AFT Stands with Garfield High School Teachers
Washington—American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten issued this message of support to Seattle’s Garfield High School teachers standing up against the use of high-stakes testing.
Dear Garfield High School Teachers:
Thank you. Thank you for taking a courageous stand against the fixation on high-stakes testing and its harmful impact on our ability to give our students the high-quality public education they deserve.
Your actions have propelled the national conversation on the impact of high-stakes testing. Every educator understands that appropriate assessments are an integral part of a high-quality education system. But an accountability system obsessed with measuring, which punishes teachers and schools, comes at a huge cost to children. This fixation on testing has narrowed our curriculums and deprived our students of art, music, gym and other subjects that enrich their minds and make learning fun. Teachers have been forced to spend too much time on test preparation and data collection, at the expense of more engaging instruction. Ironically, this fixation on high-stakes testing actually does the opposite of what its proponents tell us it will do.
Learning is more than a test score, and teaching and learning—not testing—should drive classroom instruction. We need to be focused on growing and nurturing the minds of our students—to ensure that they can think creatively and analytically. It’s no longer enough to teach kids to memorize a bunch of numbers and terms; they must think critically and be able to absorb and interpret knowledge. We must ensure that our children are able to not only dream their dreams but also achieve them. At the same time, we must prepare students for civic engagement and to value that we all have a collective responsibility to one another.
The AFT and tens of thousands of educators, parents and students stand with you in this effort. The AFT passed a resolution at our national convention last summer focused on rebalancing our national education priorities and ensuring that teaching and learning drive our education policies. And we are focused on uniting communities across the country around this issue.
Thank you for leading this conversation.
Randi Weingarten
AFT President
Nice!!!!
Bravo to you folks!! I approached my principal today with a request to investigate doing the same here in Connecticut. The “reformers” are hitting us hard here in CT, Michelle Rhee jumping in this past year to add to the lying efforts of Achievement First, ConnCAN (whose former CEO is on the New Haven Board of Ed – that’s how you do it folks, infiltrate and affect policy from within), and assorted others. We need to be civilly disobedient and put up a united front against the corporate take over of education.
Our duplicitous governor is trying to shove the same teacher evaluation nonsense down our throats. What they have managed to push through the state legislature amounts to another unfunded mandate, which municipalities are now questioning as another billion dollar budgetary shortfall looms on the horizon. Malloy has let it be known that towns and cities will be taking budgetary hits to cover this. Malloy is particularly unsympathetic to local officials’ concerns about the rush to impliment the new evaluation plan, which is heavy on standardized tests,and the costs associated with it. “Really? Really? They are going to argue about whether we should evaluate the effectiveness of people? Really?… That’s an argument I’m more than happy to have,” stated our ignorant, arrogant governor.
George,
I have been trying to organize a movement of teachers, parents, and community members here in CT to do just what you are saying. The group, Truth In Education, has spoken with two reporters from major newspapers in CT, providing them with real documented evidence of the fraud, to no avail.
Please contact me if you are interested in helping with the organized resistance!
My question is this: Why is Randi Weingarten thanking Garfield teachers? Why isn’t Randi Weingarten taking the lead? “Your actions have propelled the national conversation on high-stakes testing,” she says. Why isn’t Randi Weingarten leading the conversation? Why isn’t Randi Weingarten actively encouraging schools across this country to opt out of high-stakes testing so it isn’t just a few courageous teachers at Garfield putting their jobs on the line by doing so? Randi Weingarten could advocate this without coming close to putting her job on the line! In short, why is Randi Weingarten thanking Garfield teachers for their actions when Garfield teachers and teachers across this country should be thanking Randi Weingarten for her actions on this issue (assuming, of course, there were any worth thanking her for)?
NEA/Dennis: take note of Randy’s comment & take the lead!
There’s a very good reason why Weingarten is not leading the conversation: this statement, and everything else she says about high stakes exams, was cynically tossed off to cover herself with the membership, and distract teachers from the fact that she has been an active enabler of and participant in corporate education reform.
For just a few examples, we have the AFT’s participation in the Aspen Institute’s Education and Innovation Forum and Expo, where participants could “Learn about investment-ready non-profit and for-profit innovations and high-scoring 13 projects…” (www.aspeninstitute.org/events/2011/01/20/innovation-education-beyond-i3-exhibitors/aft-educational-foundation-teacher-excellence).
