33e99d42dc3f7a

OAKLAND, CA (1/10/09) -- Twelve unions met in Washington DC last week, and announced they're considering rejoining the two labor federations, the American Federation of Labor/Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and Change to Win (CTW), that split apart five years ago. And one large independent union, the National Education Association, is thinking of joining them. The initiative came from the incoming Obama administration, which told union leaders it didn't relish the idea of dealing with competing union agendas.

Many progressive labor activists greeted the idea with a sigh of relief. "Dividing the labor movement was never a good idea to begin with," says Bill Fletcher, former education director for the AFL-CIO, and past president of TransAfrica Forum. Fletcher and many others believe that while U.S. unions have big problems, they can't be cured by division, competing federations, or simple changes in structure. Instead, they call for a reexamination of labor's political direction.

Unions are at their lowest point in membership since the 1920s, representing less than 12% of the workforce. Obama's election, which they pulled out all the stops to achieve, promises some degree of change from Federal policies that have accelerated that decline. The president-elect has appointed potentially the most pro-union labor secretary since the 1930s - Congresswoman Hilda Solis. A potential Congressional majority could pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make union organizing much easier and protect workers from retaliatory firings while they unionize. Obama has promised to sign the bill if Congress passes it.

In industry after industry, the impact of revived unions and growing membership could be enormous. For the first time in U.S. history, for example, unions have gained the strength to organize the rest of the hospital and nursing home industries. That would radically improve the jobs and raise the income of hundreds of thousands of nurses, dietary workers and bed changers, in the same way the CIO and the San Francisco General Strike turned longshoremen from day laborers on the waterfront into some of the country's highest-paid blue-collar workers. An organized healthcare industry, in alliance with consumers, could finally convince Congress to establish a single-payer system guaranteeing healthcare to every person in this country.

Yet while the 12 leaders were sitting down in Washington to discuss unity, the healthcare division of country's largest union, the Service Employees, may be torn apart in a fight between the union's national leaders and its largest local, United Healthcare West. Such a fratricidal conflict could not only jeopardize hopes for organizing healthcare workers, but even labor's larger political goals of the Employee Free Choice Act and single-payer healthcare.

Decisions made by unions often affect workers far beyond their own members. The labor upsurge of the 1930s and 40s led to national contracts in the auto, steel, longshore and electrical industries, establishing pension and medical benefits, raising wages, and forcing the creation of the unemployment insurance and Social Security systems. All workers benefited. And when many master agreements were destroyed in the early 1980s, workers' middle-class lifestyles began to erode everywhere.

Joining the AFL-CIO and CTW back together is a sensible step in marshalling the resources needed to take advantage of the openings presented by a new Obama administration, and begin rebuilding what was lost. But that larger sense of responsibility should inspire unions to face a basic question. They cannot rebuild their own strength, much less improve life for all workers, by themselves.

A new direction in labor requires linking unions with other social and economic justice movements. Defending immigrants from raids and helping them win legal status is just as important to the growth of unions as passing the Employee Free Choice Act. U.S. workers need a new trade policy, which stops using poverty to boost corporate profits abroad, impoverishing and displacing millions of people in the process. But that policy can't be won by unions negotiating with the administration by themselves, outside of a much broader coalition.

Health care reform requires an alliance between health care providers and working class consumers. The communities in which all workers live need real jobs programs and a full employment economy, especially Black and Latino communities. People far beyond unions will help win the Employee Free Choice Act and rebuild the labor movement if the it is willing to fight for everyone.

Unions need not just more unity and better organizing techniques, but a vision that will inspire workers. They need to speak directly to their desperation over insecure jobs, home foreclosures and falling income, and then lead them into action, even (or especially) if it makes a Democratic administration and Congress uncomfortable. As much as Obama has done labor a favor by forcing it to discuss reunification, political calculations in Washington can't be the guide to what is possible. Workers need a movement that fights for what they really need, not what beltway lobbyists say legislators will accept.

