This is a debate about the Vergara decision in the New York Times “Room for Debate,” featuring Eric Hanushek and Michael Petrilli supporting the decision, and Brian Jones and me criticizing it.
Brian Jones, by the way, is running for Lieutenant Governor of New York on the Green Party ticket, with Howie Hawkins running for Governor.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Petrilli will do anything for a paycheck… “Big money on the line, baby, BIG money!”
http://www.mommabears.org/blog/flip-flopping-fordham-institute-the-false-messiah
I would love to see the NEA and AFT endorse the Green Party candidates across the nation. The corporate Dems and Republicans don’t deserve the support of the teachers.
Amen, Tony! Vote 3rd party.
I’m voting for Pelto in CT.
Teachers are worse than political orphans here, as in many other places.
That Petrilli guy must be on another planet. Workers rights to sue and win over discrimination and harassment are long gone due to a long erosion through the courts.
I guess he didn’t hear about this Supreme Court decision last year:
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/07/12174/supreme-court-has-severely-limited-workers’-ability-sue-employers-discrimination
The conservative Roberts court gave WalMart (and, by proxy, the rest of corporate America whom they gleefully serve) full permission to discriminate against employees without fear of court challenge.
“The rulings in Vance v. Ball State University and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, both decided 5-4 along ideological lines, narrow the interpretation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. And as a result, discrimination-free workplaces can be harder to come by.”
The billionaire who owns a tech company and who funded the lawsuit is now looking into funding (with his own money as well as partnerships with other individuals and think tanks) similar lawsuits in every state, with his beneficiary organization, Students Matter, as the plaintiffs. The case centered itself around how tenure especially “adversely” affects minority students, immigrant, and low income students.
The Los Angeles Superior Court judge omitted in his analysis and critical thinking, all other factors, besides tenure, affecting student achievement, such as poverty, segregation, housing, food insecurity, health care, family culture, etc. These factors were not included in the judge’s mindset or his written ruling.
One of the ironies here is that the two expert witnesses against tenure, one of which was Raj Chetty of Harvard School of Economics, are both TENURED professors at Harvard and both have not taught K-12.
We must all band together and support the unions appealing this case, even if it means going all the way up to the US Supreme Court.
I hate our city, state, and national unions (I am based in NY state), but this is one time we will have to support any unions’ attempt to appeal this crappy, feeble minded ruling from a judge whose capacity to think critically was not as sharp as his articulation of his feelings. Sentiments are not quite the same as objectively and legally processing evidence. The evidence in this instance was little more than a speculation, and since when does a court enact a ruling based on an absence of damages simply to prevent speculative, theoretical, future ones?
If tenure prevents a child from getting a great education, so too do myriad factors, and perhaps Students Matter needs to sue over all those factors, beginning with how our tax system has evolved and is now set up.
Beatriz Vergara should sue all the companies who hold $200 billion dollars in non-taxed profits offshores. She should sue Congress for the 1.2 million dollars per minute it spends on average everyday on military campaigns and invasions. Beatriz Vergara should sue the banks for feeding off the financial livers of 18 to 22 year olds who graduate college with $20K to 100K in debt. She should sue the NRA for all the school shootings that have now become a norm in our American exceptionalism.
This judge has chugged a goblet of stupidity and incompetence, and as it is, the goblet is made of lead. The judge has poison in his system.
This case is little more than an effort to eviscerate labor rights that protect students and their education. The plaintiff’s case masquerades around as a “student civil rights issue” that in reality ignores factors not caused by LEAs and their personnel.
Beatriz, tu eres nada mas que una marionetta, completemente manipulada por los riccos, y que lastima que la unica victima aqui es los estudiantes cuyos educacion no importa mucho a los riccos que controlan sus vidas. Eres joven, Beatriz, y eres inocente, pero tu no realizas como los riccos han alcanzado profundamente en tu alma y han robado tu dignidad con mentiras y decepcion . . .
She is far from innocent any more…and she is a well paid puppet.
Ellen,
If you have proof of her being “paid”, the world would be better off if you showed that proof.
Her participation in this has yielded very impure consequences, but she herself is still a minor, and she does not understand the whole picture.
Do I hate her?
Well, I am less than thrilled with her.
Do I hate the adults who directed her in all of this?
How could I not?
I was thinking about this earlier today, imagining a time, in the future, when this student has come to recognize how she was used. Disgusting.
Diane, outlining the history of the need for tenure in teaching was important. For many of us, the abuse of power by administrators of young teachers has not been so long ago. I remember the invasive questions of my marriage plans, pregnancy plans, birth control questions and having to provide answers to personal questions when taking a sick leave day or a personal day. Salary questions were discussed when answering questions related to why a woman worked if the husband worked. One system refused to honor my hyphenated last name, so did a major university in GA. Not that long ago!
In one school, teachers had to provide all medical diagnosis and medications taken – 1998 in GA. Not long ago! Frightening! No protection!? Many more stories…
We were not able to wear pants, even if we were expected to sit in the floor, restrain BD students, or worked in cold climates.
Administrators were males and almost all teachers were women when I started in the late 1960s. Male Chauvenism was a new diagnosis and many men in authority were outraged and took it out in their female staff.
Job protection from abuse of power by authority was not awarded easily and is still fought in many states – not much has changed.
Michael Petrilli has no idea, about many things. Lots of slap Schtick generalizations, opinions and zip substance. Funny he is not, because Deformers use his airhead comments as gospel.