In the 2009 Broad Foundation annual report, it was stated that “We decided at the outset of our work to invest in smart progressive labor leaders like Randi Weingarten…”
The Broad Foundation invested in Weingarten’s pet UFT charter school project, which has been troubled with administrative and teacher turnover, and is danger of being closed.
Then there was the chummy retreat held at Eli Broad’s home in 2002, where Randi was joined by Joel Klein, Rod Paige, Wendy Kopp and Kim Smith of the New Schools Venture Fund, and where “The goal of the retreat is to solicit guidance… on how to scale up current Foundation investments and develop new high-impact policy initiatives.”(www.broadeducation.org/news/118.html)
As head of the UFT in NYC, Weingarten twice supported mayoral dictatorship of the schools (unilaterally going against the recommendations of her own school governance committee report in 2009), negotiated a contract that destroyed seniority transfers and opened the door to the ongoing epidemic of school closings, sat by while Bloomberg bought an illegal third term, and then gave him a de facto endorsement by remaining “neutral” in the 2009 election.
Randi Weingarten supports teachers the way a noose supports a hanging man. If you observe her behavior, rather than what she says, you will quickly realize that she is one of Them.
PS: Let’s also not forget her inviting Bill Gates to give the keynote speech at the 2010 AFT convention, and her contemptuous treatment of teachers who objected to having one of our main adversaries given an implicit endorsement.
Great question. Randi Weingarten has jumped into bed with people like Bill Gates so she has gotten herself caught between a “rock and a hard place”. Really she has proved herslf useless as UNION leader and has allowed her and the AFT leadership to be used as tool for the Wall St. and foundation “reformers”. Her policies have been devasting to teachers, student and communities across this country. It is time for different leadership in AFT. I would nominate Karen Lewis as the new leader of AFT.
I feel a shift in the wind.
Yeah, but where was the “leadership” of the AFT before. Sorry but until the teachers overthrow their lords, whether in the AFT or the NEA, one can’t count on those organizations to do what is right by the students.
Where is the union Seattle teachers belong to, the NEA?
Seattle is NEA
BUSY BUSY BUSY leaning on WEA to support “Democrats” who sold teachers out last year with the Teacher Evaluation Bubble Test Target –
http://washingtonstatewire.com/blog/governor-signs-teacher-evaluation-bill-battle-offered-preview-of-senate-budget-blowup/
Big deal…they, Randi and Dennis, always come out after the fact. After
Chicago, after Seattle…they are “leaders” who never lead.
They capitulate, throw us under the bus and then try to grab the glory of others who actually took a risk and a stand.
Please…any of us could have written the above and nobody would care.
Oh, but if they actually take a stand and lead us like you think a union leader would, they’ll lose their spots at the big kids’ table with Arne and and Pearson. NEA partnering with Pearson is still blowing my mind. And did I read that one of the unions is now working with TFA? Please tell me that is a lie.
Union leaders get elected by union members. If you believe they are not doing a good job, then convince someone else to run for their position and help them get elected. Or, consider running yourself.
Hear in RI the President of the Providence Teachers Union (PTU) unilaterally endorsed Race to the Top without any voice from the rank and file of his union or for that matter any other union. Without the endorsement of a union RI woulld not have won the RTTT grant. Now the PTU president works in partnership with the school administration and the Mayor (the same mayor who fired all the teachers in Providence). This is nothing less than corrupt union leaders looking out for themselves and not the inerests of public education, teachers or students. AFT leadership is corrupt and it is time ALL members get rid of them at the national level, the state level and the local level.
Couldn’t agree with you more Linda. You know an opportunist when you see one.
I do wish our union would be vocal on this issue. Instead they send emails to “write letters to protest the unfair testing” when they agreed to it.
Yeah..like good cop/bad cop or the mom who disciplines and the fun dad…they like to have it both ways. They kick the can down the road and let each school/district/city/state duke it out…it is survival of the fittest.
The AFT should direct every one of their local unions to no longer give these tests. If every school in NYC refused to administered the test, I guess we would all be considered insubordinate and get letters in our file. Or let us see if they would really try to fire 75,000 teachers using the 3020a process over this.
Well, you know what? That is a very good point. Why doesn’t Randi lead in NYC and tell the teachers to refuse to give any of the tests? Instead she praises teachers in the northwest. I don’t understand….lead a revolution here…can’t she be the NYC Karen Lewis?
