Ben Spielberg here explains the issues in the Vergara case, the litigation attempting to eliminate due process and seniority for teachers in Los Angles, and likely, for California. This is a big case for those trying to destroy unions and any rights for teachers.
Ben’s analysis is the best I have seen to date. He includes recommendations for improving the laws.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sorry, off-topic, but CPS lies again: https://www.catalyst-chicago.org/notebook/2014/02/11/65555/record-digging-deeper-suspensions-data
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The pro-Vergara L.A. SCHOOL REPORT
pumps out the slanted story about the actual
namesake sister plaintiffs’ testimony.
I’m reading this, and thinking…
“… and who’s at fault in these situations?
Why does this mean teachers should lose
all their job protections?”
Let’s take a hypothetical “Teacher of the Year” from
Bevery Hills or Scarsdale—one whose kids all scored
high on tests and eventually graduated college.
Then have him or her transplanted into this class.
If she was dumped in the class described
by the Vergara girls, would that hypothetical
teacher fare any better?
Here’s what the girls said. From L.A. SCHOOL REPORT:
http://laschoolreport.com/vergara-sisters-recall-teachers-who-inspired-them-to-join-lawsuit/#more-19821
——————————-
“Boutrous asked for her memories of each class.
“Of the first, she said: “It was always loud in
there. He couldn’t control the class. I couldn’t
hear anything because of how loud it was.”
——————————————–
I’m reading this and thinking. And what exactly was this teacher
supposed to do? Teachers get hammered if they send
students to the office or suspend them… but if they
don’t send them out, you have the situation described
here. It’s a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t
situation.
He can’t gag the mouths of the out-of-control,
disruptive students and tie them to the chairs.
I supposed the argument would be… “A good
teacher would have inspired the students into
behaving better and caring about school… you know,
like the teachers in the movies always do.”
I honestly don’t see how you go from this to…
TEACHERS NEED TO BECOME EMPLOYEES WITH
NO DUE PROCESS, AND WHO CAN BE FIRED AT WILL—
the stated goal of “Vergara VS. California.”
Keep in mind that this article is already slanted.
Here’s more:
———————————-
“Beatriz told the court that she would like to
go to college and become a nurse, and said,
‘Teachers are supposed to motivate you,
encourage you and not put you down.’ ”
————————————–
Don’t you see?
If only the Vergara girls’ teachers would have been
more motivational and inspirational, those kids would
have straightened up like the ones in this hilarious
MAD TV sketch (that brilliantly skewers those hero
teacher-in-the-ghetto movies):
“The Nice White Lady”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaewfHk9KiA
Back to the Vergara girls:
—————————————-
“Elizabeth also painted a bleak picture
at Maclay, telling the court that her that time
spent in a number of classes was a missed
opportunity for learning.
“Once an avid reader, she recalled how
she stopped reading and attributed her
lack of motivation to her eighth grade
English teacher. She testified she only
read one chapter of one book all year
long. She further testified that her
seventh grade history teacher, the same
one Beatriz had, often left the class in
disarray, with students reading magazines,
talking on their phones ‘and throwing food.’ ”
————————————————
“Don’t you see? My uninspiring teachers made
me into a lazy student who only read one of
the books that was assigned to me that year,
and turned all my fellow students—who, with
a great teacher, would have otherwise turned
into model students—into magazine-reading,
food-throwing delinquents.”
Do the Vergara girls assign any blame to the
other students, or to themselves, or to the parents
of those students, or to the administrators who
didn’t provide any back-up on discipline, or offer
any other assistance to their teacher?
No, it’s all the lazy, LIFO unionized teacher’s
fault… and that’s why we need to be able to
fire all teachers at will.
More from the cross-examination of the girls:
——————————-
“Representing the teachers’ unions,
Eileen Goldsmith attempted to
undercut the sisters’ testimony to
show their dislike of certain teachers
was more about style than substance.
“She also elicited testimony from Beatriz
that showed it had not been hard to
switch programs at her current school
to find better teachers.
“Goldsmith asked Elizabeth if her dislike
of her eighth grade English teacher was
more about his approach to teaching.
She said, “He cared too much. He was
a very caring person, but his focus should
have been more on learning the subject
and not our feelings.”