He operates all cylinders with personal attacks and bias. A scholar he is not and never will be. He reminds me of those administrators I wrote about at the beginning of this comment.
Unions, regs, lawyers and fear were the only reason some of these archaic ways changed. Only long enough to quickly rear their ugly heads with California rulings & more to come.
Frightening is an understatement. Women must speak up and tell their stories. Tenure has its history in gender discrimination.
I think a lot of you need to go back and read that article on Salon by David Blacker. This whole school reform is based on huge shifts in our economy. The elites have decided that it is not worth investing in education for most people. How many knowledge workers does America really need? (A few hundred thousand) Tenure and pensions are going to go. Public schools as we knew/know them are going to go away 100%. Many of you are stuck on the details of the process, but the endgame is all that matters. Little, local decisions here and there are just meaningless distractions. Even if good things happen locally, they will be squashed by larger, more national forces. All of us should be thinking about finding a “life boat” as David Blacker talks about. This may mean moving to Europe or driving a cab, prison guard, something. Public education as a permanent career will go. I tell young people to go to Europe every day. The problem is that most people can’t face the dark truth about what is happening and don’t want to believe it. What is your “life boat” going to be. Good luck.
Yes, something to think about. Not to mention the prospect of energy doubling, which could be more austerity and drop in standard of living.
At the same time this court case happens, there’s this http://azstarnet.com/news/state-and-regional/horne-busing-immigrants-to-arizona-illegal-threatens-lawsuit/article_234bce0c-f266-11e3-b8c0-001a4bcf887a.html. Definitely more strain on education in the future.
The last breath of opportunity and freedom, dies with the “greatest generation”. We wave the red, white and blue, as they pass. We fire guns of salute to honor a once-great nation.
mike – It looks like the roof may come down in Europe (at least in Southern Europe and France) before it comes down here.
Has the renowned “education expert” Mike Petrilli ever spent a single day as a teacher?
It was astonishing to read that Petrilli actually thinks that workers’ job protections have grown dramatically in recent decades, given that today only 12 states allow teachers the right to strike, that 24 states in the country are now “right to work states,” and given the extraordinary cost and difficulty of mounting a legal defense against improper termination.
Has the renowned “education expert” Mike Petrilli ever spent a single day as a teacher?
The same question should be asked of all the so-called experts who make our lives miserable with silly statements about our profession. Walk in my shoes before you make a judgment about what goes on in public schools. Oh, and you should know that I wear sneakers because our floor is a slab of cement covered with half-century old asbestos tile. Oh, and dress in cool clothes because we don’t have air conditioning. That means we open the windows. No screens, of course, so if you’re allergic to bees, or any students are, I recommend training on how to use an Epi-pen. If you’re going to stay more than a day (most consultants, data experts, and gurus flit through on a “visit” that lasts about 90 seconds), please review the IEPs of the 11 students (in a class of 18) who have them, so you can properly differentiate instruction. Oh, and please be aware of the fact that Student A has a parent in prison and Student B has a parent on drugs. Student C was sexually abused. Students D, E, F, and G heard gunshots last night. Students H, I, and J are hungry because they didn’t have breakfast. Remember, it is you, and you alone, who affect these children, so please try not to be hopelessly incompetent. That would violate these children’s constitutional rights.
exactly. The primary characteristic of the average commentary by someone like Petrilli is utter disconnection from the actual experiences of teachers and of students.
I find myself saying, whenever I read these self-appointed wonks, “God forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Utterly clueless.
TAGO, mst!
Petrilli has a degree in political science.
How many other professionals – doctors, dentist, surgeons, attorneys and accountants – leave their profession after a few years? Mr. Petrilli’s contempt for teachers is obvious. He says, “Our public education system is among the only institutions in the land still pretending that professionals will spend their whole careers in a single job.”
I suppose hospitals should welcome high turnover in in doctors and surgeons, experience be damned! Let’s see Mr. Petrilli insist on an inexperienced surgeon! Let’s see him sit in the chair for three hours while a dental student learns how to fill a cavity!
I suppose the Bill Gates, the Waltons and hedge fund managers fire their seasoned accountants and attorneys and replace them with newly minted college grads.
Disgusting.
Petrilli and the whole Fordham gang are in service of a political ideology only and they really don’t care about facts or reality. Witness how they skewered and trashed Diane after she broke ranks, never addressing her commonsense interpretation of facts and reality but rather attacking her personally, often with the “one true conservative” argument (she, clearly, was never a REAL conservative, etc.).
They will create their own facts and reality (remember that from the George W. Bush presidency?) and they are successfully creating their own “facts” with poorly worded and easily manipulated economic data without nuance or awareness of research in other fields, which is then dutifully “reported” (that should be regurgitated) by the corporate media.
Hanushek is little better. If you have nerves of steel and a strong stomach he has videos of himself berating, shaming, and talking down to teachers and sharing his “wisdom” about teaching that comes from his background in economics theory, not actual teaching experience. I read his blog and watched his videos to try to learn if he actually knew what he was talking about and had something worthwhile to share. I left with a headache and the realization that he is quite the snake oil salesman, repeating reformy tropes and aphorisms as gospel truth and simply ignoring anything that doesn’t confirm his predetermined understanding and prescriptions.
I miss Gerry Bracey. He used to skewer these guys in such a humorous yet scholarly way with stunning aplomb and regularity on EDDRA.
Jones’ point is impressively succinct, but I think you, Diane, have also given variations of this quote: