Razzle Dazzle Good Will Or Not, UFT Contract Still Elusive

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Thu Jul 7, 2011 12:58 pm 

THE CHIEF

Razzle Dazzle Good Will Or Not, UFT Contract Still Elusive

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow

A Bridge to Somewhere?

A BRIDGE TO SOMEWHERE?:

United Federation of Teachers President Mike
Mulgrew, whom Mayor Bloomberg may owe for allowing him to save face by offering
concessions that helped avoid massive Teacher layoffs, is hoping to parlay that
good will into a long-overdue wage contract that would give his members the
same two 4-percent raises received by other workers before the Mayor reined in
spending. Funding for such raises hasn’t been budgeted, and an
exceedingly cheap state contract deal might make it tougher politically for Mr.
Bloomberg to honor the bargaining pattern, though the UFT leader said,
‘There could be ways to do this, but it’s going to require
willingness on both sides.’

Posted: Friday, July 1, 2011
5:00 pm | Updated: 11:32 am, Wed Jul 6, 2011.

By RICHARD STEIER | 0 comments

Norman Seabrook, the most vocal skeptic about the city proposal that would
have taken hundreds of millions of dollars from the employee Health Stabilization
Fund to avert more than 5,000 layoffs and the closing of 20 fire companies, had
a decidedly cynical reaction to the much-cheaper deal made by Mike Mulgrew of
the United Federation of Teachers that saved Teachers’ jobs and the fire
companies.

“It means they could have done this deal all along,” the
president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association said June 29, even
as the City Council was enacting the budget accord Mayor Bloomberg and Speaker
Christine Quinn reached five days earlier. “There’s a big
difference between $57 million [the estimated savings from the UFT’s
concessions] and the $440 million they were asking for. They literally tried to
shake down the unions—the Mayor and the City Council. The only ones who
took a raw deal here was District Council 37,” which represents many of
the roughly 1,000 employees who will be laid off.

MLC Chairman Harry Nespoli said it didn’t bother him that Mr. Mulgrew
was able to step in so quickly to reach a deal after his own efforts foundered,
even though it indicated the UFT leader had been actively negotiating on a
second front. “I honestly feel that Mike was working and planning to
protect his members,” Mr. Nespoli, who is also president of the Uniformed
Sanitationmen’s Association, said from Las Vegas, where he was attending
the International Brotherhood of Teamsters convention.

‘Wanted Their Chips to
Fund a Raise’

Mr. Seabrook, however, was among the union officials who cast a
somewhat-jaundiced eye at Mr. Mulgrew, suggesting that he had pushed the Health
Stabilization Fund deal in the hope of not having to give up anything that
directly affected his members. “They wanted to use our pot of money so
they could hold their chips on the side to fund their raise,” Mr.
Seabrook said. “What we see now is that monies should be available for
the upcoming round of bargaining.”

Mr. Mulgrew, speaking a day later in his lower Broadway office, agreed with
the COBA leader on that last point. He scoffed at the implication, however,
that he had manipulated his fellow labor leaders by pushing for the health
deal, arguing that the two sets of talks proceeded on “a double
track” and that there was no indication until shortly before his deal was
consummated that the Bloomberg administration would accept it.

The offer of a year’s moratorium on Teacher sabbaticals and allowing
the city to use instructors placed in the Absent Teacher Reserve after they
lost their classroom lines as per-diem substitutes was first made back in
January, the UFT leader said, adding wryly, “You can imagine how that
went.”

He said he broached the idea with Ms. Quinn in late spring, shortly before
Mr. Nespoli and she began considering a health-fund deal that would have
generated enough money to save all municipal jobs at risk.

“I thought the better deal for the city would have been the MLC
deal,” he said. That would seem obvious: besides generating more money
from the health fund than the UFT plan saves the city, it would have been
immediate savings. The temporary ban on sabbaticals saves no money right now,
since it will not apply until the 2012-13 school year.

Mr. Mulgrew added another reason. “What’s the domino effect of
layoffs?” he asked, then responded, “It’s not good.”

A prime reason many union officials balked at the original Health Stabilization
Fund proposal was that they didn’t take the Mayor’s threat of 4,100
Teacher layoffs and the fire-company closings seriously, knowing that beyond
the political damage he’d be courting, the Council was dead-set against
both measures.

Didn’t Want to Over-Extend
Council

Mr. Mulgrew acknowledged, “The City Council was clear that they did
not want to do a budget that included Teacher layoffs.” But if Mr.
Bloomberg stood his ground or yielded only partway, that would have forced the
Council to devote an inordinate amount of its budget funds to saving the
Teachers and the fire units, and the UFT leader said he did not want that to
lead to other important programs being gutted to compensate.

Mr. Bloomberg’s decision to walk away from the health-fund talks, ostensibly
because of a union demand that some of the money be shifted to employee welfare
funds—which actually was similar to a condition of an earlier deal that
the city wanted but the unions rejected—seemed like it was motivated by
Governor Cuomo’s agreement on a contract with the Civil Service Employees
Association that increased employee health-care contributions while freezing
wages for three years.

Asked whether he questioned Mr. Bloomberg’s rejecting that MLC offer
only to accept the lesser savings from the UFT deal or was inclined not to look
a gift horse in the mouth, Mr. Mulgrew smiled and said, “I think it was a
good-faith effort on our behalf.”

The compelling question is whether offering the Mayor a soft political
landing bought the union enough good will to finally settle a major piece of
unfinished business: a new contract to replace the UFT deal that expired on
Nov. 1, 2009.

It would have seemed a given that the union could expect two 4-percent
raises under a new agreement that would match those won by numerous uniformed
and civilian employee unions prior to that point. As Mr. Mulgrew noted,
“The pattern has been set.”

Yet Mr. Bloomberg, citing the difficult fiscal circumstances, has played
hardball, contending that the city could no longer afford such raises and that
any pay hikes would have to be offset by productivity gains. It’s a
contradiction of his past position—one shared by other Mayors over
decades of bargaining and arbitration—that once a pattern is reached it
must be adhered to or the city runs the risk of contract chaos as unions try to
leap-frog each other’s deals, like scheming poker players raising the pot
to bust out the sucker in the game.

Would Make PBA’s Day

The UFT lacks the right to binding arbitration, meaning that even if it
makes its case in fact-finding that it’s entitled to the same raise as
other city unions, it couldn’t force Mr. Bloomberg to honor that ruling.
But the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, long the city’s prime
target in calling for the sanctity of the pattern to be upheld in arbitration,
could have a field day turning the Mayor’s position against him while
arguing its members need raises far above what any other employee group has
gotten in order to approach the salaries paid to their suburban colleagues.

On the other side of the ledger is Mr. Cuomo’s deal with the CSEA.
State settlements are hardly binding on the city, but they are not without
influence. This was amply demonstrated when Mayor Rudy Giuliani 16 years ago
used two-year wage freezes that Gov. George Pataki bullied the state unions
into accepting to gain similar freezes from the municipal unions.

Mr. Mulgrew argued that current circumstances are different from in 1995,
when the city’s fiscal problems were more acute. “We’re in
this very strange time,” he said. “We have a state with a very
large deficit, and we’re in a municipality that has the largest surplus
in the country.”

