The New Republic
Making the Grade
Can AFT president Randi Weingarten satisfy teachers and reformers at the same time?
Andrew J. Rotherham and Richard Whitmire, The New Republic Published: Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Randi Weingarten, the notoriously feisty president of the second-largest national teachers' union, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), received a hero's welcome at the National Press Club last November. In her speech, she vowed to give ear to almost any tough-minded school reform, and, in a line that thrilled many reformers, promised that the AFT will not protect incompetent teachers: "Teachers are the first to say, 'Let's get incompetent teachers out of the classroom.'"
Weingarten would seem to be donning the reformist mantle of a previous AFT president, Al Shanker, a highly regarded reformer who shook up pro-union liberals by reminding everyone that tough school discipline and achievement standards were civil rights fundamentals. But an approach that worked during Shanker's tenure is more difficult now, with the reformers and unionists pitched in a bare-knuckled fight that is not about lofty, system-changing goals as much as about the thorny specifics of state and local education policy. Caught up in a contentious situation with the Washington, D.C. school system that has challenged her reformist credentials, Weingarten's attempt to satisfy both sides of the debate is being put to the test--the result of which could dictate the future of education reform across the country.
Fairly or unfairly, Washington, D.C. has become ground zero for the national school reform debate. D.C. spends more money on education than most other cities but still sees only nine percent of its freshman students graduating from college within five years of leaving high school. Michelle Rhee, a hard-charging and high-profile reformer now serving as the chancellor of the city's schools, has taken on the system with a strong hand, vowing to ramp up teacher-training and shuffle low-performing teachers out of the system. Her offer to teachers, buttressed by pledged funding from several foundations, is this: Give up tenure, and you will receive dramatic salary boosts measured in tens of thousands of dollars--or keep tenure protections, your salary increases will be far smaller, and you will still be subject to dismissal if you fail to reach performance standards.
The Washington Teachers Union (WTU) at first seemed willing to work with Rhee to craft a deal on her two-track system. But, in the end, the WTU rejected the offer without even putting it to a vote of teachers. Rhee certainly made some mistakes in the process, most notably failing to produce a detailed plan for how teachers would be evaluated, but that's not what scotched the deal. Rather, compromise with Rhee, who has become such a touchstone that both candidates mentioned her in the last presidential debate of the 2008 campaign, became toxic in teachers' union circles.
When exactly Weingarten got directly involved in the Washington negotiations remains a matter of some debate, but there is no doubt that she has been deeply involved and that a counter-offer submitted to Rhee in late January by the WTU comes with her approval. As her Press Club speech would suggest, Weingarten is open to firing bad teachers. But the counter-offer, which hasn't been made public, would complicate rather than streamline that process in D.C. Among those who have seen the details, there are two views about what it means for the negotiations. Some say it is what it appears to be--at odds with the spirit of what Weingarten promised in her Press Club speech, wrapping teachers even more tightly in tenure protections and extending the termination process. Others say that in the coded language of labor negotiations it's actually a signal from Weingarten that she's open to negotiating and moving in Rhee's direction if Rhee can give her the necessary political cover. If adopted as currently proposed, however, Rhee's hurry-up reforms would be throttled back to a glacial pace and students would suffer.
Weingarten's supporters say that, because of the politics and Rhee's take-no-prisoners style, D.C. is not a fair test of her reform commitment. But her actions in New York, where she formerly served as president of the local AFT affiliate, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), may suggest a pattern. While New York school reformers praise her political skills and acumen and admit they were often beaten fair and square, many note that, while Weingarten was emerging as a national reform leader, she was vigorously fighting a variety of reforms in the state. She worked against the state's original charter-school law and also against efforts to lift the cap on the number of charter schools unless that move could be tied to union-friendly concessions. And she resisted efforts to significantly address the pool of teachers who could not find jobs in the city schools but were nonetheless still on the payroll, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars annually.
Critics also point to some of her actions in New York that are seemingly at odds with school improvement efforts. In 2006, the district's convoluted dismissal process, negotiated by the UFT, allowed only eight teacher firings for incompetence (out of 55,000 tenured teachers). And she lobbied the New York legislature to pass a law prohibiting, at least for two years, the use of student testing data in making decisions about whether public school teachers should be granted tenure.
It's not that Weingarten is duplicitous. On the contrary, by all accounts she is sincere in her desire to improve American public education, as well as to restore her union to the position of national respect it held when Shanker was at the helm. The reality, however, is that Weingarten represents a teaching force fearful of reform. As a result, she juggles public reformist speeches and pitches to the increasingly powerful school reform movement with behind-the-scenes jabs like the protectionist counter-offer made to Rhee and the various policy fights in New York.
There's still a way for Weingarten to square the circle in D.C. If she's wise, Weingarten will see what Shanker likely would have concluded: Rhee is not the enemy. Rhee faces an array of independent charter schools that now educate more than a third of the District's public school students. If Rhee can't compete with charter operators who can fire incompetent teachers, the local teachers' union will become irrelevant, because there will be few unionized public schools left in the district. Giving Rhee the tools she needs may strike fear into the WTU, but in the long run it helps them maintain the one thing that the union can't live without: members. The Al Shanker move in this situation would be to save the WTU from itself, helping put in place the kind of bold reforms it will take to turn cities like Washington around. It won't be a popular move among her union colleagues, but, if Weingarten fails in D.C., she could lose any national cachet she's won as a mediator between the unions and the reformers.
And that would be bad news for reformers, too. Weingarten's balancing act should not obscure the fact that she is among the most reformist union leaders on the national scene today and certainly the most influential; her success or failure will have a broader impact on school reform and education politics nationally. Nor would the biggest national union, the National Education Association (NEA), fill the gap Weingarten would leave. It's hard to find an elected official or policy analyst in Washington who won't privately acknowledge that the NEA is bereft of real ideas about how to improve schools, whereas Weingarten is at least full of ideology-bucking plans.
But, as the D.C. example shows, even a politician and tactician as good as Weingarten won't be able to forever serve the dual masters of a change-averse union and the national imperative to fix our urban public schools and improve public schools overall. A lot more than Weingarten's reputation rides on how she manages her way through the tension.
Andrew J. Rotherham, co-founder and publisher of Education Sector, blogs at Eduwonk.com. Richard Whitmire, president of the National Education Writers Association, blogs at whyboysfail.com.
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Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Weingarten's Statement on Obama's Education Speech
In case you missed it, Weingarten succintly recaps the UFT's facilitation of the neoliberal educational model in several phases: merit pay, charter schools, and "data"-driven instruction (read: standardized test-driven instruction)...
Also, here's the full text of Obama's speech. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-of-the-President-to-the-Hispanic-Chamber-of-Commerce/ Note especially this paragraph which gives kudos to the data reports akin to the ones that have been recently introduced in NYC:
Of course, raising standards alone will not make much of a difference unless we provide teachers and principals with the information they need to make sure students are prepared to meet those standards. And far too few states have data systems like the one in Florida that keep track of a student's education from childhood through college. And far too few districts are emulating the example of Houston and Long Beach, and using data to track how much progress a student is making and where that student is struggling. That's a resource that can help us improve student achievement, and tell us which students had which teachers so we can assess what's working and what's not. That's why we're making a major investment in this area that we will cultivate a new culture of accountability in America's schools.
http://www.uft.org/news/issues/press/obama_delivers_major_speech/
UFT President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement in response:
Today President Obama argued for a comprehensive plan for public education focused on finding real world solutions to the challenges facing our schools and our kids.
We support the president’s call for shared responsibility and providing all our children with a comprehensive education.
Here in New York, the UFT has actively been on the forefront of many of the initiatives proposed by the president.
The UFT has always been prepared to step up and support changes which improve schools for kids. We negotiated a voluntary school-wide-performance-bonus system currently in place in more than 200 of New York City’s highest need schools. This program has collaboration, not competition, at its core.
We have supported the use of data to aid teachers in figuring out each student’s academic needs and tailoring instruction to meet those needs.
We operate two charter schools in Brooklyn, and partnered with Green Dot Public Schools to open a third charter school in the Bronx, to show what can be done when schools can focus on educating the whole child, not just on prepping for standardized tests on a narrow number of subjects.
And we have pioneered peer intervention and peer review, with educators taking responsibility for the quality of our own profession.
We agree with the president that education reform should be done with teachers, not to them.
Collaboration means listening to the voice of teachers and providing good teachers and students the tools they need to lower class size and the supportive learning environment they need to succeed.
We must work together to help retain programs like music, art, sports, diverse career and technical programs and Advanced Placement courses.
We still have a long way to go to improve our schools and we want to share in that responsibility, as the president said. Turning around low-performing schools, should always be our first aim; closing them should be only a last resort.
We stand ready to work with the president to help America, and New York, lead the way in education.
Also, here's the full text of Obama's speech. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-of-the-President-to-the-Hispanic-Chamber-of-Commerce/ Note especially this paragraph which gives kudos to the data reports akin to the ones that have been recently introduced in NYC:
Of course, raising standards alone will not make much of a difference unless we provide teachers and principals with the information they need to make sure students are prepared to meet those standards. And far too few states have data systems like the one in Florida that keep track of a student's education from childhood through college. And far too few districts are emulating the example of Houston and Long Beach, and using data to track how much progress a student is making and where that student is struggling. That's a resource that can help us improve student achievement, and tell us which students had which teachers so we can assess what's working and what's not. That's why we're making a major investment in this area that we will cultivate a new culture of accountability in America's schools.
http://www.uft.org/news/issues/press/obama_delivers_major_speech/
UFT President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement in response:
Today President Obama argued for a comprehensive plan for public education focused on finding real world solutions to the challenges facing our schools and our kids.
We support the president’s call for shared responsibility and providing all our children with a comprehensive education.
Here in New York, the UFT has actively been on the forefront of many of the initiatives proposed by the president.
The UFT has always been prepared to step up and support changes which improve schools for kids. We negotiated a voluntary school-wide-performance-bonus system currently in place in more than 200 of New York City’s highest need schools. This program has collaboration, not competition, at its core.
We have supported the use of data to aid teachers in figuring out each student’s academic needs and tailoring instruction to meet those needs.
We operate two charter schools in Brooklyn, and partnered with Green Dot Public Schools to open a third charter school in the Bronx, to show what can be done when schools can focus on educating the whole child, not just on prepping for standardized tests on a narrow number of subjects.
And we have pioneered peer intervention and peer review, with educators taking responsibility for the quality of our own profession.
We agree with the president that education reform should be done with teachers, not to them.
Collaboration means listening to the voice of teachers and providing good teachers and students the tools they need to lower class size and the supportive learning environment they need to succeed.
We must work together to help retain programs like music, art, sports, diverse career and technical programs and Advanced Placement courses.
We still have a long way to go to improve our schools and we want to share in that responsibility, as the president said. Turning around low-performing schools, should always be our first aim; closing them should be only a last resort.
We stand ready to work with the president to help America, and New York, lead the way in education.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Duncanian lies, bigger lies, and liarest realities
George N. Schmidt
ARN2 Strategy
2009-03-13
http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=8457
The Chicago Plan wasn't stopped in its viral infancy here, and now it's going
to infect the entire USA.
Four years ago, I got a Q and A interview with Arne Duncan, a tradition we
have been following for 25 years with CPS top officials. The deal is that we do
the Q and A and provide the transcription back for corrections, and that we
then run it as is with a note saying it was agreed to by both sides to give our
readers the information about those who run the Chicago school system.
The first time I did an interview in this format was with Harold Washington
when he was running for mayor the first time.
The interview with Duncan never ran.
It was filled with lies, an amazing number. The guy will make up "facts" as
quickly as Ronald Reagan used to, and I finally spiked the project.
Over the years after that, he lied, lied more, and lied most about everything
from CPS budgets to sports to shootings. He was always on some kind of
script, and even then he would just slip in a lie or two, almost like a kid seeing
if he could get away with it.
During those years, I covered dozens of press conferences which included
Duncan.
We would quote him, then quote the facts or quote something he said earlier
the opposite of what he was saying now.
Finally, when people would ask me about Duncan, I would say: "You know when
Arne Duncan's lying when his mouth opens and words come out."
Welcome to CHICAUSA...
The Chicago Plan wasn't stopped in its viral infancy here, and now it's going
to infect the entire USA. Every piece will be tried, from un-accountable
clout-heavy charter school to "merit pay" run by TSA or "National Board Certified"
hacks. Plus scripted curricula for everybody, privatization of everything
possible (they'll probably start with food services), and a proliferation of
University of Chicago style "experts" who are even more ready to make up "facts"
than their protege, Arne Duncan.
The Chicago Boys have arrived.
ARN2 Strategy
2009-03-13
http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=8457
The Chicago Plan wasn't stopped in its viral infancy here, and now it's going
to infect the entire USA.
Four years ago, I got a Q and A interview with Arne Duncan, a tradition we
have been following for 25 years with CPS top officials. The deal is that we do
the Q and A and provide the transcription back for corrections, and that we
then run it as is with a note saying it was agreed to by both sides to give our
readers the information about those who run the Chicago school system.
The first time I did an interview in this format was with Harold Washington
when he was running for mayor the first time.
The interview with Duncan never ran.
It was filled with lies, an amazing number. The guy will make up "facts" as
quickly as Ronald Reagan used to, and I finally spiked the project.
Over the years after that, he lied, lied more, and lied most about everything
from CPS budgets to sports to shootings. He was always on some kind of
script, and even then he would just slip in a lie or two, almost like a kid seeing
if he could get away with it.
During those years, I covered dozens of press conferences which included
Duncan.
We would quote him, then quote the facts or quote something he said earlier
the opposite of what he was saying now.
Finally, when people would ask me about Duncan, I would say: "You know when
Arne Duncan's lying when his mouth opens and words come out."
Welcome to CHICAUSA...
The Chicago Plan wasn't stopped in its viral infancy here, and now it's going
to infect the entire USA. Every piece will be tried, from un-accountable
clout-heavy charter school to "merit pay" run by TSA or "National Board Certified"
hacks. Plus scripted curricula for everybody, privatization of everything
possible (they'll probably start with food services), and a proliferation of
University of Chicago style "experts" who are even more ready to make up "facts"
than their protege, Arne Duncan.
The Chicago Boys have arrived.
Daily Howler: Standards and Obama Speech
http://www.dailyhowler.com/
Excerpt from Friday, Mar. 13, 2009
Farewell, Gabriela: Huzzah! A gang of know-nothings in a far city had acted on some lofty ideas! They fell in line with the “standards revolution,” adopting city-wide “higher standards.” They did this because they lacked the first clue about the lives of low-income kids. During Jim Crow, our elites ignored the lives of these children. The “standards revolution” has given us ways to ignore them all over again.
