Adam Bessie, who teaches in California, writes here about the neat rhetorical trick of the people and groups behind the Vergara case. Although they were spending millions of dollars to attack the rights of teachers and workers, they cleverly positioned themselves as part of a campaign for civil rights. Even the decision was written in that frame. Bessie says that teachers must reframe the debate–or lose public education.
He writes:
“As angry and frightened as teachers are of more scapegoating, we must refuse to be cast as villains in a very well produced fictional drama staged by the elites, one that distracts us from looking at the very real causes of inequality of opportunity, of broken dreams, and lost chances. The Vergara verdict must push teachers to make stars of themselves, by reclaiming their role as public servants working on behalf of social justice, working on behalf of students, working on behalf of communities and the country for the public good, working towards civil rights, and better opportunities for all students – or, it will signal the concluding act in public education, and a shot at the American Dream for all students.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Yes, this has been recognized for a while now. The problem is how? They own the airwaves, they own the print media. With the exception of a few independent online outlets (which can easily be marginalized as “fringe”), they own everything. Everything Joe and Jane Average American hear about teachers and education is how lazy, entrenched, unionized teachers are so bad for students, and we must have “standards” and “accountability” to ensure that every child learns, that no child is left behind or is a victim of “the soft bigotry of low expectations”, etc., etc. It’s extremely effective propaganda. It feeds into people’s natural biases and outright bigotries. It sounds like “common sense”. It comes from both political parties, but carefully filtered to appeal to the demographics of each. And they have all the money to back it up.
With no media attention/outlets and no money, how, specifically, does Mr. Bessie propose we “change the narrative? I’ve talked to anyone who will even half listen until I’m blue in the fact, I’ve written letters, I’ve begged Eric Zorn, the “liberal” columnist of the Chicago Tribune to take on the issues. I’m at a loss for what else to do, but I’m open to suggestions.
Local public school teachers have more credibility than politicians and lobbyists.
The idea that people with an 8% approval rating are lecturing the public on “self interest” is laughable.
They believe their own PR. Don’t you believe it.
It hasn’t escaped my notice that this rush to strip teachers of job protections coincides with real pushback against privatization.
“At will” employment in the private sector means just that – it means you can be fired for any reason or no reason at all, and that includes publicly criticizing your boss to customers which in this case means “school parents”.
You’re credible and that’s in short supply these days.
I taught over 10 years in private schools with success. As a teacher, I had leverage working for me–students had to perform. All that I needed to do was know content and how to deliver it. This is what should be expected of public school teachers also. Unfortunately, public school teachers, I have discovered, are mere pawns; and they are given great responsibilities without the authority to go with these responsibilities.
What am I going to do as I approach the end of my career?
I’ve got to make students and parents accountable. I cannot be at the mercy of the public, my school district, my immediate administrative overseers, the legislature, etc. You cannot give great responsibility to an employee without also giving greater authority.
The public model looks like this:
School boards hire a superintendent, who hires principals, who hire teachers, who teach students. The sham of it is that accountability starts at the top and is pushed downward. When it comes to the teacher holding students and parents accountable, the system collapses. It’s not that teachers don’t demand accountability. The fact is that the people ABOVE the teacher in this chain don’t have the balls to let the teacher demand excellence from those he teaches, and to parents of said children. Yet, the mantra is always about the teacher needing to do a better job while the actual school culture is not really about academic excellence. They say, “We’ve got to keep the kids interested in coming to school.” The kids all know this, and they know how to exploit it.
What am I going to do?
If heat flows downward, then I will put it right on my students and their parents. Seriously, if its all about pressuring from the top down, then it is ludicrous to stop in the classroom. If academic excellence is really what Welch, Rhee, Lester Crown, Gloria Romero, Treu, and others are really interested, then I am going to demand that they get out of my way and let me do my job. I am going to take no prisoners since I must do so by judicial fiat. I am going to continue documenting each interruption that occurs in my classroom, each time students are pulled from my class for some activity or bogus bureaucratic reason. I am going to document like crazy, and when the day comes, I am going to present it.
Teachers have not done a very good job of explaining how the system has overburdened them and detracted from student learning. We need to start explaining the massive interference to teaching and learning occurring everyday and the lack of true accountability in the system–from the top down.
On the subject of media bias in favor of charters/privatization, and against the pre-existing traditional public schools… I just discovered this:
Since August 2012, there has been a pitched battle out here in West Los Angeles between…
… the parents and surrounding neighbors at a pre-existing traditional LAUSD public school—Stoner Avenue Elementary School…
AND
… those involved with the invading (“co-locating”) charter—Citizens of the World (CWC, whose national leader in Eva Moskowitz’ husband, WHO LIVES 3,000 miles away, but that’s another story).
From DAY ONE, the behavior of the invading charter officials, parents, teachers, students, etc. was breathtakingly despicable… even by usual charter co-location disaster standards. (I won’t got into all the details, but it’s all quite entertaining… read the entirety of the blog linked BELOW for that.)
The folks suffering at CWC’s hands—and consequently opposing CWC—were Stoner parents and residents near Stoner (some of them both residents and Stoner parents).