Randi is the AFT (national) president. Michael Mulgrew (I believe that’s his name) is the UFT (NYC) president. Follow the NYC Educator blog, & you can learn more about what’s going on there
(he’s GOOD!) Just as in Chicago, where CORE (Caucus of Rank & File Educators) worked hard to get Karen Lewis elected, NYC has MORE (forget what the M stands for) doing the same to fight their powerful, stagnant & controlling UNITY faction.
Kudos to MORE, & hope you can do for the UFT what CORE did
for the CTU!
MORE is the Movement of Rank and File Educators
Yes we have stood with these teachers from minute one and will transform one of the largest locals (UFT) into a grassroots, activist, social justice union.
morecaucusnyc.org
Exactly!! And let’s not forget that Randi bent over backwards for both Bloomberg and Gates. She approved VAM since it was a pet project of Gates and took away seniority rights of NYC teachers and who are now ATRs. And not too long ago she brokered a horrible deal for the Newark teachers who are now stuck with it.
This all stems from the fact that she can no longer top Karen Lewis. She sees how her Unity party is failing. Like Norm always says, “Don’t look at what she says, see what she does!!”
I was a union member for years, but I learned from experience that they are primarily concerned with maintaining their own existence. They are weak organizations and not nearly as powerful as some may claim. If the unthinkable happens, they’ll fight for you if they deem it to be politically viable. But don’t expect anything.
Having said that, I support many of the things they claim to support (due process, smaller class sizes, etc.).
The AFT and NEA are weak, Joe, because they have “leaders” who are lap dogs of Gates and Broad and the other plutocratic corporate foundations. In short, they have bought a place at the table by selling their memberships down the river of corporate ed reform. If you want to see what how strong teachers can be with leadership, see Chicago and Karen Lewis. This should be a stimulus to every member of AFT and NEA to dump the corporate lawyers who are running the puppets, Weingarten and Van Roekel, and to elect some real leaders who are advocates for children, teachers, and parents.
I really want to see teachers across America take back our unions. Those of us who are trying to organize a coordinated resistance movement to the corporate reformers believe that we need to do something newsworthy to gain media attention. One idea I’ve heard is that we start picketing our own union offices until they either start standing up and taking direct action to fight the reformers, or step down in favor of someone who will.
Bill Morrison
I am a teacher union activist in Australia, having held both state and national union positions. Diane Ravitch has addressed our union conferences in Australia via video link and received a well-deserved warm reception.
The Garfield teachers’ stand is indeed inspiring to teachers and all concerned about the impoverishment of education due to the corporate reformers and their ilk who also infest Australian media outlets, education bureaucracies and politics – including some who should know better.
I believe the teacher unions in the US have a very difficult road to hoe against vicious anti-teacher, anti-public education campaigns. I am encouraged that Randi Weingarten has sent this message and hope that the stand by the Garfield teachers will put more backbone into both the AFT and NEA leaderships.
If Diane Ravitch had not posted this, who would know? I could not find this statement on the AFT web site. Google could find it for me only on Diane Ravitch’s blog/FB page. It is on the AFT FB page, but they certainly don’t seem to be pushing it. So now it’s up to us to get this out there — and for those of us who are AFT members to use this support in our own locals around supporting Seattle colleagues AND our own similar issues. Thank you, Diane Ravitch!!
Yet when this issue came up at the UFT, which is part of the AFT. those who control the UNITY caucus did not want to support this.
So you have to ask, were they waiting for Randi to give their approval even though every teacher at this week’s Delegate Assembly wanted to support Garfield teachers??? Tells you more about the workings of the AFT/UFT—it does not trust teachers to make decisions.
Let all locals call for the immediate refusal to participate in the self-destruction of public education–Let us support our students and colleagues and for the common good boycott all high-stakes standardized testing. If everyone gets on board we will regain the reins of integrity for ourselves and a broad-based curriculum ensuring freedom of thought for our students.
It is easy for AFT to say they support Garfield High teachers; it is very much more difficult for AFT to show real support by leading a resistance in other states. My union affiliation is with AFT; I have been profoundly disappointed that this union has not done anything substantial to resist the testing mania brought upon us by corrupt “reformers” like Stephen Adamowski, Michelle Rhee, Pall Vallas, and Stepfan Pryor. Additionally, the AFT has done nothing substantial to educate Governor Malloy about his misconceptions of education and educators. AFT talks a good game, but they do not ACT a good game.
Bill Morrison
Academy of Engineering and Green Technology
Hartford Public High School
Hartford, CT
Seattle Teachers’ Test Boycott: Reading The Tea Leaves…
How big the boycott will get and what were its main triggers are open questions….