This just in from a member of NEA from Massachusetts who is at the Denver convention. She hopes that Lily Eskelsen, the new president, will be a champion and fighter for kids, teachers, and public schools. Is she THE ONE? Will she stand up to the phony “reformers”? Will she fight for democratic control of the schools? Will she tell the plutocrats to use their billions to alleviate poverty instead of taking control of the schools?
I think Lily has it in her. Until proven wrong, I am placing bets that she will stand up fearlessly for what is right, that she will tell Arne Duncan to scram, that she will tell the billionaires to get another hobby.
Here is the message from one of her members:
My comment is awaiting moderation on Lily’s Blackboard.
Here it is.
Lily, thank you for posting this opportunity for substantive engagement on the Gates question.
I’m an activist NEA member in Massachusetts, in a low income district heavily engaged with the policies Bill and Melinda have imposed through their legislative interference and advocacy lobbying, with the compliance of the outgoing Massachusetts Teachers Association leadership.
MTA and NEA compliance directly aided in the imposition of Gates-backed corporate domination in my Commonwealth’s public schools, in my school, in my actual classroom, and over the actual living students I teach.
The (false) distinction you make between Gates’ imposed “standards” and the accountability measures he demands for them will allow the NEA to continue to take his money, and I’ll admit that almost chokes rank-and-file teachers who live and work under his heel. I am going to argue that you to can make a decision of your own, when you take office, to give that money back to him.
First, I’d like to offer congratulations on your succession to the presidency of NEA. The Representative assembly that voted you in brought with it a new activism and determination, and voted in resolutions which break sharply with the previous administration, of which you were a part. We look to you with great hope, holding our breath against it for fear of disappointment.
The Common Core standards can’t “stand on their own merit”. They were backwards-engineered to warp the teaching of language and literature into assessment readiness, with its own novel testing vocabulary. strung together with the bogus Moodle diagram you inserted in this page. The aligned WIDA tests that are now being imposed on ELL students, from the earliest grades, will steal the short and precious window of their childhood. People are tweeting me that those children can’t wait while you do your homework and find that out.
We’re fighting right now for schools in New Bedford and Holyoke that are already being taken over. They were full of living children, just a few weeks ago when we left them. What will we find in August?
We’re asking you to become the courageous and powerful leader of an engaged and mobilized union. I know you saw and felt the hall rise to its feet behind these initiatives. That felt different and deeper than the hearty applause for your victory, did it not?
Bring us to our feet: give back the Gates money.
The website I linked for you is an Education Week column describing the actual effects of the Gates Foundation’s profit-centered philanthropy model in the third world. It’s the responsibility of Americans to become aware of it, when we take money from American corporate philanthropies and allow them to pursue their profits internationally under the subsidy of our tax code.
Why Arne Duncan needs to listen to Bill and Melinda | Li…
I do not hate the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. I know it might seem strange to have to make that statement, but such are the times we live in.
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sorry, but I’m not counting on Lily at all. She clearly does not see that despite Gates funding ideas and not ideology (which I disagree with), she does NOT speak out against the all too incestuous relationship bewteen our public government, for which we pay taxes, and private sector interests like Bill and Melinda Gates.
This partnership has too many conflicts of interest and is too prone to corruption because the processes available to us for transparency are not as robust as those used and contained within the public sector.
Now we see Gates peddling and merchandising away products form HIS company and satellite companies of his to deliver the CCSS in classrooms.
Whether you love or hate the CCSS, this action of Microsoft is reprehensible and unacceptable.
Lily should be speaking out against that alone!
VTW, the MTA here in NY city is thinking SERIOUSLY of striking. . . . because of deplorable work conditions, and reductions in hard won rights to pay scale. The MTA also questions how in such a rich country, city, and state, there is not enough tax vase to go around and fortify the once strong public subsidies made to the MTA so that mass transit can be affordable for all people who work in this great city.
I personally had to stop taking mass transit becuse the costs shot up $170 more a month, and believe it or not, it was much cheaper to own and operate a care to get to and from work.
What’s wrong with that picture?
EVERYTHING.
I hope the MTA does strike,a nd Lily, Randi, even Dennis at this point ought to be calling out for the same across the nation to protest the defunding and deprofessionalization of public schools. In fact, We should have a nationaide strike to protest the 2% and their seiaure of income and their causation of non-trickle down systems that are shrinking the middle class and growing the overclass . . . . .
It’s the Long Island Railroad that’s seriously considering striking, not the entire MTA. In 2013, the average Long Island Railroad worker received $163,000 in wages and benefits–given that the median *household* income in Suffolk and Nassau counties is $86,000 and $93,000, the complaint about working conditions and pay hardly seems justifiable.
The MTA is offering 17% raises spread out over 7; the union wants it over 6. The MTA is asking that current employees contribute 2% of their salaries toward health care, up from zero on the current contract.