Editorial Pressure on Mayor

But he knows the impact the CSEA deal has already had on newspaper
editorials imploring Mr. Bloomberg to also toe the hard line, and for the
moment, anyway, the difficulty this has created in getting raises that while
they look generous would merely reflect the equity that has been a key
throughout city bargaining history. He has no problem pointing out the other
difference besides financial disparities between city and state: the CSEA pact
covers “a new round” of bargaining, while his union is looking to
conclude the “old” one. That doesn’t make him optimistic that
the Mayor will be rushing to the table to give him what he wants, “good
will” or not.

And so in the short-term, Mr. Mulgrew said, “My concern is, how do we
get through one more year without decimating the school system?”

Even though none of his members are being dismissed, there will be a
significant loss of Teachers for the coming school year. The Mayor has already
said he will not look to replace the 2,600 instructors expected to retire, and
Mr. Mulgrew said that number could climb, since an additional 800 have
indicated some interest in leaving the system.

Evokes Fiscal Crisis
Shortages

“I do not want to be the Sanitation Department in the
snowstorm,” he said, referring to how being shorthanded had hampered the
response to last December’s blizzard. “We’re getting
dangerously close to not being able to provide for the day-to-day needs of the
children in the school system. “ Alluding to the dark days of the
mid-1970s fiscal crisis, he added, “Are we going to be 1976-77
again?”

Mr. Seabrook, making the same argument that the state deal should have no
impact on city bargaining, nonetheless said, “I will not be doing a
contract with this administration.” Then again, his members are working
under a deal that doesn’t expire until Nov. 1, and have already received
the twin 4-percent hikes that Mr. Mulgrew is chasing. The urgency for them does
not yet exist, and Mr. Seabrook, the only prominent union leader to endorse Mr.
Bloomberg the first time he ran for Mayor a decade ago, has been critical
enough of him since that patience may be his best option.

In the UFT leader’s case, waiting for a change of administrations
would leave his members more than five years from their most-recent pay raise
in the fall of 2008. When asked whether he could envision waiting until Mr.
Bloomberg was gone, he said, “I don’t negotiate in public. We will
do what we feel is the right decision at the time. One of the things I enjoy
about this job is the changing of circumstances is constant in New York City.
It allows for some very creative things to be done.”

Diane Ravitch: Teachers' Hero or Education Hypocrite?

The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/06/diane-ravitch-teachers-hero-or-education-hypocrite/240987/

By Megan McArdle

Jun 24 2011, 3:03 PM ET 116

[Adam Ozimek]
Diane Ravitch, the historian and leading education reform critic, can be hard to understand. Not that her writing is difficult. Quite the opposite actually, it's incredibly lucid and lively, and my favorite thing about her in fact. Rather it's difficult to understand who exactly the person is that could contain both the Diane Ravitch who once wrote so passionately and doggedly in favor of school choice and accountability from the halls of the Hoover Institute, and the Diane Ravitch who now writes reform criticisms with the hyperbole and one-sidedness of a teacher's union spokesperson. But in a new City Paper piece, Dana Goldstein tries to reconcile the two and find the intellectual continuities that have stayed with her on such a seemingly bipolar intellectual journey. As much of a Ravitch critic as I may be, like Goldstein, I believe that there are some coherent ties that bind old and young Diane, and perhaps surprisingly, one of them is Friedrich Hayek.

Diana Ravitch: Hero, heretic, hypocrite ... or Hayekian?

Old Diane vs New Diane
For those unfamiliar with Ravitch, either old or new, I'll let Goldstein summarize her and her intellectual about-face:

"Once a vocal proponent of No Child Left Behind, charter schools, vouchers, and merit pay for teachers, Ravitch decided sometime around 2006 that there was actually no evidence that any of those policies improved American education. She now believes that the "corporatist agenda" of school choice, teacher layoffs, and standardized testing has undermined public respect for one of the nation's most vital institutions, the neighborhood school, and for one of society's most crucial professions: teaching."

It's easy to read new Diane and old Diane and come away exasperated at the starkness of her turn. As a result, it is difficult to see her as a social scientist who has overturned her previously accepted null hypothesis with new data, but rather a historian with a grand narrative that has been reversed, complete with new heroes and villains. She has in fact conceded as much, opening her 2000 address at the Cambridge School Choice conference with the following:

"I should preface my comments by saying that I am a historian, and that means that I do not have the social science background that many of the people in this room have. I have taken this assignment in an effort to put what we have addressed over these last two days into historical perspective."

Understanding her like this, as she asks to be understood, raises some justifiable, and in the end well-deserved, skepticism about her reliability as a synthesizer of empirical work. The "narrative fallacy" exists for a reason.
As might be expected of one making such a drastic change positions, Ravitch last year penned a lengthy book explaining how she got from one perspective to another. As I've said, it's a stark contrast to Diane of old. I understand fully how one can change their mind about the empirical realities of school choice, accountability, or other education policies. But there are so many changes in tone, emphasis, values, ideologies, and definitions that the mind whirls as paragraph after paragraph of old Diane is a convincing and direct rebuttal to new Diane, and you ask yourself "what facts changed here to change her mind?"
For instance, consider the change in what can be expected of schools. Today's Diane writes that family conditions and socioeconomic status are the primary determinant of educational outcomes, and that it is unfair to expect schools to overcome that. Yesterday's Ravitch wrote:

"We need two forms of accountability for schools. We need value-added assessment so that we can be sure that kids are gaining from the instruction. We also need to have absolute standards that hold for all students and that cannot be qualified by variables such as class or race."

When I read this I want to ask Diane, "what changed here?" The about face on value-added assessment is understandable, and provides a useful contrast to her change of heart on absolute standards. Diane has discussed some of the important empirical work that has been done on value-added, including work by Jesse Rothstein, showing that the measures we have today are not very reliable. Even if one disagrees with her read of it and its implications, one can concede that the evidence today is different than the evidence back then, and thus there is a basis upon which someone's mind could change. But what empirical reality has changed the fact that schools should be subject to absolute standards? How do you go from the position of embracing absolute standards to one where, as Dana Goldstein summarizes:

"The best way to improve American education...is to fight child poverty with health care, jobs, child care, and affordable housing."

Perhaps Diane has seen and been persuaded by new evidence of what schools can and can't accomplish. She has quite an oeuvre so maybe I've missed it, but as far as I know she has not elaborated on how her belief in what schools can achieve has been downgraded. More likely I think that one way of looking the issue simply fits with the new narrative, and one doesn't.
There are other inexplicable transitions that are difficult to justify with empiricism, like her belief today that school choice by definition constitutes a damning cream-skimming, which I discuss here (what has changed to make this so?). Or her new fixation with neighborhood democratic institutions versus her old claim that choice to attend schools outside of the neighborhood simply gives poor people the option that rich people currently have (what has changed to make this no longer so?).
The Hayekian Continuity
Given all this, it's easy to understand why critics become frustrated with Ravitch, as they struggle to reconcile old with new. But while much has changed, an underlying influence of Hayekian thinking has remained throughout. For sure, old Diane was much more forthright about the libertarian economist's influence. This you can see in her City Journal article from 1999, where she wrote skeptically of centralized thinking and mentioned the man by name:

"Friedrich A. Hayek explained long ago that centralized "command-and-control" regulation seldom is efficient, because the people at headquarters always have a crucial deficit in information; they never know as much as the many thousands of people who are out in the field. Hayek's analysis applies perfectly to a major problem in education today, where inefficient centralized systems, created a century ago at a time of high enthusiasm for the rule of experts, make uniform rules for every imaginable situation and hire layer upon layer of supervisors, draining initiative and resources away from the principals and teachers who actually deal with the problems of individual children. To the central administration should go responsibility for setting standards and auditing performance; to the schools must go the freedom to be flexible, imaginative, responsive, and responsible."

