NEA, the larger of the nation’s two teacher unions, never ceases to surprise.
In December 2011, Dennis Van Roekel co-authored an article in USA Today with Wendy Kopp of Teach for America, expressing their agreement on how to improve the preparation of teachers. Needless to say, the article provoked outrage among some NEA members, especially those who rightly see TFA as a placement agency for inexperienced, ill-trained youngsters who provide staff for a growing number on non-union schools.
Now NEA has announced a new partnership with the Gates-funded Teach Plus, which advocates for the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers. Its model is Colorado’s SB 191, one of the nation’s harshest laws, where student test scores count for 50% of a teacher’s evaluation. Bear in mind that evaluating teachers by the scores of their students has been shown by researchers to be inaccurate and to punish teachers whose classes include the neediest students. See here and here, for example.
Mercedes Schneider here explains why Teach Plus is a strange bedfellow for NEA.
She assumes that the teachers’ union wanted “a seat at the table” by aligning with an organization that is deeply embedded in the corporate reform movement. She warns that the union and experienced teachers will be “at the table,” but they will not have a seat. They will be on the serving platter.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
As an Indianapolis native, I have to tell you that after reading Mercedes Schneider’s piece linked in this post, I am dismayed even further.The school board president is the Indianapolis Executive Director for Teach Plus. Indianapolis now recruits TFA. I attended Indianapolis Public Schools when I was young and I student taught there. IPS has, just as most urban schools, some problems but they reflect the community as a whole, IPS has and has always had very dedicated teachers (traditionally trained) that believe(d) in the students they serve. Now with the jokester new superintendent and school board, IPS as I knew it, is gone. What makes me curious is why the mayor of Indianapolis is so involved in the school system when crime is at an all time high. I was there over the weekend (no longer a resident of Indiana) and there were 7 shootings in less than 12 hours, they occur on daily basis. Maybe they need some police officers that have been trained for 5 weeks in the most crime ridden areas of town, maybe they need to privatize the police department (have they thought of that yet?). That community needs teachers, traditionally trained teachers, they need wrap around services, they need ….some common sense.
You are right, Michelle. I have a big section on Teach Plus in my soon-to-be released book Hoosier School Heist. They are a spin-off of the Mind Trust and the Bill Gates/Eli Lilly/Bart Peterson plan to privatize the IPS schools as much as possible.
So much for “democratically elected” school boards always doing what’s best for the students. Democracy does not guarantee accountability.
I’m wondering if this shows rather that local boards cannot make sensible decisions without the necessary information. Is it perhaps a failure of the press?
“Democracy does not guarantee accountability.”
Quite true, Harlan, but oligarchy guarantees its absence.
The history of the unions over the past 50–60 years has been one of increasing collaboration with ownership. The teachers unions are just the latest chapter in the buying of union leadership by the wealthy and the selling out of the rank and file.
NEA is described as the largest labor union in the United States. The vast majority of its funding comes from member dues. If the organization has been co-opted, members should vote with their feet (and pocketbooks).
Face it. Privatization is the only way to save education now.
Nope. Won’t face it. Because privatization is NOT the solution.
There was a famous news report by Peter Arnett during the Vietnam War – an earlier hubris-driven folly by America’s Best and Brightest – in which a US Army major is quoted as saying, after the obliteration by aerial bombing of the village of Ben Tre: “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.”
Like that?
well said, Michael
Agree. Harlan’s comment notwithstanding, it would appear NEA has been running scared in a down economy– failing to recognize that we are now engaged in the sort of fight for labor rights that always obtains when monies are diverted to the highest echelons.
NEA is only the tip of the iceberg. Each state has an affiliate with an elected president. Each district in each state where NEA has a presence has a chapter with an elected president and a representative council, teachers elected to represent each school in the district. The reps talk to the teachers at their schools, meet with the president and decide on action plans when the need arises. This is as close as it gets to the grass roots level. I was a rep in my district at one time and NEA doesn’t interfere in a local chapter’s decisions. If a local chapter decides to do a letter-writing campaign or walk the sidewalks to protest after teaching all day, the CTA/NEA usually offers moral support.
I walked in many of those protests holding signs. Hundreds of teachers from that one district turned out sometimes late at night outside of board meetings. Then they were back in class the next day teaching.
At the district level, the elected presidents of each chapter are usually classroom teachers who are still teaching.