This is the same LIRR at the center of one of the largest disability fraud schemes in US history–a process that the New York Times reported this February has still not been meaningfully reformed. The majority of career LIRR employees still retire early on a disability pension. Free golf for life on New York State courses, including Bethpage Black!
$163,000 per worker, with exploding costs for retirees and fringe benefits. By far the highest overall tax burden in the United States. A workforce and tax base that is hugely dependent on the financial sector that everyone loves to hate until it’s time to pay the bills; an area that has seen a significant flight of capital to states with lower taxes and a lower cost of living. An agency that is already getting a massive subsidy from taxpayers to cover nearly 60% of its operating costs, a number that looks awful next to sister agencies Metro North and New York City Transit.
Something’s gotta give here.
You are well within your rights to wish for a strike, for other agencies to strike as a show of solidarity, and for the new NEA head to be a fire-brand. Just don’t expect the average person to have a whole lot of sympathy. I bet your average LIRR monthly commutation rider would be happy to see this end up the way Reagan v. Patco did.
The Metropolitan Transit Authority isn’t a member of the National Education Association, so far as I know 🙂
I knew I went into the wrong field. Here’s hoping average person sympathy will fix the broken transmission on my 15 year old evil teacher mobile.
The strike goes beyond pay; it is a protest against lost subsidies as a result of, in part, the rich NOT paying their fair share of taxes. There are more universal messages behind this strike than meets the eye.
And striking would also send a message about the power of organized labor, something that is under seige and attack left and right, upside down and righside up, inside and out . . . . .
Strikes in general across the USA have occured less and less frequently compared to the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s. The percentage of unionized workers in private and public sectors combined in 1975 was 24%; today, it’s about 7%.
If there were universal healthcare, if there was more of a fair distribution of wealth, if higher education were subsidized, if, if, if, if. . .. the list goes on and on.
Globalization does force us to factor in the way we do business and run our economy. But, sorry Tim, other countries have done a vastly superior job in protecting their citizenry with far less shaken social safety nets and contracts that make a society civilized and are paid for equitably with taxes.
Yes: taxes.
America has become a right wing corporate state with nearly EVERY law and policy slanted in vast, crippling favor of the ownership and aristocratic class. A strike would ideologically and pragmatically send a message that the tectonic shifts in power and wealth will no longer be tolerated.
We should start with how much we spend on war, and then progress to getting far more of our federal tax dollar to pay for public schooling so that home owners are not being taxed to death. And that starts with increasing the tax pool and monitoring it aggressively to prevent waste and fraud (the way Australia, France, and even New Zealand do); increasing the tax pool also begins with taxing wealthy organizations and individuals more, as proposed, for a mere start, by the Buffet bill, which I posit does not go far enough.
Don’t smear the workers at the LIRR before you look at the big picture and overall context this is playing out in.
Well, you can do otherwise if you want, but I thought you to be a critical thinker, Tim, having read many of your posts before.
What happened?
You know what would be really great — a strike by NYC police. Imagine all the universal messages other than pay that would send.
Chemtchr,
Are you sure the MTA is not part of the NEA? Positive?
How can that be?
How coincidental that I was JUST driving in my car this morning and said to myself, “I wonder if that ubiquitous Chemtchr knows if the MTA is part of the NEA?”, and lo and behold, your comment was posted today.
Chemtchr, WHAT would we do without you?
What would we do without you telling Ira Shor to break his prose into paragraphs? And how could ANY of us have had a worthwhile day without you putting that awful, horrible, enemy of ours, Chris from Florida, in his place. The NERVE of him to speak from his own experiences and perceptions.
Don’t you know Chemtchr, that this is ALL ABOUT YOU? You’re ALL THAT.
It was never about much of anything else . . . .
I’m telling you, Chemtchr, you need an agent to represent you, because there are a lot of people clamoring to follow your and ONLY your direction of thought. Why not monetize it?
Robert, please don’t accuse me of smearing anyone. The widespread disability fraud at the LIRR is well-documented. Those who are interested can read more here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/nyregion/21lirr.html
I believe it is highly unlikely that the “plight” of LIRR union members will galvanize public support to meaningfully address the things you mentioned, some of which I agree with (using Federal funds to supplement and equalize education spending); some of which I don’t (NY tax rates are already dangerously too high).
You may have me confused with another semi-regular commenter also named Tim, who I believe may be a teacher. I work in a private sector field unrelated to education and my children attend traditional district NYC DOE schools.
Tim,
There are some 15 billionaires who reside part time in Manhattan and whose combined personal wealth is about $186 billion dollars.
That’s 3 times the annual operating budget of New York City, all five boroughs.
There is something grotesque with that scenario when classes are overcrowded and schools have to co-locate.
Taxing the rich alone will not solve this problem, but it’s part of putting a huge dent in it. There are far too many countries that manage to protect their citizenry than we do here, and their economies don’t have a sky that is falling, even as they experience very tough times.
