Sunday, August 22, 2010

Preliminary Report from the Committee on Appropriate Postures for the Suffering

Preliminary Report from the Committee on Appropriate Postures for the Suffering
by Jon Davis

We who wear clean socks and shoes are tired
of your barefoot complaining, your dusty footprints
on our just-cleaned rugs. Tired, too of your endless ploys—
the feigned amputations, the imaginary children
you huddle with outside the malls, your rags and bottles,
the inconvenient positions you assume. Though we remain
impressed by your emaciation and your hunger and,
frankly, find you photogenic and think your images
both alarming and aesthetically pleasing, to do anything
more than sigh will require a complex process
of application and review, a process that is currently
in the development stage. Meanwhile, may we suggest
you moderate your public suffering at least
until the Committee on Appropriate Postures for the Suffering
is able to produce guidelines. Do not be alarmed.
The committee has asked me to assure you
that they are sensitive both to the aesthetic qualities
of your
suffering—the blank stares, the neotonous beauty
as the flesh recedes and the eyes seem to grow larger,
the haloes of flies—and to the physical limitations
of human endurance and the positioning of limbs.
They will, I am certain, ask that you not lift
your naked children like offerings to the gods.
On this topic, discussion has centered around the unfair
advantage such ploys give the parents of such children.
The childless, whether by choice or fate, are left
to wither silently in the doorways while those with children
proffer and gesticulate in the avenues unabated.
This offends our cherished sense of fairness,
the democratic impulse that informs and energizes
our discussions. Therefore, we ask for restraint,
and where restraint is lacking, we will legislate.
Please be forewarned. In addition, the committee
will recommend that the shouting of slogans,
whether directed at governments or deities, be
kept
to a minimum. Not only is such shouting displeasing
aesthetically, but it suggests there is something
to be done. Believe me, no one is more acutely aware
of your condition than we who must ignore it everyday
on our way to the capitol. In this matter, we ask only
that you become more aware of your fellow citizens,
who must juggle iPods, blackberries, briefcases
and cell phones, lattes. Who must march steadily
or be trampled by the similarly burdened citizens
immediately behind them. Your shouting and pointing
does not serve you well. Those of us employed
by the agency are sworn to oversee you. If we seem,
as you suggest, to have overlooked you instead,
that is an oversight and will be addressed, I am certain,
in our annual review. Please be aware: To eliminate
your poverty, your hunger, your aesthetically
pleasing, yet disturbing, presence in our doorways,
above our heating grates, in our
subway tunnels
and under our freeways would mean the elimination
of the agency itself and quite possibly a decline
in tourism. Those of us employed by the agency
have neither the stamina, persistence, nor the luminous
skin tones that you present to the viewing public.
Finally, to those who would recommend programs,
who would call for funding and action,
I must remind you that we have been charged not
with eliminating your suffering but with managing it.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Spencer's dad gave DoE $5mil and the Charter Center $3mil in their last filing. Wow...

ERN’s Largest Donation

Posted by kennethlibby on July 26, 2010 · Leave a Comment

ERN’s largest donation to date (that I’m aware of) is a $250,000 gift from the Robertson Foundation. The foundation was started in 1996 by Julian Robertson, the former hedge fund manager of Tiger Management.

Although Tiger Management is no longer around, they still have an active foundation (the Tiger Foundation) funded by Robertson and other former Tiger Management employees.
Below is a summary of education-related donations from the Robertson Foundation and the Tiger Foundation. Notes: only donations over $10k are included. It’s also quite possible I’ve included some donations that are only tangentially related to education, or missed some education-related donations. All information pulled from Guidestar.org.

Robertson Foundation (12/1/2007 – 11/30/2008)
Achievement First – $1,000,000
All Kinds of Minds – $750,000
Alliance for School Choice – $250,000
Bronx Charter School for Excellence – $10,000
Communities in Schools – $3,000,000
Education Pioneers – $500,000
Education Reform Now – $250,000
Excellent Education for Everyone – $100,000
Friends of Girls Preparatory Charter – $50,000
Friends of PAVE Academy, Inc – $12,500
Fund for Public Schools, Inc – $700,000
GreatSchools – $750,000
KIPP Foundation – $2,000,000
New York Center for Charter School Excellence – $3,000,000
New York City Department of Education – $5,000,000
Newark Charter School Fund, Inc – $650,000
NewSchools Venture Fund – $3,000,000
Partnership for Public Schools – $750,000
PAVE Academy – $47,500
St. HOPE Academy – $10,000
Teach for America, Inc – $7,120,000
The New Teacher Project – $200,000
Uncommon Schools – $500,000

Robertson Foundation (12/1/2006 – 11/30/2007)
Beginning With Children Foundation, Inc – $100,000
Children’s Scholarship Fund – $10,000
Classroom, Inc – $100,000
Communities in Schools – $800,000
DC Education Compact – $3,000,000
Excel Academy Public Charter School – $30,000
Friends of Girls Preparatory Charter – $44,500
Friends of PAVE Academy, Inc – $105,000
Fund for Public Schools, Inc – $3,800,000
GreatSchools, Inc – $112,500
KIPP Foundation – $2,000,000
National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship – $15,000
New York City Center for Charter School Excellence – $1,500,000
NewSchools Venture Fund – $3,000,000
Teach for America – $2,020,000
The New Teacher Project – $200,000
Uncommon Schools – $500,000

Robertson Foundation (12/1/2005 – 11/30/2006)
All Kinds of Minds – $550,000
Alliance for School Choice – $200,000
Beginning With Children Foundation, Inc – $100,000
Civic Builders – $1,000,000
Communities in Schools, Inc – $700,000
Denver Collegiate Academy – $30,000
Friends of PAVE Academy, Inc – $12,500
Fund for Public Schools, Inc – $2,550,000
Girls Preparatory Charter School of NY – $30,000
GreatSchools.net, Inc – $336,000
KIPP Foundation – $2,000,000
New York City Center for Charter School Excellence – $2,250,000
Teach For America – $1,020,000
Uncommon Schools – $500,000
*******************
Tiger Foundation
7/1/2008 – 6/30/2009
Bronx Charter School for the Arts – $100,000
Civic Builders – $400,000
Girls Prepatory Charter School of New York – $75,000
Harlem Children’s Zone Inc – $250,000
Harlem Day Charter School – $75,000
KIPP New York Inc – $350,000
New Leaders for New Schools – $100,000
Opportunity Charter School – $75,000
St. Hope Academy (CA) – $100,000
Success Charter Network – $100,000
Teach For America – $250,000
Uncommon Schools – $400,000
Village Academies – $75,000
Williamsburg Charter High School – $250,000

7/1/2007 – 6/30/2008
Achievement First – $400,000
Bronx Charter School for the Arts – $75,000
Bronx Prepatory Charter School – $150,000
Civic Builders – $400,000
Classroom, Inc – $75,000
Girls Preparatory Charter School of NY – $75,000
Harlem Children’s Zone – $250,000
Harlem Day Charter School – $75,000
International Network of Public Schools $100,000
KIPP New York, Inc – $350,000
New Leaders for New Schools – $100,000
Opportunity Charter School – $75,000
St. Hope Academy – $100,000
Teach For America – $250,000
Turnaround for Children – $200,000
Uncommon Schools – $400,000
Village Academies – $75,000
Williamsburg Charter High School – $100,000

7/1/2006 – 6/30/2007
Achievement First – $400,000
Beginning With Children – $100,000
Bronx Charter School for the Arts – $75,000
Civic Builders – $400,000
Classroom, Inc – $100,000
Educators for Social Responsibility – $100,000
Harlem Day Charter School – $75,000
KIPP Academy – $300,000
Lighthouse Academics – $60,000
Opportunity Charter School – $100,000
Partnership for After School Education – $90,000
READ Foundation – $100,000
Village AAcademies – $75,000

Filed under Uncategorized

SAVE THE DATE! FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24: TJC HAPPY HOUR

SAVE THE DATE!
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24: TJC HAPPY HOUR
Invited Guest: Howie Hawkins, Green Party Candidate for Governor, and Julia Willebrand, Green Party Candidate for State Comptroller and a former UFT Delegate.
Place: TBA in downtown Brooklyn Time: 4 PM until they kick those rowdy teachers out!
As soon as Andrew Cuomo got the Democratic Party nomination for governor, he went on the offensive against public employee unions. “We’re going to be tangling with public employee unions going forward,” he announced. Now that Cuomo has come out swinging against us, we’d be crazy to support him. We say the UFT should support a candidate who supports us, and the candidate for governor that gives us unqualified support is Howie Hawkins, Green Party candidate.