In the period of its greatest growth, labor proposed an alternative social vision that inspired people to risk their jobs and homes, and even lives - that society could be organized to ensure social and economic justice for all people. Workers were united by the idea that they could gain enough political power to end poverty, unemployment, racism, and discrimination. "Workers are looking for answers," Fletcher says. "Without them we'll get further despair. What we need instead is to organize for an alternative."

Scott/Pavone/Goldfine Response to Hirsch

Albert Shanker's Legacy: Reply to Michael Hirsch

Norman Scott and Vera Pavone

MICHAEL HIRSCH'S CRITIQUE misleads, or outrightly distorts, many of the points we made in our review.*

Shanker and NCLB

THE TWO-DECADE LONG ROAD from "A Nation at Risk" to NCLB runs right through Shanker and is paved with Shankerisms: accountability, standards, high stakes tests, narrowing curriculum to what's "measurable," identifying and punishing schools (and ultimately, teachers), and charter schools as an alternative to public schools. Clinton's "Goals 2000" plan, which Shanker mostly endorsed, was a predecessor to NCLB. Kahlenberg praises Shanker's role in the process through his alliances with the business community.

Hirsch claims the AFT was opposed to NCLB when in fact, Shanker's successor, Sandra Feldman, sat on the NCLB committee and lauded many of the provisions, something the NEA did not do. Since then the AFT/UFT has consistently signed on to the standards/accountability bandwagon, giving short shrift to lower class size and other essential learning conditions.

The 1968 Strike

HIRSCH BUYS THE KAHLENBERG POSITION that the 1968 strike was about job security and due process and Shanker had no options, a fairly simplistic approach given that the UFT has always counseled teachers to transfer when under attack. Hirsch misses the irony of shutting down the entire school system due to the transfer of 11 teachers, when today the union has agreed to the transfers of hundreds of teachers out of DOE-labeled "failing" schools, teachers unable to get positions and forced to work as day-to-day subs due to the union's giveaway of seniority rights.

Podair's more nuanced analysis in The Strike That Changed New York indicates that Shanker had more of an agenda than just defending due process rights.

The 1975 Fiscal Crisis/Strike

HIRSCH BLAMES GOTBAUM instead of Shanker for the givebacks and pension bailouts. In his "Where We Stand" column (Oct. 19, 1975), Shanker contradicts Hirsch, justifying the use of $300 million in teacher retirement funds: "[T]eachers stepped forward when no one else would. They resisted the normal human instinct to slash back at those who had torn into them. The bankers interrupted their incessant prattle about civic responsibility just long enough to refuse pleas that they help bail the city out." Shanker forced the end of an effective and powerful strike, agreeing to a contract that ensured the layoff of 10,000+ teachers.

Attempt to Marginalize Us

HIRSCH PORTRAYS US as disgruntled, ineffectual leftists, tied to outdated ideological baggage.

Our thrust has always been to build an active and informed membership. UFT leaders have not always been wrong, nor do we claim the rank and file is always right. Leaders should be responsible, honest, and promote democracy: a dynamic relationship between leadership and membership that allows a variety of views to be aired.

From Shanker on, Unity Caucus has used its power to stifle critical voices challenging its positions. It attempts to deny opposition access to teacher mailboxes, despite the fact that the right was won in a grievance without any help from the union.

Using an erroneous analysis of the results of the citywide union elections, Hirsch tries to marginalize our critique and us. In the 2007 election only 21 percent of active teachers voted. The opposition ICE/TJC slate received over 22 percent of the vote of classroom teachers and 12 percent of the total vote, not the 7 percent Hirsch claims. A remarkable 47 percent of the vote cast was by retirees (out of the reach of the opposition) who voted 90 percent for Unity/Weingarten who promote themselves by using dues to fly around the United States to meet with retirees. Unity earned 14 percent (10,000) of the 70,000 classroom teachers, a drop by a third from 2004 (15,500). These results point to a significant loss of legitimacy and support for the union leadership.

Numerous members of the opposition serve as school delegates and Chapter leaders, despite often vicious campaigns in chapter elections, which sometimes include interference by Unity Caucus reps and collusion with principals.

As individuals and through our caucuses and organizations, we have been critical of the union leadership from Shanker through Weingarten. Hirsch knows full well the level of attention the UFT leadership pays to what we have to say, often adopting our language and pretending to support our positions, while undermining attempts to build activism that can challenge NYC DOE's attacks on public education, educators and union members.

Conclusion

ONE CANNOT UNDERESTIMATE Shanker's role in shaping the UFT, the AFT, and the union movement, principally through SDUSA, its front organizations, its ties to government institutions and elected and appointed government officials, and its influence among union hierarchies. This raises many questions concerning the role of leadership and the piecemeal destruction of a labor movement both in this country and abroad.

Thanks to Ira Goldfine for his help with this reply.

*Our response is limited by our allotment of space. We will post a more comprehensive response on this web site and on the Education Notes online blog. return

VERA PAVONE taught in Brownsville in the mid-1960s, later served as school secretary, retiring in 2002. She is a founding member of the Independent Community of Educators (ICE), an alternate caucus in the UFT. NORMAN SCOTT spent 35 years in the NYC school system. A former chapter leader and delegate at the UFT Delegate Assembly, he began publishing Education Notes, a newsletter for NYC teachers in 1996. He, too, is a founding member of ICE.

Hirsch Responds to Pavone-Scott Review of Shanker Book

http://www.newpol.org/

Albert Shanker's Legacy:
Comment on Norm Scott and Vera Pavone's Review in #45

Michael Hirsch

LEON TROTSKY'S TRANSITIONAL PROGRAM begins with words that have made the left nuts ever since. "The world political situation as a whole is chiefly characterized by a historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat," the old exiled Bolshevik and Red Army founder wrote. That analysis was arguable in 1938, when it was written, less so in the 1960s, when the United Federation of Teachers was formed. Would that it were remotely plausible today.

Yet that stilted frame of looking less at the development of social classes or class institutions and more at the maneuvers and peccadilloes of alleged elite "misleaders" characterizes what's so wrong with Vera Pavone and Norman Scott's review of Richard Kahlenberg's Tough Liberal, his political biography of teacher union leader Albert Shanker.

Now Kahlenberg's book is hard to like. It's a defense attorney's brief for a highly controversial figure, and Pavone and Scott are not wrong to call it hagiographic, or the life of a saint. Shanker, whatever his strengths and failings, was no saint, yet the biography does read as if Kahlenberg's hand were manipulated by divine forces to write an institutional history that even few in the present teachers union would stand by.

Yet in place of hagiography, the authors opt for demonology, the study of fallen angels, and their idealized approach shares far more with the hagiographers than they know. They blame Shanker and his democratically elected successors for every ill that befell educators in the last 40 years. For them, Shanker is the mustachioed villain in a silent film, his signature heavy-frame glasses in place of facial hairs; the "ruthless neo-con" regnant.

Why that picture is worth taking issue with -- the authors are themselves longtime critics of the UFT's successive leaderships and are entitled to their views -- is that their take on unions is emblematic of a weakness on the left: where rank-and-file maunderings of any sort are valorized, while elected leaders are excoriated, whoever they are and whatever their histories and strengths.

Full disclosure. In my day job, I work for the man. Or at least the woman. My boss is Randi Weingarten, president of both the 200,000 member United Federation of Teachers in New York City and -- since July -- president of the 1.4 million strong American Federation of Teachers, too. This reply is not an official union communiqué, merely a perk of being a New Politics editorial board member. I'm not even a UFT member or a former classroom teacher, but a union staff writer, though in a former life I was a college teacher and a delegate to two national AFT conventions, the second of which saw Shanker ascend to the presidency. I claim no right to challenge the authors' views on specific internal union matters, nor will I do so. But surely the point of view of habitual dissidents whose union caucus garnered just 7 percent of the vote in the last presidential election, and who remain a null factor in union politics is itself a telling critique. These were the wrong reviewers to take on Kahlenberg.

