Kim Cook, a first-grade teacher in Florida, received a bonus of $400. She donated it to the Network for Public Education to fight the failed ideas of corporate reform, which prevail in her state.
She is the second teacher to donate their bonus to NPE to fight fake reforms that demean teachers and distort education. Not long ago, Kevin Strang, an instrumental music teacher from Florida, donated his $800 bonus, awarded because he teaches in a school that was rated A.
On behalf of NPE, we thank Kim and Kevin. We hope other teachers will follow their lead. We pledge to fight for you and to advance the day when non-educators and politicians stop meddling with your work and let you teach.
I asked Kim to tell me why she decided to do this. This was her reply:
“Hi Diane,
“Yes, I donated $400. I am a first grade teacher in Alachua County, Florida. I was inspired by Kevin Strang’s donation last month. I, too, received bonus money, not because I work at an “A” school, but because my school’s grade went from a “D” to a “C.”
“Here’s the catch: I don’t teach at the school that determines my school’s grade. I teach at Irby Elementary School in Alachua, Florida, which only serves grades K-2. My school’s grade is determined by students at the grade 3-5 school up the road.
“I have only been working at Irby Elementary for three years, so I have never met–never even passed in the hall–the fourth and fifth grade students whose FCAT scores determined my school’s grade. Even if I had, I completely disagree with high-stakes testing and tying teachers’ bonuses, salaries, and evaluations to those scores. I am donating my bonus money to NPE because I am fighting the failed policies of education “reformers” in every way that I can. Thank you for providing me an avenue through which to do that!
“Here is some background information on me. I am the Florida teacher that received an unsatisfactory evaluation based on students I had never taught at the same time I was named my school’s teacher of the year. My story made it into Valerie Strauss’ The Answer Sheet.
I am also the lead plaintiff in Florida Education Association/NEA’s lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of VAM.
With deep appreciation and respect,
Kim Cook
Diane Ravitch's blog 
From a fellow Florida teacher, THANK YOU KIM! You truly are a teacher of the year! There are many, many great teachers in the Sunshine State and we deserve better. Keep up the good fight! I’m with you.
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Hallelujah: someone else whose integrity is not for sale. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. Would that there was that kind of integrity by the corporate CEOs who plan on making millions on the backs of our children.
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9 hours: 336 letters and emails sent to President Obama and Congress.
Please join this grass roots RESISTANCE. Let the powers that be know that their power is being threatened by outraged parents (i.e. voters), teachers (i.e. voters), administrators, general educators (i.e. voters), and concerned citizens (i.e. voters). Once a cornerstone of our democracy, public education is under attack by the 1%. Sign this petition and join the wildfire of opposition to this corporate take over attempt. Do not let the neo-liberals co-opt our public schools -and our students future.
I just started this at Petition2Congress. It is very easy to sign, copies are automatically sent to President Obama, and your own senators and your representatives. Please take the time to read and the petition entitled: STOP COMMON CORE TESTING. Thank you.
http://www.petition2congress.com/15080/stop-common-core-testing/?m=5265435
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Thank you. I did that. I got four printed and delivered letters for only $9, and the emails were free. It was very efficient and inspiring, and I wrote a blue streak.
I wish I could share my letter with you, but it names my school.
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Thank you chemtchr. Together we can tear down the walls of neoliberal reform and take back our schools..They should have known better than to mess with parents; they love their children too much to let this continue. Don’t you look forward to the day that the toxic cloud that hangs over our public schools is finally lifted.
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Please, everyone, take the time to do NY Teacher’s petition. It’s quick and easy, and these people need to hear from us!
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Thanks Bob.
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760 letters/emails sent to President Obama and Congress in the 15 hours since it was started. There must be a lot of people not buying Arne’s BS.
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792 and counting.
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Here’s one responder from Princeton, NJ
Mr. President – This week you traveled the country preaching equal pay for equal work. You said that if woman succeed the country succeeds. How can you say this when your administration is systematically destroying one of the largest employers of professional women – public schools. What have teachers done to this county to deserve such public scorning? Stepped in front of a bullet for a child? Used their bodies to shield students during a tornado? Used their private resources to buy supplies, clothing, food for students who are in need? You see, teachers are a unique breed. We do our craft because we love it. We often care for it more than we care for ourselves. We don’t get perks like air conditioning, bathroom breaks or clean/healthy working conditions. Everyone one of us donates our own money to pay for necessities in our classrooms that our district budgets don’t cover. And yet your administration calls us lazy and greedy. What will you do next – put us in public stockades and give people rotten food to throw at us?
I just received a letter from the DNC with your name in the return address and on the cover of the envelope it said “Do you still have my back?” I did have your back – but you never had mine? I gave you my hard earned money and believed in your message of Hope. Little did I know you had sold public teachers out for some $ from ALEC. Race to the Top, Common Core, VAM – the privatization of education are failing. These policies are coming close to breaking the heart and soul of public educators. And if that happens your administration will be to blame. TFA will not be able to fill the holes caused by the loss of experienced teachers.
If you truly want to reform education you will stop listening to billionaires who will profit from the Common Core, VAM, fast tracking of charter schools and work with real educators and incorporate equity for all students. I’d have your back again if your administration strove to create public schools that are like the type of school your children attend – instead of something from a third world country. There still is time to turn this thing around, I still believe you are a good man at heart, please do the right thing. You can begin by stopping Common Core testing, VAM and the fast-tracking of charter schools.