You can villainize – and that’s precisely what you choose to do here – LIRR workers, but the real villains are still out there lurking and not going to jail after they crashed our economy in 2008.
The $163,000? As an average salary per worker? As a benefit package for those fraudulently taking disability? What does that number represent in your less than comprehensible statement?
Then maybe the financial sector should go back to being a boring but proftiable business that it was prior to all of this deregulation. Banks can now sell and markte products they were not ablt to before. Speculation that takes money away from the the average person is unacceptable. I am not feeling sorry for Wall Street, and if there were more equity across the board, more people would be abel to ope and individualize businesses that would generate the economy rather than, as you claim, depending on Wall Street to pay the bills.
Look to Canada and France and Finland if you need an idea as to what wealth and economy looks like that both sustains employment and still taxes equitably to maintain civilized social contracts.
If you’re so afraid that Wall Street will move elsewhere, then let it. It can mosey on down to lower tax states, where their public schools tend to be the lowest performing, their tax bases are low, and their unionized presence is weak or token.
I am not glorifying Wall Street in order to villainize LIRR workers, save for those who claim disability fraudulently . . . . .
You should not either . . . .
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Regardless of the merits of the case, you should state it judiciously. The average LIRR worker’s salary is $83,794 [a few k short of the ave med local household income]– plus dreamboat health benefits, & a pension that represents a 1mm nest egg to anybody else).
Sorry if it wasn’t clearer, Robert. The total cost in 2012 of salaries, fringe benefits, overtime, penalty pay, and pension contributions divided by the total number of LIRR workers = $163,000. I’m not sure if the average annual salary figure cited by Spanish & French Freelancer includes the overtime and penalty pay.
Wall Street is already well on its way out. All of the back offices are gone–to NJ, to PA, to Utah, and beyond. Hedge funds haven’t sprouted up in Connecticut by accident. Whatever the total tax rate is in Finland, Canada, or France, I assure you that residents of Nassau and Suffolk aren’t far from it.
You can confiscate every dime those billionaires have and it’ll run New York City for one year. Then what? Can we honestly not give kids the facilities and services they need on $25,000/student? You tell me what number you think is enough.
Tim, an average is only good when it is put into a context of a bell curve to see where the majority of payscales lie. What is the mode, the median and the mean in that context, and how many people who make the much higher sums are how many standard deviations from the middle?
That’s statistics 101, Mr. $163,000 per year.
And as far as Nassau and Suffolk counties go, I grew up in the former and attended an amazing public school district. The amount of tax is not as questionable in comparison to what the French pay, but the utilization of tax is subject to far more scrutiny, especially as far more equitable taxation in France pays for localized infrastructure, and I am talking about infrastrucure for all income levels, not just the poor.
Other countries get more from their federal governments than ours. We spend more on our military than ALL OTHER countries on this planet combined.
Let the disgusting Waltons, whose five member family own the equivalent of about 38% of all American household wealth combined, pay more taxes and let those taxes trickle down to all states where they keep their China-trade-imbalanced-non-living-wage-workers-apply-for-public-assistance stores . . . . .
If familes like the Waltons can contribute money and sway local elections in states they don’t even reside in, then this same overclass should be paying a fairer share of taxes in all 50 states.
As for Wall Street and Jaime Dimon, I am not feeling sorry or too empathetic with them.
This IS class warfare, plain and simple. Call a spade a spade . . . . .
Robert, just to save Tim some effort, would your response be any different if it turns out that the median figure is something like $160,000?
I stopped reading when I got to this part : “I am going to argue that you to can make a decision of your own, when you take office, to give that money back to him.”
In other words, NEA will continue to jump when Gates blows his whistle and if any of you smart alecks can do better than go out and be President. More of the same and of course, like Randi Weingarten and the disastrous UFT contract Diane Ravitch thinks Lily too is just swell. Keep blowing bubbles and throwing daisies folks and eventually you will teach the bad guys the error of their ways. They will give up and donate all their money to kind and charitable causes. Pollyanna on line one….
Sean,
I do not want to be president of anything. I pay over a grand a year for the backstabbing policies of Randi Weingarten who today announced she is standing tall with Robot Duncan. Suburban teachers will come to my school to out teach me and I will go to pasture where I belong. Suburban sissies won’t even set their pretty feet in the neighborhood. I am tired of the abuse. Furthermore, Special Needs students will start performing identically to their grade level peers. No, I am not a suburban soccer mom. I have spent the last twenty-five years of my life teaching in high poverty urban neighborhoods. Obama should be ashamed of how he has betrayed all the hard working people who supported him and believed in his message.
Correction:
“VTA” was meant as “BTW” . . . . .
Thank you, Diane.
I hope Lily can undo some of the serious damage Dennis did to the integrity of the NEA; he really pulled the rug out from under the membership in selling-out to the Gates Foundation in support of CCSS. Lily is a woman of conviction and a great public speaker, so I hope she works her way into the media spotlight while saying and doing the right thing.