In the Los Angeles Times, Duke Helfand did a remarkable piece of education reporting, describing what happened to struggling kids when that city’s lofty elites adopted those higher standards. His piece centered on Ocampo, who had recently become a high school drop-out. Incredibly, Ocampo had dropped out midway through twelfth grade—because she couldn’t pass her high school’s first-year algebra course. And there’s no doubt she couldn’t pass this course. By the time she finally quit, she had taken—and failed—the course six times! In this passage, you get a sense of the kind of gong-show Obama has now recommended. You get a sense of the decent kidsd who get steam-rolled by such high ideals:
HELFAND (1/30/06): Gabriela failed that first semester of freshman algebra. She failed again and again—six times in six semesters. And because students in Los Angeles Unified schools must pass algebra to graduate, her hopes for a diploma grew dimmer with each F.
Midway through 12th grade, Gabriela gathered her textbooks, dropped them at the campus book room and, without telling a soul, vanished from Birmingham High School.
We did a six-part report on Helfand’s superlative piece; see THE DAILY HOWLER, 3/2/06. “Liberals,” who quit on such kids long ago, predictably stared into air. (Question: How much discussion of Obama’s speech have you seen at our “liberal journals?”)
Imaginably, those “higher standards” can help some kids—but they can badly harm many others. Who wouldn’t have known that LA’s “higher standards” would damage decent, good kids like Ocampo? Duh! Our lofty elites wouldn’t know! These lofty elites have little idea about the real lives of these crummy children. This week, Obama was pimping one of this group’s lofty, know-nothing cries.
Special Report: Farewell, Gabriela!
VISIT OUR INCOMPARABLE ARCHIVES: Be sure to read each part of our current series, “Farewell, Gabriela:”
Part 1: A brilliant report in the L. A. Times begins with a child left behind. (See THE DAILY HOWLER, 2/22/06.)Part 2: Thousands of kids are now quitting school—because of their school board’s “high standards.” (See THE DAILY HOWLER, 2/23/06.)
Part 3: A ninth-grade class needs fourth-grade work. How did they get left behind? (See THE DAILY HOWLER, 2/24/06.)
Part 4: “Faddish” theories help produce an Era of Magical Thinking. (See THE DAILY HOWLER, 2/28/06.)
Part 5: Modern liberals don’t care about low-income kids, We dropped out long ago. (See THE DAILY HOWLER, 3/1/06.)
Closing PS/MS/HS 27
Mr. Klein,
I am deeply disturbed by your policy of closing schools with out any
effective consultation with any of the parties involved. By "parties
involved" I mean current students in the school to be closed, their parents,
the school's Parents Association (PA), or the local school board a/k/a
Community Education Council (CEC).
I don't believe that when the legislature approved "mayoral control" it
supposed that the city's school system would be operated by fiat, but that
appears to be how the current system operates. I urge you to:
- Carefully and fully enunciate the reasons that may lead to the "closing"
of a school.
- In each case that you believe that a school should be closed, explain how
the school has met your criteria for closing.
- Truly consult, in advance of a final decision, and in a manner reasonably
calculated to engender participation, with the parties involved.
- Set forth, in a public statement, the first two items and a summary of all
of the consultations together with a statement from each party consulted
with stating if or if not that party believes that your summary fairly
states that party's position.
Can you suppose that there is any other way for you to perform this task in
a socially and morally acceptable manner?
..
..
------------------------------
Eugene Falik
I am deeply disturbed by your policy of closing schools with out any
effective consultation with any of the parties involved. By "parties
involved" I mean current students in the school to be closed, their parents,
the school's Parents Association (PA), or the local school board a/k/a
Community Education Council (CEC).
I don't believe that when the legislature approved "mayoral control" it
supposed that the city's school system would be operated by fiat, but that
appears to be how the current system operates. I urge you to:
- Carefully and fully enunciate the reasons that may lead to the "closing"
of a school.
- In each case that you believe that a school should be closed, explain how
the school has met your criteria for closing.
- Truly consult, in advance of a final decision, and in a manner reasonably
calculated to engender participation, with the parties involved.
- Set forth, in a public statement, the first two items and a summary of all
of the consultations together with a statement from each party consulted
with stating if or if not that party believes that your summary fairly
states that party's position.
Can you suppose that there is any other way for you to perform this task in
a socially and morally acceptable manner?
..
..
------------------------------
Eugene Falik
The Educational Panopticon
by Herbert Kohl — January 08, 2009
People who insult and denigrate teachers by forcing scripted curriculum on them are perfectly aware that they are forcing teachers to act against their conscience and students to close down their minds. What must be raised and answered for is the moral cost of creating joyless schools that resemble panopticons.
I find it painful to write about education these days. I began teaching in 1962 and after about one semester realized that I would have to become engaged in school reform if I was to teach well and be of use to my students.. This engagement has continued for forty-six years and yet I still encounter schools that are as repressive and ineffective as they were forty-six years ago. Sometimes I even encounter situations, which are even more depressing that any I remember.
Recently a friend and I visited a middle school in the Bay Area. It was lunchtime and the students were lined up outside of the cafeteria. I noticed that they all had their arms folded over their chests with their hands clutching their shoulders. My friend got really upset and suggested we leave immediately. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me that the lunch line was identical to lunch lines she observed when she visited prisons. The inmates were required to hold their arms that way to prevent them from touching each other or carrying anything into the dining hall. Later I asked a teacher at the school about the rationale for having the students line up in that way, and he gave me the same reason. According to him, the students, all of whom were either black or Latino, had to be kept from touching each other or fooling around on the lunch line and besides, he commented, “it’s also good education for their future.”
I observed a similar phenomenon in an elementary school a few weeks ago, only this time it was a class of second graders required to walk to the playground with their arms folded across their chests. The rationale I was given by an administrator was the same though without the cynical aside. In both instances the official reason for the policy was that it was part of the school’s zero tolerance policy.
The majority of schools don’t resort to such methods of behavioral control and do sanction some informal movement of youngsters from place to place. However, the notion of control and surveillance is pervasive these days.. I believe that the consequence of scripted curriculum, teacher accountability, continuous monitoring of student performance, high stakes testing, and punishment for not reaching external standards is that schools become educational panopticons, that is, total control and surveillance communities dedicated to undermining the imagination, creativity, intelligence, and autonomy of students and teachers.
“Panopticon” was the name given by the British philosopher and legal theorist Jeremy Bentham to a prison he designed during the 1780s. Essentially it consisted of prisoners’ cells built in a circle around a surveillance core in the middle. The idea was to provide complete monitoring of prisoners at all times by guards within the core. Prisoners were unable to see into the core and therefore could not actually tell whether they were being observed or not. The motive for this was to create an environment where the prisoners would internalize and accept the idea of total and continuous surveillance whether or not it was actually happening. It was an attempt to use the physical environment as an instrument of intimidation and mind control.
The French philosopher Michel Foucault extended the use of “panopticon” to characterize social institutions such as prisons, hospitals, mental asylums, and schools which institutionalize constant surveillance and exert mind control, often without the knowledge or awareness of the people being controlled. When I talk about an educational panopticon I mean a system in which teachers and students are under constant scrutiny, allowed no choice over what is learned or taught, evaluated continuously, and punished for what is considered inadequate performance. In this context students and teachers are forced to live in a constant state of anxiety, self-doubt, wariness, anomie, and even suppressed rage.
Consider the following characteristics of schooling that I mentioned above: scripted curriculum, teacher accountability, continuous monitoring of student performance, high stakes testing, and punishment for not meeting external standards. Scripted curriculum turns teachers into mechanical delivery systems. Most teachers I know try to revolt against them, but they have to face what are called “the Open Court police” – people who wander the halls of schools checking that teachers are on exactly the mandated page, asking set questions rather than discussing ideas or texts, and accepting only the answers provided by the teachers’ booklet. Though those monitors obviously can’t check all the classes at all the times they induce a state of anxiety since they can enter any classroom at any time without even knocking. This aspect of the panopticon contributes to the erosion of self-respect and pride in one’s work by treating teachers as objects with no independent educational knowledge and judgment of their own.
The irony is that even with the imposition of so-called “teacher-proof” curriculum, teachers are evaluated on the effectiveness of their student’s performance on tests relating to material they have no control over. No one evaluates Open Court or other such curriculum when students fail. It is the powerless “proofed” teachers who take the hit. This is morally reprehensible and yet the question of the values underlying this kind of teaching and evaluation is neglected when experts discuss educational issues.
Teachers under surveillance are also the agents of surveillance since they are expected to do continuous monitoring of their students’ progress. Continuous monitoring implies that learning takes place in measurable increments and that constant testing somehow contributes to enhanced performance.. Whether it does or not, it reinforces educational practice which has no space for conversation, exploration, or the personalization of learning. The classroom becomes a humanly impoverished environment, a sanitized place where students’ personality, charm, and ingenuity have no place. Morally it contributes to depriving the young of opportunities for the development of their minds. Fortunately there are many subversive teachers who work in the service of their students and according to their own conscience rather than submit to the coercive education they are expected to provide.
Add high stakes testing and school-wide punishment for failure and you have even greater weapons of control and coercion. Student and parent anxiety is increased; teachers, being judged themselves by the results of the tests, have incentives to press and pressure their students to perform or even in some cases encourage them to be absent on testing days. Because of no tolerance and no exceptions policies, students who just can’t do well because of disabilities that are no fault of their own, or students who don’t speak English, are forced to take tests they know they will fail. Setting students up to fail is simply immoral, and yet there is surprisingly little outcry about this attack on these young people’s very being.
When I bring up these moral issues to educators who consider themselves reformers in the spirit of No Child Left Behind, they usually acknowledge these “unfortunate” things can happen but that they are unintended consequences of a program designed to get every child performing to high standards. That is not the case. These alienating immoral practices are intended consequences. People who make and administer high stakes tests know the moral and personal costs of subjecting all students to them. People who insult and denigrate teachers by forcing scripted curriculum on them are perfectly aware that they are forcing teachers to act against their conscience and students to close down their minds. What must be raised and answered for is the moral cost of creating joyless schools that resemble panopticons.
I believe in high standards of literacy. I believe that students are capable of high and sophisticated levels of thinking and writing. I believe that children’s imaginations and intelligence must be engaged in their learning. And I believe that respect for persons, for teachers and students, is at the core of good education. Consequently it is up to those of us who care about the moral quality of life in the school to question the values at the core of current pseudo-school reform and refuse to accept dehumanizing, damaging, and morally questionable schooling.
Cite This Article as: Teachers College Record, Date Published: January 08, 2009
http://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 15477, Date Accessed: 3/6/2009 9:12:45 AM
People who insult and denigrate teachers by forcing scripted curriculum on them are perfectly aware that they are forcing teachers to act against their conscience and students to close down their minds. What must be raised and answered for is the moral cost of creating joyless schools that resemble panopticons.
I find it painful to write about education these days. I began teaching in 1962 and after about one semester realized that I would have to become engaged in school reform if I was to teach well and be of use to my students.. This engagement has continued for forty-six years and yet I still encounter schools that are as repressive and ineffective as they were forty-six years ago. Sometimes I even encounter situations, which are even more depressing that any I remember.
Recently a friend and I visited a middle school in the Bay Area. It was lunchtime and the students were lined up outside of the cafeteria. I noticed that they all had their arms folded over their chests with their hands clutching their shoulders. My friend got really upset and suggested we leave immediately. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me that the lunch line was identical to lunch lines she observed when she visited prisons. The inmates were required to hold their arms that way to prevent them from touching each other or carrying anything into the dining hall. Later I asked a teacher at the school about the rationale for having the students line up in that way, and he gave me the same reason. According to him, the students, all of whom were either black or Latino, had to be kept from touching each other or fooling around on the lunch line and besides, he commented, “it’s also good education for their future.”
I observed a similar phenomenon in an elementary school a few weeks ago, only this time it was a class of second graders required to walk to the playground with their arms folded across their chests. The rationale I was given by an administrator was the same though without the cynical aside. In both instances the official reason for the policy was that it was part of the school’s zero tolerance policy.
The majority of schools don’t resort to such methods of behavioral control and do sanction some informal movement of youngsters from place to place. However, the notion of control and surveillance is pervasive these days.. I believe that the consequence of scripted curriculum, teacher accountability, continuous monitoring of student performance, high stakes testing, and punishment for not reaching external standards is that schools become educational panopticons, that is, total control and surveillance communities dedicated to undermining the imagination, creativity, intelligence, and autonomy of students and teachers.
“Panopticon” was the name given by the British philosopher and legal theorist Jeremy Bentham to a prison he designed during the 1780s. Essentially it consisted of prisoners’ cells built in a circle around a surveillance core in the middle. The idea was to provide complete monitoring of prisoners at all times by guards within the core. Prisoners were unable to see into the core and therefore could not actually tell whether they were being observed or not. The motive for this was to create an environment where the prisoners would internalize and accept the idea of total and continuous surveillance whether or not it was actually happening. It was an attempt to use the physical environment as an instrument of intimidation and mind control.
The French philosopher Michel Foucault extended the use of “panopticon” to characterize social institutions such as prisons, hospitals, mental asylums, and schools which institutionalize constant surveillance and exert mind control, often without the knowledge or awareness of the people being controlled. When I talk about an educational panopticon I mean a system in which teachers and students are under constant scrutiny, allowed no choice over what is learned or taught, evaluated continuously, and punished for what is considered inadequate performance. In this context students and teachers are forced to live in a constant state of anxiety, self-doubt, wariness, anomie, and even suppressed rage.
Consider the following characteristics of schooling that I mentioned above: scripted curriculum, teacher accountability, continuous monitoring of student performance, high stakes testing, and punishment for not meeting external standards. Scripted curriculum turns teachers into mechanical delivery systems. Most teachers I know try to revolt against them, but they have to face what are called “the Open Court police” – people who wander the halls of schools checking that teachers are on exactly the mandated page, asking set questions rather than discussing ideas or texts, and accepting only the answers provided by the teachers’ booklet. Though those monitors obviously can’t check all the classes at all the times they induce a state of anxiety since they can enter any classroom at any time without even knocking. This aspect of the panopticon contributes to the erosion of self-respect and pride in one’s work by treating teachers as objects with no independent educational knowledge and judgment of their own.
The irony is that even with the imposition of so-called “teacher-proof” curriculum, teachers are evaluated on the effectiveness of their student’s performance on tests relating to material they have no control over. No one evaluates Open Court or other such curriculum when students fail. It is the powerless “proofed” teachers who take the hit. This is morally reprehensible and yet the question of the values underlying this kind of teaching and evaluation is neglected when experts discuss educational issues.
Teachers under surveillance are also the agents of surveillance since they are expected to do continuous monitoring of their students’ progress. Continuous monitoring implies that learning takes place in measurable increments and that constant testing somehow contributes to enhanced performance.. Whether it does or not, it reinforces educational practice which has no space for conversation, exploration, or the personalization of learning. The classroom becomes a humanly impoverished environment, a sanitized place where students’ personality, charm, and ingenuity have no place. Morally it contributes to depriving the young of opportunities for the development of their minds. Fortunately there are many subversive teachers who work in the service of their students and according to their own conscience rather than submit to the coercive education they are expected to provide.