This isn't to dismiss a minority of one, or deny Gandhi's injunction that "In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place." I've been in that minority frequently enough, including as a former steelworker who despised a leadership that stood stock still as the mills closed. Being in the minority can be an honorable place to be. But it also can be a self-interested, self-justifying place. The least a minority can do is speak as if it deserves to be a majority and act as a shadow leadership, though prominent members of "out" caucuses are by nature no more the bearers of truth and virtue and no less self-interested than are caucus leaders who are also elected union officials..

No wonder the reviewers' critique of Shanker and his successors is so sweeping. They even blame Shanker for the Bush assault on education through the misnamed No Child Left Behind Act. Since Shanker died years before the coming of the NCLB, this is like blaming Edmund Burke for the massacre at Peterloo.

Long after Shanker's passing, NCLB was sold to Congress as something that would narrow the yawning achievement gap between white and minority students by making schools accountable. Many are not, and it's one reason that numerous civil rights groups today support reauthorizing the law, despite its dangers to public education. Among the law's many faults, it emphasizes testing as a one-stop means of assuring accountability, leaving students and teachers ill-served. Tests don't measure higher-order skills, and contemporary supporters of the 1983 report "A Nation at Risk," least of all Shanker, never saw testing as key to the report's recommendations.

Then the Bush administration's NCLB radically underfunded remedial programs. It also exaggerated what any schools could accomplish, unlike the group Bold Approach, which urges instead moving beyond just reforming schools to tackling social and economic disadvantages in the larger world, so that pre-schoolers entering school come prepared to learn.

No wonder both the teachers unions -- the AFT and the NEA -- concluded that NCLB was just a tool to bust unions, eliminate tenure, create more turnover and hire younger, inexperienced, lower-paid educators. Among the problems: NCLB was done on the cheap. Again, this was nothing Shanker predicted, advocated or accepted.

The truth is that Al Shanker was more a tragic figure than an evil one. A brilliant union organizer, his virulent anti- communism and his ties to the AFL-CIO's egregious George Meany put him on the wrong side of history. But to posit a 40-year record of class collaboration and teacher union defeats orchestrated by a ruthless personality -- as Pavone and Scott do -- is over the top. When the authors wonder "how Kahlenberg could square Shanker's reputation for militancy with support for a regime that has weakened teacher unionism, demeaned teachers, and undermined public education," I don't recognize the UFT here. I don't even recognize the United Auto Workers, which it can be fairly argued has done a poor job of defending members against concessions, plant closings and off-shoring of jobs.

Yes, another man or woman might have handled the Ocean Hill-Brownsville community control fight better, and the split between African-American community activists and what was then a predominantly white union was a wound that took decades to heal. But what sparked the battle wasn't Shanker's doing; it was the unilateral move of the experimental district's leadership to transfer teachers -- mostly union activists -- without due process. The bottom line for the union had to be defense of members' job security, especially given the "let's you and him fight" perspective of the Ford Foundation, a principal supporter of the experimental district.

Every union -- especially a public sector union -- should put a premium on forming and maintaining excellent relations with the surrounding communities. In fact the future of trade unions may lie not so much in organizing sectorally as geographically and class-wide -- as Bill Fletcher Jr. observes. But if a union betrays its own present members' palpable interests, it's lost its reason to exist.

The fact that within two years of the Ocean Hill-Brownsville debacle the UFT succeeded in winning representation rights for the workforce of largely African-American and Latino school paraprofessionals suggests the racial wounds were already healing. A racist union couldn't have sparked that organizing drive. Neither could a broken union.

And it is disingenuous to write, contra Kahlenberg's assertion that the union's critics were "a coalition of wealthy whites and angry blacks," that "one would be hard put to find people in the black community who feel they have or have ever had the support of wealthy whites." Have the authors never heard of united fronts from above? The Lindsay administration certainly did.

The authors are also factually wrong about Shanker being responsible for the givebacks during the city's fiscal crisis of the 1970s. It was Victor Gotbaum of AFSCME DC 37 and Barry Feinstein of IBT Local 237 who delivered municipal workers and their pensions into the arms of the bankers and the bond raters.