The NEA is complicit in the Race to The Top movement. For years the union has done the expedient rather than the right thing. In Massachusetts the MTA actually drafted a proposal to include Value Added measures for assessing teachers before the State proposed its own. The NEA has become a bureaucratic entity that feeds upon itself. Rather than hope the new president changes things, I believe the membership must rise up against the union as was done by the folks in Chicago.
Agreed, James E. Mc. And, although some/many are impressed by the female/minority NEA trifecta, this in-&-of-itself underwhelms me. We have seen too much damage done by everyone–minorities & women included. Therefore, I say, “Prove me wrong!” before I celebrate the new NEA leadership.
That being said, hope people will stop with the reflections on the DVR era.(Dennis for Sec. of D.o.Ed., suggested in an earlier post?!) Dennis is done–enough said–stick a fork in it!
James, soon-to-be former MTA president Paul Toner did indeed help draft the VAM legislation. His term ends July 15, and he will be replaced by Barbara Madeloni, not his chosen successor. That’s why I’m not actually in Denver. Toner led the MA delegation there, but it includes many who don’t support him.
He was also just defeated in his move for a seat on the NEA executive board by George Sheridan, an activist opponent of corporate education reform and CCSS.
The unions are, in fact, rising up from below. The bureaucratic entity at the top is still a challenge, but we’re about to find out if we can transition it to a democratic, mobilized force for social justice.
Join us at MTA Summer Conference 2014 if you’re an MTA member who hasn’t heard the news.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/02/class-action-an-activist-teachers-handbook/
The Summer conference link
http://www.massteacher.org/teaching/conferences/summer.aspx
Chemtchr,
Did Mass Gov Deval Patrick deserve to be honored? Thinking of his performance at 2012 Dem convention….
Diane,
Deval Patrick was my governor. I collected signatures to put him on the ballot, rushed home from work to open his little campaign office in my town, took an appointment from him to a commission, chaired his citizens online task force on ethics, and saw his eyes tear up when we talked about my DREAM students. I feel tremendous personal loyalty and affection for him.
I put Anne Wheelock’s report about high school pushouts in his own hand at a meeting during his reelection campaign. When he allowed K12inc to sponsor a campaign event at the Boston Children’s Museum, I emailed his campaign to say that he was breaking the ethics law I had helped him pass. I understand people can fail one test, and then pass another. I can’t bring myself to give up on him but, no, he deserves no award for his stewardship of the Commonwealth’s public schools.
Here he is at the MTA annual meeting is in May, offstage listening as teachers spoke out for our NBI to challenge the state’s school takeover formula in court.
https://twitter.com/katedonaghey/status/465152073613737984
I am not in a position to comment on the NEA, but the AFT is leading the charge against its membership.
Where is the MTA summer conference held, please?
Williams College, in Williams.
Well, b/c the NEA wants to stay in business too, to keep collecting “All That Dues” (sung like “All That Jazz”), so of course it sleeps with Gates – to a point. Perhaps the NEA doesn’t close its eyes during kissing.
Dear Mr. McDermott: the MTA did no such thing and in fact made it very clear that student growth on multiple, teacher developed measures would be used for the purpose of developing professional development and student outcome goals. They play only a minor role in our evaluation process.
I also must say the Gates Foundation has nothing to do with Holyoke or New Bedford, the situation there is the result of changes in state law developed in 2010 which was meant to get a waiver from NCLB accountability measures.
That “minor role” stuff is just hogwash. “Teacher developed measures” is an Orwellian construction. The MTA caved, and violated our explicit vote, and the trust of its members. Every teacher knows what we are experiencing. Our union blandly instructs us to cooperate.
Also, I was on the state Math and Science Advisory Council when the Gates Foundation’s team arrived to “assist” the DOE and the legislature in applying for the RttT grant. Conversations with DOE liaison staff broke through – it wasn’t pretty.
The Education Reform Act of January, 2010 was written then, under the direct guidance of the Gates Foundation. They were extremely clear and explicit that they wanted: teeth, “accountability”, take-over. They got that.
There was no waiver in 2010, I believe.
Nevermind. . . . It’s in Williamstown, and I’m right near there. .. 5 minutes away. My wife and I attended one year even though we were UFT, and we were welcomed with open arms.
I hope they will be open once again, because I’d love to see what they are saying and wat Barbara has to say . . . .
Yeah, Williamstown, at Williams College. Gonna be festive, I think, and full of ideas. I’ve never been.
Just think of all those possibilities.
Reposted from the previous thread, since the thread was already dead when I posted it:
Thank you for this thoughtful and compelling letter. My worries are not only about Lily’s “love affair with Bill Gates” as Fred Klonsky put it, but also the fact that she “was named by President Obama to serve as a commissioner on the White House Commission on Education Excellence for Hispanics.”
