This teacher describes a series of moves in Philadelphia to save money by hiring uncertified nurses and replacing experienced teachers with TFA. Superintendent Hite is a Broad Academy graduate.
She writes:
“It is a discouraging day for Philadelphia teachers. The school district has been scrambling/fighting to find $50 million to call back laid off employees in order to open schools.
“The mayor finally announced he would borrow the money, so we can now open schools on time. Then, the superintendent announced an “emergency” SRC (School Reform Commission- whose members are appointed by the state and mayor) meeting.
“This was a slick move on their part because it happened so fast to catch the union members off guard. Superintendent Hite asked them to temporarily suspend parts of the state school code to eliminate seniority, stop pay increases and hire uncertified nurses.
“This is a problem because they want to get rid of older, more experienced teachers to bring in cheaper Teach For America teachers, to be able to get rid of teachers easier, start paying teachers based on student test scores and bring in nurses to work in the schools who are not certified.
“I don’t buy their claim that this is “temporary.” I just don’t see them changing it back in the future, if this is the new national reform agenda.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s another shock doctrine tactic. Declare an emergency, enact rapid change, leave people staggering and try to evaluate whether the solutions are working while they force through more changes when the disruptive first wave of changes makes things worse.
It is absolutely horrible and disgusting what they are doing to our students and to us (teachers). They violated key pieces of our current contract, which expires very soon. We will now go to a need base system for hiring. Why should one school get a counselor and another school go without? Also, we have a few schools under investigation for cheating. Can you imagine what will happen now? Hite only cares about pushing the Broad agenda and scoring points with our pro privatization and charter governor.
This is in my special education letter today: These parents have always been told “your kid is dumb” “Your kid will never learn to read.” quote: Thousands Caught In Special Education Testing Snafu
By MICHELLE DIAMENT
August 16, 2013
A leading education firm is acknowledging that it messed up when evaluating alternative assessments for thousands of students with disabilities.
Pearson said this week that there were errors affecting more than 4,400 students who were part of the Virginia Alternate Assessment Program, which offers alternative assessments for students with significant cognitive disabilities, the company said.
Unlike traditional testing, the alternative assessments are designed to measure student progress by evaluating a portfolio of work completed over the course of the year.
While the students’ tests were scored accurately, the company said there were mistakes made in converting the scores to reflect a level of achievement: pass/proficient, pass/advanced or fail.
“We sincerely apologize to the students, parents, schools and school divisions as well as to our colleagues at the Virginia Department of Education,” Pearson said in a statement. “We understand the importance of accurate reporting and know that the school divisions are now working very hard to make internal adjustments to their scores before reporting them to parents and the state.”
However, the error was not caught before some parents were provided incorrect results, The Washington Post reports. Many parents were told this summer that their children passed the test when they actually had not.
A spokesman for the state Department of Education told the newspaper that the situation is “truly regrettable.”
I called the VA Governors office and they transfer the call to the Secretary of Ed and it goes to voice mail; I told them I was sick to my stomach.
another article today at The Nation
quote: “Paying It Forward, One State at a Time”\
Thanks to Diane for posting the information about Fort Worth IN. More districts have to come up with the courage to tell the SEA we won’t use the test data you have supplied to us.
Yes, TFA is the new infected bandaid to be placed on the open sores of Philadelphia public schools. What a horrible thing it is to replace real teachers with TFA participants. It’s as though real teachers have been tossed in the trash:
http://thetruthoneducationreform.blogspot.com/2013/08/tfa-replaces-real-teachers.html
Once you have this image up, you’ll want to click on it to enlarge it for a better read.
BTW, readers here are welcome to lift any image I send through my links and incorporate it into their own advocacy literature. You have a free permenent license to do so and are enouraged to use imagery – not just mine – as one of several ways to impart your message with passion . . .
Correction:
Sorry; my error.
I have corrected the address of the website link per my identifiying information in this blog. I wrote it incorrectly. . . .I am writing from an i-pad, not a forte of mine.