At the district level, if the teachers decide to fight back, they can organize with the PTA’s and supportive parents at every school; board members and even district administration and I’m sure that this is happening right now. During my thirty years in the classroom I saw this happen at the district level where all elements in the district from administration, to students, parents and teachers working through their local union chapter came together to fight a threat to the community’s schools. All of the dues do not go directly to NEA or the state level. Some of that money stays at the district level.
NEA or even the state level didn’t do this. The local district chapter did and they also get a portion of the dues the teachers in that district pay to the union.
I think Diane has written about a few of the local chapters that are speaking out in support of public education.
Dennis Van Roekel is, like Randi Weingarten, trying to play both ends against the middle. By doing so, he diminishes his credibility.
What’s disturbing is the number of “educators” who buy into the Bill Gates corporate “reform” malarkey.
Randi Wiengarten of the AFT says the Common Core is a “foundation for better schools” that will prepare kids “success in college, life and careers.”
Lily Eskelsen, vice-president of the NEA, says “We believe that this initiative is a critical first step in our nation’s effort to provide every student with a comprehensive, content-rich and complete education.”
And Byron V. Garrett says the “National PTA enthusiastically supports the adoption and implementation by all states of the Common Core State Standards, which were recently released in final form.”
All of these people know that either now or in a few short years a massive regimen of testing accompanies the Common Core.
And all of these people OUGHT to know that the Common Core is based on a very shaky premise that is easily disproved.
And that begs the question, Are all of these people utterly clueless, or do they just lack the resolve to do what is right?
To answer your question: They are mostly clueless in the sense of ignorant because they have been GAGAers for sooo long and they see an advantage of some sort for themselves.
Maybe, Duane. Or maybe it’s the sort of syndrome we observed w/Patty Hearst. At base, they’ve forgotten what unions are all about; they’re held in thrall by what they perceive as superior power, & are negotiating for survival, forgetting that their masters do not care whether they survive.
from the Reformish Lexicon:
teacher’s union. Propaganda ministry of the Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth (C^4MiniTru). Archaic usage: Organization representing the rights and interests of teachers; teachers’ labor union. See union.
union. Universal scapegoat. See, however, teacher’s union.
From The Devil’s Dictionary of School Reform:
Teacher’s Union: a once-independent, self-financed working class institution recently annexed by the Human Relations Department.
Frightening. After more than thirty years of waging war against Public Education the Robber Barons have managed to subvert the Republicans through G. W. Bush, the Democrats through Obama and now the labor unions that are supposed to support teachers.
The only people left to deal with are the teachers, parents and children. What next, concentration camps to fix that problem?
You are not too far off. The solution to failing to read on a 3rd grade level by the end of 3rd grade according to the End of Grade test in NC is a summer camp.
Nope. Privatization.
How wrong you are—again!
Your years working in private sector education have blinded you to a world you don’t know.
Privatization is not the solution to fix something that isn’t broken. You tend to ignore the evidence that Diane offers. The public schools aren’t failures. They are a great success when we look at the history of education starting from 1900.
No other country of its size has achieved what the US has with its public schools. For instance, in Mexico about 30% graduate from high school; in China only 10% graduate from senior high school.
Is there room for improvement. A little bit. Not much. Just the proper kind of support for schools that work with kids who live in poverty and a open a second track that prepares kids for jobs out of high school who don’t plan to attend college.
China has the most people in the world.
India is second
The US is third.
in 1900, about 6% of Americans age 17/18 graduated from high school in the US. Today by age 24, 90% have earned a high school degree.
How well did this idea work in 2007? We should not do to our children and my grandchildren what the 1% did to their parents around the world!
Just for the record, Harlan’s teaching experience is at an exclusive, small private school that terms itself “college preparatory” and that requires an admissions test from applicants…but a school that requires significantly fewer credit requirements for graduation than public schools do.
As a former student there said, it “is a good school, but it doesn’t offer much that the public schools do not.”
But it charges more for the “privilege.”
What a vile betrayal.
Yes. Sinclair Lewis describes your scenario quite well in “It Can’t Happen Here”.
Of course his point was it can happen here.
Looks like it is.
This reminds me of an old Twilight Zone episode…”To Serve Mankind”. As they board the spaceship with their new friendly aliens a scientist comes yelling, “It is a cookbook!”. No different here.
Jean Sachs-Nygard, exactly right. “To Serve Mankind,” when you are on the menu.
I remember that. Too funny. But doesn’t the irony extend to public schools too? Aren’t teachers always saying they want to serve the children, but in reality they are exploiting the children and state law to serve their own economic interests?