Has she already been captured by Obama and the democratic party through her involvement in this commission and the work to pass the Dream Act? Will she be able to transcend her personal connections to Obama and her elevation and the rewards given to her by Obama to speak out against his harmful policies and his lackey Duncan who enforces them (which the rank and file signaled loudly and clearly they want to happen this past week) and the lack of support from the democratic party?
I hope she is not already a democratic party “insider” who has been rendered a tame pet like her predecessor but time will tell if she has the courage to speak out against them or if she continues the same old capitulation and provides political cover to our enemies in the White House and the democratic party.
I wish her the best.
Thanks, Chris.
Loves Gates, Is Under Obama’s thumb. Yep there’s your union leadership in 2014 leading us to our knees and telling us how much worse things could be… Pathetic. Lily is worse than Den Den given the legacy he’s left and the obvious pratfalls she’s about to take just as he did. We are on our own. Yeah Randi I was thinking of you too when I said that.
It’s all about if she wants to keep being invited to the party. If she says the wrong thing or does the wrong thing than the invitations will stop coming. If she is ok with that there might be a chance that we have a fighter, but if going to the parties is important for her, forget the idea that there will be change.
The call is for her to decide which party she wants to be invited to. Remember, Diane Ravitch was once on the “other” side! It has slowly emerged what that side really is, so Diane came over. She burned the bridges back. People trust her and she is now a leader for American public education.
If Lily did announce that NEA is giving back the Gates CC$$ grants, the rafters would ring. She could call her own parties. We’re the biggest union in the country, and that’s worth fighting for.
I don’t see why she has to give any money back. Is Bill going to give money to all the schools damaged by his proposals? I think not. We have more than spent any money Gates has given in trying to jump through hoops created by his advocacy. I don’t remember that he gave any money to districts trying to recover from his small school experiment.
Well, it might be amusing if Lily declared she was going to use the Gates CC$$ grant toward the Stop Toxic Testing lobbying initiative the Assembly just passed 🙂 , instead of promoting Common Core. Could he get it back?
“We” don’t have that money. It’s being used to pay salaries for patronage positions, and doled out to teachers for attending Common Core boosting events paid for with our dues. Staff time and allegiance is burned up tweeting pro Common Core hogwash.
Returning it would be a breathtaking public repudiation of the tenet that everybody is for sale, and Gates own them all. I think it would make headlines.
Several NBIs were passed regarding transparency and accountbility in taking and spending corporate and foundation gifts.
I was not highly impressed by Lily when she was in Utah. UEA caved too many times, was much too cozy with the state legislature and others who were not friends of public education. I am hoping I can be pleasantly surprised, but given her love for Gates, I’m not expecting much.
I’m not impressed with Lily for the same reason. She started a generation of UEA leadership that constantly caves, which is why Utah has the lowest per pupil expenditure by $800.00 PER STUDENT and has the largest class sizes in the nation.
Yeah, but this is a honeymoon.
Her speech this afternoon was a knockout for imagery of caring and immediacy, with limited but viceral policy punch.
“We are the NEA and our work is made of flesh and blood. Our work is the future of everything.”
“Before anything is going to get better, it’s the testing, stupid. Actually it’s the stupid testing!”
The euphoria people are experiencing is an asset, because Lily has something to lose. Young teachers tweeted that her speech gave them chills. She might not want to trade the broad admiration and hope she’s evoked for the faux-enthusiasm of a few well-bribed toadies.
Randi doesn’t get that response much, anymore.
She’s a terrific speaker and was probably a good teacher, but she’s way too cozy with the people who would destroy education, in my opinion.
Yes, I do recall her being a good speaker, but then I waited to see the actions that followed that would match up with what was said….and waited…and waited…
I am hopeful the NEA grows a backbone like AFT. The NEA did guide the HSTA leadership well over the past 5 years I have been in Hawaii. There is room for much improvement. It makes me sick to see the rah rah pictures from Denver while at home the HSTA does not listen to teachers..hence a 2/3 membership disconnect from caring what the union does. By the way does anyone know where Bill and Melinda Gates sent their children to school?
Bill and Melinda Gates send their children to Lakeside School in Seattle. I have a friend who teaches there. She has never had more than 22 kids in her classes, often less. She has ample prep time, all the kids have access to art, music, foreign language, and PE classes, lots of access to technology, good food for lunch, etc. She did not mention having any standardized testing aside from the admissions tests they use, though they sometimes use standardized test scores as admission criteria for kids entering Lakeside from elsewhere at the upper school level.
“6th-Grade Comprehensive Testing
1/10/2014
6th-grade students will be taking the Comprehensive Testing Program (CTP IV) standardized test, developed by the Educational Records Bureau (ERB). Testing will take place over two days on Tue., Feb. 4 and Wed., Feb. 5. No special preparations are necessary. A good night’s sleep and a wholesome breakfast on test days will help students to do their best. Also, students need to bring a calculator on the second day for the second portion of the mathematics test.