Whenever the Stoner parents/residents went to the media to complain about CWC, and about LAUSD’s (presumably Superintendent and pro-privatization John Deasy’s) refusal to intervene, and thus enable the worst of CWC’s actions… NOTHING.
As a result, this charter “co-location” fiasco continued unabated from August 2013 on into 2014 (again, the stories are jaw-dropping and hilarious… from a distance, that is… for those Stoner folks negatively impacted, probably not so much.)
However, when the CWC charter folks enlisted the media for help… suddenly, it became a story worth covering.
Hmmm…
Here’s a quote from a blog run by Stoner parents opposing CWC’s invasion:
————————————————-
“Today, CWC parents are meeting with LAUSD. That’s probably why the media is currently in a frenzy over the dis-location of the Stoner co-location.
“It’s interesting that when we were contacting these media outlets in fall and winter, none responded, but now that CWC is asking for help and claiming they are the victims, the media is responding.”
————————————————
This is at:
http://cwcmarvista-co-location-stoner-lausd.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-end-is-nigh3and.html
HAPPY ENDING: someone at CWC failed to deliver to LAUSD the paperwork—to continue co-locating on the Stoner campus—by the required deadline, and had to go elsewhere. LAUSD found room for them at another traditional campus… good luck to that school community and surrounding neighborhood.
I
Ooops… that second paragraph should read…
“Since August 2013… ” NOT 2012
I am not an expert at reframing public discourse and policy, but a major redefinition of “effective” teachers is certainly required.
Laura et al…here is only a small portion of the hedge fund big guy who is already profiting off the backs taxpayers. Tilson blogs today about Vergara..and lauds the many new lawsuits filed already, and also in preparation to be filed, which mirror Vergara.
Tilson’s words :
2) I wrote (but ended up not publishing) this article entitled: Why the Vergara Ruling Is Pro-Teacher:
Judge Treu’s preliminary ruling in the landmark Vergara lawsuit (which you can read here) is a game-changer and a huge win for students, especially poor and minority ones who are most likely to get stuck with “grossly ineffective teachers.” But is it a setback for teachers in general? The unions would have you think so. For example, the NEA’s statement read in part:
This lawsuit was never about helping students, but is yet another attempt by millionaires and corporate special interests to undermine the teaching profession…
While the AFT chimed in:
…this case now stoops to pitting students against their teachers. The other side wanted a headline that reads: “Students win, teachers lose.” This is a sad day for public education.
This is utter nonsense. In fact, the Vergara ruling is incredibly positive for the vast majority of teachers – just not for the worst teachers and the union bosses who, bizarrely, think it’s their job to protect them.
To understand why, it’s important to grasp what the ruling said – and what it didn’t. At issue in the case were three things that the teachers union, using its enormous political muscle in California, had won for its members…
3) As I predicted, the Vergara ruling is already sparking plans for similar lawsuits around the country. Kudos to Campbell Brown for spearheading the effort in NY:
A new advocacy group is helping parents prepare a challenge to New York’s teacher tenure and seniority laws, contending that they violate children’s constitutional right to a sound basic education by keeping ineffective teachers in classrooms.
Campbell Brown, a former CNN anchor who has been a critic of job protections for teachers, launched the group, Partnership for Educational Justice, in December. She said six students have agreed to serve as plaintiffs, arguing they suffered from laws making it too expensive, time-consuming and burdensome to fire bad teachers.
The preparations to challenge the state’s tenure laws this summer follow a landmark ruling in California earlier this month. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu struck down the state’s laws on tenure, dismissal and seniority, saying they disproportionately saddled poor and minority students with incompetent teachers. Evidence that ineffective teachers hurt learning, he wrote, “shocks the conscience.”
California unions that intervened in the case, Vergara v. California, said they would appeal, and legal analysts predicted the ruling would inspire similar suits around the country.
4) Just when you think you’ve heard all of the ways that our schools screw poor and minority kids… Here’s Jay Mathews on another lawsuit in CA that “is about insufficient and inequitable time for learning”:
Lucia and Ignacia Barajas are sisters who attend Compton High School in southern Los Angeles County. They want an education, but their school seems unable to give them enough time to get one.
During the 2011-2012 school year, Lucia’s biology teacher went on maternity leave. For two months there were nothing but short-term substitutes in the class, most staying only a few days. In the fall 2013 semester, Ignacia’s American history class had more than 10 substitute teachers, and some days none at all. The restless students waited outside the door until they were sent to the library or another classroom.
Wasting time is common in the nation’s low-income schools. Class schedules can be a mess at the beginning of the year, forcing students to wait days in the library for their assignments. Lockdowns because of neighborhood violence detract from learning time. Teacher absence rates are high, and instructors will often quit mid-year with no good replacements available.
A little-known time-waster is something called inside work experience (IWE) or service learning. I first encountered it 30 years ago while doing a book about an inner-city school. If the right class wasn’t available or expectations for the student were low, he or she would be assigned to do chores for a teacher during that period. It’s still happening.
At Fremont High School in the Los Angeles city school district, Eric Flood recently had an IWE period during which he sorted mail, ran errands and socialized. Fremont student Edith Quintero had two such periods during which she made copies, entered attendance data into a computer and chatted with friends.
