I just received a copy of Dennis Van Roekel’s speech to the NEA RA in Denver.
It is his last, as he is retiring as President.
He waxed nostalgic but he hit out appropriately at the toxic culture of the corporate reformers. He lambasted NCLB. He is a mild-mannered and kindly gentleman, so it is hard to imagine him getting really angry.
He said:
In all of our history, we have always advocated for ways to improve education, but now we had to fight for the very existence of public education. As public education policy shifted from leveling the playing field into turning education into a competition with winners and losers, we needed to become the champions of equity, to define solutions that drive excellence and success for all students. The report “A Nation at Risk,” was the beginning of an attempt to totally redefine America’s system of public education. First, they labeled public education as a failure, a liability. And then in 2002, they lowered the boom with No Child Left Behind. Now, this was passed with overwhelming support from both Democrats and Republicans, but No Child Left Behind became an insidious tool used to undermine and attack public education. It’s been driven by mandatory high-stakes testing in grades three through eight. It became the mechanism for labeling and blaming public education, and by establishing a flawed measure of success–Adequate Yearly Progress, politicians created the means, the opportunity for corporate reformers to remake public education into a whole new source of profits that would be gathered at the expense of students.
And so now, 12 years after No Child Left Behind, where are we? These politicians and their policies have created a difficult environment for students and educators, delegates. You know clearly the issues that have become part of our daily lives and discussions: intense dissatisfaction with the conditions of learning and teaching, the need for more time in almost everything we do, time to teach, time to learn, time to plan, and time to collaborate with colleagues as we deal with all of these new demands placed upon us. The issue of privatization of more and more jobs of our education support professionals. The intrusion of for-profit players, both in higher education and K-12. Especially troubling is the increasing influence and control of huge corporations like Pearson and others. And the incredible onslaught of corporate reformers like Democrats for Education Reform, Michelle Rhee, and the like. Attacks on educators’ rights and even attempts to silence our voice. And if that were not enough, our lives revolve around testing–the overwhelming amount and the offensive misuse of scores from high-stakes standardized tests. For the delegates in this hall, for our members back home, the feelings generated by these and other issues are strong and they are real. I’ve seen them. I’ve heard them from you. And I share them with you. Feelings of anger, frustration, disappointment, and unrealized expectation of the Department of Education. Whether student, active, retired, whether higher ed, ESP or teacher, it doesn’t matter. We are all impacted and demoralized by these attacks. And your feelings are totally justified. I mean, really, 12 years is plenty long enough to evaluate their strategy of mandatory testing and test-based accountability. Plain and simple, their strategy has failed America’s students, especially students who are poor and students of color. And I say to you that it is simply not acceptable to continue down this path. The direction must change? Am I right? Am I right?
As an organization, public education, we’re at a critical point. We’re at another milestone in our history. You know, I guess getting older does have some advantages. It has allowed me to see and to experience many different things. And I can tell you that living through “A Nation at Risk,” No Child Left Behind, and the increased intensity of corporate reform, I have seen so many examples of injustice in our systems, and the negative impact on students. When I think of the 10 years preceding No Child Left Behind, I wish I could go back and do things differently. If I had only understood then what I understand now. You see, all of us in the education family–all of us–we knew the system was not fulfilling the promise, not fulfilling the promise for all of its students, not doing what they needed, and we allowed the politicians of the day, Congress, to define the solution, and their solution was No Child Left Behind. Now, I want to state something very clearly. We, the NEA, cannot allow politicians to define the terms of change and accountability for yet another generation of students. We cannot let that happen again!
That is strong stuff coming from a kindly man like Dennis. But notice what he did not say. He did not mention Race to the Top, which mandated the idiotic program of evaluating teachers by the test scores of their students. He did not mention “value-added assessment,” which has forced teachers to teach to the test. He did not mention Arne Duncan, the worst Secretary of Education in our history, who supports toxic testing in every form. He did not mention the Vergara trial, which challenges the due process rights of teachers.