YOU ARE INVITED TO AN EVENING TJC PHONE MEETING
ATTEND OUR MEETING FROM THE COMFORT OF YOUR HOME!
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 25 AT 8:30 PM - Among the urgent issues we will be discussing are how to address the targeting of new teachers, supporting Howie Hawkins, a pro-labor candidate for Governor, and kicking off our fall contract campaign. Reply to this email for more information on how to participate.

VETERANS IN THE LINE OF FIRE?
Are you, or do you know, a teacher or other UFT member, who has been targeted because you are a veteran, very senior, or older? TJC is looking for specific cases and patterns, so we can evaluate a campaign for UFT action on this front. Please email us with your story.

JOIN THE GROWING LIST OF UFTers WHO SUPPORT
A CANDIDATE WHO SUPPORTS US!
We are asking you, as a TJC supporter to add your name to a statement supporting Howie, as several of us have already done.
We urge you to read the statement below, to which several of us have already added our signatures, and to join us. Please reply to this email, so we may add your name to those of us who are ready to support a candidate

Below is the call of the Labor Committee for Howie Hawkins and the initial signers.
Labor Committee for Howie Hawkins for Governor of New York State

We, the undersigned New York State labor union members, support the Green Party campaign for governor by Howie Hawkins.

Environmental, financial and political crises rock the nation. But measures taken in response by those elected to power have made things worse, not better.

Taxpayer bailouts for the Wall Street rich combined with reductions in public programs are not the answer. Endless wars and environmental catastrophe blister on top of job losses. We have suffered
progressively unaffordable costs of living in the face of a real decline in our benefits and wages.

With the state and the nation plainly headed in the wrong direction, we need a strong labor movement more than ever. But where is the voice of working people in the elections?

Labor has no voice when it is ever more difficult to tell the difference between the Democratic and the Republican Parties. A prime example: Andrew Cuomo's proposed austerity policy for New York State.

Andrew Cuomo intends to cap state spending while rejecting higher taxes on the rich. His anti-worker, anti-environment, anti-democratic platform is unacceptable. It echoes the big-banker proposals of his Republican opponents.

Working people must have a voice in the November elections, independent of the Republicans and Democrats. The race for Governor of New York is a good place to start.

Howie Hawkins can help us find our voice. Because he is a rank and file unionist, a member of Teamsters Local 317, Howie Hawkins understands workers' concerns in a way that the professional
politicians never can and never will.

Howie Hawkins' platform includes:

PROGRESSIVE TAXES
Take the Rich Off Welfare!
The Wealthy Must Pay Their Share to Erase the Deficit and Fund Jobs,
Schools, Health Care, Homes, the Environment, and Revenue Sharing with Local Governments

REFORM ALBANY
Replace the Two-Party Corporate State with Multi-Party Democracy
through Proportional Representation, Democratize Legislative Rules,
Strengthen Disclosure Laws for Lobbying and Election Expenditures

FULL EMPLOYMENT
Jobs for All at Living Wages

HEALTH CARE FOR ALL
A Single-Payer, Community-Based Health Service
Howie Hawkins complete platform can be seen at
http://www.howiehawkins.com/2010/index.php/platform.html
It is time for working people to give up choosing between bad and worse.

It is time to find our own independent voice.

It is time to support a genuine working class alternative to the parties of corporate rule.

It is time to support one of our own, a worker who understands our problems and issues and who will fight with us.

It is time to support Howie Hawkins for Governor of New York State.

Please join us in the Labor Committee for Howie Hawkins.

Initial Labor Endorsers of the Hawkins Campaign for Governor
The following members of the UFT and other unions in the American Federation of Teachers have signed this statement:

Stanley Aronowitz Former Exec. Council, Professional Staff Congress, AFT
Michael Pelias Exec. Committee, Long Island University Faculty Federation
Tom Siracuse Member, Social and Economic Justice Committee, UFT
Kristin Schall Member, Professional Staff Congress, AFT
Ron Ehrenreich Member, NYSUT
Stanley R. Scobie UUP/NYSUT, Sgt at Arms, Broome-Tioga Federation of Labor. AFL-CIO
Mark Daigle Member, NYSUT 10-175, Delegate Troy Area Labor Council
Anthony Gronowicz Delegate, Professional Staff Congress, AFT
Katharine Dawson NYC NYSUT, Retired
Tim Wolcott NYSUT, Waverly Central Schools
Kit Wainer, Chapter Leader, UFT
Megan Behrent, Delegate, UFT
Marian Swerdlow, Member, UFT
Rachel Cohn, Chapter Leader, UFT
Alex Zhang, Member, UFT
E. Ezutah, Member, UFT
Jason Agosto, Delegate, UFT
Matt Schley, Chapter Leader, UFT
Jason Norman, Chapter Leader, UFT
Chris Asch, Member, UFT
Don Anderson, Chapter Leader, retired, UFT
Tom Crean, Chapter Leader, UFT
Gloria Brandman, Chapter Leader; Social & Economic Justice Committee Member, UFT
John Yanno, Chapter Leader, UFT
Corrine DeMolli, Member, UFT
Peter Lamphere, Chapter Leader, UFT
Ross Hogan, Chapter Leader, UFT
Dionisio Camacho, Member, UFT
Michael Wotypka, Member, UFT
Marjorie George, Member, UFT
Nick Licari, Retired Chapter Leader, UFT

* Organizations listed for identification purposes only

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Wall St. Journal- Scores Stagnate at High Schools

By STEPHANIE BANCHERO

New data show that fewer than 25% of 2010 graduates who took the ACT college-entrance exam possessed the academic skills necessary to pass entry-level courses, despite modest gains in college-readiness among U.S high-school students in the last few years.
The results raise questions about how well the nation's high schools are preparing students for college, and show the challenge facing the Obama administration in its effort to raise educational standards. The administration won bipartisan support for its education policies early on, but faces a tough fight in the fall over the rewrite and reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind program.

College Prep

View Interactive

Take a look at how prepared the class of 2010 is for college.

While elementary schools have shown progress on national achievement exams, high-school results have stayed perniciously low. Some experts say the lack of rigor in high-school courses is partly to blame.
"High schools are the downfall of American school reform," said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington. "We haven't figured out how to improve them on a broad scope and if our kids aren't dropping out physically, they are dropping out mentally."
President Barack Obama has said the nation's long-term prosperity depends on fixing the nation's high schools and preparing students to compete in a global economy. A recent study found the U.S. ranks only 12th in the percentage of adults aged 25 to 34 who hold college degrees, and Mr. Obama has set a goal of becoming No. 1.
To accomplish its aims, the administration will need to finesse the co-operation of the powerful teacher's unions, Congress, parents and local school officials—groups that aren't always on the same page when it comes to education reform.