I know this because of a remarkable lawsuit just filed by, among others, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and the Public Counsel Law Center against the state of California on behalf of 18 students at seven schools. The class-action complaint says students are not receiving the equitable education the state constitution requires.
Inequitable education class actions are not new. For decades, many states have been sued for not giving low-income children the opportunities provided in affluent communities. But this suit is different. Previous class actions focused on inadequate funds, teacher quality, facilities and materials, such as textbooks. This suit is about insufficient and inequitable time for learning. Stanford University economist Eric Hanushek, who chronicled unequal education suits in his book “Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and Statehouses,” said this complaint is “something new” that focuses on “what the students are getting in the classroom.”
________________________________
My question :
So with friends like Tilson, what public school teachers, students, and parents need anyone else to protect their interests??? Rhetorical question.
We deserve this. We teachers have gotten generally lazy. There are lots of stars amongst our ranks who change the lives of many, many students. There are vastly more that work miracles within their contract time each day. And there are many more who plug along doing their best and impacting students positively each year. But there are too many who have taken teaching and mocked it with their bad behavior and lazy work ethic. And we as a professional group have done nothing to police them.
So what do our unions do? They fight for this lazy worker, which is the duty of a union. Powerful state unions play partisan politics independent of the needs of teachers or students. The lure of money and power in state capitals across the nation is too hard to resist. Playing politics has made us look as dirty as the politicians who use us. We have become part of the problem.
Yes, the message of poor performing schools and lazy teachers has been cried from the rooftops for a couple of decades now, true or not. But what have we done to counteract this message? When our unions fight for the laziest of us, the public sees that as another instance of putting adults over kids. Our national and state unions stay silent on these issues as long as it doesn’t upset the delicate power structure in our state legislatures. They fight for the adults and less often for kids. While this is their mandate, this image has been used to discredit teachers.
I am a conservative. But I love public education and love my local union. Why? I believe public education is the greatest tool to inculcate American beliefs and values to our children. The problem is that not every teacher believes this. Some of our colleagues say and do stupid things, which then make news and race across the Internet.
I also love my local union because that is where the rubber truly hits the road. We could live without AFT and NEA. In California, I could live without CTA. But my local has worked hard to develop relationships and vehicles for inclusive participation. This is the answer to our problems. Act locally, teach globally.
So what to do? We fight against the national power grab that is happening. We must take education back directly to the communities it serves and less directly to the states. Our dependence on Title I and federal funds has made us slaves to the national politics of education. We cannot fix our current problems within the structure that created this mess. We cannot count on any politician to help us. We must work ourselves in our own schools, districts, and county offices to bring sanity back to education. Otherwise, we are done. We will witness the destruction of public education to the detriment of our communities.
Speak for yourself. I don’t know ANY teachers who aren’t working their hearts out for kids–and hours and hours and hours of work beyond contract time. I’ve actually seen only one truly “lazy” teacher in my 13 years of teaching, and she is has now been fired. The teachers in my area have ENORMOUS teacher loads of students as well.
“So what do our unions do? They fight for this lazy worker, which is the duty of a union.”
I would think the purpose of a union is to equitable protect the interests of all its members, and spread funds equitably on the interests. So when ole Deasy says it takes 450K to get rid of a teacher, does the union spend 450K in that process too? Are union funds spent disproportionately or unwisely seems like a legitimate question.
UTLA doesn’t pay for ANY of that—and boy, are the wrongfully accused and innocent teachers are pissed about that… but that’s another story.
Those extreme outlier cases that cost LAUSD management six figures to fire teachers—you can count them on the fingers of one hand—are when the accused teachers fund their defense totally by themselves… and it ain’t cheap, believe me.
Most of the rest cave in when they are faced with the out-of-pocket costs required to take it all the way to OAH and Superior Court, not to mention because the emotional and physical drain involved in doing so.
However, those few extreme cases are constantly brought up by the Superintendent and by anti-teacher writers as if those six-figure costs were the norm… i.e. the Superintendent and anti-union writers mention them in a way that misleads the public—“we’re attempting to dismiss hundreds of such teachers”— into thinking there are dozens, or hundreds of such cases, and it just ain’t so.
Jack, thanks, good to know.
Since we’re talking about Vergara, I’m re-posting something of mine.
(I have combined 2 posts, so what follows is a bit redundant—i.e. my posting of YouTube link)—… sorry)
Here’s a video of one of the “grossly ineffective teachers” and “2013 Pasadena Teacher of the Year” named in this lawsuit (by her former student and plaintiff Raylene Monterroza):
Mind you, this above video was played during court, and Ms. Monterroza was questioned about how it felt to watch the video of students praising her “grossly ineffective teacher” (starting at 00:49). She replied that watching it was upsetting, and that those students must have been lying as that wasn’t Ms. Monterroza’s experience.
Hmmm…
Watch the “teacher of the year” video again, starting at 00:49, where the students give their opinion of the teachers.
Do these kids sound like they’re lying? Do the kids’ description of their teacher Ms. McLaughlin align with the criteria of the stereotypical “grossly ineffective teacher” that the Vergara legal team claims that Ms. McLaughlin is?