————————————–
How nice. The teacher whom she dumped
all the blame on—with none assigned to
the students, the parents, the administrators—
is described: “He cared too much. He
was a very caring person.”
As for her claim that the teacher’s “focus
should have been more on (our) learning
the subject, and not on our feelings.”
Isn’t that what all those heroic movie
teachers-in-the-ghetto try to do? Isn’t
that what actual real life caring teachers
try to do… relate and connect to students
on a personal level, as a way to make
them care about learning.
Here’s another testimony from
a pro-Vergara student witness
who claimed she didn’t learn anything
in a particular class being discussed.
The teachers’ union lawyer confronted
her with the class’s syllabus, that clearly
showed all the required readings, papers,
projects…. you know…
… all the work that she knew darn well
was required of her, work that was
assigned because completing it would lead
to her… welll… actually learning something…
Nahh… don’t you see. It’s 100% the
teacher’s fault that she didn’t lift a finger
to complete any of it.
—————————————
Glenn Rothner, a lawyer for the unions,
seemed to make inroads in his cross
examination of another plaintiff in the case,
Raylene Monterroza, 16, who testified
about difficulties she had with an
eighth grade English teacher at
Blair Middle School in Pasadena.
“While she claimed to have learned
very little in class, Rothner mentioned
a series of books and projects that
purported to be part of the class
syllabus, and she recalled none of it.”
————————–
She couldn’t even remember the work
that she was assigned, but refused to do.
AND THESE ARE THE STAR WITNESSES ???!!!
I’m going to do some speculating here.
These are dirt-poor Latinos from an
impoverished area of the northern
part of LAUSD.
They and their families are being paid
big money to read the scripts given to
them. They were recruited, coached,
and put on display.
I’ll say it again. This case has nothing
NOTHING, NUH-THING to do with improving
education for poor, minority students, or
providing those same students with quality
teachers.
That’s just the facade, and the puppet-masters
pulling the string know this… they are trying to
play the public and court system to advance
their ignoble ends.
That’s not hyperbole. This is EXACTLY what is going on.
THESE PEOPLE WANT TO DESTROY THE TEACHING PROFESSION AND THE SYSTEM OF TRADITIONAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS—schools that are transparent to the “public”, that educate all the “public”, and that are accountable to the public via democratically-elected school boards.
Regarding the destruction of our profession, I first heard words to that effect two-and-a-half years ago at UTLA’s LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE (August 2011) in a speech delivered by Warren Fletcher, my current union president:
(go to 06:30)
———————————————-
WARREN FLETCHER, UTLA PRESIDENT:
“Well, I’ve been through a lot. In the past our reactions to each successive wave of bad educational ideas would have been what you might expect: ‘We’re professionals. We’ll do what’s best for the kids despite these bad policies. We’ll just get through this.’ That’s what professionals do!
“But the challenges we face today in Los Angeles are different. THE GOAL of the phony ‘reform’ movement IS NOT TO CHANGE YOUR JOB; IT’S TO ELIMINATE YOUR JOB.
“THEIR GOAL IS NOT TO CHANGE THE TEACHING PROFESSION; IT’S TO ABOLISH TEACHING AS A PROFESSION.
“Teachers are college educated professionals. You are not easily taken in. You see what the current school board majority is trying to do to your profession and to your students. I know that every one of you is ready to stand up and take this fight to the District, ready to take back our schools.
“You are not alone. Your union stands with you.
“We are public school teachers and we are proud of it!”
– – – – – – – –
Indeed, one of the goals of the “reformers”—a goal that goes hand-in-hand with overall privatization—is change teaching from…
————————————-
CATEGORY A … a profession with requires exacting education, extensive expertise, a demanding training period before actual practice… much like that of doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. … a career job that last decades…
… and convert it to …
CATEGORY B… nothing more than a low-level service job that requires the most minimal education, almost no expertise, and little if any training period (just gimmicks from godawful books written by “experts” like Doug Lemov) … like fast food, retail sales at a store, janitorial, etc. … not a career job… and with no job protections, or due process for firing… a few years and out you go, to then be replaced by a next round of similarly poorly-compensated, short term workers…
—————————————–
CATEGORY B need only be paid a pittance and can be abused and over-worked with impunity, while CATEGORY A requires considerably more compensation. If the money-motivated privatizers are going to make a decent profit while taking over all or much of what is now public education, the the work force has to be the latter.