The Diane of today still praises decentralization and her new book The Death and Life of the Great American School System is still filled with Hayekian wisdom. It's just that she no longer calls it by name: neither "Hayek" nor "Hayekian" appear anywhere in the books 296 pages. But she is critical of "tightly centralized, hierarchical, top-down-control" with decisions made by central authorities and "strict supervision of every classroom to make sure the orders flowing from headquarters were precisely implemented". And she is skeptical of the federal government and appreciates local knowledge, arguing that "the proper role of the federal government is to supply valid information and leave the remedies and sanctions to those who are closest to the unique problems of individual schools". Things ideas motivate her criticisms of NCLB, test based accountability, and Mayoral control.
Ravitch also understands, as Hayek did, the "extent and significance of our ignorance", arguing that "[w]hen a school is successful, it is hard to know which factor was most important or if it was a combination of factors. Even the principal and teachers may not know for sure."
However, the solution to the problem of local knowledge and the difficulty of centralized planning is where old Diane, new Diane, and Hayek diverge. Whereas Hayek drew on the price system as a solution to the problem of local knowledge, and old Diane drew on choice and accountability, new Diane sees local collectivism and democracy as the solution.
I think one can criticize Ravitch for failing to follow her remaining Hayekian wisdom and criticisms through to their natural conclusion, or for applying them unevenly. For instance, she criticizes the Gates and other foundations for being a powerful centralized force that overrides the autonomy of local forces, calling them "bastions of unaccountable power" who are not "subject to public oversight or review", and "have taken it upon themselves to reform public education, perhaps in ways that would never survive the scrutiny of voters in any district or state". But she fails to apply the same criticisms to the powerful teachers unions, about whom all of the above could be said, and who lobby state governments for centralized rules that favor their members.
So take her for what you will: hero, heretic, or Hayekian. For me, seeing the continuities that tie old Diane Ravitch to new Diane Ravitch make her a little more understandable, a little less frustrating, but she nevertheless remains a reform critic who leaves much to be desired, and who we should be very skeptical of. Yet whatever one makes of her overall, the writing of both old and new Diane contain important and useful Hayekian insights that critics and fans (again, both old and new) who care about education would do well to consider.

Parents Across America opposes bill that would increase charter schools

Press release:

Parents Across America opposes bill that would increase charter schools

July 5, 2011 – For immediate releaseContact: Julie Woestehoff, pure@pureparents.org, 773-538-1135
Caroline Grannan, cgrannan@gmail.com, 415-412-5758

Today, Parents Across America (PAA), a grassroots organization representing public school parents from across the United States,
released a statement opposing HR 2218, the so-called “Empowering Parents through Quality Charter Schools Act.”

“As parents, we fear that too much of this bill seems designed to alter a current law not to better serve our children but because it's 'not meeting the needs of the charter school community,' as the Bill Summary puts it,” explained PAA founding member Julie Woestehoff of Chicago. “We believe that children, not charter school operators, should be the priority.”

The bill would provide extra support for charter school expansion, including providing new incentives for raising or abolishing charter school caps, and for taking decisions for authorizing new charter schools away from local school boards – despite substantial research showing that charter schools overall are no better than traditional neighborhood schools. The bill supplements charter school facilities funding and adds incentives for virtual (Internet-based) charter schools.

The PAA statement, released on July 5, said: “We are concerned that the overall effect of the bill will be to rapidly increase the quantity and not the quality of charter schools,without the necessary safeguards, and to weaken the public school system,which we believe is the very backbone of democracy.” The organization is sending a letter announcing our position to all members of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, which recently approved HR 2218, and to the members of the US Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. PAA members are also sending the statement to their own congressional representatives.

The PAA statement said the organization had hoped that HR2218 would address “concerns about the lack of equity, quality, parental rights, and accountability of many charter schools.” The organization recognized that “the bill makes some progress toward those goals” and offered to work to improve HR2218 “in order to assure better charter school transparency, accountability and governance, so that they fulfill the role … of partners in improving the overall quality of our nation's public schools.”

PAA founding member and New Orleans parent advocate Karran Harper Royal said: “We need legislation that provides relief for parents who are forced to choose a charter school when the charter takes over the neighborhood school” – a situation that is particularly troubling in her city, where the school system was dismantled after Hurricane Katrina. “When students must compete for access in a lottery, they can be left without a school to attend in their neighborhood. And a concern that affects the lives of many families is the way students with disabilities have been systematically excluded or pushed out of many charter schools.”

Albany, N.Y., parent and PAA founding member Mark Mishler added his concerns about the bill's lack of assistance to a school district like his. “The charter school industry has targeted our relatively small urban district with an over-saturation of charters that causes a financial drain, without concern for the impact on the majority of students who will continue to attend the public schools.”

The organization doesn't criticize parents for choosing charter schools, Woestehoff emphasized. “We understand why parents might be attracted to charter schools because of the disinvestment in traditional neighborhood schools under the current administration,” she said. “Parents want their children to attend schools that are important to people in power, and that get the funding they need to provide a high-quality education. Right now, charter schools fit that description more than traditional neighborhood schools. We feel that this is unfair and undemocratic, and that all schools should receive equal resources.”

The PAA statement called for improvements in the bill, including replacing its call for centralized state chartering entities with “guarantees that there will be parent and community input in the charter school authorizing process” and “the right of local communities to approve or disapprove the establishment of charter schools in their communities, either through direct vote or through their school boards or other locally elected body.”

PAA urged lawmakers to include in the bill: prohibitions on charter school enrollment processes that pose a barrier to families: transparency requirements on school procedures, discipline, attrition and governance; and continued caps on new charter schools until improved oversight can assure the schools' quality.

The statement concludes: “There is no reasonable rationale for using taxpayer funds to build more charter schools until and unless the federal government provides resources to build and renovate our traditional public schools, especially in underfunded and overcrowded urban districts, proportional to the number of students currently enrolled in them.”

Some problems with charter schools:

* Charter school achievement overall is no better than that of traditional public schools.

* Charter schools drain resources from traditional public schools and school districts.

* Charter schools do not serve their share of the highest-need, most at-risk children.

* Charter schools are not accountable to the public or to their own school communities.

* Charter schools are often marked by often-secretly selective or exclusive admissions processes, including lengthy application forms requiring essays, teacher recommendations and more; pre-enrollment tests; and signed agreements to parent volunteer hours.

* Charter schools are often marked by very high attrition – including the schools that are hailed for supposedly high graduation and college matriculation rates.

* Charter schools provide fertile ground for incompetent or dishonest operators and have too often been marked by financial mismanagement or criminal behavior.

* Charter schools consume far more than their share of the time and attention of school boards, to the detriment of traditional public schools.

A detailed fact sheet referencing some of the many recent reports of charter school problems can be found at
http://parentsacrossamerica.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/CharterSchoolFacts2010-11.pdf

with full citations and references here:
http://parentsacrossamerica.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/FULL-CITATIONScharterprobs2011.pdf

__._,_.___

AFT Supported Experiment Going Awry (As Predicted)

The Gates supported Hillsborough story was a biggie and promoted by Randi Weingarten at the AFT convention in Seattle in July 2010 - of course the Unity Caucus faithfull cheered right along,

From Leonie Haimson:
 
We're definitely looking at principal evaluations as well," [district superintendent Elia] she said, citing research on the importance of school leadership in teacher improvement.
How about evaluations of dictatorial and oppressive foundations who push their experiments without backing in research or among stakeholder groups?