Again, this is a video portrait, as you see, celebrating and profiling Ms. McLaughlin’s award-winning teaching, as the “Rotary’s Pasadena 2013 Teacher of the Year.”
The student plaintiff, Ms. Raylene Monterroza, claimed in her testimony that those students in the video can’t be telling the truth, as it conflicts with her own experience. She said that watching that video prior to her testimony, “upset” her… as it included countless students contradicting her and the entire Vergara team’s claims that Ms. McLaughlin is… again… “a grossly ineffective teacher.”
Again, watch the video portrait of Ms. McLaughlin (who was also won the Pasadena NAACP’s “2008 Star of Education” award, by the way) and ask yourself…
So which is Ms. McLaughlin?
a deserving, multi-award-winning “Teacher of the Year”, praised to the hilt by countless students in the video?
OR
“a grossly ineffective teacher” according to JUST ONE student, and a teacher who taught the (Vergara plaintiff) Ms. Monterroza “nothing,” and thus destroyed Ms. Monterroza’s education?
Watch it again while you ponder that question:
I think this answer is pretty obvious, and hopefully will be to any Appeals Court or Supreme Court judges.
when I watch the video, I wonder what how Ms. McLaughlin is holding up today. Hopefully, she focuses on the opinions of her supportive students and not that of thoroughly-coached and mendacious Ms. Monterroza.
There was some “Perry Mason moments” of sorts during the trial. For example, Ms. Monterroza claimed that she never read any books because Ms. McLaughlin never assigned any, or required any work of her.
When Ms. McLaughlin took the stand, she presented the class syllabus that she’s given to all her fifth graders over the years. This included numerous books that were required reading, the papers that were required, and numerous assignments—something that hundreds of former students (though not Ms. Monterroza, of course) would back up was the cornerstone of her class.
Of course, this syllabus included all the class work and homework that a student must complete if he or she wanted to… maybe… oh, I don’t know… learn something.
When asked if Ms. Monterroza had completed ANY—not “some”, mind you…”any”—of the work required, Ms. McLaughlin recalled her records and said, “No.” When asked for an evaluation of her overall performance, Ms. McLaughlin replied delicately, “Raylene did not do her best.”
Needless to say, Ms. Monterroza and the the Vergara plaintiffs had all the credibility of O.J. Simpson during the civil trial against him—i.e. when Simpson was presented with photos of his wife’s beaten-up face (taken by police who answered his wife’s 911 call), Simpson claimed that this was the result of his wife picking at her acne… oy vey!
The judge had his mind made up before he walked into court on DAY ONE.
In LA…we can raise you one. A choral teacher at Crenshaw HS, Mrs. Robinson, who has taught for over 30 years and has been so exemplary in her arts role that her choirs are invited to perform not only at the White House, but all over the world, was summarily dismissed by Broad’s boy, Deasy, and now she lingers in teacher jail with no due process and not even knowing what the charges are for this unilateral punishment.
This addtional frivelous charge to a most beloved and respected teacher with a golden list of achievements adds her to the close to 500 teachers this ‘grossly ineffective’ Superintendent has jailed, doubled since the ill advised Vergara decision when he, a witness for the plaintiffs, announced how happy he was and would rapidly fire more teachers at LAUSD..
Diane — Bessie describes a strategic decision by the Manhattan Institute in the late 1990s to switch support from vouchers to charters and to market the idea by “co-opting progressive language to sell privatized education policies to the public.” Bessie also quotes you as saying: “There was explicit discussion about the importance of presenting the charter idea as a way to save poor minority children. In a city and state that was consistently liberal, that was a smart strategy.”
Did you agree with this strategy? In your opinion, did the people involved in these discussions truly believe that charter schools were a way to save poor minority children? Or were they only interested in finding an effective way to market privatized education policies?
” In your opinion, did the people involved in these discussions truly believe that charter schools were a way to save poor minority children? Or were they only interested in finding an effective way to market privatized education policies?”
The latter… I would add the phrase… “and to advance the privatization to as many states and school districts as possible via the phony claims that it’s all to improve the educations of poor and minority children.”
To be clear, I was asking Diane, as she was at the Manhattan Institute and witnessed or participated these discussions.
FLERP, Adam Bessie accurately reports what I told him. The Manhattan Institute is a very conservative think tank in NYC. When I was a senior fellow there in the 1990s, there was a clear understanding–belief or hope– that school choice was better than public education, and that vouchers were politically impossible. I testified in 1998 in Albany on behalf of charters. The legislation passed, in large part because Governor George Pataki linked it to a pay raise for legislators. Supporters of charters presented the idea as a way to “save poor minority children from failing public schools.” That was and is the claim made for charters, though there was no evidence that it was true. Did I believe it? I wanted to believe it. After more than 20 years experience, and much evidence that “poor minority children” don’t benefit when entrepreneurs and amateurs run their schools, I don’t believe it anymore.
Do you think your colleagues at the Manhattan Institute believed it? Or do you think they were only interested in how to sell privatization?
FLERP, I am remembering back 20 years ago. I would say that some believed that schools freed of all bureaucracy and oversight would flourish; but others believed in the power of the free market. The former was a hope, the latter was powerful ideology. I have learned that ideology is not changed by evidence.