“Helpful reminders – Please remind your student to bring a book to read if he/she finishes sections before the allotted time has elapsed. Also, please remind your student to bring a calculator on the second day for the second portion of the mathematics test.
“In early spring you will receive individual score reports outlining your students’ performance on the test, information on the interpretation of test scores, and a cover letter from Brain & Learning Lab Coordinator, Camilla Calkins, that will provide more details about the structure of the test and our use of the scores here at Lakeside. Camilla Calkins will also be available for consultation if you have specific questions about your student. If you have any questions about the testing before then, please feel free to contact her at [redacted].”
This notice was posted on both the 6th and 8th grade class news pages: http://www.lakesideschool.org/podium/default.aspx?t=142569&rc=0
Lakeside is similar to the elite private schools in New York City, which administer lengthy standardized bubble tests to their students either annually or every other year (perhaps your friend teaches in a grade that doesn’t test and tends to be somewhat unobservant). The kids are taught a rich, full curriculum with hardly any test prep, so there’s much less tension surrounding the whole affair.
Bill Gates’s kids attend a school that administers a multi-day standardized test to evaluate students and inform instruction. I’d hardly accomplished anything today before I settled that question!
I said she did not mention standardized testing, I didn’t say they didn’t do it. She is not unobservant, but thanks for slighting her anyway.
Lakeside’s testing regime sounds more like the old ITBS tests we used to administer in 3rd and 6th grades. 50 minutes on a reading test 1 day, 50 minutes on math another day. All done. That’s a huge difference from the current 2 half days of reading tests, 2 half days of math tests (for some kids, those are whole days) and 2 full days of writing that I had to subject my 4th graders to on the MSP. Yes, 4th graders are expected to spend an ENTIRE day writing a 5 paragraph essay to a lame prompt, not just once, but twice. If the kids have an IEP or 504 plan, then they get extra time, meaning once I had a kid writing from 9:30 in the morning until 5:30 in the evening. So good for kids.
I’m sure you are right about the type and extent of the testing. But let’s let it sink in for a bit! Bill Gates’s kids’ school subjects its students to the horrors of standardized bubble tests. (I don’t think I even want to know if they take them on computers.)
Lakeside really needs to get on the ball. Forget the “make sure they get a good night’s sleep and a good breakfast” routine–that’s no different from what the NYC DOE tells its families before taking the big standardized tests! Instead, check out this family guide to taking the ERB that’s produced by the fanciest elite private school in New Orleans: http://www.newmanschool.org/ftpimages/161/download/Getting%20Ready%20for%20the%20ERB's.pdf
While navigating around the Lakeside site, I also discovered that a full 21% of their classroom teachers only have a bachelor’s degree. If Lakeside is anything like the fancy elite private schools I’m familiar, most of those 21% are younger folks and most of them have no intention of making a career out of teaching. Hmmm . . .
Doubt she can return the money to Gates. It’s been spent.
All she needs to do is find an unused portion to return. It’s symbolic.
Truth: Lily is a performer. She could have been a star on the Voice. She has a talent for emotionally winning a crowd. And she is funny. And that is what it takes to get elected by the NEA.
We haven’t truly ever organized under her leadership or stepped up in a valid manner but she does entertain 9,000 of us when we get very tired and bored one week out of the year. She’s even more beautiful now that her facelift and Botox have healed. Not the same person we elected a decade ago – enhanced.
We never see or hear from her that she isn’t “on-stage” giving us winning smiles and whippy clips. She was the “best 5th grade teacher ever inhorrible ole Utah” but she kicked them in the nuts and berries so rah rah rah.
I passed a picket line to go into the conference this year. It included Nevada organizers. They told me their workplace conditions stink. They are reprimanded often. People who have organized for 40 years are on notice and scared at NEA. NEA is paying it’s bill by forcing out veterans. What kind of real leadership can sing and dance with that going on outside? Playing the same games the districts do? Where was Lily – singing? Dancing? The organizers did not even ask us to contact her. Weak.
My union leader Ruben Murrillo was her campaign manager at one point. To this day he can name all the positions of leadership at NEA and who is running against who. He cannot tell you who the Nevada legislators are but he can tell you the ladder and comings and goings at NEA. Not too helpful when you want to stop legislators from implementing 50% of student scores attached to my evaluation. In fact everyone in Nevada has their eye on moving up to some well dressed and monied job at NEA so might as well drive off the old regimes.
In fact, I view Ruben Murillo and Lily Eskelson-Garcia and Dennis Van Roekel all the same – people who entertain and throw parties to win their big limousines, suits, and invitations to wine and fine. The RA is like a big bribery festival with toys and screens and balloons.
We have to punish them if we want something. We have to lobby them if we need something. We have to scare them with their paycheck. We have to make 12 new business items shaming Arne Duncan for them to begin to understand we are seriously pissed.