Hillsborough teachers divided over education reform funded by the Gates foundation

http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/hillsborough-teachers-divided-over-education-reform-funded-by-the-gates/1178478
By Tom Marshall, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Saturday, July 2, 2011

---

TAMPA — Hillsborough teachers are sharply divided about the district's nationally watched experiment with the Gates Foundation to boost teacher performance and toughen up how they are evaluated and rewarded.
In a survey conducted last month, fewer than 35 percent of teachers thought the $100 million grant has had a positive impact on the district, had seen positive results firsthand or believed it will be a good thing for them or their school.
In fact, more than two-thirds of respondents didn't think it has had a positive effect or were simply unsure. The numbers provide a rare overview of teacher attitudes at the close of the first year of the seven-year effort funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The good news for the district: Over time, more teachers said they personally felt positive results, according to the anonymous survey, the fourth in a series.
Hillsborough superintendent MaryEllen Elia said this week she was encouraged by that strong growth — a 20-point jump since the first survey in February 2010. But she acknowledged that plenty of hurdles remain as the district moves toward a system where performance, rather than seniority, will eventually determine pay and job success for teachers.
"As we go, we'll say, 'Did we do right, and do we have to make any changes?' " Elia said. "I am accepting of the fact that there can be problems."
About 3,000 out of the district's 12,500 teachers chose to respond to the final survey conducted June 10, and a margin of error was not available.
Teachers union officials said they hadn't seen the survey numbers but weren't surprised by them. Many teachers are reserving judgment until all student test scores that factor into their evaluations are calculated this fall, said Stephanie Baxter-Jenkins, executive director of the Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association.
"The majority of people I know won't say a lot about it until they see what the scores say," she added.
The four surveys were conducted during a period that spanned Hillsborough's experience with the reform effort. The first, in February 2010, came just months after the district won its grant, while the last was conducted June 10 — before teachers saw any of their final ratings under a new peer evaluation system.
That means the next survey could show more teacher unhappiness if, as expected, the majority of their evaluations drop under the tougher new system.
Officials say the timing of the latest survey, on the last day of school, was unavoidable since teachers would be less available to respond over the summer.
Many of the survey questions focused on teacher awareness of the Gates reforms, and the district's communications office used them as a measure of their success at informing teachers about the process.
In February 2010, just 55.4 percent of teachers said they understood the objectives of the Gates grant. By June, that figure had risen to 83 percent. Seventy-four percent of teachers said they had received "enough information" on the process last month, up 31 points from the first survey.
But the questions about the Gates grant's impact on teachers and their schools showed far more volatility. In the first survey, more than 32 percent of teachers agreed that the reforms would be "a good thing for me and my school." Three months later that figure jumped to 40 percent, before declining to 34 percent last month.
"The results indicate a need for further discussions with our membership so that if there are problem areas, we can work to address their concerns," said Baxter-Jenkins.
Elia said the district has been making adjustments to the evaluation system in response to feedback from administrators, peer evaluators and teachers.
For example, some teachers "didn't like some of the phrases" on the evaluation criteria, Elia said, finding them unclear.
Aron Zions, a teacher at Pierce Middle School and a union representative, said many teachers were dismayed by a term on the evaluation sheet — "developing." It signifies that teachers are just one notch above the bottom rating, "requires action."
Many were shocked to receive such scores after years in a system where the vast majority of teachers were rated satisfactory or outstanding.
"The teacher who wants to be perfect, at some point you have to tell him, relax," Zions said.
Principals are under pressure, too, since they must raise standards in a single year. Teachers whom they once rated perfect, or nearly so, are now hearing that they have room for improvement. And not all principals are proving equally adept at making that adjustment, Elia said.
"We're definitely looking at principal evaluations as well," she said, citing research on the importance of school leadership in teacher improvement.

Charter School Profit First

Charter School Profit First

Charter schools: Moneymakers for hedge funds

By CYRIL JOSH BARKER Amsterdam News Staff

As the controversy about the co-location of charter schools continues to rage throughout the city, another issue has been raised: Hedge funds are making tremendous profits off charter schools while public school students lose already-scarce dollars because of the presence of the schools.

The charter school movement represents only a tiny fraction of the more than one million students in the New York public school system. But because of the charter school presence, hundreds of thousands of regular New York City kids are getting fewer dollars.

In a recent report by the New York City Independent Budget Office (IBO), it was revealed that money being spent on charter schools is being diverted away from regular schools. As more charter schools are created, more money is pumped into the charter school movement.

Many charter schools are also getting private sector money that public schools cannot access.

According to George Sweeting of the IBO, money for charter schools is calculated on a per capita basis. A fixed formula is set by the state and the number doesn't change.

"The reason for the charter schools' flow of dollars is because the number of schools and enrollment is increasing," Sweeting said. "However, it's not going up for the coming year."

He added that $13,000-$14,000 is spent per child in charter schools. He also pointed out that charter schools often open with only one or two grades and add more later on. As the schools get larger, more money from the Department of Education is transferred to the charter school.

However, a well-placed source in the hedge fund industry explained the real deal to the Amsterdam News. They said that charter schools have historically been for-profit enterprises backed by private sources, and that hedge funds are playing a key role in moving money.

Hedge funds have gained popularity among investors in recent years because they offer a better return on investment than traditional investments.

"The same people who invest in companies to make money are the same people who invest in charter schools," the source said.

The way it works is this: The money the state uses to build public schools can also be used to build charter schools. The hedge fund folks build schools for less money than the government would. For example, a public school might cost $5 million to build, while a charter school could take that same amount of money and only use $3 million to build. What's left over, according to the source, goes into the hedge funds and their investors.

"Hedge funds are the new source of capital. People who want to make money off charter schools hedge funds because they can't get the money from anywhere else," the source said.

The state pays for charter schools on a per-student basis. Investors who put up the initial funds can double their money after several years.

I thought it was about "Children First". Am I missing something???

Call Bloomberg's bluff - analysis of the layoff deal from SocialistW

http://socialistworker.org/2011/06/27/call-bloombergs-bluff

Call Bloomberg's bluff

Ralph Johnson and Doug Singsen argue that the unions and community activists have the leverage to stop all of Michael Bloomberg's proposed cuts.

June 27, 2011

WITH A June 30 deadline looming for the New York City budget, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and United Federation of Teachers (UFT) President Michael Mulgrew made a deal June 24 that averts 4,100 proposed teacher layoffs and the proposed closing of 20 firehouses.

The deal involved two concessions from the UFT. All study sabbaticals for the 2012-2013 school year will be canceled, and teachers from the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR) pool (teachers without a regular teaching assignment who still receive a full salary)--are to be more effectively placed in long-and short-term school vacancies in their districts.

According to the UFT, "Such use is designed to save much of the money the [Department of Education] now spends on 'per diem' substitutes to fill these vacancies." The details of the full budget proposal, which has come from an agreement between Quinn and Bloomberg, have yet to be released as of this writing. A City Council vote on the budget is slated to take place June 28.

Many teachers who were on the chopping block, along with parents and students of teachers slated to be laid off, will surely breathe a sigh of relief. We can also take heart that an already embattled Bloomberg was forced to back off his repeated insistence that massive teacher layoffs were the only solution to the budget crisis.