Diane, thanks for being so open in reporting on this issue. Really appreciate your comments. And our California colleague, Adam Bessie is always an accurate reporter.
In that time period in California, vouchers were all the rage and when Richard Riordan was Mayor in LA, he did a hard sell. And of course he is now the proud developer of many charters and donates some his vast wealth, joining with Broad, in expanding ever more.
Wish by osmosis you could reach their inner core and teach them that one can indeed teach an old dog new tricks. These two do a twin tap dance in the media here describing what wonderful philanthropists they are and how grateful we should be for their leadership. Maybe we will have Karin Klein of the LA Times chiming in about all this.
I feel as though I have spent at least the past 20 years as an educator in California, in a war zone.
Indeed, this whole Vergara trial was like something out of Mao’s “Cultural Revolution” in China during the 1960′s. For those not acquainted with this, here’s primer: zealous students, under party leaders’ directions, would persecute their teachers. Kids would get their jollies as they put their teachers on a stage, put dunce caps on them, then screamed at them while forcing their teachers to bow their heads, kneel down, and confess their “crimes” and on and on…
These kids—appointed and empowered as “Red Guards” by Mao’s henchmen— would parade their former teachers through the streets…
Hey wait… there’s a scene from THE LAST EMPEROR that shows this way better than I could describe it…
Watch from: 01:19 – 04:19
(at which point—04:19—some female Red Guard students start performing an inane Commie “line dance” of sorts… creepy…)
At 02:45, watch “Pu Yi”—the former-Chinese-emperor-now-gardener—as he tries to stand up for his former teacher (for clarification: years ago, while Pu Yi’s was imprisoned, his teacher was referred to as “governor.”)
In response to Pu Yi, a teenage “Red Guard” zealot screams in his face:
“Join us (in the persecution of teachers), Comrade, or f— off!”
Next, the students force Pu Yi’s former teacher to his knees and demand that he “confess his crimes.” Amazingly, he refuses.
Pu Yi then chimes in, shouting:
“But he is a teacher! A good teacher! You cannot do this to him!”
… before Pu Yi is violently subdued by the student fanatics.
Anyway, this scene is all happening AGAIN, and it’s happening HERE in the Vergara case courtroom, and soon will in countless more “Vergara” courtrooms to come. It’s a less intense version, to be sure, but THE overall situation is the same:
we know have kids—directed by and empowered by evil adults with an evil agenda—enthusiastically persecuting their innocent teachers.
How sad that teachers have to advertise themselves and their schools. I’ve been doing that with my school for several years in order to keep the wolves of charters schools at bay. A lot of the time the media won’t even respond to our announcements of special events, field trips, etc. Sometimes they do. But how sad that we’re having to spend our own time and money on this. That’s one thing the unions should be doing–using their money and media attention to good advantage and showing the public what teachers really are.
If I could make a suggestion, the constant focus on charter schools will not get public school parents attention.
They aren’t in the charter school group. They don’t think debates about charter schools have any relevance to them.
They’re listening for “public schools” because that’s where their children are.
So, in NYC for example one would nit talk about the charter chain where their children DON’T go but instead talk about how the inequitable treatment of public schools harms the schools where their children DO go.
It doesn’t get any clearer that “co.location”. That’s a straight-up comparison. The children in the PUBLIC schools were never mentionef. All I heard about was the celebrity charter operator.
That’s what I have done. I have advertised my public school to the media with the things we DO: field trips, plays, concerts, debate, a special Holocaust memorial we do every year, even some teacher awards I have gotten. I hate to do that stuff, especially my personal awards, because it seems so self-congratulatory. But we’ve had to do it to make sure parents know what we provide. The subject of the charters never even comes up.
What is the narrative of Vergara? Are teachers expected to take on the role of parent? If the student doesn’t do their homework, is that the teachers responsibility?
90,000 unaccompanied minors expected across US borders in 2014. 150,000 unaccompanied minors from Guatamala, El Salvador, and Honduras expected in 2015.
Aside from where the additional 2 to 3 Billion dollars per year will come from to educate these children, are the teachers expected to replace the role of parent in completing schoolwork, as the Vergara plaintiffs expect?
The Vergara defendants have taken on the role of unaccompanied minors. Maybe we need a separate school system for children who need a parent ad litem.
Looking at Plyler vs. Doe, educating immigrants was fine, because the percentage was so small that it was not a burden to the state of Texas. For this reason, I think Plyler vs. Doe could be overturned today, as it is a huge burden. The federal government should be paying for the education of immigrants, not Texas, Arizona, or California.
Excellent comments TC…we are drowning in California with all the immigrant students, some who follow their parents who are ‘pickers’ and need to follow the seasonal crops to earn their meager wages. These kids drop in and out of schools all over our state. We also have about 60,000 homeless kids in similar circumstances, and those at or below the poverty level are about 90% of the student population.
We have about109 languages spoken in our schools, from Hmong and many Asian languages and sub dialects, to Middle Eastern Farsi etc., to African nations with their plethora of dialects. And teachers are expected not only to teach them all, but to parent them (without touching them on the threat of arrest and job loss), to act as INS sntiches, and to make all this variety of students into college bound test takers. And do all this round the clock work for abysmally low salaries.