As to the union's not calling strikes in some 30 years: the strike isn't the point; it's the inevitability of a unified strike and its crippling effect on the employer that matters. It's strike preparation that matters. The best strike is one that doesn't get called. With half of all new teachers leaving the city schools in their first seven years, building a strike consciousness alone is Herculean. Should it be considered? Yes, in spite of New York State's Taylor Law, which heavily penalizes strikers and their unions, strikes must never be written off.

But organizing a successful strike action takes more than calling upon the creatures from "the vasty deep," like Shakespeare's Glendower, when the real question is "will they answer?" just as the city transit workers learned from their aborted 2005 job action when, as critics of that union's leadership say rightly, little strike preparation was done or outreach to the public planned.

Yes, strikes and strike preparation have even greater value than what is on the table during a labor dispute. They're a teachable moment of the best kind. Rosa Luxemburg's idea that "Those who do not move, do not notice their chains," is as true today as when the German revolutionary wrote it. But there are numerous ways to move and strategies and tactics for choosing when and how to move. Even the seemingly intractable Lenin knew about tactical retreats.

That's also why cars come with multiple gears.

Chicago Fight Back on School Closings

Media Alert: For Immediate Release

Attention: News Assignment



City Wide Hearing on School Closings & Turnarounds: 10:00 am, Saturday, January 10, 2008, Malcolm X College 1900 W. Van Buren



Media Contact: Wendy Boatman, CORE Member: 773-991-6290, weboats@gmail.com; Kenzo Shibata, CORE Member: 312-296-0124, mrshibata@gmail.com; Corina Pedraza, Education Organizer

Pilsen Alliance, pedrazac@hotmail.com, 312-243-5440;



Over Five-Hundred Attend City-wide Hearing on School Closings



CORE (The Caucus of Rank-and File Educators) held a community meeting at Malcolm X. College on Saturday, January 10, 2009 to discuss the effects of Chicago Public Schools Renaissance 2010 program and to call for a moratorium on school closings and the turnaround program, an initiative that allows the CPS to fire entire faculties, administrations, and staffs of schools they have deemed "failing" due to test scores



The next scheduled event organized by CORE's coalition of community groups will be a protest at the Board of Education after the announcement of the next round of school closings on January 28, 2009 at 3:30 PM.



Displaced teachers, angry parents, union representatives, community leaders and students from affected schools made up the crowd. Four panels of speakers described how Renaissance 2010 sabotages neighborhood schools to make way for charters and contract schools that often do not serve all students, such as special education students and English language learners. The remaining public schools become the home for these students as they are "kicked off the island" of charter schools, as panelist and CORE member Jesse Sharkey described.



Renaissance 2010 is a program inspired by a report by the Commercial Club and is currently touted and implemented by CEO of Chicago Public Schools Arne Duncan as he grooms himself for his new position as Secretary of Education.



One panelist, a former student from Englewood High School, quoted Duncan as calling her school a "cultural failure" before slating the school to be closed. The student mentioned that prior to this program's implementation; the school had no replacement books as many of the school's funds had to be spent on additional security measures after the school accepted additional students from the nearby Calumet High School when it closed.



Many panelists spoke of charter schools, which comprise most of the new schools under Renaissance 2010. Chantelle Allen, former teacher at Perspectives Academy, a charter school, relayed how the entire junior class at that school had no special education teachers. She blew the whistle, writing a letter to the state board and was immediately fired. According to Allen, A teacher who does not have an education degree replaced her.



The concern over charters and special education was echoed by parent Lorenza Ramirez, a former CPS teacher who enrolled her daughter at Noble Street Charter School. She pulled her daughter out of that school after it was clear that her daughter's special needs were not being met at Noble Street, one of Chicago's flagship charter schools.



Organizers of the event were CORE and several community organizations and school groups. The community organizations were: Pilsen Alliance, Blocks Together, P.U.R.E, Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, KOCO, Teachers for Social Justice, Substance and Senn's Local School Council. The school organizations are Jaguars for Justice and United Senn Students.