I do not mean to be unkind to Dennis, who is leaving the presidency of the nation’s largest teachers’ union and who was generous enough to name me as NEA’s Friend of Education in 2010, a memory I will always treasure.
But I wish, I wish, I wish that he and Randi and every teacher leader would shout from the rooftops that what is happening now under the misguided “leadership” of the Obama administration will not stand! I wish they would recognize that Arne Duncan is a tool of DFER, and that the Obama administration has outsourced American education to the Gates Foundation. I wish they would issue a call for teachers to stand together to say NO to policies that hurt children, such as the Common Core tests that last for 8-10 hours. I want them to be angry and determined and proud and determined. I wish. I wish.
I wish he’d taken action way before his last week in office.
Too little, too late…can I have a refund for my dues?
You might be able to under Quinn vs. Harris . . . . .
Please, that is not the answer. Get involve. Stay with your union. If that falls, your 800-900 dollars a year for dues will seem like peanuts.
You are correct, Jan: the worst union is better than no union at all.
Clearly you were not victimized by your union as egregiously as thousands of veteran teachers in NYC and LA have been. Stained by lies and demoralized , many are facing absolute ruin thanks to their unions. Our unions are colluding with reformers and dirty districts to unload us. For them a rank and file of interns who pay dues but have no tenure, no voice or real idea what they are doing is a boon. They don’t have to defend them or negotiate better contracts. They can sit back and form committtees, give themselves bonuses and use the job to fufill their careerist goals. I want more than my dues back. I want to be made whole. I want our names clear. I want my union to be decertified. Then I want teachers to join forces with parents and reinvent the union so it serves students and the community not political agendas aand capitalist swind like Eli Broad.
Please don’t tell us to throw good money after bad. These unions are not coming through. They are selling us out as well as deficating on the Ideals the unions are forged by. This speech is just a weak concession to what we have discovered and an effort to distance himself from his role in our destruction. He wants to remain a good guy but he isnt a good guy. He is a traitor . And anyone who thinks they will be spared from what so many teachers have already suffered, is a fool.
As a long-time opponent of my union’s (UFT/AFT) mis-leadership, I make no effort to defend their collaboration, captivity by the so-called reformers and intellectual dishonesty. I’ve been opposing them, in my school, at union gatherings and in print/ online, for years.
The point is that if you cannot take back your own union from collaborators like Weingarten, what makes you think you can successfully create a new one that will defend teachers and the public schools?
Here is a very simple idea that can help change the rules of the game:
Let the NEA and AFT and other education organizations, at all levels, crosspost this blog on their websites.
Or at the very very least provide a bit of eye-catching space on their home pages advertising it with a link to this blog.
That is one way—a preparatory but essential one—to get ahead of the game and not forever be playing catch up. *Over 13 million hits in a little over 2 years, anyone?*
I quote Dennis Van Roekel from the posting: “If I had only understood then what I understand now.”
Change that to “If WE had only understood then what WE understand now.”
Will there be light and heat? Praise and condemnation? Yes, and there should, must be.
You don’t lead from behind—you do as the owner of this blog did, and you get out in front. You take point. You take risks. Including being your own most severe critic.
Sharp back and forth prepares concerted effective action. As a genuine American hero put it:
“Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.” [Frederick Douglass]
Let’s all get unfit!
😎
Very funny KrazyTA! You think NEA and AFT want to promote what WE think??
Thry wish we didnt think at all. By the way , a bad union is NOT better than no union. Our union has blocked the truth . People assime we are protected and if we are crying foul we must be someone so foul tbe union cant hide this. EEOC, ACLU, DFEH, our courts and other venues do not afford us much protection becausr we allegedly enjoy so much from our unions. Also we can probably be sure that most of our districts will not have sch contentous relationships with us and parents will be more likely to see teachers as allies without our unions in the way. With parents as our advocats and visa versa hammering outcintracts would be a lot less troubling to all .