Yes, there are some terrible inept teachers who should be out of the profession, but the huge group of wonderful teachers who actually achieve successful outcomes, should be thanked by society, not vilified.
Of course, Bessie is on the `mark re the need to reframe the issues. There is one stunning road block to implementing Bessie’s recommendation: The AFT and NEA are led by education ‘deform’ sell outs. l As long as the remain in power teachers will not be represented by advocates who have either the will or the capacity to reframe the Vergera issues. .
This posting on narrative leads me to my second piece on the Vergara decision.
In advance of my comments, see below links: 1), the judge’s decision on Vergara; and 2), the link to the 1/30/2014 testimony of Dr. Chetty, an expert witness for the plaintiffs.
Link #1 [here aka VD for “Vergara Decision”]: http://studentsmatter.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Tenative-Decision.pdf
[The above link was included in a posting on this blog:
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/06/10/the-text-of-the-vergara-decision/ ]
Link #2 [here aka CT for “Chetty Testimony”]: http://www.vergaratrial.com/storage/documents/2014.01.30_Rough_am_session.txt
[Note that #2 is “AN UNEDITED, UNCERTIFIED DRAFT TRANSCRIPT WHICH MAY CONTAIN UNTRANSLATED STENOGRAPHIC SYMBOLS, AN OCCASIONAL REPORTER’S NOTE, MISSPELLED PROPER NAMES, NONSENSICAL WORD COMBINATIONS, MISSING OR PARTIAL WORDS, AND/OR WORDS IN REVERSED WORD ORDER.” (p. 1 of CT)]
Note the following brief identifying information that will be useful below: “James M. Finberg, a lawyer with the San Francisco-based firm Altshuler Berzon, which is representing the CTA and the California Federation of Teachers.”
Link: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/02/05/20lawsuit_ep.h33.html
Language can be a powerful tool for subtly, or not so subtly, illuminating or obfuscating the topic at hand. For example, in the 16 pages of VD one can find: “grossly ineffective teachers” (12 times); “grossly ineffective teacher” (2); “competent teachers” (2); “incompetent ones” (1); “average teachers” (1); “grossly ineffective” (1); and “grossly ineffective colleagues” (1); and the longest of all, citing a 2007 CA DOE document, “underqualified, inexperienced, out-of-field, and ineffective teachers and administrators” (1). And the weight of these words is deceptively concentrated: none of the above phrases occur on 7 of the 16 pages of VD!
Particularly note this paragraph (reproduced in full; phrases re teachers not accounted for above) from pp. 13-14, leading off the section entitled “LIFO”:
[start quote]
This statute contains no exception or waiver based on teacher effectiveness. The last-hired teacher is the statutorily-mandated first-fired one when lay-offs occur. No matter how gifted the junior teacher, and no matter how grossly ineffective the senior teacher, the junior gifted one, who [14] all parties agree is creating a positive atmosphere for his/her students, is separated from them and a senior grossly ineffective one who all parities agree is harming the students entrusted to her/him is left in place. The result is classroom disruption on two fronts, a lose-lose situation. Contrast this to the junior/effective teacher remaining and a senior/incompetent teacher being removed, a win-win situation, and the point is clear.
[end quote]
[Note: pp. 13-14 are included in the 9 pages that are mentioned above containing the listed phrases.]
Without stating it directly, the judge is creating a compelling picture that pits the junior and/or gifted/last hired that creates a positive atmosphere for his/her students against the senior and grossly incompetent that harms students. Resistance is futile…
But is it a stretch for me to assert the above? The following paragraph, in full (p. 14):
“Distilled to its basics, the State Defendants’/Intervenors’ position requires them to defend the proposition that the state has a compelling interest in the de facto separation of students from competent teachers, and a like interest in the de facto retention of incompetent ones. The logic of this position is unfathomable and therefore constitutionally unsupportable.”
A fantastical leap of logic that was greatly supported by the sort of selectively inflammatory/laudatory language the judge used. After all, who would be in favor of retaining “grossly ineffective teachers” and displacing the junior gifted ones except for venal members of the education status quo that favor adult interests over those of children blahblahblah?
A final word on language and tone. Where in the world did the judge get the oft-repeated phrase “grossly ineffective teachers”?
Of course, without reading the full transcript—which would probably rot my brain out—I cannot answer that question. But CT is a big help as well as a caution.
In its 191 pages Dr. Raj Chetty most often uses the phrase “highly effective” when referring to teachers (37 times); “highly effective” 32 times. He speaks like a person wrapped up in a world governed by mathematical precision, so his language tends to be technocratic. The only person to use the phrase “grossly ineffective”—the only person to use “grossly” at all in the 191 pages!—is, of all people, Mr. Finberg! On p. 186 we find first, “grossly ineffective teacher” and then, a definition of what a “grossly ineffective” teacher is. Only two times, and both by the defense! [I leave a fuller discussion of definitions, consistency and logical leaps for another contribution.]
If not a technocrat-numbers/stats person, who might have come up with the fortuitous “grossly ineffective teachers” phrase that the judge so warmly embraced? Just as a result of googling, perhaps it was another of the expert witnesses for the plaintiffs, Dr. Arun Ramanathan.