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

THIS INTRANSIGENCE has been exposed as so much bluff and bluster in a failed attempt to attack union seniority rights. And in the context of vicious attacks on unions and budget cuts throughout the country, on first glance, it would be easy to see this deal as a victory, or at least to view it as the best possible in the given circumstances. Indeed, if ATRs, many of whom are veteran teachers who have spent one or two years or more without a regular teaching position, are indeed able to fill otherwise vacant positions, this part of the deal is positive.

But a closer look at the deal reveals the highly problematic nature of this agreement. The leadership of the UFT appears to have unilaterally agreed to a framework which will lead to layoffs in other sectors and cuts to essential services. As Bloomberg himself said, "Make no mistake about it--this is not a good-news budget."

Schools still face school-based cuts to their budgets.According to the New York Times, 1,000 city workers still face the axe, many of them health care workers. Quinn claims that restorations will be made to previously announced "cuts in child-care services, libraries, senior centers and social services."

However, it is yet to be seen how much of this funding will be restored, as the full details of the budget agreement made between Quinn and Bloomberg have yet to be released. Bloomberg's most recent budget proposal included a 29 percent cut in funding for libraries, which would cause many to operate only three days a week, cuts to senior centers, hospitals, cuts in child care and more. The deal with the UFT does nothing to guarantee these cuts will be restored.

While the 4,100 layoffs have been averted, a significant workforce reduction will only lead to further increases in already ballooning class sizes. Bloomberg's initial proposal--to not replace those teachers lost through attrition--remains in place. Despite initial estimates of 2,000 positions lost through attrition, the current estimate is 2,600, though even this number could increase, as the school year ends June 28.

Some of these positions may be replaced by the 1,200 ATRs. But teacher attrition has been ongoing in recent years. If we assume the 2,600 number, when you combine this year's attrition with the attrition in the previous two years, then there will have been a loss of one of every 12 teachers since the 2008-2009 school year.

There will be 72,400 teachers next year, and there were 79,000 in 2008-2009--which inevitably leads to ongoing class size increases and a declining quality of education. We need a restoration of the lost positions, not further cuts.

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

WHILE THE budget proposal that will come up for a vote this week didn't live up to Bloomberg's threats, a closer look at the negotiations that led up to it indicates that all the cuts could have been avoided if a stronger fight had been waged.

While the UFT did participate in a 20,000-strong march on Wall Street May 12, the only major union mobilization specifically against the cuts was a rally of 10,000 called by AFSCME District Council (DC) 37. The UFT did not call its own protest, and while it did endorse the DC 37 demonstration, it did so at the last minute and turned out only 1,000 or 2,000 members, a small number for a union the size of the UFT, which has more than 100,000 members.

Had the UFT, DC 37 and other public-sector unions insisted that no cuts were necessary if the city raised taxes on banks, corporations and the rich, had they mobilized more members over a more extended period of time, and had they refused to accept compromises from Bloomberg, they may well have been able to avoid any cuts or concessions.

One indication that support could have been built for stopping all the cuts is the fact that Bloomberg's popularity ratings are at an all-time low of 39 percent, placing him in a very weak bargaining position.

More could have been won if the unions in the Municipal Labor Council (MLC) had stuck together. The MLC had proposed taking $262 million from the unions' Health Stabilization Fund, a deal that fell apart due to a lack of consensus on the council, with key opposition coming from DC 37. The UFT had also backed this proposal, and then struck out on its own when it collapsed on Thursday.

The current deal appears to have been done unilaterally by Mulgrew, outside of the framework of the MLC--essentially selling out other unions and other services that still potentially face cuts.

For his part, Bloomberg appears to be chiding the workers of unions who did not take part in this deal like children--and punishing them with layoffs, while rewarding the UFT with no layoffs. Bloomberg said, "The UFT, in all fairness, came through" adding that, "other unions had the opportunity to [avoid layoffs] and chose not to."

The total savings of the side agreement with the UFT adds up to $60 million. But while demanding cuts in jobs and services, Bloomberg continues to run up spending on his pet projects. To cite just one example,Bloomberg has budgeted a massive increase in education technology for the coming year--totaling $900 million, including $52 million for technology contractors, up 86 percent from a year ago.

This exorbitant spending comes after the city devoted $722 million--more than 10 times what was originally projected--on a no-bid contract to corruption-laden CityTime to run the New York City time sheet system.

Thanks to the reporting of Juan Gonzalez, Bloomberg finally ended the city's contract for CityTime, and key players in the scandal were forced to flee the country.

What's more, increased tax revenues from Wall Street, which is once again profitable and receiving huge bonuses, should have staved off cuts and allowed the city to restore services curtailed in previous years. And as the budget deal came out, it was revealed that $170 million in extra tax revenue came in. Nevertheless, the MLC and UFT accepted the need to accept some cuts and make compromises.

Meanwhile, others argued that there was plenty of money in the city that could have been used to avoid all cuts, including the record profits now being made again on Wall Street, the hundreds of millions of dollars being given by the city in corporate giveaways, the low tax rates paid by the rich in the city, and the existence of a $3 billion rainy day fund held by the city.

One group that took up the call for no cuts and no layoffs were the protesters of Bloombergville, an encampment held by workers, students and others affected by the cuts 24 hours a day beginning on Tuesday, June 14.

While the numbers at Bloombergville were small, ranging from 15 to 150, it was able to put forward an argument that there was an alternative to the cuts--and a need for a stronger, more sustained form of resistance.

Bloombergville: New Yorkers Occupy Streets to Protest Budget Cuts

_http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=56232_
(http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=56232) .

New Yorkers Occupy Streets to Protest Budget Cuts
By Elizabeth Whitman
_
Bloombergville organisers hold assembly meetings twice daily to discuss
concerns and plan events.

Credit:Elizabeth Whitman/IPS_ (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=56232)
_Buy this picture_ (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=56232#pictures)

NEW YORK, Jun 25, 2011 (IPS) - They have taken over a strip of the
sidewalk at Park Place and Broadway, handing out flyers to passersby and taping
posters to the ground and to the metal crossbars of the scaffolding that
shelters them from the rain.

They sleep here too, on the sidewalk, and hold assembly meetings twice
daily for people to raise concerns and plan events. Their bottom line: no
budget cuts.

Calling their takeover and sleep-in _Bloombergville_
(http://bloombergvillenow.org/) - an allusion to the infamous shanty towns known as Hoovervilles
that sprung up during the Great Depression - they are _New Yorkers Against
the Budget Cuts _ (http://nocutsny.wordpress.com/) (NYABC), a coalition of
different groups and individuals united by their opposition to Mayor
Michael Bloomberg's proposed budget for next year and their determination to
press the City Council not to adopt it.

Bloomberg, citing debt and decreases in state and federal aid, proposed to
cut funding for public services including higher education, libraries, and
child care as part of his approximately 65- billion-dollar budget for the
fiscal year 2012 (Jul. 1, 2011 through Jun. 30, 2012). He also wants to
eliminate jobs for over 6,000 teachers - 4,100 through lay-offs and 2,000
through attrition - and close 20 firehouses.

Negotiations on the mayor's proposal are ongoing in the City Council,
which must adopt a budget by Jun. 30, although it "may change budget priorities
and add 'terms and conditions' on the expenditure of appropriated city
funds," according to the City Council website.

Since Jun. 15, Bloombergville and NYABC have been staging their sleep-in
or, as several participants deemed it, "occupation", to protest the cuts and
lay-offs and are currently in their sixth location, having moved due to
rain and police.

Their assemblies usually average 30 to 50 people, and 70 people spent the
first night.