Add high stakes testing and school-wide punishment for failure and you have even greater weapons of control and coercion. Student and parent anxiety is increased; teachers, being judged themselves by the results of the tests, have incentives to press and pressure their students to perform or even in some cases encourage them to be absent on testing days. Because of no tolerance and no exceptions policies, students who just can’t do well because of disabilities that are no fault of their own, or students who don’t speak English, are forced to take tests they know they will fail. Setting students up to fail is simply immoral, and yet there is surprisingly little outcry about this attack on these young people’s very being.
When I bring up these moral issues to educators who consider themselves reformers in the spirit of No Child Left Behind, they usually acknowledge these “unfortunate” things can happen but that they are unintended consequences of a program designed to get every child performing to high standards. That is not the case. These alienating immoral practices are intended consequences. People who make and administer high stakes tests know the moral and personal costs of subjecting all students to them. People who insult and denigrate teachers by forcing scripted curriculum on them are perfectly aware that they are forcing teachers to act against their conscience and students to close down their minds. What must be raised and answered for is the moral cost of creating joyless schools that resemble panopticons.
I believe in high standards of literacy. I believe that students are capable of high and sophisticated levels of thinking and writing. I believe that children’s imaginations and intelligence must be engaged in their learning. And I believe that respect for persons, for teachers and students, is at the core of good education. Consequently it is up to those of us who care about the moral quality of life in the school to question the values at the core of current pseudo-school reform and refuse to accept dehumanizing, damaging, and morally questionable schooling.
Cite This Article as: Teachers College Record, Date Published: January 08, 2009
http://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 15477, Date Accessed: 3/6/2009 9:12:45 AM
District 10's Community Education Council blasts mayoral control
The Riverdale Press - March 12, 2009
By Kate Pastor
When Marvin Shelton was first elected to District 10's Community Education Council in 2004, he remembers being given a three ring binder containing information on state law, city law and community contacts. These days, council members are only given a single folder.
The thinning of information provided to council members mirrors the dwindling belief that the councils have a significant role to play under the current system, said Mr. Shelton, who is the council president and a PS 24 parent.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg's mandate to run the schools comes to an end in June, and District 10's CEC now joins the list of councils deriding the Department of Education for what they say is illegally bypassing members' consultation on such important issues as opening and closing schools and eliminating or adding programs in them.
Next week, the CEC will consider a resolution demanding that the powers given to them under state law be honored.
New York State Education Law 2590 says CECs must be consulted before schools or programs within them are substantially expanded or reduced. But Mr. Shelton says that over the years, several school programs have been drastically changed without a word of input from District 10's CEC members.
Others on the council share his view.
"The closing of the schools, we should be involved in that," said Denise Sullivan, vice president of District 10's CEC.
According to Mr. Shelton, the Ampark Neighborhood School program was started in 2005 without consultation. The same year, MS 143 on west 231st Street began to be phased out and replaced by The New School for Leadership and Journalism, and in 2007, the department started to phase out PS 79 in the east Bronx — all without council input.
The council also had no say in the creation of a district-wide gifted and talented program in the fall of 2007, or in the decision to expand the program to kindergarten this coming fall.
MS 399 has also been slated for closing by the city, without consultation with the CEC.
At the CEC's last meeting in February, MS 399 families took advantage of a public comment period to speak about the reasons they believed their school should remain open. They were speaking for the record, and to CEC members who sat listening, but were powerless to oppose the closing.
The decision to close the school was made "in the dead of night," said Mr. Shelton. "We were focusing on rezoning and the next thing you know you have a phase out."
The decision to close the school was made "in the dead of night," said Mr. Shelton. "We were focusing on rezoning and the next thing you know you have a phase out."
Mr. Shelton, who is running for reelection to the CEC in May, says he has come to believe that the system of mayoral control as it's been implemented doesn't work. He says the Department of Ed has made it impossible for councils to represent parents, while the mayor faces "no penalty for breaking the law."
The Department of Ed tries to go beyond complying with the law, said Will Havemann, a department spokesperson. He pointed to CEC members' active involvement in District 10's recent rezoning as an example of cooperation.
Article source: http://www.riverdalepress.com/full.php?sid=7883¤t_edition=2009-03-12
By Kate Pastor
When Marvin Shelton was first elected to District 10's Community Education Council in 2004, he remembers being given a three ring binder containing information on state law, city law and community contacts. These days, council members are only given a single folder.
The thinning of information provided to council members mirrors the dwindling belief that the councils have a significant role to play under the current system, said Mr. Shelton, who is the council president and a PS 24 parent.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg's mandate to run the schools comes to an end in June, and District 10's CEC now joins the list of councils deriding the Department of Education for what they say is illegally bypassing members' consultation on such important issues as opening and closing schools and eliminating or adding programs in them.
Next week, the CEC will consider a resolution demanding that the powers given to them under state law be honored.
New York State Education Law 2590 says CECs must be consulted before schools or programs within them are substantially expanded or reduced. But Mr. Shelton says that over the years, several school programs have been drastically changed without a word of input from District 10's CEC members.
Others on the council share his view.
"The closing of the schools, we should be involved in that," said Denise Sullivan, vice president of District 10's CEC.
According to Mr. Shelton, the Ampark Neighborhood School program was started in 2005 without consultation. The same year, MS 143 on west 231st Street began to be phased out and replaced by The New School for Leadership and Journalism, and in 2007, the department started to phase out PS 79 in the east Bronx — all without council input.
The council also had no say in the creation of a district-wide gifted and talented program in the fall of 2007, or in the decision to expand the program to kindergarten this coming fall.
MS 399 has also been slated for closing by the city, without consultation with the CEC.
At the CEC's last meeting in February, MS 399 families took advantage of a public comment period to speak about the reasons they believed their school should remain open. They were speaking for the record, and to CEC members who sat listening, but were powerless to oppose the closing.
The decision to close the school was made "in the dead of night," said Mr. Shelton. "We were focusing on rezoning and the next thing you know you have a phase out."
The decision to close the school was made "in the dead of night," said Mr. Shelton. "We were focusing on rezoning and the next thing you know you have a phase out."
Mr. Shelton, who is running for reelection to the CEC in May, says he has come to believe that the system of mayoral control as it's been implemented doesn't work. He says the Department of Ed has made it impossible for councils to represent parents, while the mayor faces "no penalty for breaking the law."
The Department of Ed tries to go beyond complying with the law, said Will Havemann, a department spokesperson. He pointed to CEC members' active involvement in District 10's recent rezoning as an example of cooperation.
Article source: http://www.riverdalepress.com/full.php?sid=7883¤t_edition=2009-03-12
Friday, March 13, 2009
MISSISSIPPI YEARNING from the Howler
http://www.dailyhowler.com/
MISSISSIPPI YEARNING: It’s odd when someone who’s basically smart starts saying things which basically aren’t. We got that odd feeling when we read certain parts of Obama’s speech on education, the one he delivered on Tuesday. For example, what does the highlighted statement mean? This passage comes from an important part of Obama’s speech. But we had just the vaguest idea:
OBAMA (3/10/09): Let’s challenge our states to adopt world-class standards that will bring our curriculums into the 21st century. Today’s system of fifty different sets of benchmarks for academic success means fourth-grade readers in Mississippi are scoring nearly 70 points lower than students in Wyoming—and getting the same grade. Eight of our states are setting their standards so low that their students may end up on par with roughly the bottom 40 percent of the world.
That whole paragraph is impressively murky. But let’s look at the highlighted statement.
According to Obama, fourth-grade readers in Mississippi “are scoring nearly 70 points lower than students in Wyoming—and getting the same grade.” Does anyone know what that actually means? Mississippi kids are scoring “seventy points lower” on what? (Seventy points can represent a very large or very small difference in achievement, depending on the measure in question.) And what “same grade” are both groups of kids getting? This was a very important speech—and this was a central contention within it. And yet, this statement makes no sense at all. (The spectacularly unhelpful White House “fact sheet” makes no attempt to explain it.)
There’s a word for that highlighted statement—incoherent. But then, incoherence has long been the norm when Big Major Pols discuss low-income schools. Smart people start saying shapeless things when public schools are involved—and sadly, that’s been true of Big Dem Pols more than of Big Republicans. Have eighth-graders risen to be the ninth-best? We Dems will weirdly say that they’ve fallen. And this has gone on for a very long time, enabled by the whole liberal world.
This was the part of Obama’s speech where he declared a need for higher statewide educational standards. (He didn’t call for national standards, as you can see from the passage we’ve quoted.) In this section, Obama said a couple of thing which were actually new and different; we’ll look at those statements tomorrow. But for the most part, he spooned the same tired tapioca that has endlessly driven these scripted discussions ever since the “standards revolution” got its ballyhooed start. Are fourth-grade children in Mississippi scoring lower in reading than their counterparts in Wyoming? Yes, they are—by seventeen points on the NAEP, for example. (Details below. That number intrigues us.) But does anyone think this has occurred because the state maintains lower “standards?” Washed away in such pure nonsense are centuries of racial oppression—and a mountain of ongoing poverty.
Why are Mississippi’s deserving kids scoring lower than Wyoming’s? Because we aren’t the world’s dumbest people, we’ll refer you to a measure on which these two groups of kids don’t “get the same grade.” Duh. In the educational world, what follows is the standard measure for poverty:
Percentage of public school students eligible for free/reduced lunch:
Wyoming: 29.7 percent
Mississippi: 67.5 percent
Gee. Could the human stories behind those data help explain that the gap in reading achievement—the “seventy-point” gap Obama’s staff didn’t even bother to source? Beyond that, let’s look at some other data about these two groups of kids. Because of the weight of American history, these data are relevant too:
Racial composition of public school populations:
Wyoming: 84.5 percent white/1.5 percent black
Mississippi: 46.5 percent white/50.8 percent black
Given what we know of American history—the history which extends right up to this day—could those data help explain the gap between those states’ reading scores? Or must the gap be “explained” by the measure your bloodless elites have picked out?
Might we spend a few brief moments lingering here, out in the real world? In one of these states, forced illiteracy was official state policy, for several centuries, for what is now its largest student racial group. In states like Mississippi—in states like Maryland, the state where we type—it was against the law, for several centuries, to teach black children how to read. After that, Jim Crow came to visit—and he spread his blight all around, perhaps for another century. (No, the effects don’t go away just because we’ve decided we hate them.) And yet we are told, by our first black president, that it must be the difference between these states’ current “standards” that explains the gap in their reading scores! Good God! It’s hard to find words for the sheer stupidity—for the cosmic heartlessness—contained in such pure, scripted nonsense.
(By the way: There’s also a substantial difference in per pupil spending. In the 2005-2006 school year, Wyoming spent $11,392 per pupil—almost sixty percent more than Mississippi’s $7166. No, that really isn’t the difference. Then too, it doesn’t help.)
Does anyone think that this reading-score gap would flip if these two states swapped “standards?” Does anyone think the difference in these states’ reading scores is really determined by those “standards?” And by the way, might we make a thoroughly predictable observation?
As noted, Wyoming’s fourth-graders scored 17 points higher on the NAEP reading test in 2007. (Speaking very roughly, people sometimes say that ten points on this scale corresponds to one academic year. That’s a very rough rule of thumb. For all NAEP reading data, start here.) But guess what? Quite predictably, that seventeen points starts melting away if you control for income and race. Among non-poverty students, Wyoming’s fourth-graders led Mississippi’s by only six points; ditto if we compare white students only. (Wyoming has so few black kids that the NAEP can’t provide meaningful data.) And the gaps are even smaller in eighth-grade reading, where Wyoming’s non-poverty kids outscored Mississippi’s by four points.
We can’t recall if NAEP’s published data let us compare non-poverty white kids (middle-class whites) in the two states. (Again, Wyoming has too few blacks.) We’ll keep hunting on NAEP’s site. But we’ll take a wild guess here, based on what we’ve already seen: If we compare middle-class white kids in these states, that reading gap will be quite small—or it won’t exist. In other words, when we start comparing apples to apples, the troubling effects of those divergent “state standards” start to wither away. And duh. That’s because Mississippi’s problems aren’t caused by its current state educational standards. Her problems are caused by American history—and by the heartless, know-nothing conduct of our bloodless elites.
Does anyone think that this reading-score gap would flip if these two states swapped their “state standards?” Sadly, yes! Obama’s “educational experts” seem to think this—and so do your nation’s elites, locked away in mahoganied board rooms. Good God! The analysts nearly fell on the floor when they read the lead editorial in this morning’s New York Times.
Oh. Our. God.: Obama said some interesting things in his speech—although the incompetence sometimes displayed raises familiar, serious questions about the way any new policy stances will be carried out. In particular, the passage we’ve quoted is quite unimpressive. How inept are Obama’s education staffers? So inept that they didn’t seem to know that the highlighted statement made no sense at all. So inept that they may even think that Mississippi’s and Wyoming’s “standards” explain those divergent reading scores.
Obama said some interesting things—but that highlighted paragraph is impossibly daft. For that reason, we should have known that the New York Tiems would single it out—for praise! Good God. This is part of what the Time writes today, in its lead editorial:
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL (3/12/09): Mr. Obama spoke in terms that everyone could understand when he noted that only a third of 13- and 14-year-olds read as well as they should and that this country’s curriculum for eighth graders is two full years behind other top-performing nations. Part of the problem, he said, is that this nation’s schools have recently been engaged in “a race to the bottom”— most states have adopted abysmally low standards and weak tests so that students who are performing poorly in objective terms can look like high achievers come test time.
The nation has a patchwork of standards that vary widely from state to state and a system under which he said “fourth-grade readers in Mississippi are scoring nearly 70 points lower than students in Wyoming—and they’re getting the same grade.” In addition, Mr. Obama said, several states have standards so low that students could end up on par with the bottom 40 percent of students around the globe.
Good God. The Times goes out of its way to quote Obama’s claim about Mississippi. (They’re scoring nearly seventy points lower!) But then, that last statement is incoherent too. In some states, “students could end up on par with the bottom 40 percent of students around the globe?” To state the obvious, some students will score quite low in every one of the fifty states; that is the nature of large populations. In this incoherent paraphrased statement, Obama says that “students” (we aren’t told how many) could end up “on par with the bottom 40 percent of students around the globe.” Does that mean that this unstated number of students will match the average score of that forty percent? Does it mean that they will score below the world’s fortieth percentile? This paraphrased statement is doubly incoherent. It figures that the Times would adore it.
Final point: It’s stunning to see the New York Times complain about that race to the bottom, in which states may have made their statewide tests easier to produce higher scores. (“Have adopted abysmally...weak tests so that students who are performing poorly in objective terms can look like high achievers.”) Why is it stunning to read this from the Times? Because a few years ago, it looked like the state of New York might have weakened its statewide tests, thus producing higher scores. What did the New York Times do then? Of course! They kissed the garments of Michael Bloomberg, who was claiming that the score rise observed all over the state had been caused, in New York City, by the genius of his own policies (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 7/5/05). No, this didn’t make any sense. But Bloomberg owns a billion dollars. And e.e. cummings understood the gaggle of swells who would lounge, one day, at the Times:
Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both
parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard
“at the old howard?” Our father’s place. (Click here—a soulful book.) “would rather black the boots of success than enquire?” That was the future New York Times.