You tell them, Rene… they are so clueless here… you and i Know what is afoot, as we were victimized a decade ago, as the union looked the other way and let it happen!
Good grief, did someone in the Obama administration make Dennis Van Roekel an offer he could not refuse (horse’s head in his bed?). It is stunning and bizarre that he makes no mention of Obama’s RTTT, Arne Duncan or the other things that Diane noted. The NEA needs a shake up of major proportions.
We are shaking as hard from the ground as we can, Joe. The delegation we sent includes entrenched lame ducks.
No to Common Core Tests? As horrible as they are, they last a week. It’s the Common Core materials by the publishers like Pearson and the curriculum, where the real damage is done for the entire school year. The unions only care about not being judged by tests for two years. His crocodile tears for students in revolting. Diane, still supporting the Common Core with Randi and the Unions.
I have no admiration for this man, if he did not mention the money that he took, and not returned, to Gates. He failed to mention the most controversial issue, even more than NCLB and Nation At Risk.
He blames the politicians, when he is eating from the $ame trough:
“politicians created the means, the opportunity for corporate reformers to remake public education into a whole new source of profits that would be gathered at the expense of students.”
Hopefully, a corner office is not awaiting him at Pearson.
The Common Core tests in the state of Utah, that began this year, last THREE WEEKS!
Joseph,
You have said on two or three occasions that I support Common Core. I don’t. I wrote this in February 2013: https://dianeravitch.net/2013/02/26/why-i-cannot-support-the-common-core-standards/
I don’t want to insult you but your repetition of this lie is very tiresome.
How can he think Diane supports CCSS?
Jan York, he doesn’t know how to read or think.
I suspect that is why he is leaving/retiring.
Yes, that is a beautiful call to arms at last, but…
This is Van Roekel’s last chance to make up for some of the harm his past and current accommodation has done to our union. Now, in that hall, where our MTA lame duck president Paul Toner is trying to ride his own patronage trail to the executive board of my national union.
It’s no longer possible for union misleaders to pretend to themselves that their self-interest has been acting the service of our mission, and it is to his credit that Dennis Van Roekel admits that out loud.
I wish he hadn’t left those other things out, too. The ring of truth is there, then it falls silent. I think this means Van Roekel’s concern for his own self-interest is still stronger than his service.
For rank-and-file teachers in the field, the courage we’re asking of each other threatens our livelihoods, the security of our own children, and the health and safety of our families for generations to come. All I ask of leaders is that they burn their bridges to their patrons at the billionaire foundations and corporations. They won’t starve.
I truly don’t know how my brothers and sisters in Denver will respond to this challenge. What opportunities for democratic transformation can we seize now, to support desperate struggle for justice in our local communities and Associations? Two months ago, I saw MTA delegates decide on the spot to rise up and take a more active part in determining the direction of our state association. I know there are such opportunities in Denver. Please, come all the way over, fellow MTA and NEA members.
We must use every avenue Van Roekel has left open, in his parliamentary maneuvers to preserve his power past his own tenure.
Disgusting that Van Roekel did (dare?) not mention the Obama administration’s nuclear attack on public education. Neither he nor Randi are worth their weight in salt as far as their leadership roles go. Obama, the chief traitor to teachers, praises the mass firings of educators in Rhode Island. The very ignorant Mr. Duncan holds not a single ed credential, but praises the Vergera decision. Former Obama aides are now assisting Wall Street mouthpiece Campbell Brown in attacking tenure.
I am starting to believe that the lot of them are narcissistic sociopaths. Teachers walked the walk and talked the talk for Mr. Obama. He repaid them by stabbing them with knives in their collective backs. Duncan furthered the destruction of CPS, and now Rhambo is getting ready to put the Chicago public schools out of their “misery.”
We need to fight the good fight. Write to your senators and congressional reps and ask them how they’re voting on education legislation. If you can, leave posts on their Facebook pages, and copy and paste your posts to your own pages. Promise that you will share your comments to the politician (and response) with everyone you know, and then some. Hold them accountable.