The socialist model is an offer to serve the little guy better by taking over control. How are public school systems any different from the socialist claims of Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, the USSR, China, Cambodia.
Dear, good, party members. Self knowledge is the first step to wisdom. Bad abuse breeds bad reform. Think about it.
Economic advantage? My three brothers worked in the private sector and none of them had a masters degree and all three retired well before 65 and all now live in Kaui, Hilton Head, and Palm Springs. I have three masters degrees. One of them in mathematics which could have been used to acquire a much higher paying job if that was my goal. But money was not my primary interest as long as I could make enough to support my family. I do not know of any teachers who became wealthy from teaching. I would not become a teacher today because I believe most teaching jobs do not pay enough to support a family. Your comment seemed to indicate teachers are getting paid more than other professionals. After 40 + years of teaching, I can not see how you can come to such a conclusion?
If you have follow Harlan’s comments, you would know by now that he is good at popping off short, unsupported opinions as if, for instance, Rush Limbaugh were writing them for him or he was borrowing snarky language borrowed from his favorite talk show host.
About an hour ago, I saw one where Harlan was ranting about public education being Socialist.
If we use Harlan’s flawed logic, then we could claim that all corporations follow China’s Communist model of government because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that rules China has been compared to how Western corporations are managed. In fact, the CEO’s of American corporations have publicly stated they prefer to do business in China because over a democratically ruled country because the CCP operates the same way corporations do.
But the public schools are run by democratically elected school boards. Every time there is an election, candidates must compete to win over the majority of voters in the local community that supports those schools.
There is absolutely nothing socialist about the democratically run public schools in America. The people that support those schools through their taxes live in the same community the schools serve
And 40 cents of every dollar that I pay in annual property tax goes to support the schools in our community, the same schools our daughter attended and if we had concerns about the way the schools were operated we could go in front of the elected school board and express ourselves. Then if we didn’t like the way the local school board reacted to our opinion and solutions, we could run for the school board in the next election or support a candidate we felt would represent us better.
What Harlan wants is private schools run the same way the CCP runs China or a CEO runs a corporation. He doesn’t support democracy and the tax payers right to be heard. He prefers a CEO who doesn’t have to answer to parents or those who pay the tax that supports the schools. He wants someone who only answers to a handful of shareholders only interested in profits so the company’s stock goes up—and these people including the CEO probably live hundreds if not thousands of miles from that local community that is not in danger of losing control over the schools that teach their kids.
HU,
If I may correct your one statement: “The CAPITALIST model is an offer to serve the little guy better by taking over control.”
“Aren’t teachers always saying they want to serve the children, but in reality they are exploiting the children and state law to serve their own economic interests?” — at which point you go on to claim US public school systems are akin to ‘socialist’ systems in [insert banana republic]. What on earth are you talking about? If teachers were to ‘serve their own economic interests’ they would leave the profession forthwith.
The only way in which US is similar to the ‘socialist’ countries you cite is that USDOE under Bush & Obama is making inroads in efforts to create govt-specified & -dictated method of mass education. Want true socialism? Check out Europe. What’s going on here is the effort to open the public purse to predatory capitalism. For a parallel, try Chile.
Well said, S&FF. Chile, indeed!
Teachers need a NEW Organization! NOW! The meeting in Denver this summer should have a vote to get rid of our current president. If not, we should all drop out. What is CTA’s position on this agreement?
Anything but self reform, eh? Alcoholics and druggies go to California for a “fresh start,” forgetting that they take themselves wherever they go. Public education is an addiction. Kick the habit.
If “public education is an addiction”, then the privatized education for which you so dearly wish is a slug to the back of the head.
How DARE you compare public school teachers to “alcoholics and druggies.” Shame on you, HU.
I don’t know where you’re from, but don’t knock California
“All the New England colonies required towns to set up schools, and many did so. In 1642 the Massachusetts Bay Colony made “proper” education compulsory; other New England colonies followed.” Public education is an addiction? Explain.
We really need to be thinking beyond these old left-right divides. +
Centralization of command and control–totalitarianism–is the same, whether its proponents use the rhetoric of the left or the right, whether it originated in a leftist movement or a rightest movement. What is happening in US K-12 education today is centralization of command and control–the foisting of national standards and summative tests and teacher evaluation systems and a proposed national database of student responses on a formerly free, autonomous people. This deform movement originated among corporate leaders who got together in a backroom called Achieve. It comes from the right. But it is being midwifed by the US Department of Education, which the right has traditionally abhorred.