The times praised Bloomberg—and criticized those who said that the whole thing seemed phony. Today, the lovelies thunder and roar at the syndrome they loudly ignored.
No, Virginia (and all the ships at sea): In the main, Mississippi’s fourth-graders aren’t struggling because of the state’s “educational standards.” That’s an exceptionally foolish claim. You can tell—our elites all embrace it!
Thursday, March 12, 2009
LA teachers sit in over layoffs
Sarah Knopp, a public school teacher in Los Angeles, reports on her union's sit-in at a school board meeting to protest planned layoffs.
March 12, 2009
Los Angeles teachers sit in at a school board meeting to protest planned layoffs (Kim Turner | UTLA)Los Angeles teachers sit in at a school board meeting to protest planned layoffs (Kim Turner | UTLA)
FIFTY TEACHERS along with parent supporters disrupted a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) School Board meeting March 10 and occupied the boardroom in an attempt to stop a vote on sending out "reduction in force" notices to almost 9,000 district employees.
Claiming a $718 million budget shortfall, the district is threatening to lay off teachers--both permanent and non-permanent--as well as counselors, administrators, custodial and support staff, and other district employees.
The board, led by Monica Garcia--an ally of LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa--slunk out of the boardroom and into an undisclosed location somewhere in the building. There, on display to the public only via a closed-circuit broadcast to the cafeteria of the building, they voted 5-2 to authorize Superintendent Ramon Cortines to send out the notices. Board members Julie Korenstein and Richard Vladovic dissented.
For the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) members who participated, the action was transformative.
We had planned the civil disobedience in advance, and the union paid for substitutes so that we could attend the board meeting. School board meetings always start at 1 p.m., so teachers attending is usually not possible.
The meetings take place in a room in a fancy glass building in the middle of downtown LA with seating for about 250. There are 740,000 students in LAUSD, so if only one-tenth of 1 percent of parents wanted to participate, the room would need to be three times bigger.
Most of us on the protest were seasoned activists, but when we chanted "One! Don't cut the budget! Two! A little bit louder! Three! We need the money! Four! our students!" for an hour in the hot sun before being permitted into the building, we all felt more angry, more energized and many times more confident than we had at such protests in the past. This time, they'd have to drag us out of there if they wanted to shut us up!
And while most of us were veterans whose jobs were not on the line, we were joined by a handful of probationary teachers who won't be returning next year if the layoffs go through.
We were also joined in our civil disobedience by parents and grandparents who were organized by the community group ACORN. One of the protesters, 83-year-old Julia Botello, has 12 children and more than 30 grandchildren who have gone through the public school system. Four of her granddaughters are now teachers.
Julia had just stepped up to the mic to plead with board members not to make the cuts when they stood up to leave the room for their secret chambers. Later, surrounded by a dozen TV cameras, she said, "I'm calling on the president, the governor, and all those above us to help us...I want them to arrest me, if that's what it takes to be heard."
When the school board left the room, the media stayed. School police were ordered not to arrest teacher-occupiers while the media was still present, so we were never arrested. As UTLA President A.J. Duffy explained to reporters and participants:
Some people say that what we are doing today is improper. Was it improper when they did it in the civil rights movement? Was it improper when César Chávez used civil disobedience to force Gallo wine to meet the demands of the field workers? Isn't this how India won its independence from the British Empire? In fact, this whole country that we love was born out of civil disobedience!
Then, each of the teachers present took turns standing up and explaining what would happen at their schools if the cuts went through. Gym teachers who have used their own paychecks to buy volleyballs, teachers with more than 40 students in remediation classes, and a cohort from a social justice academy at a large high school, afraid to lose the energy, drive and innovation of their newest teachers--all told their stories. Teachers made it clear that layoffs resulting in larger class sizes will be a disaster for students.
Since we had the boardroom occupied, we used the opportunity to debate strategies, tactics and the next actions we could take to escalate the fight and involve more parents and teachers. Afterwards, we joined a support rally outside. Students from three prominent high schools had organized a bus to bring them to the protest. The action drew widespread coverage in the local media..
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE SIT-IN was the latest in a series of actions by UTLA in the last few months.
On June 6 of last year, the union organized a one-hour strike to protest state budget cuts targeting schools. The next big action came December 10, when some 10,000 UTLA members demonstrated at seven regional school board offices to protest LAUSD's insulting "last, best, and final offer" that threatened draconian cuts to teachers' health care coverage.
Since then, UTLA and seven other school employee unions have reached a tentative agreement on health care, a deal that turns back LAUSD's most aggressive demands. That agreement will soon be voted on by members.
In parallel bargaining, negotiators for the teachers and LAUSD are far apart on the main contract. Key issues are salary and a series of non-monetary demands dealing with workplace democracy, shared decision-making, rights for school counselors and substitutes, and a fair grievance procedure.
UTLA has been rebuilding the union's capacity to fight since a reform leadership took over in 2005. Teachers won a 6 percent raise in the 2006-07 negotiations. The re-opener rounds in years two and three of our three-year contract have so far yielded nothing but offers of less than zero from the district.
Employees who receive pink slips will not definitely lose their jobs until after a final school board vote in June. Many hope that by then, federal stimulus money will have provided a way for LAUSD to avoid most of the layoffs.
But we intend to make it clear to the district that if they don't find the money by any means necessary to save every single job, they will pay the price of massive unrest.
David Rapkin contributed to this article.
March 12, 2009
Los Angeles teachers sit in at a school board meeting to protest planned layoffs (Kim Turner | UTLA)Los Angeles teachers sit in at a school board meeting to protest planned layoffs (Kim Turner | UTLA)
FIFTY TEACHERS along with parent supporters disrupted a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) School Board meeting March 10 and occupied the boardroom in an attempt to stop a vote on sending out "reduction in force" notices to almost 9,000 district employees.
Claiming a $718 million budget shortfall, the district is threatening to lay off teachers--both permanent and non-permanent--as well as counselors, administrators, custodial and support staff, and other district employees.
The board, led by Monica Garcia--an ally of LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa--slunk out of the boardroom and into an undisclosed location somewhere in the building. There, on display to the public only via a closed-circuit broadcast to the cafeteria of the building, they voted 5-2 to authorize Superintendent Ramon Cortines to send out the notices. Board members Julie Korenstein and Richard Vladovic dissented.
For the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) members who participated, the action was transformative.
We had planned the civil disobedience in advance, and the union paid for substitutes so that we could attend the board meeting. School board meetings always start at 1 p.m., so teachers attending is usually not possible.
The meetings take place in a room in a fancy glass building in the middle of downtown LA with seating for about 250. There are 740,000 students in LAUSD, so if only one-tenth of 1 percent of parents wanted to participate, the room would need to be three times bigger.
Most of us on the protest were seasoned activists, but when we chanted "One! Don't cut the budget! Two! A little bit louder! Three! We need the money! Four! our students!" for an hour in the hot sun before being permitted into the building, we all felt more angry, more energized and many times more confident than we had at such protests in the past. This time, they'd have to drag us out of there if they wanted to shut us up!
And while most of us were veterans whose jobs were not on the line, we were joined by a handful of probationary teachers who won't be returning next year if the layoffs go through.
We were also joined in our civil disobedience by parents and grandparents who were organized by the community group ACORN. One of the protesters, 83-year-old Julia Botello, has 12 children and more than 30 grandchildren who have gone through the public school system. Four of her granddaughters are now teachers.
Julia had just stepped up to the mic to plead with board members not to make the cuts when they stood up to leave the room for their secret chambers. Later, surrounded by a dozen TV cameras, she said, "I'm calling on the president, the governor, and all those above us to help us...I want them to arrest me, if that's what it takes to be heard."
When the school board left the room, the media stayed. School police were ordered not to arrest teacher-occupiers while the media was still present, so we were never arrested. As UTLA President A.J. Duffy explained to reporters and participants:
Some people say that what we are doing today is improper. Was it improper when they did it in the civil rights movement? Was it improper when César Chávez used civil disobedience to force Gallo wine to meet the demands of the field workers? Isn't this how India won its independence from the British Empire? In fact, this whole country that we love was born out of civil disobedience!
Then, each of the teachers present took turns standing up and explaining what would happen at their schools if the cuts went through. Gym teachers who have used their own paychecks to buy volleyballs, teachers with more than 40 students in remediation classes, and a cohort from a social justice academy at a large high school, afraid to lose the energy, drive and innovation of their newest teachers--all told their stories. Teachers made it clear that layoffs resulting in larger class sizes will be a disaster for students.
Since we had the boardroom occupied, we used the opportunity to debate strategies, tactics and the next actions we could take to escalate the fight and involve more parents and teachers. Afterwards, we joined a support rally outside. Students from three prominent high schools had organized a bus to bring them to the protest. The action drew widespread coverage in the local media..
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE SIT-IN was the latest in a series of actions by UTLA in the last few months.
On June 6 of last year, the union organized a one-hour strike to protest state budget cuts targeting schools. The next big action came December 10, when some 10,000 UTLA members demonstrated at seven regional school board offices to protest LAUSD's insulting "last, best, and final offer" that threatened draconian cuts to teachers' health care coverage.
Since then, UTLA and seven other school employee unions have reached a tentative agreement on health care, a deal that turns back LAUSD's most aggressive demands. That agreement will soon be voted on by members.
In parallel bargaining, negotiators for the teachers and LAUSD are far apart on the main contract. Key issues are salary and a series of non-monetary demands dealing with workplace democracy, shared decision-making, rights for school counselors and substitutes, and a fair grievance procedure.
UTLA has been rebuilding the union's capacity to fight since a reform leadership took over in 2005. Teachers won a 6 percent raise in the 2006-07 negotiations. The re-opener rounds in years two and three of our three-year contract have so far yielded nothing but offers of less than zero from the district.
Employees who receive pink slips will not definitely lose their jobs until after a final school board vote in June. Many hope that by then, federal stimulus money will have provided a way for LAUSD to avoid most of the layoffs.
But we intend to make it clear to the district that if they don't find the money by any means necessary to save every single job, they will pay the price of massive unrest.
David Rapkin contributed to this article.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
UFT Pathetic Response to Obama Speech
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 10, 2009
Peter Kadushin 212-510-6463 (O)
Statement by Randi Weingarten, President, United Federation of Teachers, on President Obama’s Remarks Today To the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce:
Today President Obama argued for a comprehensive plan for public education focused on finding real world solutions to the challenges facing our schools and our kids.
We support the President’s call for shared responsibility and providing all our children with a comprehensive education.
Here in New York, the United Federation of Teachers has actively been on the forefront of many of the initiatives proposed by the President.
The UFT has always been prepared to step up and support changes which improve schools for kids. We negotiated a voluntary school-wide- performance- bonus system currently in place in more than 200 of New York City’s highest need schools. This program has collaboration, not competition, at its core.
We have supported the use of data to aid teachers in figuring out each student’s academic needs and tailoring instruction to meet those needs.
We operate two charter schools in Brooklyn, and partnered with Green Dot Public Schools to open a third charter school in the Bronx, to show what can be done when schools can focus on educating the whole child, not just on prepping for standardized tests on a narrow number of subjects.
And we have pioneered peer intervention and peer review, with educators taking responsibility for the quality of our own profession.
We agree with the President that education reform should be done with teachers, not to them.
Collaboration means listening to the voice of teachers and providing good teachers and students the tools they need to lower class size and the supportive learning environment they need to succeed.
We must work together to help retain programs like music, art, sports, diverse career and technical programs and Advanced Placement courses.
We still have a long way to go to improve our schools and we want to share in that responsibility, as the President said. Turning around low-performing schools, should always be our first aim; closing them should be only a last resort.
We stand ready to work with the President to help America, and New York, lead the way in education.
Peter Kadushin 212-510-6463 (O)
Statement by Randi Weingarten, President, United Federation of Teachers, on President Obama’s Remarks Today To the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce:
Today President Obama argued for a comprehensive plan for public education focused on finding real world solutions to the challenges facing our schools and our kids.
We support the President’s call for shared responsibility and providing all our children with a comprehensive education.
Here in New York, the United Federation of Teachers has actively been on the forefront of many of the initiatives proposed by the President.
The UFT has always been prepared to step up and support changes which improve schools for kids. We negotiated a voluntary school-wide- performance- bonus system currently in place in more than 200 of New York City’s highest need schools. This program has collaboration, not competition, at its core.
We have supported the use of data to aid teachers in figuring out each student’s academic needs and tailoring instruction to meet those needs.
We operate two charter schools in Brooklyn, and partnered with Green Dot Public Schools to open a third charter school in the Bronx, to show what can be done when schools can focus on educating the whole child, not just on prepping for standardized tests on a narrow number of subjects.
And we have pioneered peer intervention and peer review, with educators taking responsibility for the quality of our own profession.
We agree with the President that education reform should be done with teachers, not to them.
Collaboration means listening to the voice of teachers and providing good teachers and students the tools they need to lower class size and the supportive learning environment they need to succeed.
We must work together to help retain programs like music, art, sports, diverse career and technical programs and Advanced Placement courses.
We still have a long way to go to improve our schools and we want to share in that responsibility, as the President said. Turning around low-performing schools, should always be our first aim; closing them should be only a last resort.
We stand ready to work with the President to help America, and New York, lead the way in education.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Harlem Parent takes a stand against a greater parent role in governance, against smaller classes and against CDECs.
Here is a new development. A charter school parent from the Moskowitz organization takes a stand against a greater parent role in governance, against smaller classes and against CDECs.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/03/08/2009-03-08_forget_seats_on_political_panels_give_fa.html
By Natasha Shannon
Saturday, March 7th 2009, 7:23 PM
Natasha Shannon with her daughters Alaisia (l.) and Ananda. Watts/News
Natasha Shannon with her daughters Alaisia (l.) and Ananda.
When I grew up in Harlem, my mother didn't know she had a choice in where to send me to school. She thought her only option was to enroll me in a failing District 5 school and hope I turned out all right.
I guess things wound up okay - but not really because of the public education I received. I did well in school, even graduated first in my class at the city public school I attended. But I wasn't prepared for the world. I went to Borough of Manhattan Community College, where they told me I needed to do remedial work just to stay.
Valedictorian of my class - and not ready for community college? Something was wrong with that picture.
Now, I'm a Harlem parent, mother of two girls: Ananda and Alaisia. I have so many hopes and dreams for my girls, but most of all I want them to have a first-rate education, one much better than I got. I want them to have true opportunity. But it's hard in New York City. I work at Best Buy. I live in public housing. My simple dream for my girls is not a guarantee.
Last month, I went to a hearing on mayoral control of our public schools. There were many parents who were saying that to have better schools we need a louder "parent voice." They said the mayor has too much power. They said that we as parents need checks on his power, and that we need parents appointed or elected to more community boards so they can make policies for the system.