"Bloombergville is an encampment to intensify and strengthen the struggle
against austerity in New York City," reads the _Bloombergville Declaration_
(http://bloombergvillenow.org/declaration/) . "We are in active solidarity
with those refusing any and all cuts."

During the day, members participate in rallies, marches, and other forms
of public action to spread awareness of the budget issue and garner
attention to their cause. In the mornings and evenings, they gather in assembly
meetings to plan these events and to discuss issues that anyone might raise.

"Definitely not enough people" are aware of the circumstances surrounding
the budget cuts, Emily Turonis, the only member who has slept at the
encampment every night, told IPS. She says people's involvement and awareness
reflects how much they believe they'll be affected by the budget cuts.
Moreover, "people don't know the severity" of the cuts, she added.

"Every basic social service in this city is going to get hit," said Yotam
Marom, one of the leaders of the coalition.

Turonis suggested ending tax cuts for the wealthy as a source of possible
revenue, noting that the city has a three-billion-dollar surplus even as
Bloomberg plans to cut funding for essential public services.

However, Ronnie Lowenstein, director of the nonpartisan _Independent
Budget Office_ (http://www.ibo.nyc.ny.us/) , said in an _interview with WNYC_
(http://www.wnyc.org/articles/its-free-country/2011/mar/15/citys-three-million-
surplus/) that the term surplus was "misleading" because the amount has
already been taken into account for next year's budget.

"You could use that three billion dollars for something else - you could
use it for a tax cut - but you would have to do something else to bring next
year into balance, and it's as simple as that," he said.

Nevertheless, Bloombergville's short-term aim "isn't even radical",
Turonis said. Its participants simply want the city to "stop creating loopholes
that allow gross profits" for the wealthy and for large corporations.

The coalition aims to enforce this point and "draw more people" to the
cause, said Larry Hales, a founder of NYABC, by maintaining a "constant
presence".

"Bloombergville is yet another example of everyone approaching these
budget negotiations with a spirit of 'shared sacrifice' except for Mayor
Bloomberg," Laura Banish, coordinator for the City Council Progressive Caucus,
told IPS.

"We're facing some of the worst cuts in decades and being told that
there's no other choice. That's simply not true. We have options, and cutting
vital social services is not one of them," she added, calling those who
participated in the sleep-in inspiring.

A spokesperson for Council Member Jumaane Williams, a Brooklyn Democrat,
told IPS that Williams was "staunchly against" the budget cuts.

City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn and Finance Chair Domenic M.
Recchia Jr. wrote in the Council's response to the preliminary budget that
"further cuts in critical service areas endanger not only the progress we have
made in many areas… but also the welfare and safety of New York City
residents."

In a statement, they also said that the Council had presented several
alternate budget proposals that offered savings through cuts in contracts or
cuts in city agencies different from what Bloomberg proposed.

But Hales remained sceptical of the steps the Council said it has taken or
ideas it has put forward, dismissing it as political rhetoric and empty
talk.

Though NYABC members hail from a variety of groups and backgrounds, some
seem to share a common vision of what change needs to happen in New York and
the United States as a whole, beyond the immediacy of the Bloombergville
protests and the passing of next year's budget. They have infused the
structure of Bloombergville with this vision.

The coalition envisioned "democracy in a public space", said Turonis, and
it created that democratic space to reflect the vision that protesters were
demanding. The general assemblies provide that space - everyone gathers in
a circle and has the chance to voice his or her opinions and ideas, on any
matter.

Hales said, "What we need to do is build a people's movement" and
consolidate the organisations with a common aim but varying approaches, while Marom
offered a longer-term vision of a movement that would "reclaim space for
working people and oppressed people".

But even with these future visions and aims, ultimately, the budget that
the Council will adopt remains to be seen.

Charter Ed Deformers Seek to Choose Next Mayor - Moskowitz or Cananda?

In the last several weeks, Democrats for Education Reform, a lobbying organization that supports charter schools and other aggressive educational changes, has been interviewing possible New York City mayoral candidates over meals.
ā€ Call it The Great Suss Out of 2011,ā€¯ Joe Williams, the executive director of DFER, said by email. He did not indicate that the group has identified any emerging favorite, and he said that the group has not met with either Moskowitz or Canada.

Charter supporters seek kindred spirit to succeed Bloomberg | GothamSchools:

http://t.co/g1fuANn
Charter supporters seek kindred spirit to succeed Bloomberg
by Elizabeth Green

A screen shot of the web site registered 9 days ago that touts Eva Moskowitz for mayor in its title.
Two websites registered recently ā€” one earlier this month ā€” raise an intriguing possibility: Could a charter school leader jump into the next mayoral race?
The website addresses tout Eva Moskowitz, the founder of the Success Charter network, and Geoffrey Canada, the founder of the Harlem Childrenā€™s Zone and Promise Academy charter schools, for mayor. Neither site includes any content.
The websites, EvaMoskowitzForMayor.com and GeoffreyCanadaForMayor.com, might reflect mounting concern among charter school supporters that Mayor Bloombergā€™s successor will not continue his level of support for charter schools.
The nervousness may have increased when Anthony Weiner resigned from Congress last week. Of all the likely mayoral candidates, Weiner had appeared to be one of the more supportive of charter schools.
ā€ Personally, as a New Yorker, Bloombergā€™s successor has weighed heavily on my mind,ā€¯ Democracy Prep charter network founder Seth Andrew, who registered the URL touting Canada in December, said in an e-mail statement. ā€ While I think Mr. Canada would be a great choice, weā€™ve never talked about it and heā€™s made it publicly clear that he loves his day job.ā€¯
Andrew used his personal email and mailing addresses to register the Canada site.
EvaMoskowitzForMayor.com was registered anonymously through a hosting service based in California on June 6, according to WhoIs.Net, which publishes records of web site registrations.
Responding to a request for comment by e-mail, a spokesperson for Moskowitz sa id that she had never heard of the domain. ā€ Looked into it. Donā€™t know anything about this domain. Let me know if you find out who bought it,ā€¯ Jenny Sedlis, the director of external affairs at Moskowitzā€™s charter network, wrote via e-mail.
The next mayorā€™s position on charter schools will be crucial to how much support the schools get from the city Department of Education. The dozens of charter schools that now get free space inside city school buildings do so only because Mayor Bloomberg has committed to that policy. State law does not grant charter schools any public space.
In the last several weeks, Democrats for Education Reform, a lobbying organization that supports charter schools and other aggressive educational changes, has been interviewing possible New York City mayoral candidates over meals.
ā€ Call it The Great Suss Out of 2011,ā€¯ Joe Williams, the executive director of DFER, said by em ail. He did not indicate that the group has identified any emerging favorite, and he said that the group has not met with either Moskowitz or Canada.
Besides Weiner, the other likely candidate who might support charter schools is City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Though Quinn has been mainly quiet on charter schools, she recently told the Daily News editorial board that she is against the stateā€™s seniority-based layoffs law ā€” a position that resonates with supporters of charter schools.
Other likely candidates, including Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer, Comptroller John Liu, and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, have sided with the city teachers union in most education debates.
For years, Moskowitz has talked openly about her plan to run for mayor of New York one day. But since she opened her network of charter schools in 2006 with an ambitious goal of opening 40 more in a decade, the mayoral talk has seemed distant.
Moskowitz last ran for office in 2005, when she made a bid for Manhattan borough president after gaining prominence as chair of the City Councilā€™s education committee. The United Federation of Teachers strongly opposed Moskowitz and supported her opponent, Scott Stringer, helping him narrowly defeat Moskowitz. Stringer is considering a bid for mayor in 2013.
Since then, Moskowitz has made something of a science out of organizing parents of Success charter schools. Parents at Success schools attend hearings and public meetings about space decisions, and many of them attended a recent rally in Harlem to protest the NAACPā€™s involvement in a lawsuit opposing the co-location of charter schools inside distric t space.
A flyer sent home to Success parents indicated that attendance was required, and school officials opened their doors late to make time for the rally ā€” an unprecedented decision by a school leader who once kept classes open on a city snow day.
Canada has been less active in organizing parents politically, though he did lead a campaign to renew mayoral control.
Marty Lipp, communications director at Harlem Childrenā€™s Zone, said that he was unaware that the domain name for Canada had been registered. ā€ Geoff has said on numerous occasions that he has no interest in any jobs other than working here at the Harlem Childrenā€™s Zone and continuing to do so,ā€¯ Lipp said.
Moskowitz recently signed a book deal with the education publisher Jo ssey Bass, according to an announcement on the web site Publisherā€™s Marketplace.
The bookā€™s working title is listed on the web site as ā€ The Secret of the Success Academies.ā€¯ The listing describes the book as an account of ā€ how the students of this rapidly growing group of charter schools, featured in the documentaries ā€ The Lotteryā€™ and ā€ Waiting for Superman,ā€™ have achieved some of the highest standardized test scores in New York State ā€” rivaling their peers in schools in the wealthiest suburbs.ā€¯ Moskowitz is listed with a co-author, Arin Lavinia.
Asked about the book, Sedlis wrote in an e-mail, ā€ Eva Moskowitz is writing a book on techniques of teaching. She has spent the last five years immersed in instruction and wants to share what sheā€™s developed.ā€¯