[start quote]
According to Dr. Ramanathan, the LIFO Statute forces districts to lay off highly effective teachers they would otherwise retain, and to retain ineffective teachers they would otherwise lay off. The LIFO Statute also imposes a disparate adverse impact on poor and minority students, who are more likely to be taught by grossly ineffective teachers than wealthier, non-minority students. Low-income and minority students are also more likely than their peers to be taught by newer teachers and therefore lose a higher percentage of their teachers when seniority-based layoffs occur.
[end quote]
Link: http://studentsmatter.org/ai1ec_event/vergara-trial-day-14/
Nonetheless, whatever the source of “grossly ineffective teachers” it needs to be pointed out—
“Grossly” has strongly pejorative connotations; “highly” is significantly more neutral. The judge’s choice of modifiers shows his own state of mind and understanding and how he wished to direct public perception of his decision.
TO BE CONTINUED
“Grossly”? I have a theory on that.
My guess is that after much focus-group testing of countless phrases with regular folks—you know the whole one-way mirror thing—the corporate reformers settled on that now ubiquitous three word phrase…
“grossly ineffective teachers”
I would further guess that they discovered that the adverb “grossly” successfully conjured up the whole teacher-as-pedophile idea—either on a conscious or unconscious level. They further found that to be the most emotionally impacting argument against teachers having any sort of job protections… “Well, I know it’s not fair to teachers that some innocent ones will be fired, but just to be safe…” or “If we have to make a choice between teachers’ rights and student safety, then we must come down on the side of students… ” because let’s face it, other than murder, the worst crime someone can commit is to harm a child sexually.
And that’s where demagogues like Campbell Brown come in… when in fact, their goal has nothing to do with student safety, but the destruction of teaching as a profession, the destruction of unions protecting teachers, and the conversion of education from part of the public commons to a privatized industry.
Gads Jack…linguistics does prevail here. I used “grossly ineffective” Superintendent in my comment above, to describe Deasy…before even scrolling down and reading your comments. Guess I have been bitten by the bug…but I was only trying to mirror the clowns who keep up the litany of “grossly ineffective” teachers. Seem never to see the phrase applied to administrators, only educators in classrooms.
KrazyTA — This just occurred to me, but it’s possible the term was borrowed from habeas corpus cases dealing with claims of ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment. Those claims often include allegations that the criminal defendant’s attorney’s assistance was “grossly ineffective.”
This is probably more obvious, but the term also echoes “gross incompetence,” the classic cliche expression for worker incompetence that’s so bad that it will justify any firing.
Also, there’s a long tradition in law of slapping the word “gross” in front of another word to create a new, more severe category of bad conduct. For example, there’s negligence, and then there’s gross negligence.
Jack & FLERP!: thank you for your comments. This blog is invaluable for giving folks like you a chance to lend a hand in teasing out context or meaning.
What you offer, unfortunately, is exactly what the MSM will not. If people not so involved in the ed debates—i.e., concerned members of the general public—were to go to the ‘trouble’ of downloading, reading, and thinking about the 16-page Vergara Decision, they will most certainly be affected by the tone set by the language used. *Like the infamous ‘gotcha question’ to a politician: “Congressman X, how many times a week do you beat your wife?” The answer is already in the question, and trying to set the record straight becomes doubly difficult.*
I remind the viewers of this blog again of one of the few people directly referenced in the judge’s decision, Dr. David Berliner: “Dr. Berliner, an expert called by State Defendants, testified that 1-3% of teachers in California are grossly ineffective” (p. 8, VD). The numbers extrapolated from the total number of teachers in CA: 2750 to 8250. Devastating—but Berliner didn’t use the phrase “grossly ineffective” and his remark was a “guesstimate.” So the numbers are about as fragile as they can be.
Yet on June 21, 2014, “Readers React,” LATIMES, the highest number based on the “guesstimate” was casually used as if it were one of the alleged hard data points of the education establishment.
See my first contribution on this blog, comments thread of June 21, 2014, “Law Professor: The Vergara Decision Was Weakly Reasoned.”
Let’s keep the conversation going.
“Truth is powerful and it prevails.” [Sojourner Truth]
😎
The power of collective action. Uplifting.
Falsehood flies and the truth comes limping after.
Jonathan Swift
Krazy TA,
Thanks for bringing that up. As FLERP says, I suppose gross is a common legal term. However, the number of times it was used was as you say, a little beyond neutral.
Or that Mark Twain quote:
“A lie can go half way ’round the world while the truth is still puttin’ on its shoes.”
TA…once again you give a reasoned and researched recap. Thank you.
Further reminder re Berliner, emeritus from Arizona State University which is now in the for profit business of online college courses for teaching Starbucks workers. Bilking them for profit perhaps, and a weak and possibly worthless degree. And Starbucks says it will foot the bills…but I am jaundiced about this and will wait and see the outcomes.