I'm sorry, but that's not what I want - or what I think is good for my kids. Remember, I have two girls who are 7 and 5. I don't want a vote on a panel or to have a voice in policymaking.
I want power - real power. I want the power to decide where I send my kids to school. I don't want to be seen but not really "heard."
The best way my voice can be heard is if I get to choose where my child goes to school. I should have excellent choices in my own neighborhood, the kinds of choices my mother wasn't able to take advantage of. I don't want my girls to be assigned to a failing zone school, and then be told by so-called elected parent representatives that I should be happy with it.
The parent voice I want is parent choice.
The truth is, giving parents more official political clout by letting them vote on official policy might actually do more harm than good for me and my daughters.
The parents who want to make policy are not necessarily the parents who are in the same boat that I'm in. They may want resources spent on decreasing class size - when I may think money should be spent on improving teacher quality. Or the parents on a Community Education Council may not think a public charter school should be sited in a failing zone school - when to me and my neighbors, that's a saving grace.
There are some parents who are politically well-connected in this city, who think we shouldn't have a right to choose their child's school, that I should just wait for my zoned school to get better. They have been saying that schools in District 5 were on the verge of "getting better" since I was a student. My children deserve better now, and nobody but me should decide whether a school is good enough for them.
Having more parent say in policy decisions may not be the best way to protect my children's interests. In fact, it may limit my choices.
Last Saturday, Harlem Parents United, a group of which I'm a proud member, held the Harlem Education Fair to inform moms, dads and kids about their options for choosing schools. An unprecedented 5,000 parents came.
That's because in Harlem, we now have more school choices per square mile than almost anywhere in the country. Finally, we're being heard - in the only way that really counts. Don't take that away from us.
Shannon, mother of two children who attend Harlem Success Academy Charter School, is a founding member of Harlem Parents United.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/03/08/2009-03-08_forget_seats_on_political_panels_give_fa.html
By Natasha Shannon
Saturday, March 7th 2009, 7:23 PM
Natasha Shannon with her daughters Alaisia (l.) and Ananda. Watts/News
Natasha Shannon with her daughters Alaisia (l.) and Ananda.
When I grew up in Harlem, my mother didn't know she had a choice in where to send me to school. She thought her only option was to enroll me in a failing District 5 school and hope I turned out all right.
I guess things wound up okay - but not really because of the public education I received. I did well in school, even graduated first in my class at the city public school I attended. But I wasn't prepared for the world. I went to Borough of Manhattan Community College, where they told me I needed to do remedial work just to stay.
Valedictorian of my class - and not ready for community college? Something was wrong with that picture.
Now, I'm a Harlem parent, mother of two girls: Ananda and Alaisia. I have so many hopes and dreams for my girls, but most of all I want them to have a first-rate education, one much better than I got. I want them to have true opportunity. But it's hard in New York City. I work at Best Buy. I live in public housing. My simple dream for my girls is not a guarantee.
Last month, I went to a hearing on mayoral control of our public schools. There were many parents who were saying that to have better schools we need a louder "parent voice." They said the mayor has too much power. They said that we as parents need checks on his power, and that we need parents appointed or elected to more community boards so they can make policies for the system.
I'm sorry, but that's not what I want - or what I think is good for my kids. Remember, I have two girls who are 7 and 5. I don't want a vote on a panel or to have a voice in policymaking.
I want power - real power. I want the power to decide where I send my kids to school. I don't want to be seen but not really "heard."
The best way my voice can be heard is if I get to choose where my child goes to school. I should have excellent choices in my own neighborhood, the kinds of choices my mother wasn't able to take advantage of. I don't want my girls to be assigned to a failing zone school, and then be told by so-called elected parent representatives that I should be happy with it.
The parent voice I want is parent choice.
The truth is, giving parents more official political clout by letting them vote on official policy might actually do more harm than good for me and my daughters.
The parents who want to make policy are not necessarily the parents who are in the same boat that I'm in. They may want resources spent on decreasing class size - when I may think money should be spent on improving teacher quality. Or the parents on a Community Education Council may not think a public charter school should be sited in a failing zone school - when to me and my neighbors, that's a saving grace.
There are some parents who are politically well-connected in this city, who think we shouldn't have a right to choose their child's school, that I should just wait for my zoned school to get better. They have been saying that schools in District 5 were on the verge of "getting better" since I was a student. My children deserve better now, and nobody but me should decide whether a school is good enough for them.
Having more parent say in policy decisions may not be the best way to protect my children's interests. In fact, it may limit my choices.
Last Saturday, Harlem Parents United, a group of which I'm a proud member, held the Harlem Education Fair to inform moms, dads and kids about their options for choosing schools. An unprecedented 5,000 parents came.
That's because in Harlem, we now have more school choices per square mile than almost anywhere in the country. Finally, we're being heard - in the only way that really counts. Don't take that away from us.
Shannon, mother of two children who attend Harlem Success Academy Charter School, is a founding member of Harlem Parents United.
Blame for School Achievement Gap Misplaced
March 9, 2009
New policy report explains how poverty's effects are the real culprit
Contact: David Berliner -- (480) 861-0484; berliner@asu.edu
Kevin Welner -- (303) 492-8370; kevin.welner@gmail.com
TEMPE, Ariz. and BOULDER, Colo., March 9, 2009 - A new report issues a fundamental challenge to established education policies that were promoted by the Bush administration and are likely to be continued by the Obama administration. These policies are based on a belief that public schools should shoulder the blame for the "achievement gap" between poor and minority students and the rest of the student population. But the new policy report argues that out-of-school factors are the real culprit--and that if those factors are not addressed, it will be impossible for schools to meet the demands made of them.
"Schools are told to fix problems that largely lie outside their zone of influence," says David Berliner, Regents Professor of Education at Arizona State University, and author of the report, Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success. The report is jointly published by the Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU) of ASU and the Education and the Public Interest Center (EPIC) at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Berliner's report comes as debate continues over the renewal of the No Child Left Behind Act, which imposed stiff accountability measures on schools in return for federal aid. NCLB requires public schools to demonstrate "adequate yearly progress" toward the eventual elimination of gaps in achievement among all demographic groups of students and imposes a variety of sanctions if they fall short.
"This report provides exactly the type of information that should guide policy," says EPIC director Kevin Welner of CU-Boulder. "It clearly and concisely explains why poverty must be directly addressed by anyone who hopes to close the achievement gap. Just as importantly, it explains why just tinkering with NCLB is a fool's errand."
Last week, Education Secretary Duncan told the Washington Post that those who would use the social ills of poor children as an excuse for not educating them "are part of the problem." Welner agrees. "But," he says, "those who point to schools as an excuse for failure to address social ills are equally at fault."
Berliner explains that NCLB "focuses almost exclusively on school outputs, particularly reading and mathematics achievement test scores." He says, "The law was purposely designed to pay little attention to school inputs in order to ensure that teachers and school administrators had 'no excuses' when it came to better educating impoverished youth."
Yet, as explained in the new report, that position is not merely unrealistic, but certain to fail. Berliner says that NCLB's accountability system is "fatally flawed" because it makes schools accountable for achievement without regard for out-of-school factors.
Berliner reviews a half-dozen out-of-school factors that have been clearly linked to lower achievement among poor and minority-group students: birth weight and non-genetic parental influences; medical care; food insecurity; environmental pollution; family breakdown and stress; and neighborhood norms and conditions. Additionally, he notes a seventh factor: extended learning opportunities in the form of summer programs, after-school programs, and pre-school programs. Access to these resources by poor and minority students could help mitigate the effects of the other six factors.
Because of the extraordinary influence of the six factors that Berliner identifies, "increased spending on schools, as beneficial as that might be, will probably come up short in closing the gaps." Instead, he calls for an approach to school improvement that would demand "a reasonable level of societal accountability for children's physical and mental health and safety."
"At that point," he concludes, "maybe we can sensibly and productively demand that schools be accountable for comparable levels of academic achievement for all America's children."
Find David Berliner's report, Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success, on the web at:
http://epicpolicy.org/publication/poverty-and-potential
CONTACT:
David Berliner, Regents Professor of Education
Arizona State University
(480) 861-0484
berliner@asu.edu
Kevin Welner, Professor and Director
Education and the Public Interest Center
University of Colorado at Boulder
(303) 492-8370
kevin.welner@gmail.com
**********
###
The Education and the Public Interest Center (EPIC) at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU) at Arizona State University collaborate to produce policy briefs and think tank reviews. Our goal is to promote well-informed democratic deliberation about education policy by providing academic as well as non-academic audiences with useful information and high quality analyses.
Visit EPIC and EPRU at http://www.educationanalysis.org/
EPIC and EPRU are members of the Education Policy Alliance
(http://educationpolicyalliance.org)
**********
New policy report explains how poverty's effects are the real culprit
Contact: David Berliner -- (480) 861-0484; berliner@asu.edu
Kevin Welner -- (303) 492-8370; kevin.welner@gmail.com
TEMPE, Ariz. and BOULDER, Colo., March 9, 2009 - A new report issues a fundamental challenge to established education policies that were promoted by the Bush administration and are likely to be continued by the Obama administration. These policies are based on a belief that public schools should shoulder the blame for the "achievement gap" between poor and minority students and the rest of the student population. But the new policy report argues that out-of-school factors are the real culprit--and that if those factors are not addressed, it will be impossible for schools to meet the demands made of them.
"Schools are told to fix problems that largely lie outside their zone of influence," says David Berliner, Regents Professor of Education at Arizona State University, and author of the report, Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success. The report is jointly published by the Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU) of ASU and the Education and the Public Interest Center (EPIC) at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Berliner's report comes as debate continues over the renewal of the No Child Left Behind Act, which imposed stiff accountability measures on schools in return for federal aid. NCLB requires public schools to demonstrate "adequate yearly progress" toward the eventual elimination of gaps in achievement among all demographic groups of students and imposes a variety of sanctions if they fall short.
"This report provides exactly the type of information that should guide policy," says EPIC director Kevin Welner of CU-Boulder. "It clearly and concisely explains why poverty must be directly addressed by anyone who hopes to close the achievement gap. Just as importantly, it explains why just tinkering with NCLB is a fool's errand."
Last week, Education Secretary Duncan told the Washington Post that those who would use the social ills of poor children as an excuse for not educating them "are part of the problem." Welner agrees. "But," he says, "those who point to schools as an excuse for failure to address social ills are equally at fault."
Berliner explains that NCLB "focuses almost exclusively on school outputs, particularly reading and mathematics achievement test scores." He says, "The law was purposely designed to pay little attention to school inputs in order to ensure that teachers and school administrators had 'no excuses' when it came to better educating impoverished youth."
Yet, as explained in the new report, that position is not merely unrealistic, but certain to fail. Berliner says that NCLB's accountability system is "fatally flawed" because it makes schools accountable for achievement without regard for out-of-school factors.
Berliner reviews a half-dozen out-of-school factors that have been clearly linked to lower achievement among poor and minority-group students: birth weight and non-genetic parental influences; medical care; food insecurity; environmental pollution; family breakdown and stress; and neighborhood norms and conditions. Additionally, he notes a seventh factor: extended learning opportunities in the form of summer programs, after-school programs, and pre-school programs. Access to these resources by poor and minority students could help mitigate the effects of the other six factors.
Because of the extraordinary influence of the six factors that Berliner identifies, "increased spending on schools, as beneficial as that might be, will probably come up short in closing the gaps." Instead, he calls for an approach to school improvement that would demand "a reasonable level of societal accountability for children's physical and mental health and safety."
"At that point," he concludes, "maybe we can sensibly and productively demand that schools be accountable for comparable levels of academic achievement for all America's children."
Find David Berliner's report, Poverty and Potential: Out-of-School Factors and School Success, on the web at:
http://epicpolicy.org/publication/poverty-and-potential
CONTACT:
David Berliner, Regents Professor of Education
Arizona State University
(480) 861-0484
berliner@asu.edu
Kevin Welner, Professor and Director
Education and the Public Interest Center
University of Colorado at Boulder
(303) 492-8370
kevin.welner@gmail.com
**********
###
The Education and the Public Interest Center (EPIC) at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU) at Arizona State University collaborate to produce policy briefs and think tank reviews. Our goal is to promote well-informed democratic deliberation about education policy by providing academic as well as non-academic audiences with useful information and high quality analyses.
Visit EPIC and EPRU at http://www.educationanalysis.org/
EPIC and EPRU are members of the Education Policy Alliance
(http://educationpolicyalliance.org)
**********
Monday, March 09, 2009
PS 154X Doins
1. September 29th, 2008 Derrick Townsend drags a five year old student forty feet when the student refuses to walk with him.
2. November 7, 2008 Derrick Townsend grabs an eleven year old boy by the arm, drags him approximately 125ft, tears his shirt, causes discoloration and numbness to his fingers. Linda Amil-Irizarry is aware, and contrary to A-420 never reports it to OSI, nor is the parent notified.
3. December 12, 2008 Derrick Townsend punishes a student's behavior in the cafeteria by making him clean the entire cafeteria.
4. December 18, 2008 Derrick Townsend grabs a student by the arm and pulls him when his directions are not being followed.
5. January 16, 2009 Derrick Townsend picks a student up by the arm, twists it, and pulls him by the arm.
6. February 13, 2009 Derrick Townsend verbally abuses a 8 year old girl in front of a class, and then drags and pulls her by the arm for ten minutes, leaving bruises on her arm.
2. November 7, 2008 Derrick Townsend grabs an eleven year old boy by the arm, drags him approximately 125ft, tears his shirt, causes discoloration and numbness to his fingers. Linda Amil-Irizarry is aware, and contrary to A-420 never reports it to OSI, nor is the parent notified.
3. December 12, 2008 Derrick Townsend punishes a student's behavior in the cafeteria by making him clean the entire cafeteria.
4. December 18, 2008 Derrick Townsend grabs a student by the arm and pulls him when his directions are not being followed.
5. January 16, 2009 Derrick Townsend picks a student up by the arm, twists it, and pulls him by the arm.
6. February 13, 2009 Derrick Townsend verbally abuses a 8 year old girl in front of a class, and then drags and pulls her by the arm for ten minutes, leaving bruises on her arm.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Meltdown: The Economic Collapse and a People's Plan for Recovery
March 6
Meltdown: The Economic Collapse and a People's Plan for Recovery
Where: New York Society for Ethical Culture, NYC
When: 8 pm
Join Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, Nation Institute Fellow and Nation columnist Naomi Klein, author and activist Barbara Ehrenreich, Black Commentator's Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Nation D.C. editor Christopher Hayes in a wide-ranging and incisive conversation as they discuss the origins on the financial collapse, debate President Obama's stimulus package and consider what form economic recovery should take to ensure a more equitable future for everyone.
The event marks the publication of Meltdown: How Greed and Corruption Shattered Our Financial System and How We Can Recover (Nation Books) by Katrina vanden Heuvel and the editors of The Nation.