Leoni e Haimson

Parents Slam NPR Education Coverage

Leonie Haimson writes:

See Beth Fertig’s story today on the UFT/NAACP co-location lawsuit.  http://www.wnyc.org/articles/wnyc-news/2011/jun/21/teachers-union-and-naacp-take-city-court-over-school-closings-and-charters/

Here are some problematic assertions in her piece:

Success Academy is a chain of charters run by former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz. Recently, her organization used city data to conduct its own study of 81 charters that share space with regular schools. It found average class sizes in the district schools only went up by about one student over four years, which was no more than the citywide average.

This is the wrong comparison to use; charter co-locations tend to occur in the least overcrowded schools and neighborhoods.  For example,  in Queens, where the overcrowding is intense, and class sizes are increasing fast, there are very few co-locations.  The comparison in class size should NOT be to schools citywide  , but with a similar set of schools nearby.   Class sizes should not be increasing in any school, but particularly not in struggling schools in  communities like Harlem with the space to keep class sizes small.

Genevieve Foster, who has a daughter attending Harlem Success Academy 1 in the same building as PS 149…"If you look at our classrooms we have more children," she said. "We have less space, and we're also receiving less money to really provide the resources necessary for our children. ... We can also say we have issues with space."

First of all, co-located charters like HSA are getting more public funding per student than regular public schools; see the IBO study on this.  http://ibo.nyc.ny.us/cgi-park/?p=272  This doesn’t even count the millions of dollars that they privately raise.  It’s astonishing to me that charter advocates are still proclaiming this myth, no less reporters letting repeat it w/out any rebuttal. 
If you count the lower need level of the students enrolled in charters, the disproportion in public funding is even greater, since charter schools have lower numbers of ELL and poor students. http://greatlakescenter.org/docs/Policy_Briefs/Baker_NYCharter.pdf

Secondly, if HSA charters feel squeezed, why not get their own space --- with the millions Eva has raised, she could afford it.  Finally there are many claims about the larger class sizes at HSA charters.  What’s never mentioned is the fact that Eva ensures that there are at least two teachers in every classroom.

There's no doubt sharing isn't always easy, but charter parents accuse the teachers union and the NAACP of inflaming the situation. They note that the Success Academy renovated the playground for everyone at PS 149.

No one who has been paying attention to the fierce battles over space in recent years could believe that the UFT or the NAACP could possible “inflame” the situation.  All they have done is to provide parents in the co-located schools a legal weapon to fight for the rights of their children not to be unfairly deprived of adequate space to learn.  And the playground is a huge issue for the parents and kids at PS 149 – HSA came in and without their consent, tore up the playground and installed an Astroturf soccer field which deprived the PS 149 kids of their baseball playing area.  See Juan Gonzalez on this: http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-08-18/local/27072974_1_soccer-field-new-soccer-soccer-project
 
More broadly, why is it that this article and others like it does not mention the prospective loss of the PS 149 art room, the fact that there is no space for special needs students to get their services, that their counseling room has to share space with the PTA room, separated only by a curtain, or that the D75 school is now forced to have gym on the auditorium stage ?

If you have other observations about the effects of this or other co-locations, you can email Fertig at bfertig@wnyc.org

This is a prime example of why I long ago stopped supporting WNYC - the lack of depth and accuracy of their education reporting is astounding.

Lisa

For heaven's sake....she is not a reporter so much as she is a person with access to the radio. most of her stuff is fluff and more often that not, it is forgotten as well
which is not say she can say whatever she wants, but she ain't a mind changer

Ellen

Schools will never fix inequality: Diane Ravitch vs. Arne Duncan fight misses point on poverty

  Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/06/19/2011-06-19_schools_will_never_fix_inequality.html#ixzz1PoNeibeB

By John Marsh   Sunday, June 19th 2011, 4:00 AM

It is not every day that the U.S. secretary of education charges a professor with "insulting all of the hardworking teachers, principals and students all across the country." But in the cutthroat world of education reform, the daggers have come out.

The professor, Diane Ravitch of NYU - who once shared educational reformers' love for school choice, charter schools and accountability - has in recent years come to oppose them. A few weeks ago, she published a much-debated op-ed in The New York Times that reiterated her belief that few schools, reformed or not, can overcome the differences in family income that determine educational outcomes. "Families," she wrote, "are children's most important educators."

The critics pounced. The columnist Jonathan Alter called her views "the mother of all cop outs." The aforementioned Arne Duncan - President Obama's education chief - said she was "in denial."

To the new breed of educational reformers, whose motto is "no excuses," schools cannot only prevail over the effects of an impoverished upbringing; they can set students from poor families on the path to college and, ultimately, a middle-class life.

This argument is a neat but dangerous dodge. The inconvenient truth: If you care about poverty and economic inequality, you would be better off forgetting about education. Because, even if schools could overcome the effects of growing up in poverty, they cannot reshape the structure of an economy that produces poverty and economic inequality in the first place.

In terms of income, it is no secret that the United States has grown top-heavy in the past few decades. In broad terms, the rich have gotten richer, most people have treaded water and more people live in poverty. From 1993 to 2008, slightly more than half of all economic growth in the U.S. flowed to the top 1% of earners. The United States now has the most unequal distribution of incomes among developed countries.

Almost no one disputes whether this profound inequality exists. Rather, the debate seems to be about whether it matters - and if so, what to do about it. According to recent polls, most Americans seem to have made up their minds about both questions. More than 70% of us think differences in income are too large. Regarding what to do about it, Americans are equally decisive. Roughly two out of three people disagree with the proposition that it is the government's responsibility to reduce income differences.