Wow, this article really takes on the corporate reformers’
attempts to turn parents & students AGAINST teachers:
——————————————————————————
“Beyond carrying the burden for the very real inequality in our schools, teachers have now been legally pit in opposition to students and parents – this is the most concerning outcome of Vergara. Corporate reformers – StudentsFirst, most notably – have worked hard (and successfully) to convince the public that teachers and students are at odds – that the rights and interests of teachers are fundamentally in conflict with those they serve. Vergara legitimizes this false division between teachers and the community, straining critical relationships needed to support children – especially in those communities facing the worst learning (and living) conditions.
“More broadly, Vergara situates teachers outside of the fight for social justice – indeed, it describes us as barriers to equaility, on par with racial segregation. Yes, yes, I know the verdict is focused on “grossly negligent teachers,” whom I too don’t want teaching my students, nor my two-year old son, who will attend public school. But with the rise of high-stakes standardized testing, the poor quality of evaluation based on that testing, the increasing top-down management styles that dismiss teacher opinion, the constant drum of the “failing schools,” and the generally hostile attitude towards public workers, it’s not hard to feel that we’re all targeted – that any of us could be a “bad teacher.”
“In the 1990s, it was just conservative think tanks on the edges of the debate that would invoke the bad teacher boogeyman – now, the Executive Branch of a “liberal” administration agrees: Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has hailed the verdict a victory, employing the same civil rights framing he has used in selling President Barack Obama’s Race to the Top. In other words, Vergara doesn’t just represent the point of view of billionaire businessmen, conservative scholars, nor an isolated, “activist judge” – it now reflects the perspective of my Department of Education, and the President himself, who now believe that “bad teachers” are the root of our educational challenges, rather than the wide-spread poverty and systemic racism which the original civil rights leaders fought against, and which still exist today.
“As angry and frightened as teachers are of more scapegoating, we must refuse to be cast as villains in a very well produced fictional drama staged by the elites, one that distracts us from looking at the very real causes of inequality of opportunity, of broken dreams, and lost chances.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
I’m reminded of a speech from about a year ago from UTLA’s outgoing President Warren Fletcher (“Warren, we hardly knew ye.”)
While it addresses the Ben Austin/ Parent Revolution/Parent Trigger fiasco here in LAUSD, it also eloquently describes the overall “corporate reform” strategy of turning groups of stakeholders against each other—as stated in the Bessie article above—and about how corporate reformers (and their henchmen like Ben Austin) turn “hope into hate”, and cynically pit AGAINST parents & students, inciting the latter to attack the former… and do it deliberately so… so corporate interests can exploit that breach that they themselves made—and are continually making—a premeditated effort to (excuse the pun) “trigger.”
(It takes a while for Warren to get going, as corporate reform puppet Board Member and
Acting Chair Tamar Galatzan aggresively tries to block Warren from speaking, and it’s up to the late Marguerite LaMotte to allow the leader of the nation’s second largest teacher a chance to speak. “Carrying out your corporate marching orders yet again, are we, Tamar?”)
This is a classic (in my opnion):
Jack…I never saw this clip and am amazed at the strength of Warren’s 2 minute statement. Once again Ben Austin is claiming the prime role for school change by use of the parent trigger. His article today in the Orange County Register makes him seem a benign leader in the fight for inner city kids…never mentioning his dastardly connection with the Waltons and Eli Broad, and some others of the billionaires who fund him so handsomely. He has never had to worry about being a truth teller…and his double dipping, and association with the charter barons, is kept under wraps.
We must join forces to fight him and his conference of “parents” in Oct, to be held before the election. He is lobbying in Sacramento as as he did to get the Parent Empowerment Act of 2010 passed. Villaraigosa and Perez who are big charter supporters, and who stay on Eli’s good side, still have major clout in our State House, and they surely are working to support Austin. We too must lobby Atkins and de Leon to have them hear our side.
At the real Parents Conference held at CSUN some weeks back, parents booed loudly when Parent Rev was mentioned, and the same reactions show on this video. Those parents who are not on his secret payroll, as were those bussed in last Oct. 29, see through his slime and manipulation.
Also, the equally slimy Galatzan, who uses her lawyer background with impunity to cut others off at the knees, is coming up for re-election. It is imperative that we in LA work assiduously against her. We will need the help of teachers across the country to beat her…and we will always remember the great support from Diane and all, that we got when Monica Ratliff ran.
Thanks Jack for this LAUSD info. Despite that we are probably boring some of our colleagues across the country, California is a key player in this battle, and I hope educators everywhere will support our soldiering.
And I hope the new UTLA team of officers, with Alex Caputo-Pearl at the head, will pay attention to the outcries of LAUSD teachers, both in teacher jail, and out.
Same goes for the LA Times, Karin.
Teachers will remain mired in the quagmired narrative of the reformers desperately trying to prove what kind, conscientious people they are as the muck rises. The level of deviance required to lasso a rival with a rope of lies is not in the skill set of your rank and file pedagogue. Our unions need to pay lawyers and lobbyists from the very bottom of humanity’s barrel who can play this game for us. But what are those union people doing instead? Here in New York I heard Carl Korn the head of NYSUT’s media wing tell the morning radio folks the morning after Vergara came down that he’s not planning to do anything. He is going to wait. When the lawsuits are filed here in NewYork he will do something. And we wonder why we are losing the war for public education? I know why.