Audience questions will be taken, and a book-signing will follow the conversation.
DATE: March 6, 2009
LOCATION: New York Society for Ethical Culture, 2 West 64th Street, New York City
TIME: 8PM. Doors open at 7:25PM.
FREE OF CHARGE
If you can't make the actual event, follow us on Twitter
Co-sponsored by The New Society for Ethical Culture, Public Concern Foundation, Democrats.com, Democracy Now!
Meltdown: The Economic Collapse and a People's Plan for Recovery
Where: New York Society for Ethical Culture, NYC
When: 8 pm
Join Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, Nation Institute Fellow and Nation columnist Naomi Klein, author and activist Barbara Ehrenreich, Black Commentator's Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Nation D.C. editor Christopher Hayes in a wide-ranging and incisive conversation as they discuss the origins on the financial collapse, debate President Obama's stimulus package and consider what form economic recovery should take to ensure a more equitable future for everyone.
The event marks the publication of Meltdown: How Greed and Corruption Shattered Our Financial System and How We Can Recover (Nation Books) by Katrina vanden Heuvel and the editors of The Nation.
Audience questions will be taken, and a book-signing will follow the conversation.
DATE: March 6, 2009
LOCATION: New York Society for Ethical Culture, 2 West 64th Street, New York City
TIME: 8PM. Doors open at 7:25PM.
FREE OF CHARGE
If you can't make the actual event, follow us on Twitter
Co-sponsored by The New Society for Ethical Culture, Public Concern Foundation, Democrats.com, Democracy Now!
Email 18: Rally, etc.
Here is a regular email contact one teacher provides to her fellow teachers and contact list. Loaded with info and opinions, something like this is a great educating and organizing tool.
March 4, 2009
RALLY tomorrow — Thursday, March 5th, City Hall (4, 5, 6 train, reach it by the north side of the park), starts at 4 p.m.
Bring noisemakers, instruments and a bullhorn. The UFT is supplying some signs and some hats, but people are encouraged to make their own. Recent suggestions:
1. End Mayoral Control ; Parent, Teacher & Student Control Now.
2. Mayoral Control, NO! Democratic Control, YES!
3. Money for Schools, Not for Wall St!
4. Money for Schools, Not for War!
5. Smaller Class Size Now!
6. Out with Bloomberg, Out with Klein.
7. Public Education, Yes! Privatization, NO!
8. Defend our ATR Teachers, NOW.
9. Hey, Hey, Ho Ho — High Stakes Testing Has Got To Go!
10. Teachers, Parents, Students United Will Never Be Defeated.
11. Tax the Rich, Not the Poor!
12. Tax the Corporations, Not the Workers!
13. Corporations: Out of Schools, NOW!
14. Stop School Closings, Now.
15. Stop the ATR Teacher Abuse, Now
16. Stop High Stakes, Testing Now.
17. Bail Out Schools, Not Wall Street
All the caucuses and educator activists (NYCoRE, ICE, Time Out from Testing, etc.) seem to be supporting this rally, but they are not all thrilled with the union's positioning up to this point. TJC (Teachers for a Just Contract) writes:
"The UFT leadership has done a bad job of building this important rally. We believe they should have taken a firm condition against all cuts and all givebacks. This has to be an overwhelming show of union strength to lay the foundation for a fightback strong enough to protect our schools and win a good contract. Instead of explaining this, the union has resorted to scare tactics, implying people will be laid off, although layoffs have been virtually ruled out by the provisions of the Stimulus bill Congress passed in February. TJC strongly urges you to participate on March 5, not from fear, but from strength."
Actually there's another RALLY in the works, which needs member participation just as badly, or even more so.
Chapter leaders were told this afternoon that the principal of Fordham High School for the Arts, Iris Blige, has been putting her staff through the wringer for years. Specifically, she has sent CLs and other staff to the rubber room on invented charges or no charges. There they languish for two years, and their cases are dismissed. Blige remains unscathed, protected, it seems, by a chancellor who condones administrator misconduct bordering on or exceeding legal limits. Recently she arranged for 11 cops to arrest a teacher at school; lacking evidence, they wouldn't charge her. At today's meeting, a colleague of the teacher's reported that the arrest was the result of a set-up, a faked letter that had included threats. The teacher had never written such a letter, and the Bronx UFT (if not the rest of the boroughs) is furious. They are asking that other chapters join in the protest to support the teacher and make a strong statement against Blige's continued abuse of authority. The rally will take place on Fri., March 13th, from 4 to 5 outside Roosevelt HS on Fordham Road. The press has been invited. Please show solidarity at this one and attend.
We are up against a level of indecency at Tweed that the public has to know about it. Actually, it would be good if more teachers knew about it also.
In fact there are many protests these days, in particular against school closings, which are based on fabricated data and done without the knowledge or consent of parents and school communities. In fact, some of the closings seem to be related to real estate and corporate schemes. As Ednotes writes:
"Just in the last few weeks, we have heard of the announced closings of large high schools Brandeis (upper West Side — protest and picket Feb. 10th) and Bayard Rustin (Chelsea). Guess in whose hands these massive buildings built and maintained with public funding, all in Toney neighborhoods, will end up?"
There was a rally against the closing of PS/IS 72, written up by John Lawhead thus: "Speakers condemned the destruction of the well-functioning school and declared that Chancellor Klein was "unqualified" to be their judge. Parent leaders are outraged by the erratic series of evaluations that have run from a "school in good standing" in 2007 to a grade D in 2008." MS 399X due to be closed (protest and picket Feb. 12th). Last spring, teachers protested the "strangling" of Jamaica HS at one of Klein's Panel meetings.
From Ednotes again: "Abandoning seniority rules, accepting school closings as a fait accompli, joining in on the influx of charter schools, accepting the CEO model, tacit acceptance of non-educators as chancellors, supporting the Gates and other private interest onslaught on public schools, signing on to the testing mania by supporting merit pay and individual teacher report cards based on these tests – I won’t give you any more of the laundry list – has led to the worst working conditions for teachers in decades and a deterioration in learning conditions for many children, no matter what the fudged numbers might show."
BEING ARRESTED (contd)
While I'm on that subject, chapter leaders were reminded today that if you're arrested — don't laugh, I'll tell you why in a second — you are required by law (Chancellor's Reg. C-105) to "immediately notify the OPI and [your] building or office supervisor in writing and provide a copy of the criminal court complaint."
Please note the "in writing," because failure to to that might lead to further discliplinary action against you. OPI = (Office of Personnel Investigation, 718-935-2665; send documents by certified mail.
You may think that certain arrests have nothing to do with school and therefore don't need to be reported. Apparently not. This reg means all and any arrests, and the examples we were given include: a fight you may have had with someone, drunk driving, and even being caught up in a sweep for drugs (let's say, in the hallway of an apartment building) that did not involve you, but you happened to be there at the time. Apparently, educators are being held to a higher code of conduct because of the nature of our job.
In light of all the protesting and how far each of us wants to carry civil disobedience, I asked if that kind of arrest was included, and the answer was yes. Any arrest whatsoever.
PAYROLL PORTAL
District rep handed out a sheet that starts off "Members can access their salary info and enroll in various DoE programs online."
Full instructions on how to use this system can be found on the UFT website here.
In addition to salary info, you can get to use Employee Self Service for enrolling in the College Savings, EFT/Direct Deposit, Metro Card, Savings Bond and Transit Savings Account programs.
SALARY DIFFERENTIALS: ONLINE APPNS
The DoE's Salary Unit, now called the Office of Salary Services (OSS), set up a way to apply for salary differentials. Applications and eligibility requirements here, or through the Payroll Portal. You must have a DoE email address to access this online.
That's it for now.
March 4, 2009
RALLY tomorrow — Thursday, March 5th, City Hall (4, 5, 6 train, reach it by the north side of the park), starts at 4 p.m.
Bring noisemakers, instruments and a bullhorn. The UFT is supplying some signs and some hats, but people are encouraged to make their own. Recent suggestions:
1. End Mayoral Control ; Parent, Teacher & Student Control Now.
2. Mayoral Control, NO! Democratic Control, YES!
3. Money for Schools, Not for Wall St!
4. Money for Schools, Not for War!
5. Smaller Class Size Now!
6. Out with Bloomberg, Out with Klein.
7. Public Education, Yes! Privatization, NO!
8. Defend our ATR Teachers, NOW.
9. Hey, Hey, Ho Ho — High Stakes Testing Has Got To Go!
10. Teachers, Parents, Students United Will Never Be Defeated.
11. Tax the Rich, Not the Poor!
12. Tax the Corporations, Not the Workers!
13. Corporations: Out of Schools, NOW!
14. Stop School Closings, Now.
15. Stop the ATR Teacher Abuse, Now
16. Stop High Stakes, Testing Now.
17. Bail Out Schools, Not Wall Street
All the caucuses and educator activists (NYCoRE, ICE, Time Out from Testing, etc.) seem to be supporting this rally, but they are not all thrilled with the union's positioning up to this point. TJC (Teachers for a Just Contract) writes:
"The UFT leadership has done a bad job of building this important rally. We believe they should have taken a firm condition against all cuts and all givebacks. This has to be an overwhelming show of union strength to lay the foundation for a fightback strong enough to protect our schools and win a good contract. Instead of explaining this, the union has resorted to scare tactics, implying people will be laid off, although layoffs have been virtually ruled out by the provisions of the Stimulus bill Congress passed in February. TJC strongly urges you to participate on March 5, not from fear, but from strength."
Actually there's another RALLY in the works, which needs member participation just as badly, or even more so.
Chapter leaders were told this afternoon that the principal of Fordham High School for the Arts, Iris Blige, has been putting her staff through the wringer for years. Specifically, she has sent CLs and other staff to the rubber room on invented charges or no charges. There they languish for two years, and their cases are dismissed. Blige remains unscathed, protected, it seems, by a chancellor who condones administrator misconduct bordering on or exceeding legal limits. Recently she arranged for 11 cops to arrest a teacher at school; lacking evidence, they wouldn't charge her. At today's meeting, a colleague of the teacher's reported that the arrest was the result of a set-up, a faked letter that had included threats. The teacher had never written such a letter, and the Bronx UFT (if not the rest of the boroughs) is furious. They are asking that other chapters join in the protest to support the teacher and make a strong statement against Blige's continued abuse of authority. The rally will take place on Fri., March 13th, from 4 to 5 outside Roosevelt HS on Fordham Road. The press has been invited. Please show solidarity at this one and attend.
We are up against a level of indecency at Tweed that the public has to know about it. Actually, it would be good if more teachers knew about it also.
In fact there are many protests these days, in particular against school closings, which are based on fabricated data and done without the knowledge or consent of parents and school communities. In fact, some of the closings seem to be related to real estate and corporate schemes. As Ednotes writes:
"Just in the last few weeks, we have heard of the announced closings of large high schools Brandeis (upper West Side — protest and picket Feb. 10th) and Bayard Rustin (Chelsea). Guess in whose hands these massive buildings built and maintained with public funding, all in Toney neighborhoods, will end up?"
There was a rally against the closing of PS/IS 72, written up by John Lawhead thus: "Speakers condemned the destruction of the well-functioning school and declared that Chancellor Klein was "unqualified" to be their judge. Parent leaders are outraged by the erratic series of evaluations that have run from a "school in good standing" in 2007 to a grade D in 2008." MS 399X due to be closed (protest and picket Feb. 12th). Last spring, teachers protested the "strangling" of Jamaica HS at one of Klein's Panel meetings.
From Ednotes again: "Abandoning seniority rules, accepting school closings as a fait accompli, joining in on the influx of charter schools, accepting the CEO model, tacit acceptance of non-educators as chancellors, supporting the Gates and other private interest onslaught on public schools, signing on to the testing mania by supporting merit pay and individual teacher report cards based on these tests – I won’t give you any more of the laundry list – has led to the worst working conditions for teachers in decades and a deterioration in learning conditions for many children, no matter what the fudged numbers might show."
BEING ARRESTED (contd)
While I'm on that subject, chapter leaders were reminded today that if you're arrested — don't laugh, I'll tell you why in a second — you are required by law (Chancellor's Reg. C-105) to "immediately notify the OPI and [your] building or office supervisor in writing and provide a copy of the criminal court complaint."
Please note the "in writing," because failure to to that might lead to further discliplinary action against you. OPI = (Office of Personnel Investigation, 718-935-2665; send documents by certified mail.
You may think that certain arrests have nothing to do with school and therefore don't need to be reported. Apparently not. This reg means all and any arrests, and the examples we were given include: a fight you may have had with someone, drunk driving, and even being caught up in a sweep for drugs (let's say, in the hallway of an apartment building) that did not involve you, but you happened to be there at the time. Apparently, educators are being held to a higher code of conduct because of the nature of our job.
In light of all the protesting and how far each of us wants to carry civil disobedience, I asked if that kind of arrest was included, and the answer was yes. Any arrest whatsoever.
PAYROLL PORTAL
District rep handed out a sheet that starts off "Members can access their salary info and enroll in various DoE programs online."
Full instructions on how to use this system can be found on the UFT website here.
In addition to salary info, you can get to use Employee Self Service for enrolling in the College Savings, EFT/Direct Deposit, Metro Card, Savings Bond and Transit Savings Account programs.
SALARY DIFFERENTIALS: ONLINE APPNS
The DoE's Salary Unit, now called the Office of Salary Services (OSS), set up a way to apply for salary differentials. Applications and eligibility requirements here, or through the Payroll Portal. You must have a DoE email address to access this online.
That's it for now.
SEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT SUSPENDS TEACHERS OF CHILDREN WITH SEVERE DISABILITIES FOR HONORING PARENTAL REFUSALS OF STATE TESTING
Dear Members and Friends of PEN,
The following press release was emailed last night to all of PEN's media contacts. So far, KOMO radio carried the story, and I was interviewed by The Seattle Times. (Their story should run tomorrow or the day after). Please consider making a contribution to PEN, today, so that the organization can continue representing children by empowering their parents and teachers.
PEN is able to speak with complete freedom-- perhaps the only organization in Washington State able and willing to do so-- against atrocities such as the one detailed below, because we are not funded by school districts or other government entities or special interest grants. We count on the financial support of individuals and small businesses to pay for websites, copies, postage, buttons, ink, transportation, phones, and any needed professional services. Your contribution of any amount helps us drop everything and act when we are contacted by individuals in need of our assistance.
http://www.mothersagainstwasl.org/member.html
Parent Empowerment Network
PO Box 494
Spanaway, WA 98387
Thank you,
Juanita
Date: March 3, 2009
PRESS RELEASE- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT SUSPENDS TEACHERS OF CHILDREN WITH SEVERE DISABILITIES FOR HONORING PARENTAL REFUSALS OF STATE TESTING
Contacts: Juanita Doyon, Director, Parent Empowerment Network- 253-973-1593
Contact information for two teachers and three parents was provided to media contacts.
Two Seattle School District teachers have been suspended for ten days without pay for following legal requests from parents that their children not be tested using the Washington Alternative Assessment System (WAAS).