Support for the administration's reforms has fractured in recent weeks. The Democratic party is fiercely divided over education policy; the nation's largest teacher's union passed a vote of no-confidence in the education reforms; and civil-rights groups have charged that the administration isn't doing enough to help minority children.
In the recent results, only 24% of the graduating class of 2010 scored high enough on the ACT in math, reading, English and science to ensure they would pass entry-level college courses. This is a slight uptick from last year, when 23% were ready for college, and from 2008, when 22% were ready.
Still, 28% of students didn't score high enough on even one subject-matter exam to ensure college readiness.
The ACT is taken by students in every state but is most popular in the Midwest. About 47% of the 2010 graduating class, 1.6 million students, sat for the exam, which is accepted at most U.S. colleges. The ACT is an achievement test that measures students' mastery of high-school curriculum and the skills they'll need to pass first-year college courses.
The average ACT composite score has actually fallen since 2007, after increasing during the five-year period before that. This year, the average composite was 21.0, compared with 21.1 last year and 21.2 in 2007. The test is scored on a 1-36 point scale.
ACT officials say a more diverse test-taking population partly explains the less-than-stellar results. African-American and Hispanic students made up 24% of the test-taking pool this year, compared with about 19% four years ago. African-American and Hispanic students generally post lower scores than their white and Asian counterparts.

But ACT officials and national experts say a weakened high-school curriculum is also at fault. The testing data show that even when students take a core curriculum—defined as four years of English and three years each of math, science and social studies—they aren't likely to be college-ready.
About 70% of students who sat for the ACT took a core curriculum in high school, but only 29% met college-readiness standards on all four subject exams.
"This is very appalling," said Cynthia Schmeiser, ACT's Education Division president and chief operating officer. "It suggests that the core courses they are taking are not sufficient to prepare them for what they will face in college or the work force."
Despite a decade of high-school reform efforts, including breaking larger high schools into smaller ones and pushing more students into college-prep courses, there is still no solid evidence on how best to boost achievement.
Five years ago, only 54% of ACT test takers said they were enrolled in a core curriculum, compared with 71% this year.
John Harris, director of the National High School Center at the American Institutes for Research, a nonprofit research organization, said high schools, traditionally, were good at preparing a select group of students for college. But as low-skill jobs disappeared in the global economy, more students migrated from shop and home economics to the core curriculum.
"We have a conflict where we are trying to increase the rigor and push kids to learn more, yet we try to do all of this in the same 180 days, 40-50 minute classes we've always had," he said. "High schools are still very traditional institutions."
Susan Traiman, public policy director for the Business Roundtable, called the mismatch between the core curriculum and the test scores "false advertising" by high schools. She also noted that the results spell trouble for businesses.
"From these scores, it is clear we are facing a terrible situation when the economy rebounds," said Ms. Traiman, whose group includes the chief executives from the biggest U.S. companies. "We know that companies will start hiring again and they won't be able to grow without a pool of potential employees who have basic entry-level skills."

www.djreprints.com

Monday, August 16, 2010

Triumph Fades On Racial Gap In City Schools - NY Times

Triumph Fades On Racial Gap In City Schools
By SHARON OTTERMAN and ROBERT GEBELOFF
Published: August 15, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/nyregion/16gap.html

Two years ago, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, testified before Congress about the city’s impressive progress in closing the gulf in performance between minority and white children. The gains were historic, all but unheard of in recent decades.

Enlarge This Image

Susan Walsh/Associated Press

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel I. Klein, right, testified before a House Education and Labor Committee hearing in 2008.

“Over the past six years, we’ve done everything possible to narrow the achievement gap — and we have,” Mr. Bloomberg testified. “In some cases, we’ve reduced it by half.”

“We are closing the shameful achievement gap faster than ever,” the mayor said again in 2009, as city reading scores — now acknowledged as the height of a test score bubble — showed nearly 70 percent of children had met state standards.

When results from the 2010 tests, which state officials said presented a more accurate portrayal of students’ abilities, were released last month, they came as a blow to the legacy of the mayor and the chancellor, as passing rates dropped by more than 25 percentage points on most tests. But the most painful part might well have been the evaporation of one of their signature accomplishments: the closing of the racial achievement gap.

Among the students in the city’s third through eighth grades, 40 percent of black students and 46 percent of Hispanic students met state standards in math, compared with 75 percent of white students and 82 percent of Asian students. In English, 33 percent of black students and 34 percent of Hispanic students are now proficient, compared with 64 percent among whites and Asians.

“The claims were based on some bad information,” said Michael J. Petrilli, a vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a research group that studies education policy. “On achievement, the story in New York City is of some modest progress, but not the miracle that the mayor and the chancellor would like to claim.”

Reducing racial gaps in educational performance has been a national preoccupation for decades. But after substantial progress in the 1970s and ’80s, the effort has largely stalled, except for a brief period from 1999 to 2004, where there were some gains, particularly in reading, according to a report released this month by the Educational Testing Service, which develops standardized tests used across the country.

The achievement gap was also the main thrust of the No Child Left Behind law, which mandated annual testing for all students in grades three through eight and required school systems to track the performance of each racial and ethnic group, with the goal of bringing all children to proficiency by 2014.

New York City’s progress in closing its achievement gap on those tests drew national attention as a possible model for other urban school districts. It won praise from President George W. Bush as evidence that No Child Left Behind was working. In 2007, the city won a prestigious urban education prize from the Broad Foundation, which cited the city’s progress in narrowing the racial achievement gap.

But the latest state math and English tests show that the proficiency gap between minority and white students has returned to about the same level as when the mayor arrived. In 2002, 31 percent of black students were considered proficient in math, for example, while 65 percent of white students met that standard.

Experts have many theories, but no clear answers, about why national progress on closing the gap has slowed. They included worsening economic conditions for poor families and an increase in fatherless black households, social factors that interfere with students’ educational progress.

Mr. Klein said in an interview that he was not discouraged by New York City’s performance on the 2010 state tests, and that he still felt “awfully good” about improvements for black and Hispanic students, noting their rising graduation rates and college enrollments.

“I don’t think we claimed it was a miracle; certainly I don’t believe it was a miracle,” he said. “I think there are sustained steady gains here, and I think that’s important.”

Unbowed, Mr. Klein said the new test results reinforced some of his beliefs and policies: he said he would continue to close low-performing schools, for example, and would keep pushing to pay more to teachers who work in hard-to-staff neighborhoods or subjects, which the teachers’ union has resisted.

The bulk of Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Klein’s effort to overhaul the education system has been focused on the lowest-performing students. The city has closed 91 poorly performing schools, established about 100 charter schools and sent waves of new young teachers and principals into schools in poor neighborhoods.

Mr. Klein began to use test scores to measure schools’ performance, and joined with the Rev. Al Sharpton in forming the Education Equality Project in 2008 to promote good instruction and education reform for minority and poor children. “It is certainly what makes Joel Klein tick,” said Kati Haycock, the president of the Education Trust, which advocates for progress on the issue. “And you can’t say that for everyone.”

The city has even tried to attack the deeper issue of how children are reared at home, by offering some families monetary incentives to go to the dentist for checkups, for example, or to maintain good school attendance. The three-year-old pilot project was ended in March after it showed only modest results.

For several years, data suggested that the city had seen improvements among all ethnic groups, including in graduation rates, which have risen about 14 percentage points for black and Hispanic students since 2005, and a national standardized test given every other year to a sampling of fourth and eighth graders.

Even so, the scores on the national test, considered tougher than the state tests, did not exactly show a mastery of material. Forty-nine percent of white students and 17 percent of black students showed proficiency on the fourth-grade English test in 2009, for example, up from 45 percent of white students and 13 percent of black students in 2003.

The city made no statistically significant progress in closing the racial achievement gap in that time, said Arnold Goldstein, a statistician at the National Center for Education Statistics, which administers the national test. With few exceptions, including Charlotte, N.C., and Washington, D.C., the achievement gap on the national tests has remained constant in all major cities.