Anyway, the site is:
http://thetruthoneducationreform.blogspot.com/
The link to the drawing was correctly stated, however.
This, while we’re in contract negotiations over these exact points (plus quite a few others.) The initial proposal from the SRC to us (I’m one of the laid-off PFT teachers in Philly) included these exact provisions; eliminating seniority rules, no certification for nurses, and unilateral pay changes. There are many more concessions outlined in the District’s initial proposals for the new PFT contract, which expires on Aug. 30th. The changes they want read like a wish-list of the most radical-reformy changes to education and would basically roll back every single provision and advancement won by the union since 1968 and the first PFT contract. Here are just a few of the most egregious provisions:
• School District possesses full authority to act unilaterally with respect to any matter not
expressly set forth in the Agreement. [i.e., anything they’re not expressly forbidden to do by contract, they can do, regardless of objections or even advisability.]
• The School District may SUBCONTRACT, OUTSOURCE, or ASSIGN Federation bargaining unit work. [AKA, the “union, what union?” clause]
• Lay-offs (reduction in force)
o Shall be accomplished within the parameters defined by the Superintendent
o Recalls are at the discretion of the Superintendent. [That is, they won’t be required to call back laid-off teachers first but can hire others in their stead from, oh…TFA perhaps?]
• Elimination of caseload limits for counselors and requirements of one counselor in
each school.
• Roster
o Teachers may be assigned to unlimited classes outside their area of appointment
o No limit on number of preparations
o Elimination of class size limits. [These three are all of a piece; it means they can demand that one teacher cover several subjects and six different classes every day, i.e., an English I, an American History, a World History, an Algebra II, a Biology and a Physical Science class could all be assigned to the same appointed English teacher.]
These examples suffice, I think, to show just how far out into the reformy fringe the SRC and Superintendent Hite have gone in their demands on the PFT. Please do read the full run-down of the changes they propose from the list at the link above.
The problem is that this is more than just the “temporary” reform that they’ll try everything to make permanent. This is the warning shot across the bow of the entire PFT contract effort; it says loud and clear to our leadership and anyone else paying attention “if you don’t knuckle under and take most of this, we’ll just impose worse on you with our own contract.” In theory the same law that let’s them set aside the school code also allows them to impose a contract unilaterally on the PFT. Couple that with the no-strike provision of the law and they may think they have us. I doubt that (parts of the law wouldn’t stand a court challenge, especially the no-strike and unilateral contract provisions) but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the SRC has a different take on that and thinks they hold the trump cards.
We’ll see in about three weeks.
M is correct. It absolutely is shock doctrine. One big shock and awe campaign on the Philly public school system which is relentless and designed to leave Philadelphia teachers with nothing once it is all over. There is no temporary, as it is part of grand plan to make it all permanent and unlike it has ever been before. It is a corporate takeover and we’ve all seen it before.
This is sad be ause of the wonderful experienced teachers that are being made to feel bad and disrespected. I am feeling angry and upset. I wish they would wake up to the TFAs youngsters that have no experience and get a five week crash course in being a teacher I worked hard for my certification. why are they destroying the public schools? Keep talking Diane . Someone must listen ..
Where are the parents? Don’t they care that no-nothing TFA’s and teachers not certified in their subject will be teaching their children? Until they decide to give a crap, nothing will change. I was forced to teach sped for a year in the inner city in FL, which I was not licensed for, nor did I want to teach it, but I wasn’t consulted. No one cared what I thought, I was just a teacher/glorified babysitter. What a waste for those kids, but since their parents don’t care, neither does anyone else.
Unless a parent has enough power to threaten a lawsuit, a lot of districts do not pay much attention to them.
I have no idea why teachers and parents will allow any kind of opening of school under these circumstances. Resist, Philly, and we will stand with you! Where is Randi?
Randi has aided and abetted most everything the reformers have wanted. TFA might not have been in her vision, but when you help the devil burn 85% of the city, the other 15% is sure to burn b y itself . . .