“This is not another Carl Chew case where the teachers refused to test their students,” said Juanita Doyon, Director of Parent Empowerment Network (PEN). “These teachers were simply honoring parental requests, which were given verbally and later followed up in writing.”
Juli Griffith and Lenora Stahl, teachers in a self-contained, elementary, special education classroom, expressed their concerns that the WAAS portfolio system is not appropriate for their students, in November 2008, first in an email to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and then in a letter to the Seattle School District administrators. They asked that the District work with them to develop an appropriate assessment for their students who have severe disabilities and are medically fragile.
The WAAS portfolio measures students’ abilities to meet grade-level academic standards and does not measure progress for students with severe physical and cognitive disabilities who work each day to learn basic life skills such as hanging up coats, holding a spoon, attending to activities, and responding appropriately in social situations.
“I am the voice that my students do not have and I have to stand up for them. My main concern is what will happen if I refuse to administer this test to my students,” wrote Ms. Stahl to Judy Kraft, Alternative Assessment Specialist at OSPI.
No response was received from the District. An email response was received from Ms. Kraft.
Refusal on the part of the teachers became unnecessary, when parents of the six students who were to be tested told the teachers that they did not want their children tested using the WAAS system. Teachers honored the parental requests and did not begin the near year-long WAAS process. In January 2009, the teachers were informed that they were out of compliance with state and district policy, by Seattle School District administration. District administration contended parents were required to put refusal of state testing in writing. Parents subsequently wrote refusal letters to the school. After undergoing two District disciplinary hearings each, despite the fact that the District had received refusal letters from parents of all students involved, Ms. Griffith and Ms. Stahl received letters (see attached) on March 2, 2009, stating that they were suspended without pay for 10 days, beginning March 4, 2009. Ms. Griffith and Ms. Stahl have filed appeals of the suspensions with the District.
State testing policy provides that parents or students may refuse to take part in state testing. In a letter addressed by PEN to Seattle District Superintendent Marie Goodloe-Johnson, February 20, 2009 (see addendum 1, below), wording was included from the OSPI 2009 Assessment Coordinator’s Handbook, “…agency policy adopted has been that students may refuse to participate or their parents may refuse to have their children tested…The policy further requires the school to request that the refusal on the part of either the student or parent be put into writing by the parent and kept on file at the school or district office…If any parent is unwilling to put the refusal in writing, the school should document that the request was made but the parent would not put the refusal in writing.”
Through Public Disclosure, PEN requested documents from the Seattle School District containing policies regarding parental refusal of testing and requirements for teacher, parents, and administrators. On March 2, 2009, PEN received an email from Joy A. Stevens, Sr. Legal Assistant/Public Records Officer for the District, stating, “…I have begun the process of locating and gathering the documents you have requested. I anticipate being able to give you a response on or before March 30, 2009.”
Parents involved are extremely upset that Ms. Griffith and Ms. Stahl are being punished for decisions made by parents and that the teachers who know the needs of their children will not be in the special education classroom for the next two weeks. “This will be a total waste of time for my son. He will learn nothing during these two weeks,” said parent Rachel McKean.
Special requirements for the appropriate care and teaching of the students in question will make it highly unlikely that the District will be able to provide appropriate substitute teachers, particularly under constraints of a two day notice.
Teachers and parents plan to file separate complaints with the Office of Civil Rights. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination or retaliation against individuals who advocate on behalf of persons with disabilities (see addendum 2, below). “In the next two weeks, PEN will assist parents and teachers in taking appropriate legal action against the Seattle School District and, possibly, the OSPI,” stated Juanita Doyon.
Parent Empowerment Network is a statewide, nonprofit organization. The mission of PEN is to provide education and peer training to parents, teachers, and community members at-large, in developing strategies to promote sound policy for quality public schools.
Addendum 1
Parent Empowerment Network
PO Box 494
Spanaway, WA 98387
February 20, 2009
Superintendent Maria L. Goodloe-Johnson
Seattle Public Schools
PO Box 34165
Seattle, WA 98124-1165
Dear Dr. Goodloe-Johnson:
Parent Empowerment Network (PEN) has been informed by parents and teachers that the Seattle School District is failing to honor the right of parents to refuse to allow their children to take part in the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) and/or Washington Alternative Assessment System (WAAS).
The right of parents to opt their children out of the state assessment system has been well-established. State policy is affirmed in the official WASL Coordinator’s Manual, 2009, which states:
Federal and state laws require public schools to administer assessments to students enrolled in the specified grades and subjects, the assumption apparently being that participation on the part of the student or approval on the part of the parent would not be an issue. Because it is not specifically addressed in the legislation, agency policy adopted has been that students may refuse to participate or their parents may refuse to have their children tested. The policy further requires the school to request that the refusal on the part of either the student or parent be put into writing by the parent and kept on file at the school or district office. It is also recommended that the parent be requested to include the reason for not wanting the child tested. If any parent is unwilling to put the refusal in writing, the school should document that the request was made but the parent would not put the refusal in writing.
PEN’s understanding of the situation in question is as follows:
· Parents of six students in special education classes at Green Lake Elementary School informed their children’s teachers that their children were not to take part in the WAAS Portfolio Assessment during the 2008-2009 school year.
· Teachers honored the decision and the rights of the parents and did not begin the WAAS data collection process.
· School and District administrators questioned teachers regarding their failure to begin collection of WAAS-required data for opted out students.
· School and District administrators were informed by teachers that the teachers were acting on the verbal requests of parents that their children not be assessed using the WAAS.
· School and District administrators instructed teachers to incorporate current curriculum into WAAS assessment for students, thus disregarding verbal parental refusals.
· Teachers continued to honor parental refusals of WAAS.
· School and District administrators informed teachers that written requests were needed from parents in order for students to be excused from WAAS.
· School and/or District administrators did not contact parents, but instead placed responsibility for obtaining written refusal from parents solely upon teachers.
· Parents provided written refusal of assessments to school administrator.
· Seattle School District has formally informed teachers that a hearing is scheduled to determine whether or not teachers should be suspended for two weeks without pay for failing to administer the WAAS to students whose parents had verbally notified teachers that their children were not to take part in the WAAS Portfolio.
· Seattle School District alleges that teachers refused to follow written directives of their building principal to administer the WAAS.
· Teachers maintain they acted in good faith and simply honored the verbal requests made to them by parents and, upon instruction from the District, requested written refusals from parents.
· At no time did teachers act on principle based on merits/demerits of the WAAS and its appropriateness for severely disabled, medically fragile students; teachers acted on their principles in following the legal requests of parents.
The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction document, “How Students in Special Education Participate in State Testing,” provides the following policy for determining “how a student participates in the state assessment system.”
“The IEP team, which includes a student’s parents or guardians, decides which testing tool to use based on the students’ needs in each content area.”
Parents involved in the current opt out situation were acting not only in their role as guardians of their children but also as members of the students’ Individual Education Plan teams. They decided to remove their students from the assessment process because they believe that no part of the current Washington assessment system is appropriate for their children with special needs/disabilities.
As with parents of students in regular education classes who make decisions regarding their students and the WASL, parents of children with special needs/disabilities do not always agree with state and federal assessment suggestions or requirements for their students. All parents/guardians of students in Washington State Public Schools have the same right to opt their children out of the state assessment system.
Clearly, parents and their children with disabilities have rights that often go beyond those freely offered in the public school setting. In fact, the U.S. Department of Education letter to Washington State, approving the Washington Assessment System, as required by the No Child Left Behind Act, states that “approval of Washington's standards and assessment system under the ESEA is not a determination that the system complies with Federal civil rights requirements, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and requirements under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.”
As an organization, PEN recommends that parents opt out their children from state testing, whether children are to be subjected to WASL or WAAS. We do so because we believe that Washington’s current assessment system fails to uphold the civil rights of students and fails to uphold the requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Despite their right to reject the Washington assessment system for their children, parents are often coerced or even harassed by school officials until parents ultimately give in and allow the school to assess their students. In the current case, teachers simply accepted and honored the parents’ decision.
In May 2008, a Seattle School District teacher refused to administer the WASL to his 6th grade class. The action taken by Seattle School District in the case of this teacher’s refusal was to suspend the teacher for eight days without pay. The Seattle School District seems to be equating the case of Green Lake Elementary teachers complying with state policy by honoring parental refusals to the 2008 case of a teacher refusing to administer the WASL. In doing so, the Seattle School District is drawing a parallel where none exists.
In 2008, teacher Carl Chew refused to administer WASL as a matter of principle.. In 2009, teachers at Green Lake Elementary are following state policy and honoring parental refusals.
State policy requires only verbal refusal on the part of the parent or student, leaving it to “the school” to request written documentation from the parent or otherwise document refusal in writing, if the parent chooses not to comply with a request for a written refusal. Unless the Seattle School District has developed and provided a policy requiring that teachers request a written refusal from parents, PEN contends that the school building administrator or assessment coordinator holds responsibility for requesting and obtaining, or otherwise generating, written documentation of parental/student refusal of state assessments.
Regardless of school district policy, simple failure by school personnel to obtain written refusal from the parents does not warrant suspension without pay or any other penalty or record of wrongdoing in the personnel file. In the very suggestion that a two week suspension is warranted, the Seattle School District threatens the rights of the severely disabled and medically fragile students who are in the care of these teachers by potentially removing any hope of provision for a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) for a period of two weeks, without due cause.
Further, PEN contends that the Seattle School District has breached parental rights and assessment protocol by directing teachers to assess students against the will and direction of parents. Because of the serious nature of this situation and the possible breach of state and federal regulations and protocols by the Seattle School District, PEN suggests that an investigation by the Puget Sound Education Service District may be in order.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. A hard copy of this letter will follow through US Mail service. Please see attached Public Disclosure Request.
Sincerely,
Juanita Doyon, Director
Parent Empowerment Network
cc Randy Dorn, Rob McKenna, Mary Lindquist, Doug Gill, Jeannette Bliss, Gloria Mitchell, Cheryl Grinager, Joan Bell, Alan Sutliff, Mary Bass, Sherry Carr, Cheryl Chow, Michael DeBell, Peter Maier, Harium Martin-Morris, Steve Sundquist, Jeffry Finer
February 20, 2009
Superintendent Maria L. Goodloe-Johnson
Seattle Public Schools
PO Box 34165
Seattle, WA 98124-1165
Under Public Disclosure, Parent Empowerment Network requests that the Seattle School District provide:
1. Copies of all District policies regarding parental refusal of state assessments, including all policies relating to parents, teachers, building administrators, and district administrators.
2. Copies of all documents, memos, and emails regarding the dissemination of refusal policies and requirements to administrators, schools, teachers, and parents.
Thank you.
Juanita Doyon, Director
Parent Empowerment Network
253-973-1593
Addendum 2
From the Americans with Disabilities Act
Sec.36.206 Retaliation or coercion.
(a) No private or public entity shall discriminate against any individual because that individual has opposed any act or practice made unlawful by this part, or because that individual made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under the Act or this part.
(b) No private or public entity shall coerce, intimidate, threaten, or interfere with any individual in the exercise or enjoyment of, or on account of his or her having exercised or enjoyed, or on account of his or her having aided or encouraged any other individual in the exercise or enjoyment of, any right granted or protected by the Act or this part.
(c) Illustrations of conduct prohibited by this section include, but are not limited to:
(1) Coercing an individual to deny or limit the benefits, services, or advantages to which he or she is entitled under the Act or this part;
(2) Threatening, intimidating, or interfering with an individual with a disability who is seeking to obtain or use the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of a public accommodation;
(3) Intimidating or threatening any person because that person is assisting or encouraging an individual or group entitled to claim the rights granted or protected by the Act or this part to exercise those rights; or
(4) Retaliating against any person because that person has participated in any investigation or action to enforce the Act or this part.
The following press release was emailed last night to all of PEN's media contacts. So far, KOMO radio carried the story, and I was interviewed by The Seattle Times. (Their story should run tomorrow or the day after). Please consider making a contribution to PEN, today, so that the organization can continue representing children by empowering their parents and teachers.
PEN is able to speak with complete freedom-- perhaps the only organization in Washington State able and willing to do so-- against atrocities such as the one detailed below, because we are not funded by school districts or other government entities or special interest grants. We count on the financial support of individuals and small businesses to pay for websites, copies, postage, buttons, ink, transportation, phones, and any needed professional services. Your contribution of any amount helps us drop everything and act when we are contacted by individuals in need of our assistance.
http://www.mothersagainstwasl.org/member.html
Parent Empowerment Network
PO Box 494
Spanaway, WA 98387
Thank you,
Juanita
Date: March 3, 2009
PRESS RELEASE- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SEATTLE SCHOOL DISTRICT SUSPENDS TEACHERS OF CHILDREN WITH SEVERE DISABILITIES FOR HONORING PARENTAL REFUSALS OF STATE TESTING
Contacts: Juanita Doyon, Director, Parent Empowerment Network- 253-973-1593
Contact information for two teachers and three parents was provided to media contacts.
Two Seattle School District teachers have been suspended for ten days without pay for following legal requests from parents that their children not be tested using the Washington Alternative Assessment System (WAAS).
“This is not another Carl Chew case where the teachers refused to test their students,” said Juanita Doyon, Director of Parent Empowerment Network (PEN). “These teachers were simply honoring parental requests, which were given verbally and later followed up in writing.”
Juli Griffith and Lenora Stahl, teachers in a self-contained, elementary, special education classroom, expressed their concerns that the WAAS portfolio system is not appropriate for their students, in November 2008, first in an email to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and then in a letter to the Seattle School District administrators. They asked that the District work with them to develop an appropriate assessment for their students who have severe disabilities and are medically fragile.
The WAAS portfolio measures students’ abilities to meet grade-level academic standards and does not measure progress for students with severe physical and cognitive disabilities who work each day to learn basic life skills such as hanging up coats, holding a spoon, attending to activities, and responding appropriately in social situations.
“I am the voice that my students do not have and I have to stand up for them. My main concern is what will happen if I refuse to administer this test to my students,” wrote Ms. Stahl to Judy Kraft, Alternative Assessment Specialist at OSPI.
No response was received from the District. An email response was received from Ms. Kraft.
Refusal on the part of the teachers became unnecessary, when parents of the six students who were to be tested told the teachers that they did not want their children tested using the WAAS system. Teachers honored the parental requests and did not begin the near year-long WAAS process. In January 2009, the teachers were informed that they were out of compliance with state and district policy, by Seattle School District administration. District administration contended parents were required to put refusal of state testing in writing. Parents subsequently wrote refusal letters to the school. After undergoing two District disciplinary hearings each, despite the fact that the District had received refusal letters from parents of all students involved, Ms. Griffith and Ms. Stahl received letters (see attached) on March 2, 2009, stating that they were suspended without pay for 10 days, beginning March 4, 2009. Ms. Griffith and Ms. Stahl have filed appeals of the suspensions with the District.