By contrast, there is unfailing and overwhelming support for education and, lately, education reform. is not hard to imagine why Americans almost unanimously support education as a solution to poverty and inequality. It offers an elegant solution to an otherwise intractable problem: Good schools, the thinking goes, can provide everyone, including and perhaps especially the poor, a chance to get ahead, graduate from college and join the middle class. In this way, economic inequality would be reduced. Moreover, by combating income inequality with genuine educational equality, Americans can avoid the spectre of divisive economic policies - of "spreading the wealth around," as Barack Obama famously put it in his 2008 presidential campaign.

The only problem is that it does not, and will not, work. As a growing body of scholarship has shown, educational achievement depends mostly on family background - on how much money your parents make. In that respect at least, Ravitch is right.

For the sake of argument, though, suppose critics like Ravitch were wrong and reformers like Duncan and Alter were right. Assume the United States could induce many more poor and low-income students to graduate from college. It is not clear what all those new college graduates would do.

The economy requires more workers with college degrees than ever before. Yet it remains - and will remain - an economy that requires more workers without degrees than workers with degrees. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that seven out of the 10 occupations that will produce the most new jobs by 2018 will require only on-the-job training. (Think jobs like home health aides, customer service representatives, food preparers and servers.)

A good education will not help workers trapped in low-wage, nonunion jobs. Nor will it do much to divert the flow of economic growth to the top 1% of earners. These are the reasons behind rising economic inequality, and these reasons have little to do with education.

In short, we cannot teach or learn our way out of inequality. And so, Americans must decide what they dislike more: differences in income that are too large, or the government taking more responsibility to reduce income differences. Their favorite solution, education, is no solution at all.

Marsh is author of the book, "Class Dismissed: Why We Cannot Teach or Learn Our Way Out of Inequality."

How theCorporate Right Divided Blacks from Teachers Unions and Each Other

Wed, 06/15/2011 - 13:28 — Glen Ford

• NAACP sues NYC charter schools |
• charter schools |
• Bradley Foundation education

Printer-friendly version

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

Charter school supporters are denouncing the NAACP for filing suit, along with the teachers union, against preferential – separate but unequal – treatment of charter schools in New York City. The charter activists claim the NAACP is dividing the community, but that division was orchestrated 15 years ago, when the right-wing Bradley Foundation created the Black private school voucher “movement” out of whole cloth.

 

How the Corporate Right Divided Blacks from Teachers Unions and Each Other

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

The NAACP is seeking to prove – in a different age and racial context – that separate is not equal, in New York City and other sites of breakneck charterization.

Back in the mid-Nineties, devious right-wing activists at the Bradley Foundation, in Milwaukee, hit upon a “wedge” issue designed to wreck the alliance at the core of the Democratic Party’s urban base. Blacks and public employee unions – particularly teachers – were the foundations of Democratic power in the cities. Aware that African Americans revered education but were often in conflict with largely white teachers unions over issues of racism and community control, the Bradley gang, under president Michael Joyce, created out of whole cloth a “movement” for publicly-funded vouchers for private schools. No such Black community “demand” had ever existed, but well-aimed infusions of millions of dollars among opportunistic politicians like Cory Booker, a first term city councilman who aspired to become mayor of Newark, New Jersey, grafted Black faces onto a Hard Right corporate scheme to divide key progressive constituencies: Blacks and unions.

By the turn of the millennium, the Bradley outfit solidified its position as George W. Bush’s “favorite” foundation when it invented “faith-based initiatives” to funnel millions of public dollars to churches to provide social services. Faith-based funding and private school vouchers comprised the totality of Bush’s first term outreach to Black America. Neither program drew masses of Blacks into the Republican Party – even the wealthy social engineers at Bradley can’t perform miracles. But Bradley and its far-right sister funders – the Walton and DeVos Family Foundations, Olin, Scaife, Freidman and other troglodytes – had succeeded in penetrating Black Democratic politics, where the real action would unfold. Cory Booker, Harold Ford, Jr., the 29-year-old who inherited his father’s congressional seat in Memphis, in 1996, and other hustlers were the “new Black leaders” ready to embrace “pro-business” solutions to inner city problems, said corporate media boosters. The Democratic Leadership Council, the party’s corporate money bagmen, launched a frenzied, and quite effective, recruitment campaign among Black office-holders and aspirants.

“Cory Booker and other hustlers were the ‘new Black leaders’ ready to embrace “pro-business” solutions to inner city problems, said corporate media boosters.”

This is the national stage onto which Barack Obama stepped with his U.S. Senate campaign, in 2003-2004, as the very embodiment of the “new” Black politician, full of phrases like “public-private partnerships” and other codes for corporate penetration of the public sphere. By this time, the wealthy foundations were directing much of their money and attention to hawking charter schools as the cure for what ails education in the inner cities. Not that the Waltons and Friedmans and Scaifes give a damn about ghetto kids, but because they understood that Black parents were desperate for anything that might save their children, and would be receptive when fellow Blacks made the pitch. From its inception, the purpose of the project was to drive a wedge between teachers unions and Black constituencies. In addition to being unencumbered by sticky constitutional considerations, charter schools are technically public schools, and African Americans remain broadly committed to the concept of public education. Most importantly, from the rich man’s point of view, charter schools are the gateway to corporate access to the public education purse, a “market” worth hundreds of billions a year in which the public takes all the risk – a capitalist’s paradise!

The Hard Right foundations now had even bigger company as boosters of charter schools: the institutional weight of Wall Street, huge hedge funds, and individual billionaires, all out to make a financial killing, knock off teachers unions, and mold the world views of new generations. After more than a decade of corporate cultivation of ambitious “new Black leaders,” a large cadre of business-friendly African American politicians was in place – including, by 2008, in the highest place of all.

“Charter schools are the gateway to corporate access to the public education purse.”

President Obama is the guy that Michael Joyce, at the Bradley Foundation, was dreaming about when he launched his campaign to split Blacks from unions, 15 years ago. Obama and his Education Secretary, Arne Duncan – a veteran Chicago union buster and corporatist – have labored mightily to erect an alternative national system of charter schools, plugged into a private financial and educational services sector, that in some cities is as large or larger than the traditional public schools. Obama, because of his race and his party affiliation, is a far more effective foe of public education and teachers unions than his white Republican predecessor.

Michael Joyce was right; he knew that the crucial battle over school privatization would have to occur in Black Democratic circles, if it were to work as a fractious wedge issue. Last month, the NAACP and the United Federations of Teachers filed a lawsuit to halt the closing of 20 public schools and to stop giving preferential treatment to charter schools that often share the same buildings. The differences in learning conditions, schedules and equipment are so striking, says the NAACP, as to reduce public students to second-class citizens. Charter schools, which President Obama fawns over like his own legacy, are blatantly favored by school systems and corporate sponsors. The NAACP is seeking to prove – in a different age and racial context – that separate is not equal, in New York City and other sites of breakneck charterization.

The inequalities are by design. From President Obama on down, charter school strategists hope to expand their privatized systems by deliberately making charters relatively more attractive than traditional classrooms, in order to create a political constituency for more charters. At root, it is a kind of bait-and-switch that is not sustainable, and will come to a halt once the public school “competition” is marginalized or eliminated. By then, the political forces necessary to revive public schooling will have been exhausted in fratricidal battles, and the corporations will have established a system to suit their own purposes– as Michael Joyce foresaw.

When the NAACP joined in the teachers union’s suit, charter school advocates declared war on the civil rights group. Two thousand people attended a May 26 rally in Harlem, accusing the NAACP of dividing the community. Of course, Michael Joyce knows who did the dividing – he and his right-wing schemers and billionaires wrote the script.