The only why to motivate the most self-serving manipulators in the world is a one two punch with real grassroots – and they are taking hits. BAMN from Oakland. Badasses lead by Washington and surrounded by others. Pissed off employees. And people like me that are up their ass non-stop because I’m mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.
So Lily is doing the job we assigned her – looking pretty and making us smile.
If we want anything real – we are going to have to get really aggressive and take it.
Not bad, Angie . . . .
Got to agree with Rendo on this one – this is a downright bracing commentary from a non-longtime-fan of sold-out NEA leadership. Angie, you mention several bedrock truths, albeit in a hyperbolic vein,
“…everyone in Nevada has their eye on moving up to some well dressed and monied job at NEA ” Well, not everybody, but the dynamic is real. Very puny, when the rank and file are sitting here with stars in our eyes.
” We have to make 12 new business items shaming Arne Duncan for them to begin to understand we are seriously pissed.” Thank you for the past eleven, and its a good thing we kept driving.
“The only why to motivate the most self-serving manipulators in the world is a one two punch with real grassroots – and they are taking hits.” True that.
“Badasses lead by Washington and surrounded by others…” were under relentless twitter-twisting attack from a well-connected Van Roekel staffer, but they did indeed lead.
“If we want anything real – we are going to have to get really aggressive and take it.” And we are only just beginning!
So, notice how clear everybody is that we have grassroots growing. We have serious-organizational-social-justice-types-who-think-too-much (like EDU), and we have every sort and flavor of undisciplined BAT facebooking and organizing like crazy all over the continent. Misleaders are taking hits, and their corporate patrons are having fits.
Let peace descend. A functioning, mobilized, and democratic union is an awesome possibility, worth fighting for. Let us not throw that baby out with any bathwater. We have a working class to save.
Why, Chemtchr, that’s about the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.
You’d be shocked – outright shocked to the point where you might have to be rushed back to the psychiatric ward – to find out how much we agree on . . . .
Better watch out. If we have that much in common, we may be able to make some big differences out there.
And THEN what?
So it sounds like she is a Weingarten clone. It seems like Duncan was never vilified before this year’s convention. So why now? The Obama/Duncan policies were causing havoc such a long time. Why wake up to it now?
Why now?
Because members rose up and forced them to.
Because our opt-out movement proved their self-serving rationalizations of helplessness were not based on reality.
Because the Network for Public Education supported actual democracy, and mayors took office in New York and Newark , on a platform of defending public education.
Because Lily is stepping onto the stage of history in her own right, and WE call on her to wake up. Because NOW is now. Why would we not call her?
FYI chemtchr.
Anderson’s contract was renewed in Newark. A so called Working Group is being set up to provide pseudo representation to the community. It looks like one step forward, two steps back to me.
You’re right, NJ Teachers, “It’s time to decide whether to fight or surrender.” I think you already have this source, but others may not.
http://bobbraunsledger.com/
I will trust a union president more the day he/she takes a salary that is part of the teacher salary scale that was negotiated by the union. Is it not the ultimate irony, that a union president would receive a salary in the 300-400k range? Seems an affront to what the union is supposed to stand for and seems to support the “great corporate way”. If teachers are making an average of 50-60k then why should the prez of the union make 8 times greater a salary? I would be a lot more trustful of a union prez and believe in the fact that he/she took the position to uphold the ideals of what unionism stands for if the salary was reasonable in proportion to what is negotiated for teachers. But for now I am an eternal skeptic…
Yes, our unions have drifted into patronage machines, with Randi and Dennis and lesser misleaders drawing insupportable salaries, and clinging to their permanent office by leveraging the staff positions they might fill. Corporate gifts like the Gates fund give them even more leverage, as it is $$ they can dispense to their toadies and cronies.
The MTA raised dues three times on the argument that lean times might be coming because of mass RIFs or Vergara or Scott Brown might become governor (seriously). We have a reserve of about $26 million, which could either be used to fight for members whose schools are shut down by privatizers, or else to maintain staff salaries as long as possible in the husk of a zombie union. At least, we had that much in May.
When Paul Toner found out the succession was broken, and his VEEP wouldn’t succeed him, he quickly filled all the openings he’d left for his successor to bargain with. That means no patronage machine will be churning at the MTA, which is a good thing. Plus, we have plenty of staff on hand now to implement our new member-driven initiatives (and they’ve indicated they’re plenty capable of taking that challenge up).
Toner also had no muscle to boost him onto the Executive Board. Bye, Paul.
Dear ChemTeacher:
You are very brave when your anonymous and you certainly don’t know what you are talking about.
Diane, if you really want to know what has been done and accomplished in Massachusetts over the past 8 years I am happy to talk sometime.