I remember talking to a TFA Corps Member at a school site, telling her that doctors, lawyers, and engineers need exacting education, extensive expertise, a demanding training period before actual practice… and so should teachers.
Her reply, “Yeah, but those are different from teaching; those are REAL professions.”
THUD! Sound of my jaw hitting the floor. (That’s part of what they’re taught during their five weeks of training… oy vey!!)
The other agenda is that corporations—including those not engaged in raping and pillaging of public educatin—and rich folk will have their taxes drastically cut as a result of all this. Those corporations will have higher profits, higher price for their stock, and happy stock-holders as a result. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED IN CHILE… thanks to decades of the dictatorship there, and no democratic process to stop privatization.
That’s why the so-called “corporate reform” privatizers are spending hundreds of millions of dollars vilifying the current teachers and their unions—documentaries, movies, op-eds, foundations, etc. Those unions are getting in their way of their rampage towards profits. The privatizers desperately need to destroy the public’s faith and confidence in teachers, and pass so-called “right-to-work” laws that will destroy unions. They want to do to education what they did to the housing industry, and to Wall Street… education is the next realm to conquer, rape, and pillage. These are the same folks.
However, you’ll notice that in the schools that these well-heeled folks send their own kids, you have teachers with multiple degrees, decades of experience… schools that include full-time dedicated libraries / librarians, arts teachers/ program, music teachers / programs.
Unlike the McSchools they want for the kids of the middle and working classes, these schools have small class sizes, and no (or very little) time spent in a cubicle with on-line or digital teachers. 100% (or close to it) of their kids’ instructional time is spend with live teachers of CATEGORY A above, and because of the small class sizes—12-to-1, 10-to-1, that attention is often 1-on-1… again, totally unlike the McSchools they want for everyone else’s kids… those of the middle and lower-income communities.
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But here is a great comment
from Susan Graham about
what testimony is being allowed
in court. She’s referring to a parent
who says her child’s teacher claimed
the child “has a poor aptitude
for math.”
The article to which she responds
is at:
http://laschoolreport.com/vergara-witnesses-recall-teacher-intimidation-incompetence/
SUSAN GRAHAM:
“Wait a minute… isn’t what the parent
said about what the teacher said
hearsay?
“Was the teacher identified by name and
asked if that was what he or she said?
“How do we know they just didn’t
make this up?
“How can testimony about what
someone supposedly said be admitted
in the record without the teacher
having a chance to refute it?
… and some kids, yes, do have ‘a poor
aptitude for math. ‘ Some of the
math taught is developmentally
inappropriate for students. In our
obsession to “compete”, we forget
that most of the math taught in
unnecessary in the work force.”
AND THEN THIS COMMENT:
SUSAN GRAHAM:
“Again, this lawsuit doesn’t deal with
the main issue: where WILL the
“effective” teachers come from?
“It is quite difficult for LAUSD to hire and
retain math and science teachers, and
this often has to do with the poor behavior
of students in the district as compared
to other districts.
“So by taking away rights from teachers,
while keeping the pay the same, where
will these teachers come from? These
stories are just meant to slander all
teachers, which is disgusting.
“The other day I was called a B_____by
a student. Fortunately, we have a principal
who is supportive of teachers and this
student will no longer be at our school.
“But teachers day in and day out put up
with outrageous abuse and harassment
from students.
“Will that be part of the lawsuit?”
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Yes, too bad the teachers can’t give testimony about abuses and the lack of respect for education. I really find it pitiful that a student gets on the stand and blames the teacher for not reading books. This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. More of the, “Nothing is my fault nor my parent’s fault, but it is all your fault.” This is shameful and it is even more shameful that the Super. testified against the district’s teachers. How sad. I can’t believe sleazy billionaires are peddling children in order to eventually get their hands on education money. America has lost its mind.
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The L.A. press is totally prejudiced against the teachers. We have no friends in the media us we are “teachers of the year”.
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