On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 5:42 AM, wrote:

16 Chicago schools to be closed, consolidated or relocated
Thousands of students will be affected by changes

By Carlos Sadovi | Tribune reporter

January 17, 2009

Thousands of city students could be attending new public schools this fall under a district plan to close, consolidate or relocate 16 schools because of declining enrollment or subpar buildings, district officials said today.

As part of the proposal, six other schools—including one high school—will become turnaround schools, a status that requires teachers, administrators and others to reapply for their jobs. Four of those six schools are expected to be run by private groups.

The district is in the second year of a five-year program to deal with dwindling enrollment in the city's schools. Last year, the district closed, phased out or turned around 18 schools.

The school board must approve the plan and could as early as Feb. 25, after public hearings. If approved, the changes would take effect before the start of the 2009-2010 school year.

"In neighborhoods where enrollment is sharply declining and we have several buildings that are more than half-empty, we can't afford to keep all of them open," said Rufus Williams, president of the Chicago Board of Education.

Departing district CEO Arne Duncan has said that up to 50 schools may be shuttered at the end of the five years. Since 2001, enrollment has dropped by more than 40,000 students as gentrification in many neighborhoods pushed families out of the city and into nearby suburbs.

The recommendations are among the more controversial that Duncan will make before he joins President-elect Barack Obama's administration as U.S. Department of Education secretary.

At a briefing before Friday's news conference to announce the changes, school officials said they are making the moves to better serve the public.

David Pickens, the district's director of external affairs, could not say how much the district stands to save by closing the underutilized schools, but he said the district would recoup savings by not staffing or maintaining buildings that it could end up selling.

The district's practice is that schools at less than 50 percent of a building's capacity get on the list. The schools targeted for closure this fall are using less than 40 percent of their capacity, Pickens said.

Students who would normally go to the five schools targeted for closure instead will go to other nearby schools. Another five schools on the list will be consolidated with other schools. That means the students and many of the teachers will continue together in different buildings. The district also wants to phase out four other elementary schools and a high school, meaning the schools will not accept new students and will not close until after the current students graduate.

Among the more controversial moves is the district's attempt to turn around failing schools. To land on that list, schools must be on academic probation and be among the district's lowest performing schools in all subjects over several years. While the students will stay in these schools, all of the faculty and staff members—including principals—must reapply for their jobs. About 193 staff members will be affected at the six turnaround schools on this year's list.

"When we are emptying out buildings, it's for efficiency. And in the schools we are turning around and nobody is moving, it's for performance," Pickens said.

But at many of the affected schools and during public hearings, some teachers and parents have accused the district of pushing families and teachers out of the schools to then reopen them as Renaissance 2010 schools under private control. They claim the district also is trying to get rid of union teachers.

The district said 24 of the 75 new schools that have opened under Renaissance 2010 have Chicago Teachers Union teachers.

At Peabody Elementary School in the West Town community, teachers and parents vowed to fight to get the school off of the closing list.

Amy Sherwood, a Peabody teacher and union delegate, said she has taught at the school for about 20 years and acknowledged the school, along with others, has seen enrollment declines. The district said the school at 1444 W. Augusta Blvd. is at only 35 percent of its capacity. The school has 265 students, though the building has the capacity for 750 students.

But Sherwood also said the school has made academic gains and being closed should not be its reward.

"This is a school whose parents are dedicated, as well as the teachers and administrators. We have given extra time, energy and our blood for years so these children can get what they deserve out of life," Sherwood said. "We will fight to keep it open."

Even though Perry Moore's children attend Holmes Elementary School in Englewood—which is on the turnaround list—she is a supporter of the school and the teachers. Moore attended the school when she was a student and has many nephews and nieces in the school. Moore said she would pull her children out of the school and said her relatives may follow if the board votes to get rid of the teachers.

"It's a real sad situation. I can honestly say that they are a dedicated bunch of people. I can see teachers coming in at 6:45 in the morning and sometimes they don't get out of there until 6:30 at night," Moore said. "It's not about the check for them, it's about the love for those children."

csadovi@tribune.com



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