But the test scores that the mayor and the chancellor chose to highlight were the state standardized tests, and they built their entire system around it, with schools’ A-through-F grades, teachers’ bonuses and now tenure decisions dependent on how well their students performed on the tests.

By 2009, the passing rates of black students on English exams had narrowed to within 22 percentage points of white students’, and within 17 points on the math exams. And charter schools, which predominantly serve black students, were doing so well that one Stanford University researcher proclaimed that they had practically eliminated the “Harlem-Scarsdale” gap in math.

But skeptics argued that comparing passing rates was flawed because they did not account for whether a student passed by a little or a lot. In New York City, black and Hispanic students were far more likely to pass with scores barely above the minimum requirement, thereby masking the real difference in performance among groups.

The State Education Department recalibrated the scoring of the tests this year, raising the number of correct answers needed to pass and saying that the previous standards were not accurate measures of what students needed to know at each grade level. When that happened, the passing rates of white and Asian students dropped a little, but those of black and Hispanic students plummeted.

Asian students have generally performed better than white students on state math tests in the city, and about the same on English tests. Those gaps have remained fairly consistent over the years.

While the slow improvement of all groups is “still a success story,” Mr. Petrilli said, the achievement gap, which shows how different groups perform relative to one another, still means that most black and Hispanic students will be at a sharp disadvantage when they have to compete against white and Asian peers as they move through schools and into the workplace.

While the gap is not closing, Mr. Klein said he was encouraged that the scores for black and Hispanic students were rising nonetheless.

“Do I wish that we had eliminated the entire achievement gap?” he said. “Sure.”

Jennifer Medina contributed reporting.
A version of this article appeared in print on August 16, 2010, on page A1 of the New York edition.

CPE's Mark Torres' View of the UFT

Sisters and Brothers,

When Michael Mulgrew first became president of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) I, along with many people, gave him the benefit of the doubt. I wanted to hear him and see what he was going to do. In fact, we even spoke on the same panel at the Black and Latino Legislative Caucus in Albany. At that time he sounded very progressive and promoted community involvement in our city’s education system. However, his actions have not been true to his words. Instead of being someone we can count on to defend and improve public education he has instead proven to be more of the same. Continuing a brand of unionism that is focused on accommodating the corporate/political interests that want to dismantle the union while alienating parents, students, the community and most UFT members.

As conditions get worse for UFT members there will be great opposition to Mulgrew’s policies. During this time there will be two types of opposition, one that is pro-labor and the other anti-labor. We must be sure to be on the side of the forces that are pro-labor. As we, the Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública (CPE-CEP), continue our work among members of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) we should always judge our words and actions by our human rights principles. We must ask ourselves ,“Is the work we are doing in the UFT going to increase union democracy and accountability, support working class interests and union solidarity, support the struggles against racism and sexism?”

In effect, our words and actions must strengthen the "House of Labor's" ability to fully attain human rights for its members, and the parents, students and communities that depend on public education. We must be vigilant, self-critical and aware of our words and actions and see if they will buttress the following pillars of our human rights work:

1. Democracy and Accountability
From Albert Shanker to Michael Mulgrew, the UFT has become less and less democratic. At one point in our union's history the district reps were elected by the membership, now they are appointed positions. The current leadership has also engaged in a systematic attack against the voting rights of our members in their change of the voting rules in its efforts to isolate members of the Independent Community of Educators (ICE), Teachers for a Just Contract (TJC) and other opposition caucuses. These types of anti-democratic changes only dis-empower UFT members and allow the leadership to consolidate power. As the leadership institutes more and more anti-democratic policies it creates a barrier between decision-making and the membership.

This barrier is created because the union leadership feels that it allows it to make decisions, which are unpopular with the membership, while insulating itself from scrutiny and accountability. Mulgrew feels that he can make any kind of back room deal without consulting the membership at large, the delegate assembly or even our union's executive committee. As he makes these decisions, with the support of his core group of advisors, he is not only weakening his own position within our union but he is also weakening the overall effectiveness of our union as it is faced with an unprecedented corporate/political assault. This corporate/political assault has already diluted our tenure rights and our rights to due process. It has also been able to establish non-union charter schools that receive public funds but are not accountable to parents, or our communities.

Democracy and accountability must be hallmarks of our work. As we organize amongst union members we must demand that the decision making process include them and that union officers be held accountable through the use mechanisms such as voter recalls, election of borough officers and union referenda. We must work to give control of our union to the membership.

2. Working Class Interests and Union Solidarity
There are many unions in New York City that do not trust the leadership of the UFT. The reasons for this distrust were apparent when Randi Weingarten, former UFT president, did not support the Transit Workers Union in their strike. In order to support the transit strike the UFT did not have to violate the Taylor Law and go on strike, but it could have raised money and raised issues of fair pay and benefits for working people. It could have also raised questions about the legitimacy of the MTA and its pro-business, anti-union maneuvers.

Also, not only does the UFT leadership consistently makes deals with Bloomberg/Klein without consulting its own membership but it makes these deals to the detriment of DC-37, parents, students and our communities. There is no consistent class analysis coming from our leadership that would move us in a direction to strengthen the power of unions and its members. Mulgrew fears raising consciousness because it would jeopardize his position in the union. We need to discuss and debate the class interests of our members and show how labor solidarity will only strengthen our union and the power of working people in this city.

3. The Anti-Racist Struggle
The leadership of the UFT has been one of the greatest obstacles to community and parent control of our schools. Since the time of Shanker the leadership of the UFT has actively supported racist, anti-parent and anti-community policies. In 1969 Shanker used anti-semitism to cement his control over the UFT and to dis-empower the primarily Black and Latino parents and communities that were trying to exert their human right to control public schools. Despite all of the corporate/political attacks launched by Bloomberg/Klein, Mulgrew continues to support mayoral control over our schools and continues to insist that the UFT is not against the creation of charter schools. In fact, the UFT continues to manage two charter schools in Brooklyn.

Moreover, the UFT leadership has been complicit and has done nothing to halt the disappearance of Black and Latino educators. The racist hiring practices that keep the teaching profession predominantly white, and increasingly transient, are in effect because the union is a collaborator in this process.

In the area of curriculum development, the leadership has been complicit in allowing students to be subjected to lies and to materials that are irrelevant in their lives. The current leadership does not take responsibility for its acceptance of this racist educational process that unfairly tracks students so that a substantial failure rate is assured. There is no outcry or move against this "school to prison pipeline."

4. The Anti-Sexist Struggle
Another area in which the union is silent and complicit is the struggle against sexism. The UFT is predominantly composed of women yet the interests of working women are never at the forefront of any union campaign. Our union should address issues dealing with childcare, maternity leave, sexual harassment and support for working class (employed and unemployed) mothers. This is an area in which there are natural links to the parents of public school children because it is primarily mothers and grandmothers who attend parent association, parent-teacher and school district meetings. It is also primarily working class mothers who are the officers of the different school based parent associations.

Although, the UFT has had two women as presidents of the union, there has not been any consistent effort to address the specific needs and to promote the interests of working class women. Also, the weakening of the teaching profession, especially in the earlier grades, has had a disproportionately negative effect on working women in this city and yet no one raises this issue.

In closing, my challenge to CPE-CEP members is to come up with an organizing plan that will strengthen human rights in the UFT and strengthen the "House of Labor." If we act against human rights and weaken the "House of Labor" then we are only helping the corporate/political assault which is directed against all of us.

Your brother in struggle,

Mark A. Torres
Co-chair, Coalition for Public Education/Coalicion por la Educacion Publica

"No one can serve two masters. Either he/she will hate the one and love the other,or he/she will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."
Matthew 6:24

On education policy, Obama is like Bush

OMG -- a new hero -- Dana MILBANK? Who'd have expected that? I'm a fan now...!