But in short, our membership has grown by 7,000 members. We DO NOT use standardized test scores for any high stakes decisions in our teacher evaluation. Linda Darling Hammond and others have pointed to our evaluation framework as a model for other states. We have string reserves because our auditors advise us to have at lest a 1/2 years operating expenses on hand in case of financial emergency. We have elected pro public education and pro union candidates to office and have not seen the attacks witnessed in other states. We have protected Professional status and collective bargaining. We are the largest union in New England and have played an important role in setting policy.
I am proud of the record of accomplishments during my 8 years as VP and President of MTA. It is unfortunate that people like Chem Teacher can publish misinformation anonymously. But if you would actually like the facts, let me know.
Thanks,
Paul Toner
On a whole other level, here’s a new interview with incoming MTA President Barbara Madeloni.
“We were told by union leaders that our only choice was compromise. I offered a broader analysis that named what was happening and the hope of real solidarity and action. I said that we can actually do something about the assault on public education.”
“https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/07/standing-up-to-superman-an-interview-with-barbara-madeloni/
It is good to wish Lily well, we all do, but as far as relentlessly standing us to the deformers she should know that AFT’s Randi Weingarten does it every single day.
I want to thank Dianne, and the colleagues who’ve shared their thoughts and insights (and feelings) in this short discussion. What we also share is a determination to create powerful and democratic fighting unions to defend public education. I believe the renewed leadership of the NEA shares that determination, too. We have to make this work.
““We are the NEA and our work is made of flesh and blood. Our work is the future of everything.”
Paul Toner raised this concern: “You are very brave when your anonymous and you certainly don’t know what you are talking about.” I thank him also for speaking out.
Something about that formulation makes me feel vulnerable. Although I try to be discrete, let me reassure everyone that teacher-writers are not anonymous at all. This letter is posted on Lily Garcia’s web page, still awaiting moderation, with my name and email. And Paul Toner certainly knows who I am (and also where I work) because when I signed in to speak before his final board meeting, the list was on his podium and staff came over to discuss twitter accounts.
We vulnerable working teachers most certainly do know what we’re talking about. We live and work and teach living, flesh and blood children in the toxic atmosphere these policies created and, yes, our own union helped forge the eval system and corporate-backed “accountability” regime we experience. If we’re still angry about that, we can do one more thing, to build on the gains we just made.
Let’s put that anger behind us, if we can, and turn our attention, together, to our real enemy.
Chemtchr,
If we—collective we– can’t work with our unions, our cause is lost. They have the numbers and the resources. Without them, we are a disparate group of angry and powerless individuals.
Thanks Diane. Union leaders wnat to work with their members but unfortunately, recently it seems, people are assuming the worst of their union leaders instead of actually inviting them to have a conversation abou tthe issues rather than attacking the very group that is working to put teacher voice in the room and come up with good policy rather than bad reforms.
The union has limited power. The leadership is fallible.
Lily will not save us. Randi will not save us. We will save our public schools.
I have learned the key to success. Do not wait for them to do the job. They are an ally but have also become part of the problem. All politics is local.
Become involved in a different group that uses grassroots effectively. Learn how to organize from them. Watch how they activate people. See the new tools, blogs, soclal media, phone banks, databases. Don’t wait for your union – they are dated. Get with an activist group that is fast acting and effective and see how they roll.
I was very depressed about our situation until I became involved with some “lost causes”. We won because we were super creative and motivated.
Lobby. A busy body who appears everywhere is more scary than any amount of money. I lurk non-stop and am very vocal about injustice. There is nothing a legislator or school board member hates more than dirty dealing in front of a school teacher who notices. I’m also much more effective at killing bad reform because I’m there. I don’t wait for my union to do that job – and I have noticed. . . they don’t. I am still shocked at how few times I see them . . . at any function.
I do two things everyday. I work full-time and have to be real about my ability too. I try to go to an event each day and network. I work for other organizations and other issues to build relationships.
Control the message. Develop a message and lobby your union. Go to meetings and control the voice during the meeting. Do everything your union asks – you will notice they don’t ask much.
Avoid titles, pay, and bribes. You will be tempted by those wishing you to be quiet when you gain political capital. Do not trust or listen to anyone giving you things so that you will behave. Be skeptical of those who have taken it.
When they ask who you are . . .tell them I’m just a teacher but I live my kids so watch out!
Surround yourself with friends, bloggers, allies, and positive leaders. I felt very alone in my crazy conservative state. Now I go to the Internet and feel inspired. I have to face reality . . .I am alone. But if not me – than who? And slowly people are coming around.
Think outside the box. My Nevada caucus does not support me – find a group who does and work with them.
Always tell the truth. It’s painful but necessary. It doesn’t make you popular but integrity is important. I am an activist for my kids. I am not a politician. I do not negotiate or deviate.
I cannot wait for my union or my friends to tell me it’s ok. It’s bad. We are under attack.
I’m sorry it takes so much energy to swing the NEA ship or influence my union leadership but if that is part of what needs to be done – I’ll kick their ass too.
Throw the starfish back.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/56782.Loren_Eiseley