It’s interesting to see organizations that have traditionally stood firm against any sort of centralized government regulation–the American Enterprise Institute, the Hoover Institute, the Business Roundtable, the Chamber of Commerce, ALEC, etc.–falling all over themselves in their rush to set up a totalitarian Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth, but that’s what’s happening. But, of course, these organizations on the right also rail against big government work programs while being unflagging in their support of the biggest government work program of them–the misnamed “defense” industry.
Totalitarianism is totalitarianism, whether it comes at you from the right or the left. And thinking in the old left-right terms isn’t going to protect us from it.
The two unions have become propaganda ministries for the Common Core. See my analysis of two Common Core State Standards in ELA, here:
http://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2014/02/25/a-brief-analysis-of-two-common-core-state-standards-in-ela/
Part1
The “leaders” at the most prominent teacher organizations either don’t know about, don’t understand, or don’t believe in the core mission of public education. Either way, it’s not good, and perhaps it explains why they seem to be so clueless so often, putting their fingers to the prevailing winds to guide what they say and what they endorse. It’d be nice to know that they actually believed in the historic role of the public schools, a role that’s critically important now.
Education in a democratic society has a special place and purpose. Aristotle saw this more than two millennium ago in arguing for a system of public education in Athens, writing that democratic governance required that “education should be one and the same for all…public, and not private.”
Aristotle perceived the importance of public schooling to democratic citizenship, noting that “each government has a peculiar character…the character of democracy creates democracy, and the character of oligarchy creates oligarchy, and always the better the character, the better the government.” In other words, the mission of public education in a democratic society is to develop democratic beliefs and values. Pericles described them in his funeral oration: popular sovereignty, equality, justice, freedoms, promoting the general welfare. Aristotle and Pericles knew that government can be “of the people, by the people, for the people;” or, it can be controlled by plutocrats.
Kevin Phillips, by the way, pointed out in ‘Wealth and Democracy’ that “by 2000 the United States could be said to have a plutocracy.” That was only exacerbated by Citizens United, which opened the floodgates to corporate spending on politics. As Phillips explained it, “the essence of plutocracy has been the determination and ability of wealth to reach beyond its own realm of money and control politics and government as well.” Think Rupert Murdoch and Fox News and the Wall Street Journal. Think the Koch brothers and Americans for Prosperity and the Tea Party. Think Bill Gates and the Waltons (et al) and charters and vouchers and “accountability” and privatization…and public education.
Part 2
Let’s go back to the beginning. After the Revolution, early state constitutions –– like those of Massachusetts (1780) and New Hampshire (1784) –– set up and stressed the importance of a system of public education. The Land Ordinance of 1785 provided for public school financing in new territories. Thomas Jefferson sought a publicly-funded system of schools in Virginia, believing that an educated citizenry was critical to the well-being of a democratic society, writing in Notes on the State of Virginia (1794) that “The influence over government must be shared among all men.” In the early years of the republic, George Washington, Jefferson, Horace Mann and other early advocates for public schools agreed that democratic citizenship was a primary function of education.
Over time, access to both public education and voting rights has been broadened, by legislation, by constitutional amendment, and by court decisions. Think, for example, about the impacts of the 13th, 14th, 15th, 17th, 19th, 23rd 24th, and 26th amendments. Or the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Or Brown v Board of Education (1954) in which a unanimous Supreme Court agreed that “ in the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” The United States has become a better, fairer place.
Think also about the ramifications of supply-side, laissez-faire economic policy. It is the orthodoxy of the Republican Party. The rich are fabulously richer. Poverty has grown. The middle class has gotten squeezed. Deficits and debt have piled up as money has been redistributed to the top brackets. Jobs have been off-shored. Wall Street was morphed into a high-stakes casino. The economy suffered a near meltdown, and millions of homes were lost. Unemployment spiked. Taxpayers not only bailed out those who caused the calamity but they continue to subsidize Wall Street banks. Nobody was held “accountable.” None of the culprits took any responsibility for what they did, and now they lay the onus for it on public schools.
I suspect you can see why the US Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable and Exxon Mobil and the Waltons and Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and the rest are so “interested” in public education. They can kill (privatize) it while claiming to “save” it, and make money in the process.
That’s not only sadly pathetic, but it’s undemocratic and dangerous.
Those at the AFT and NEA should wake the hell up.