On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 8:14 AM, Leonie Haimson <leonie@att.net> wrote:

“But if Duncan really wants to stop the biggest bully in America's schools right now, he'll have to confront his boss, President Obama. In federal education policy, the president and his education secretary have been the neighborhood toughs -- bullying teachers, civil rights groups, even Obama's revered community organizers… If anything, Obama has taken the worst aspect of Bush's No Child Left Behind education law -- an obsession with testing -- and amplified it.

Finally, someone from the MSM talking sense. But will it stick?

On education policy, Obama is like Bush

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/13/AR2010081303197_pf.html

By Dana Milbank
Sunday, August 15, 2010; A09
The Education Department kicked off its first ever "Bullying Summit" this week with a speech by Secretary Arne Duncan about the need "to break the cycle of bullying."
But if Duncan really wants to stop the biggest bully in America's schools right now, he'll have to confront his boss, President Obama. In federal education policy, the president and his education secretary have been the neighborhood toughs -- bullying teachers, civil rights groups, even Obama's revered community organizers.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, in now-famous remarks, said that those who claim Obama is like George W. Bush should be "drug tested." In general, I have sympathy for Gibbs's frustration --liberals have an annoying tendency to eat their own -- and I often think Obama should be more forceful. But in education, the Bush-Obama comparison is spot on. If anything, Obama has taken the worst aspect of Bush's No Child Left Behind education law -- an obsession with testing -- and amplified it.
Obama has expanded the importance of standardized testing to determine how much teachers will be paid, which educators will be fired and which schools will be closed -- despite evidence that such practices are harmful. In the process, he's offended just about all the liberals involved in or advocating for education without gaining much support from conservatives.
Stunned, Obama's erstwhile allies have begun to push back. On July 26, a coalition of civil rights groups, including the NAACP and the National Urban League, called for an end to "federally prescribed methodologies that have little or no evidentiary support" and that use minority communities as "testing grounds."
The next day, the American Federation of Teachers issued a statement saying the administration was encouraging "bad teacher evaluation systems." And the day after that, a coalition of community organizing groups scolded the administration for continuing "rigid, top-down solutions that are not supported by research."
Privately, Obama's one-time friends are far more caustic. They talk of an "elitist" and "arrogant" administration embracing an education policy produced by the Center for American Progress with too little regard for what happens in practice.
Obama's response to his supporters: Buzz off. On July 29, he gave a speech to the Urban League and said his critics are "comfortable with the status quo" and have "a general resistance to change."
But it's not just ossified interest groups that oppose the testing. When winners of the state Teachers of the Year came to town this spring, Valerie Strauss, author of The Post's Answer Sheet blog, asked several of them for their thoughts on education policy. All complained about using test scores to rate teachers.
There's nothing wrong with testing, but when you use tests to determine pay and job security, you inevitably induce teachers to turn children into test-taking automatons, not the creative thinkers that have been the most valuable product of American schools. Test obsession won't help the bad schools, and it will wreck the good ones.
"The curriculum will be narrowed even more than under George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind," New York University education professor Diane Ravitch, an education official in George H.W. Bush's administration, wrote of Obama's education policy in a piece for the Huffington Post. "There will be even less time available for the arts, science, history, civics, foreign language, even physical education. Teachers will teach to the test. There will be more cheating, more gaming the system." The tests, she said, are "simply not adequate" to separate good teachers and schools from bad.
Consider the reliability of standardized tests in New York. In New York City schools, 82 percent of students were at grade level in math last year; this year, only 54 percent are at grade level, after administrators revised their artificially low standards for proficiency.
Daniel Koretz, a Harvard professor and authority on testing, has concluded that high-stakes testing causes "substantial distortions of practice" in the classroom "and inflation of test scores." In an article published this summer, he writes: "The seriousness of this problem is hard to overstate. When scores are inflated, many of the most important conclusions people base on them will be wrong, and students -- and sometimes teachers -- will suffer as a result."
But try telling all this to the Obama administration. "There's an attitude that if you aren't with us, you are against us -- and therefore against children and reform," a Democratic friend of mine who runs an education advocacy group in Washington told me. The administration, she said, "tries to bully and condemn any opposition, even if it is from groups that should be their allies."
If Obama's interested, she's available to speak at the next bullying summit.
danamilbank@washpost.com

Rethinking Schools EDITORIAL • What’s Up with All the Teacher Bashing?