State testing policy provides that parents or students may refuse to take part in state testing. In a letter addressed by PEN to Seattle District Superintendent Marie Goodloe-Johnson, February 20, 2009 (see addendum 1, below), wording was included from the OSPI 2009 Assessment Coordinator’s Handbook, “…agency policy adopted has been that students may refuse to participate or their parents may refuse to have their children tested…The policy further requires the school to request that the refusal on the part of either the student or parent be put into writing by the parent and kept on file at the school or district office…If any parent is unwilling to put the refusal in writing, the school should document that the request was made but the parent would not put the refusal in writing.”
Through Public Disclosure, PEN requested documents from the Seattle School District containing policies regarding parental refusal of testing and requirements for teacher, parents, and administrators. On March 2, 2009, PEN received an email from Joy A. Stevens, Sr. Legal Assistant/Public Records Officer for the District, stating, “…I have begun the process of locating and gathering the documents you have requested. I anticipate being able to give you a response on or before March 30, 2009.”
Parents involved are extremely upset that Ms. Griffith and Ms. Stahl are being punished for decisions made by parents and that the teachers who know the needs of their children will not be in the special education classroom for the next two weeks. “This will be a total waste of time for my son. He will learn nothing during these two weeks,” said parent Rachel McKean.
Special requirements for the appropriate care and teaching of the students in question will make it highly unlikely that the District will be able to provide appropriate substitute teachers, particularly under constraints of a two day notice.
Teachers and parents plan to file separate complaints with the Office of Civil Rights. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination or retaliation against individuals who advocate on behalf of persons with disabilities (see addendum 2, below). “In the next two weeks, PEN will assist parents and teachers in taking appropriate legal action against the Seattle School District and, possibly, the OSPI,” stated Juanita Doyon.
Parent Empowerment Network is a statewide, nonprofit organization. The mission of PEN is to provide education and peer training to parents, teachers, and community members at-large, in developing strategies to promote sound policy for quality public schools.
Addendum 1
Parent Empowerment Network
PO Box 494
Spanaway, WA 98387
February 20, 2009
Superintendent Maria L. Goodloe-Johnson
Seattle Public Schools
PO Box 34165
Seattle, WA 98124-1165
Dear Dr. Goodloe-Johnson:
Parent Empowerment Network (PEN) has been informed by parents and teachers that the Seattle School District is failing to honor the right of parents to refuse to allow their children to take part in the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) and/or Washington Alternative Assessment System (WAAS).
The right of parents to opt their children out of the state assessment system has been well-established. State policy is affirmed in the official WASL Coordinator’s Manual, 2009, which states:
Federal and state laws require public schools to administer assessments to students enrolled in the specified grades and subjects, the assumption apparently being that participation on the part of the student or approval on the part of the parent would not be an issue. Because it is not specifically addressed in the legislation, agency policy adopted has been that students may refuse to participate or their parents may refuse to have their children tested. The policy further requires the school to request that the refusal on the part of either the student or parent be put into writing by the parent and kept on file at the school or district office. It is also recommended that the parent be requested to include the reason for not wanting the child tested. If any parent is unwilling to put the refusal in writing, the school should document that the request was made but the parent would not put the refusal in writing.
PEN’s understanding of the situation in question is as follows:
· Parents of six students in special education classes at Green Lake Elementary School informed their children’s teachers that their children were not to take part in the WAAS Portfolio Assessment during the 2008-2009 school year.
· Teachers honored the decision and the rights of the parents and did not begin the WAAS data collection process.
· School and District administrators questioned teachers regarding their failure to begin collection of WAAS-required data for opted out students.
· School and District administrators were informed by teachers that the teachers were acting on the verbal requests of parents that their children not be assessed using the WAAS.
· School and District administrators instructed teachers to incorporate current curriculum into WAAS assessment for students, thus disregarding verbal parental refusals.
· Teachers continued to honor parental refusals of WAAS.
· School and District administrators informed teachers that written requests were needed from parents in order for students to be excused from WAAS.
· School and/or District administrators did not contact parents, but instead placed responsibility for obtaining written refusal from parents solely upon teachers.
· Parents provided written refusal of assessments to school administrator.
· Seattle School District has formally informed teachers that a hearing is scheduled to determine whether or not teachers should be suspended for two weeks without pay for failing to administer the WAAS to students whose parents had verbally notified teachers that their children were not to take part in the WAAS Portfolio.
· Seattle School District alleges that teachers refused to follow written directives of their building principal to administer the WAAS.
· Teachers maintain they acted in good faith and simply honored the verbal requests made to them by parents and, upon instruction from the District, requested written refusals from parents.
· At no time did teachers act on principle based on merits/demerits of the WAAS and its appropriateness for severely disabled, medically fragile students; teachers acted on their principles in following the legal requests of parents.
The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction document, “How Students in Special Education Participate in State Testing,” provides the following policy for determining “how a student participates in the state assessment system.”
“The IEP team, which includes a student’s parents or guardians, decides which testing tool to use based on the students’ needs in each content area.”
Parents involved in the current opt out situation were acting not only in their role as guardians of their children but also as members of the students’ Individual Education Plan teams. They decided to remove their students from the assessment process because they believe that no part of the current Washington assessment system is appropriate for their children with special needs/disabilities.
As with parents of students in regular education classes who make decisions regarding their students and the WASL, parents of children with special needs/disabilities do not always agree with state and federal assessment suggestions or requirements for their students. All parents/guardians of students in Washington State Public Schools have the same right to opt their children out of the state assessment system.
Clearly, parents and their children with disabilities have rights that often go beyond those freely offered in the public school setting. In fact, the U.S. Department of Education letter to Washington State, approving the Washington Assessment System, as required by the No Child Left Behind Act, states that “approval of Washington's standards and assessment system under the ESEA is not a determination that the system complies with Federal civil rights requirements, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and requirements under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.”
As an organization, PEN recommends that parents opt out their children from state testing, whether children are to be subjected to WASL or WAAS. We do so because we believe that Washington’s current assessment system fails to uphold the civil rights of students and fails to uphold the requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Despite their right to reject the Washington assessment system for their children, parents are often coerced or even harassed by school officials until parents ultimately give in and allow the school to assess their students. In the current case, teachers simply accepted and honored the parents’ decision.
In May 2008, a Seattle School District teacher refused to administer the WASL to his 6th grade class. The action taken by Seattle School District in the case of this teacher’s refusal was to suspend the teacher for eight days without pay. The Seattle School District seems to be equating the case of Green Lake Elementary teachers complying with state policy by honoring parental refusals to the 2008 case of a teacher refusing to administer the WASL. In doing so, the Seattle School District is drawing a parallel where none exists.
In 2008, teacher Carl Chew refused to administer WASL as a matter of principle.. In 2009, teachers at Green Lake Elementary are following state policy and honoring parental refusals.
State policy requires only verbal refusal on the part of the parent or student, leaving it to “the school” to request written documentation from the parent or otherwise document refusal in writing, if the parent chooses not to comply with a request for a written refusal. Unless the Seattle School District has developed and provided a policy requiring that teachers request a written refusal from parents, PEN contends that the school building administrator or assessment coordinator holds responsibility for requesting and obtaining, or otherwise generating, written documentation of parental/student refusal of state assessments.
Regardless of school district policy, simple failure by school personnel to obtain written refusal from the parents does not warrant suspension without pay or any other penalty or record of wrongdoing in the personnel file. In the very suggestion that a two week suspension is warranted, the Seattle School District threatens the rights of the severely disabled and medically fragile students who are in the care of these teachers by potentially removing any hope of provision for a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) for a period of two weeks, without due cause.
Further, PEN contends that the Seattle School District has breached parental rights and assessment protocol by directing teachers to assess students against the will and direction of parents. Because of the serious nature of this situation and the possible breach of state and federal regulations and protocols by the Seattle School District, PEN suggests that an investigation by the Puget Sound Education Service District may be in order.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. A hard copy of this letter will follow through US Mail service. Please see attached Public Disclosure Request.
Sincerely,
Juanita Doyon, Director
Parent Empowerment Network
cc Randy Dorn, Rob McKenna, Mary Lindquist, Doug Gill, Jeannette Bliss, Gloria Mitchell, Cheryl Grinager, Joan Bell, Alan Sutliff, Mary Bass, Sherry Carr, Cheryl Chow, Michael DeBell, Peter Maier, Harium Martin-Morris, Steve Sundquist, Jeffry Finer
February 20, 2009
Superintendent Maria L. Goodloe-Johnson
Seattle Public Schools
PO Box 34165
Seattle, WA 98124-1165
Under Public Disclosure, Parent Empowerment Network requests that the Seattle School District provide:
1. Copies of all District policies regarding parental refusal of state assessments, including all policies relating to parents, teachers, building administrators, and district administrators.
2. Copies of all documents, memos, and emails regarding the dissemination of refusal policies and requirements to administrators, schools, teachers, and parents.
Thank you.
Juanita Doyon, Director
Parent Empowerment Network
253-973-1593
Addendum 2
From the Americans with Disabilities Act
Sec.36.206 Retaliation or coercion.
(a) No private or public entity shall discriminate against any individual because that individual has opposed any act or practice made unlawful by this part, or because that individual made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under the Act or this part.
(b) No private or public entity shall coerce, intimidate, threaten, or interfere with any individual in the exercise or enjoyment of, or on account of his or her having exercised or enjoyed, or on account of his or her having aided or encouraged any other individual in the exercise or enjoyment of, any right granted or protected by the Act or this part.
(c) Illustrations of conduct prohibited by this section include, but are not limited to:
(1) Coercing an individual to deny or limit the benefits, services, or advantages to which he or she is entitled under the Act or this part;
(2) Threatening, intimidating, or interfering with an individual with a disability who is seeking to obtain or use the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of a public accommodation;
(3) Intimidating or threatening any person because that person is assisting or encouraging an individual or group entitled to claim the rights granted or protected by the Act or this part to exercise those rights; or
(4) Retaliating against any person because that person has participated in any investigation or action to enforce the Act or this part.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Department of Education paid private tutor firm $21M in 2 years, most of it in overhead
Juan Gonzalez, Daily News
Wednesday, March 4th 2009
In its drive to improve school reading and math test scores, the city's Department of Education paid a private company more than $21 million in two years to tutor thousands of public school pupils at home.
But most of that money - more than twice the amount the DOE originally budgeted - went for overhead, management and profit for the company, Champion Learning Center.
Champion got $79 an hour to tutor each pupil for up to four hours per week, according to a copy of the contract obtained by the Daily News.
That adds up to almost $320 a week in tutoring costs per child.
Champion paid its part-time tutors, mostly college students with no teaching experience, an average of $17 an hour.
That's right. The company received an astounding $62 in overhead for every hour its employees spent tutoring a child.
Champion is one of dozens of private companies with state approval to provide tutoring services under the No Child Left Behind Act.
"We received very little training in our orientation," said one college student hired by Champion. "They just told us to follow the instructions in the test prep workbooks they gave us."
Champion hired the student and one of her friends at the same time. Both say they were offered only $15 per hour for their work. In addition, they were told they would have to pay transportation costs to each child's home and they were required to pay a $150 fee each for the cost of fingerprinting and a security check before they could start work.
The DOE's contract with Champion clearly states: "The Contractor shall be solely obligated to bear the costs of all security clearance procedures that involve fees or other costs for any and all persons and/or entities required to undergo such procedures."
Champion's idea of bearing those costs seems to be to pass them on to its employees.
When asked about the fee Tuesday, the company's chief executive, Abraham Sultan, said he did not charge employees, but then added, "It also depends on the situation."
Sultan declined to discuss exactly what his company receives from DOE or what he pays his employees.
"We work that out internally," Sultan said.
The firm, Sultan said, uses "a good group of certified teachers, people with master's degrees and doctorates looking for part-time work, and some college students."
Sultan said word of his company's "excellent performance" has "spread by word of mouth among parents" clamoring to get into his tutoring program.
David Cantor, spokesman for DOE, said Tuesday the department will be reviewing Champion's reports "to determine whether the costs have been properly represented."
"We are also looking at the alleged discrepancy involving payment to tutors," Cantor said.
"If we find that the contractor falsely represented its costs, we would take serious action."
The DOE's original contract with Champion was for $9.6 million over two years, but the company has received $21 million and that amount is expected to go higher by the end of the school year.
Cantor said each company recruits its students, and "actual student attendance [for Champion's program] has exceeded expectations."
This year alone, Champion claims to have tutored 8,600 pupils at home.
But until now, there has been little auditing of these tutorial programs under No Child Left Behind - including those run by Champion.
Wednesday, March 4th 2009
In its drive to improve school reading and math test scores, the city's Department of Education paid a private company more than $21 million in two years to tutor thousands of public school pupils at home.
But most of that money - more than twice the amount the DOE originally budgeted - went for overhead, management and profit for the company, Champion Learning Center.
Champion got $79 an hour to tutor each pupil for up to four hours per week, according to a copy of the contract obtained by the Daily News.
That adds up to almost $320 a week in tutoring costs per child.
Champion paid its part-time tutors, mostly college students with no teaching experience, an average of $17 an hour.
That's right. The company received an astounding $62 in overhead for every hour its employees spent tutoring a child.
Champion is one of dozens of private companies with state approval to provide tutoring services under the No Child Left Behind Act.
"We received very little training in our orientation," said one college student hired by Champion. "They just told us to follow the instructions in the test prep workbooks they gave us."
Champion hired the student and one of her friends at the same time. Both say they were offered only $15 per hour for their work. In addition, they were told they would have to pay transportation costs to each child's home and they were required to pay a $150 fee each for the cost of fingerprinting and a security check before they could start work.
The DOE's contract with Champion clearly states: "The Contractor shall be solely obligated to bear the costs of all security clearance procedures that involve fees or other costs for any and all persons and/or entities required to undergo such procedures."
Champion's idea of bearing those costs seems to be to pass them on to its employees.
When asked about the fee Tuesday, the company's chief executive, Abraham Sultan, said he did not charge employees, but then added, "It also depends on the situation."
Sultan declined to discuss exactly what his company receives from DOE or what he pays his employees.
"We work that out internally," Sultan said.
The firm, Sultan said, uses "a good group of certified teachers, people with master's degrees and doctorates looking for part-time work, and some college students."
Sultan said word of his company's "excellent performance" has "spread by word of mouth among parents" clamoring to get into his tutoring program.
David Cantor, spokesman for DOE, said Tuesday the department will be reviewing Champion's reports "to determine whether the costs have been properly represented."
"We are also looking at the alleged discrepancy involving payment to tutors," Cantor said.
"If we find that the contractor falsely represented its costs, we would take serious action."
The DOE's original contract with Champion was for $9.6 million over two years, but the company has received $21 million and that amount is expected to go higher by the end of the school year.
Cantor said each company recruits its students, and "actual student attendance [for Champion's program] has exceeded expectations."
This year alone, Champion claims to have tutored 8,600 pupils at home.
But until now, there has been little auditing of these tutorial programs under No Child Left Behind - including those run by Champion.
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