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that’s awesome
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beautiful
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I am in awe of your willingness to help other teachers and to join in the lawsuit intended to fight this stupidity. The evaluation was clearly a fraud. The more cases like this the better. Art, music, and PE teachers, along with reading specialists and others might end up having valid cases, especially those assigned to multiple schools, as is common in the elementary grades.
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Thank you, Kim!
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Thank you so very much, Kim. This will take a strong group effort to win and each person’s contribution is necessary and appreciated.
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Here’s how critical thinking works on Planet Reality where the potency of the Rheeality Distortion Fields prevalent on RheeWorld and Gatesville is greatly diminished.
First, from the above posting—
“Here’s the catch: I don’t teach at the school that determines my school’s grade. I teach at Irby Elementary School in Alachua, Florida, which only serves grades K-2. My school’s grade is determined by students at the grade 3-5 school up the road.”
Second, from this blog:
“Gates says he won’t know if the reforms he is funding will work for another decade.”
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2013/09/30/bill-gates-we-wont-know-for-a-decade-whether-our-ideas-work/comment-page-1/
Answer: we didn’t have to wait ten years.
They failed. You rheephormers have failed. Y’all have made things much worse.
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” [Albert Einstein]
A hint from a non-technie to Bill the G: hit the reset button. Reboot. Use a better OS. Time for you and the other members of the BBC to put your billions to work on something that actually has a chance of working.
😎
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1000%
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Standing ovation!
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Thank you Kim! You are an inspiration to all Florida teachers.
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If every teacher in America gave 100-200 dollars (or more), and we hired our own lobbyists to “influence” our own politicians, then we could get somewhere. Petitions, protests, opting out, e-mails, letters, voting (ha ha) (silly local elections like DeBlasio) will not get us anywhere. Until we start gathering huge amounts of money to contribute to politicians, we are wasting time. We could have lobbyists working every politician in the country on the behalf of public schools. You should start collecting resources. That is the way politics in America work.
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I sympathize. It can be really discouraging.
Is there a single person in the Obama Administration who supports public schools? I literally cannot find a single higher ranking person who isn’t hooked into the big ed reform/privatization groups or some kind of ed industry contractor. It’s incredible. It’s complete and total capture at the federal level. They just move in and out of the revolving door between the foundations and the government and then companies that lobby for contracts.
2013:
“Bruce Reed, assistant to President Barack Obama and chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden, was named president of The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, the founders announced today.
As the foundation’s first president, Reed, 53, will oversee the activities and investments of The Broad Foundation’s work to improve America’s public schools.”
We’re going to need a bigger boat 🙂
http://www.broadeducation.org/news/676.html
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There has not been a president since Jimmy Carter who was not a full-fledged Ed Deformer. And with each, the commitment to the oligarchs’ Orwellian vision for the future of U.S. education–a vision that is all about training for the children of the proles in obedience and low-level work skills via extrinsic punishment and reward–has increased exponentially.
Obama is the worst of the lot, so far, of course, and I thought it couldn’t get much worse than it was under the Dubya administration in the time of the insane NCLB program. But now they have doubled down on this with Son of NCLB, NCLB Fright Night II: The Nightmare is Nationalized.
Barry Obama. Mr. Change You Can Believe In. Mr. Audacity of Hope.
Mr. standardization and privatization and VAM. The guy whose administration made certain that the absolute authority of the Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth, as well as the Common Core College and Career Ready Assessment Program (CCCCRAP)–PARCC and SBAC–would be forced upon the country from formerly free sea to shining sea.
What a sick, evil joke on the schoolchildren and teachers of the United States.
We know that the Repugnicans will serve up a deformer in the next cycle. Hilary Clinton is likely to be the Dimocrats’ pick, and she and Bill were among the instigators of this whole mess back when G.W. Sr. was president and Bill was head of the NGA, pushing national standards and national tests.
It’s time for a little pushback. For opting out. For saying no. It must become extremely clear to these people that we, the people, shall resist. They must understand that on Education Deform, they will encounter a unified, strong, unyielding RESISTANCE.
We know what their “reform” means. And no, we will not work with it.
When they say, “Abuse these children.” We have to say, not, well, I’m willing to work with you.”
“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part! You can’t even passively take part! And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels…upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop! And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!”
–Mario Salvio, 1964
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Bob,
Need to correct a spelling error: it’s dimocraps not dimocrats.
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awesome, Kim!
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Good piece on a book that chronicles what Wall Street does to the people who work there:
“That fear is central to the ethos of Wall Street and, more important, to the vision Wall Street has for all of America, where every last worker is as insecure, disposable and terrified as the first-year analysts in Roose’s book. Of course, a vast majority of the American work force lacks that preening sense of superiority that is the other half of Wall Street’s ethos. One possible result of the crisis could have been to temper that hubris, but instead, as Roose shows, it has largely remained intact. The crisis has only intensified the terror. And that should terrify us all.”
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Chiara, I guess all that’s left to do is to sit back and watch the destruction unfold. I should have stayed in Europe when I had the chance. An old, grizzled ex-patriate American warned me about going back to “McDonald’s Land.” I was just too young and naive to understand his warning. I was too sentimental about being near family and all the struggles my grandfather went through to come here..blah..blah. All those reasons seem so trivial and misguided now. Yet his America was something special, wasn’t it? This America has very little to do with the one he saw 90 years ago. Strange, isn’t it?
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Mike,
The way I see it, you can stand there with the bat on your shoulder because your down a few runs or you can go down swinging.
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