edit244.shtml

Summer 2010

Illustration: Randall Enos

By the Editors of Rethinking Schools

It’s hard not to take it personally: A few months ago, the cover of Newsweek consisted of 11 sentences in chalk on a blackboard. They all said the same thing: “We must fire bad teachers.” Big yellow text in the center called it “The Key to Saving American Education.”
Teachers have always been devalued in the United States, but in the past months the pace and intensity of the attacks have escalated sharply. Spurred by the June 2 deadline for the second round of Race to the Top, states have raced to fire more teachers, tie pay and evaluation to student test scores, close or reconstitute more schools, and disempower teachers’ unions and teaching as a profession—trampling teachers, students, and communities in the process.
What lies behind this unprecedented assault on teachers? And, even more important, what can we do about it? We believe that these attacks are part of an effort to dismantle public education and that we need an effective, collaborative strategy to combat it.
But let’s start with what isn’t going on. In virtually the same words used to sell No Child Left Behind in the early years of Bush II, the attacks on teachers are phrased in terms of “closing the achievement gap.” In fact, the first paragraph of Newsweek’s “Why We Can’t Get Rid of Failing Teachers” story concludes: “Within the United States, the achievement gap between white students and poor and minority students stubbornly persists—and as the population of disadvantaged students grows, overall scores continue to sag.” It would be nice if Newsweek were suddenly worried about how race and class affect student success. But these diatribes against teachers are not based in a commitment to equity.
No, if closing the achievement gap were the goal, we would see demands for adequate, equitable resources and funding for every student in every school—demands, for example, for quality early childhood education programs, full-time librarians, robust arts and physical education programs, mandated caps on class size, and enough time for teachers to prepare and collaborate. We would also see a renewed commitment to affirmative action in university admissions; a drive to recruit and nurture teachers of color; a commitment to ensure that students come to school ready to learn because their families have housing, food, medical care, and jobs; and an end to zero tolerance discipline policies that criminalize youth.
But if these attacks on teachers aren’t about ending the systemic racism that continues to undermine our education system, what is the goal? With forces as seemingly disparate as the Obama administration, the Walton Foundation, the late Milton Friedman, and the New York Times all pushing the same ideas, this is a complicated question, but there are at least two major goals: destroy the power of the teachers’ unions, and turn the public school system from a public trust into a new market for corporate development. From the time of Reagan, who used his “welfare queen” stories to scapegoat the poor as a basis on which to destroy the welfare system, this has been a tried-and-true approach to privatization: use visceral anecdotes to whip up hysteria that a system is “broken,” argue that only market competition can fix the situation, and then sell off pieces of the public sector to private corporations. This time, teachers are the scapegoats.
So it’s no accident that a major thrust of the media and political campaign has been the elimination of teacher tenure, which is blamed for making it hard to fire “bad” teachers. Everyone—as student, parent, or colleague—has felt the impact of teachers who should not be in the classroom. But don't blame tenure. Tenure is not a guaranteed job for life; it’s the right, which all employees deserve, not to be fired without due process and without just cause. If the goal were really better teaching, Race to the Top would be promoting union/district peer review and mentoring programs that are effective in helping struggling teachers and removing those who can’t make the grade. Instead, President Obama and Secretary of Education Duncan have made linking retention and salaries to test scores a precondition for Race to the Top funds, and encouraged states to break the power of teachers’ unions.
The attacks on tenure are, in fact, essentially attacks on the teachers’ unions. Despite their problems, teachers’ unions are one of the few remaining bulwarks of organized labor. They are the only protection for teachers’ rights and, at their best, facilitate teachers joining forces with parents and students to fight for equitable, forward-thinking schools that meet the needs of communities and the future.
Teacher tenure—at both the K-12 and university level—is enormously important, not just to individual teachers, but also to society as a whole. Tenure is protection against shortsighted or vindictive administrators. Tenure is what enables teachers to collaborate with each other instead of competing, to speak up for the rights of students, and to fight for justice in the classroom, the school community, and the larger community that the school serves.
“Bad teachers” are being used as the excuse to turn schools into one more arena for corporate development. First Hurricane Katrina provided the context in New Orleans for firing all unionized teachers and replacing most of the public education system with market-driven charter schools. Now this phony “crisis of bad teachers,” piled atop the economic crisis, is supposedly the reason to dismantle much of the country’s commitment to public education. Just in the past few months, both Obama and Duncan publicly applauded the firing of every teacher at a Rhode Island high school; Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb announced plans to close another 44 schools in that city and replace them with non-union private and semiprivate charters; and the Florida legislature voted to eliminate teacher tenure entirely and revoke credentials based on standardized test scores.
Teachers, teachers’ unions, and public education itself are under serious threat. It’s vital that we build alliances with everyone who stands to lose from these assaults on public education.
And obviously teachers aren’t the only ones under attack. The most vulnerable to the impact of privatization are students, whose education has become progressively more circumscribed and rigid. Increased reliance on exit exams and zero tolerance discipline policies have led to increasing rates of suspension, expulsion, and dropouts.
Also under attack are parents and communities. African American, Latino, and immigrant communities have always been distinguished by their commitment to education as central to the democratic process and to the success of their children. When mayoral or gubernatorial control of schools eliminates local school boards, parents and community members lose their ability to hold schools accountable.
Teachers can defend themselves from this hailstorm of criticism only if they make common cause with everyone who has a stake in defending—and transforming—public schools. In this struggle, teachers and parents need each other. But building successful coalitions and strategies takes hard work. Many parents, particularly parents of color, are angry and frustrated by long-term dysfunctions in schools that make it difficult for their children to learn and succeed. Anything that brings more accountability—from standardized tests to mayoral control—can seem better than the status quo. Teachers too often see the families and communities from which their students come as obstacles to overcome. But successful teaching and successful organizing are based on recognizing the strengths inherent in families and communities.
The survival of public education depends on our ability to grasp these larger truths. For all their faults, public schools are at the center of building democracy, community by community, from the ground up. It’s going to take all of us working together to save them and turn them into institutions that promote democracy and empower youth—all our youth.
When parents, students, and teachers have worked together, we have been able to protect our schools and begin to transform them. Deluged with “Stop this bill” messages, demonstrations, and walkouts, Florida’s Republican governor vetoed the anti-teacher, anti-education bill passed by the Florida legislature. Student-led community demonstrations for immigrant rights, the successful campaign to fend off mayoral control in Milwaukee, and the grassroots efforts to save teacher jobs and control the charter process in Los Angeles are other recent examples. If there were ever a time to overcome divisions and fight together for strong, equitable schools, this is it.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Wall Street Journal Biased Story on Girls Prep

Klein Loses On a Charter

Chancellor's Powers Appear Weakened

By BARBARA MARTINEZ

Under political pressure, Chancellor Joel Klein has backed off his vow to allow a charter school to expand inside a public school on the Lower East Side, another indication that the chancellor's powers were weakened when the mayoral-control law was renewed last year.
Mr. Klein's retreat means that the 125 fifth- and sixth-graders at Girls Prep Middle School won't start classes on Monday in the P.S. 188 building as planned. Instead, teachers have stopped setting up classrooms and the school's staff and board members—among them Wall Street investors—are scrambling to find private space for the girls.

View Full Image

Bryan Derballa for The Wall Street Journal

Deliverymen drop off textbooks to Girls Prep, which must move.

Mr. Klein's strategy of promoting the proliferation of charter schools by giving them space inside current school buildings has inspired vocal opposition from politicians and communities. In renewing Mayor Michael Bloomberg's control over the schools last year, the state Legislature increased the requirements of the city's Department of Education to provide specific information to community members about the effects on students when the DOE alters space usage inside schools.

This spring, the courts killed the mayor's plans to close 19 failing schools, saying the agency didn't provide sufficient data about the impact the closures would have on students and the community. The DOE has vowed to try again next year.

In the case of Girls Prep, advocates for special-education students from P.S. 94 who are taught in the building—which also houses P.S. 188—filed a complaint regarding the DOE's plans to let the charter school grow, alleging that the department failed to adequately explain the effects on the P.S. 94 students, most of whom are autistic. The DOE noted that not a single special-education student would be moved under its plan, and that the building had more than adequate space to accommodate all students.

The state's education commissioner two weeks ago sided with the special-education advocacy group that filed the case on behalf of parents, Advocates for Children. In his ruling, the commissioner seemed to invite the chancellor to move forward anyway: "Nothing herein shall be construed as preventing the chancellor from determining that the DOE's proposal is immediately necessary for the preservation of student health, safety or general welfare, and from invoking the emergency provisions" afforded by the law.

When the chancellor suggested last week that he would use those very powers so that Girls Prep could expand to the sixth grade, as planned, elected officials voiced opposition. In the past few days, Mr. Klein has backed off, "given the threats of litigation and continuing uncertainty," he said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for the DOE, Natalie Ravitz, said Friday that the department still hasn't ruled out the use of the "emergency" declaration. "We still believe that PS 188 is an appropriate option as they have adequate space available and it would not result in a single special-education student being moved," she said in a statement. "But if we can identify alternative space for one year—whether private or public—we feel it would be the best outcome for all involved."

Rebecca Shore, director of litigation at Advocates for Children, said the chancellor's retreat "is a positive step" and that she has "complete sympathy for the students at Girls Prep." But she stressed that her group "did not create this situation. This is something that the DOE did on its own by failing to follow the law." She said that parents of special-education students in the building and parents of those whose children may have attended school in the building still don't know where their children will be placed.

Teachers at Girls Prep have been working since July to prepare for the girls, who attend school between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. and sometimes Saturdays. Intensive tutoring and home visits by teachers are part of the culture of the college-prep school, said the principal, Kim Morcate. The girls are mainly black, Hispanic and poor. Some live in homeless shelters; many live in public housing near the school.

It is one of the best performing charter schools in the city, and its performance tops neighborhood competitors that have similar populations. At P.S. 188, fifth-graders this year were 36% proficient in English. Girls Prep's fifth-graders were 64% proficient. At Girls Prep, 92% of the fifth-grade girls were proficient in math, compared with 38.5% for P.S. 188, in the same building.

On Friday evening, the principal faced the girls' parents to tell them that school won't start on Monday. "It's painful, honestly," Ms. Morcate said. "Our parents have been through a lot." But she said she is confident that the staff and the teachers could make up for the delay in the school's opening. "We are a school that is providing an excellent education for our girls," she said.

Write to Barbara Martinez at Barbara.Martinez@wsj.com

Klein Reverses Course on Girls Prep and Emergency Powers

School Space Emergency? Not for Now
By JENNIFER MEDINA

Last week, Education Department officials announced that Chancellor Joel I. Klein intended to invoke his little-known emergency powers to place Girls Preparatory Charter School inside Public School 188 on the Lower East Side, disregarding a ruling from the state's education commissioner.

But a spokeswoman for Mr. Klein said Friday that the city was reversing course and would search for another space for the charter school, pushing back the first day of school for the 125 Girls Prep students by as much as a month.

The chancellor's decision to use emergency powers provoked outrage from many parents and elected officials, including State Senator Daniel Squadron, who has been a reliable supporter of Mr. Klein's.

But education officials repeatedly defended the decision, saying that an official declaration would be written in several days. They said that none of the students enrolled in a special-education program, Public School 94, that also shares the space would have to attend classes in a different building.

But for now at least, officials are putting their call for an emergency on hold.

"After consulting with Girls Prep, P.S. 94, local elected officials, parents and advocates, we feel it is incumbent upon the department to exhaust all other options before issuing an emergency declaration," Natalie Ravitz, a spokeswoman for the chancellor, said in a statement. "We still believe that P.S. 188 is an appropriate option as they have adequate space available and it would not result in a single special-education student being moved. But if we can identify alternative space for one year — whether private or public — we feel it would be the best outcome for all involved. So it is our hope that we will have this matter resolved for these students as soon as possible."

The battle over space for Girls Prep has gone on for almost a year. Officials from the school say they hope to find space within the next several weeks, ideally at another location on the Lower East Side. (Perhaps the recently vacated Catholic middle school is a good fit?)

"The threat by Advocates for Children to challenge an emergency declaration has created an unacceptable level of uncertainty for us, so we are being forced to find another option," said Cristina Garcia-Coleman, the acting executive director of Public Preparatory Network, which oversees the charter school. "We have already identified several potential locations."

The emergency power provision stems from the 2009 law that renewed the mayor's control over city schools.

Sheldon Silver, the Democratic leader of the State Assembly, last week called Mr. Klein's decision "blatant abuse" of the law. His vociferous reaction prompted some to worry privately that he would try to reopen the legislation over mayoral control.

Mr. Klein chimed in with his own statement this afternoon, apparently making clear that he was not quite backing down:

"Given the threats of litigation and continuing uncertainty, we are working with the Board of Girls Prep to find a stable solution for these young women. At the same time, we remain prepared to exercise our emergency powers should that become necessary."

Chicago TU: House of Delegates Votes “No” to Concessions

Delegates Show their Strength through Unity at Emergency Meeting

CTU Website

August 12, 2010

The House of Delegates, the supreme decision-making body of the Chicago Teachers Union, convened an emergency meeting last night to vote to accept or reject concessions proposed by the Chicago Board of Education. The Union's Executive Board presented three options; two proposed by the Board of Education that would require contract concessions, and one recommended by the Executive Board that would reject all concessions. The House of Delegates voted unanimously to reject concessions from the Board of Education and broke into thunderous applause.
“I don’t care if I lose my job, do not give in to those people.” President Lewis relayed this message from a CTU activist who was unable to attend the meeting because she is working as a volunteer Union organizer this summer. President Lewis read over a list of concessions the Board proposed included demands like: give up the contractually-obligated raises, unpaid breaks, and no pay increases for gaining additional years of experience of education.
President Lewis explained how the Education Jobs Bill, which was just signed into law, will bring approximately $138 million into the CPS. During budget talks, the Board claimed that $100 million could save 1,000 positions. She said that Huberman can stop holding job fairs and can start calling back teachers who were terminated.
Many members were wondering how the new CTU leadership was going to handle the concessions proposed by the Board. CTU leadership organized this emergency meeting to make sure that elected representatives of the membership, the delegates, made the decision.

President Lewis will bring the message to the Board. “The House of Delegates is my boss, I’m just the messenger,” she explained.
“I feel energized, this meeting was down-to-business and ended in a unanimous vote,” explained McAuliffe delegate Scott McNulty, “We didn’t just say ‘aye,’ we shouted our vote!”
The next House of Delegates meeting is scheduled for September 15th at International Union of Operating Engineers, located at 2260 South Grove Street, Chicago. All members are encouraged to attend. To prove membership, members should bring their Union card or a paycheck stub indicating dues paid.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Nathan A. Saunders: WTU election of officers to be held immediately

Nathan A. Saunders

Candidate for President

Washington Teachers’ Union

P.O. Box 54122 Washington, DC 20032

(o) 202.563.2144

email: votesaunders2010@gmail.com web: www.votesaunders2010.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, August 6, 2010

WTU election of officers to be held immediately

VOTING Begins This September.

WTU General Vice President Nathan A. Saunders’ efforts help halt disenfranchisement of hundreds of teachers and the WTU Executive Board’s illegal, disciplinary actions.

CONTACT: Nathan Saunders, (202) 213-7081;

Jay P. Holland, Brian J. Markovitz, 301-220-2200

On August 4, 2010, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) issued a favorable ruling for WTU teachers on the status of the WTU election. AFT exercised its right, as the national union, to hear and decide the issues in lieu of additional litigation from General Vice President Nathan A. Saunders who is currently running for WTU President.

AFT determined:

1. An immediate and firm election schedule with voting starting on September 18, 2010 and culminating with the counting of ballots on October 4, 2010;

2. All WTU members in good standing as of June 2010 will be eligible to vote;

3. That credible evidence existed that Saunders’ was illegally disciplined by the Executive Board and restored Saunders’ salary and benefits and his right to continue as the General Vice President during the pendency of the election, and

4. The AFT Executive Council will maintain jurisdiction over the election process, thereby ensuring conformity with their official ruling.

Saunders said, “I am very pleased with the result. The restoration of my salary obviously lifted a great economic burden off my family’s shoulders. But more importantly, any further delay in the election could have disenfranchised hundreds of eligible teachers from voting. Fortunately, that did not come

to pass with AFT’s decision to properly constitute the electorate. This is huge for the democratic process and the legitimacy of the election.”

Saunders was represented by Jay P. Holland, Esq. and Brian J. Markovitz, Esq. of Joseph, Greenwald and Laake, LLC . Mr. Holland noted, “The teachers are the biggest winners in this result because they will have an immediate election. I want to personally thank AFT President Randi Weingarten for her efforts, which were instrumental in curtailing any further delay.” Mr. Markovitz said, “AFT clearly recognized the political nature of the disciplinary action against Mr. Saunders. Fortunately, the ruling thwarted the sitting WTU President’s attempt to bolster his reelection chances by rendering ineligible those teachers who exited the system recently, including those let go this July.”

Elections Committee Chairperson Claudette Carson, a co-plaintiff represented by Michael J. Gan, Esq. and Mark Gisler, Esq. of Peer, Gan & Gisler LLP, was invaluable in advocating that teachers employed by DCPS through June 2010 would maintain their right to vote. “I am very excited about the upcoming election and look forward to a healthy exchange of ideas with President [George] Parker during the election process. I want teachers to know that I can fight for their jobs just like I fought for my own,” Mr. Saunders said.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Lesson Plan in Boston Schools: Don’t Go It Alone

August 8, 2010
Lesson Plan in Boston Schools: Don’t Go It Alone
By MIKE WINERIP
BOSTON

Earlier this year Massachusetts enacted a law that allowed districts to remove at least half the teachers and the principal at their lowest-performing schools. The school turnaround legislation aligned the state with the Obama administration’s Race to the Top program incentives and a chance to collect a piece of the $3.4 billion in federal grant money.

From Washington this makes abundant good sense, a way to galvanize rapid and substantial change in schools for children who need it most.

In practice, on the ground, it is messy for the people most necessary for turning a school around — the teachers — and not always fair.

Often the decisions about which teachers will stay and which will go are made by new principals who may be very good, but don’t know the old staff. “We had several good teachers asked to leave,” said Heather Gorman, a fourth-grade teacher who will be staying at Blackstone Elementary here, where 38 of 50 teachers were removed. “Including my sister who’s been a special-ed teacher 22 years.”

And while tenured teachers who were removed all eventually found positions at other Boston schools, it’s unsettling. “Very upsetting,” said Ms. Gorman. “A lot of nervousness for teachers.”

Blackstone’s new principal, Stephen Zrike, who made the decisions, agrees. “I’d say definitely good teachers were let go,” Mr. Zrike said, explaining that a lot of his decisions were driven by particular skills he wanted for teams he was assembling. “I wouldn’t doubt a lot will be excellent in other places.”

And how much to blame are teachers for the abysmal test scores at Orchard Gardens, a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade turnaround school here, that’s had six principals since opening seven years ago?

The goal of the turnaround legislation is to get the best teachers into the schools with the neediest children, but often, experienced teachers get worn down by waves and waves of change and are reluctant to try again.

“You fear being pulled by the latest whim,” said Ana Vaisenstein, who has taught in Boston for 12 years.

“Sometimes in education, there are so many changes being made at once, the important things get lost,” said Courtney Johnson, a five-year veteran.

Asked about applying to one of the city’s 12 turnaround schools, Lisa Goncalves, a first-grade teacher with seven years’ experience, said, “I’d be hesitant to go alone.”

And that is the simple idea behind a new program that is being used to staff three of the turnaround schools in Boston: you don’t go alone. Rather than have the principal fill the slots one by one, the Boston schools have enlisted the help of a nonprofit organization, Teach Plus, to assemble teams of experienced teachers who will make up a quarter of the staff of each turnaround school come fall.

“It’s like jump-starting a culture at these schools,” said Carol R. Johnson, Boston superintendent of schools. “In turnaround schools, you often wind up with a high portion of first- and second-year teachers, so you need some experience, a team of teachers who are enthusiastic and idealistic.”

Said Celine Coggins, the chief executive of Teach Plus, which developed the idea and is financed by the Gates Foundation: “I think teachers want to know they’re not going into a school alone as a hero.”

The teams will spend two weeks working together this summer. While teaching a full load, they will serve as team leaders for their grades and specialty areas like English immersion. They will work 210 days versus the normal 185 and get paid $6,000 extra a year.

On average they have eight years’ experience.

There were 142 applicants — from as far as Arizona, Florida and Nevada — for the 36 positions. Everyone offered a job took it. Sixty-eight percent came from Boston public schools, 18 percent from charter schools.

Their credentials are impressive. Ms. Vaisenstein, who will teach English immersion at Blackstone, has been in education 33 years, speaks Spanish and French, understands Portuguese and directed a Head Start program in Boston for five years. Lillian Pinet, an 18-year veteran, is fluent in Spanish and Amharic, an Ethiopian language, and teaches an education course at Boston College. Sylvia Yamamoto, who will teach third grade, is a 20-year veteran who taught English to foreign students at Harvard for years.

Mr. Zrike, the principal at Blackstone, said Teach Plus had provided such a strong core of teachers to anchor the school that it helped him recruit other experienced teachers. And it has allowed him to take a chance on three new teachers he can pair with the Teach Plus veterans.

The teachers had their reasons for wanting to come to the most challenging schools (at Orchard Gardens, 9 percent of fifth graders scored proficient in reading and math). Tulani Husband-Verbeek, a reading specialist with seven years’ experience, said she became disillusioned after teaching at a high-achieving charter school. “They bragged all their graduates went to college, but they started with 120 freshmen and graduate 25,” she said. The Teach Plus team approach, she said, “strikes me as a sincere effort to turn around the public schools.”

Ms. Pinet, who will be teaching at Orchard Gardens, where more than half the students are Hispanic or nonnative English speakers, came to Boston from Puerto Rico when she was 6, not knowing English. “I can remember being very nervous in reading group,” she said. “And my teacher saying take your time, Lillian, you can do it. I felt respected.” Ms. Pinet said she wanted to return the favor.

The idea for inserting teams of experienced teachers came from teachers. In 2007, Teach Plus created a group of 15 teaching fellows, searching for ideas for turning around schools. The second most important thing they mentioned was a strong principal; the first, a team of effective teachers.

“We thought like teachers,” said Melanie Allen, a fellow, who’s a nine-year veteran of Boston schools. “We wanted to be surrounded with a group of equally collaborative and dedicated teachers with open doors. We wanted to create a tipping point that would inspire the school culture.”

The original vision was that the teams would be dropped into struggling schools where it’s not unusual to have 25 percent turnover in a normal year. (At Orchard Gardens, with its six principals in seven years, normal turnover was 45 percent.)

Ms. Allen, who is the union representative at her school, didn’t expect that the plan would be used in a way that would hurt the union. “The way we wrote the plan is different from the implementation,” she said

While the Boston union supports the team approach, it was dead set against the Race to the Top legislation, which allowed districts to empty out half the turnaround schools and make teachers reapply for their jobs. But it lost that battle with the Democratic-controlled legislature and Democratic governor, its traditional allies — a sign of how much has changed, so fast.

“Steamrolled?” asked Richard Stutman, who leads the Boston Teachers Union. “There isn’t a union teacher in this country who doesn’t feel steamrolled. Yes, we feel steamrolled.”

When the Teach Plus teachers were asked about their union, they had mixed feelings.

“I feel it should be more proactive,” Ms. Vaisenstein said.

“I don’t like seeing it obstructionist and kvetching,” said Ms. Allen, the building union representative.

Ben Rockoff, a math teacher going to Orchard Gardens, felt that the union spent too much time defending the weakest members.

And yet, with all the upheaval in education, Ms. Vaisenstein said, “I definitely feel I need the union.”

Ms. Gorman said, “It’s important that it’ll help support me.” And Mr. Rockoff said, “I want the union defending me to the utmost.”

oneducation@nytimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/09/education/09winerip.html?sq=winerip&st=Search&scp=2&pagewanted=print

Monday, August 09, 2010

1968 community control teacher strike

1968 community control teacher strike
Thursday, August 19, 2010 - 6:30pm
Museum of the City of New York, Fifth Avenue at 103rd St.; #6 train to 103 St. (at Lex); #2, 3 to Central Park North/110th St. (at Malcolm X/Lenox);
DIRECTIONS: http://bit.ly/aKMPCX ; BUS MAP: http://bit.ly/bLa6P5
TIX: http://bit.ly/9YIUHf
INFO: http://bit.ly/bd3xLD 917.492.3395 http://www.mcny.org [3]

The Strike That Changed New York: A discussion by Clarence Taylor, Jerald Podair and Reverend Herbert Oliver of the crisis and aftermath of the strike.
Thursday, August 19 at 6:30 PM

PURCHASE TICKETS
http://www.mcny.org/public-programs/all/Strike-that-Changed-New-York.html [4]

The Strike That Changed New York: Ocean Hill-Brownsville, the Politics of Education, & Race Relations in New York City

In the fall of 1968, the United Federation of Teachers went on strike to protest the experiment in community controlled schools then underway in the city and centered in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville district. Schools were closed for months and the politics of race in New York were permanently and profoundly restructured. Clarence Taylor, professor and author of Knocking At Our Own Door: Milton A. Galamison and the Struggle to Integrate New York City Schools, and Jerald Podair, professor and author of The Strike That Changed New York: Blacks, Whites, and the Ocean Hill-Brownsville Crisis, will discuss the crisis and its aftermath with the Reverend Herbert Oliver, Chairman of the Ocean Hill-Brownsville local school board, and other participants from both sides of the struggle. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition America’s Mayor: John V. Lindsay and the Reinvention of New York. $

RESERVATIONS REQUIRED
$12 Non-Members
$8 Seniors and Students
$6 Museum Members

*A two dollar surcharge applies for unreserved, walk-in participants.
For more information please call 917.492.3395.

PURCHASE TICKETS

Norm's Notes