I had a state senator delete my comments on a really bad piece of animal “welfare” legislation he had sponsored. My comments were fact-based and did not violate any Facebook rules, nor did they violate the unwritten rule of conduct that we use in polite discourse. Needles to say, my comments had disappeared and I never heard back from the state senator.
When I contacted my state rep about the bad piece of legislation her colleague has passed in the senate, I promised her that I was making a copy of my comment to her so it wouldn’t disappear down a politician’s memory hole. I also gave here the heads-up and told her I was sharing this comment with my network of family, friends, and fellow activists. I kept the tone clinical and cordial – but firm.
Happily, and surprisingly, the legislation that was supposed to have had smooth sailing through the state house died in her committee.
I know this is a long shot, but we need to let our congress critters (and statehouse critters as well) know that we ARE watching them, and that we plan to communicate with our family/friends networks about their actions. I think that people tend to be more receptive to messages from those who they know, than to cast a vote based on slick color mailers that plug up the mailbox during campaign season.
Happy 4th to All!
Elanor,
Good for you for being aware and informed and active. In order to follow your lead I will have to break down and join Facebook.
Great points and I hope we and our unions and leaders let Hillary Clinton, the heir apparent, know that we are watching her too, and if the message she takes from the NEA and AFT is that our votes are in the bag even if she remains silent on Vergara, and Harris, and Common Core, and charters, and VAM, then she will be mistaken.
No hope for Hillary!
Hilary is alligned to Eli Broad.. If she is elected the deal will be sealed. Honestly, we have to start accepting that right or left this government is no longer committed to the people because political elections are funded by donations, the plutocrats have insinuated themselves into the equation and totally undermined Democracy. To run for office, one has to have a certain type of personality. These people are very ambitous and driven . Even the best intentions easily succumb to compromises along the way. Someone like Broad gives generously and to all sides so he can pull the strings. Perhaos the wisest way to address our issues is to follow the lead of other nations. We must cap the amount any canidate receives or spends. His or her resourcefulness will be on display and the liklihiid of an unfair advantage will be slimmer. Moreover, the influence of capitalists and special interests will be interrupted. Of course, it will not ensure the corruption ends, but it shoukd restore the power of the people and intercept the unseemly deference our electied officials show big business. We need to reign the plutocracy in . They can break laws with absolute impunity while destroying communities, schools, small business, individual lives, our national reputatin, our children’s future, the ozone and Democracy. Perhaps we need to take a que fron the Art of War and attack indirectly; we are defending education but it is only one aspect of the the 1% ‘s impact and ongoing threat. Perhaps it is more exoedient and far more beneficial to go at this at a broader level . We may be able to find more support with the rank and file and among the public by spending the summer crafting a petition that restores the power to people by petitioning and protesting that our elections should become less astroturf and more grass roots. More debates less pomp and posturung. No plutocrat can out donate a poor school teacher if $100 is the limit.
Obama people call our house several tines a week looking for more money. Not sure what its for but we did donate to his first election, I dont give them a chance to tell me. I say: hell no! And hang up. I would pound oavement for Elizabeth Warren but I will neve spend a cent in elections that are always going to end with plutocrats perched to be the big winnerrs no matter who wins.
My representative used to be a public school teacher, and yet he votes to demolish education every chance he gets. I have written to him on several occasions and have never gotten a response. It doesn’t matter, though, because he has an “R” next to his name, and I’m in a deeply red state.
While I cannot speak in regard to Dennis Van Roekal, I can say with confidence that your wishes regarding Randi Weingarten are futile and in vain, Diane: her every action makes clear her conscious decision to base her own personal advancement, and the continued existence of the union, upon a futile strategy of hoping the Overclass will continue to permit the union to exist, as long as it helps co-manage the imposition of so-called reform. Thus, the UFT/AFT’s continued support for Common Core, it’s attendant exams and teacher evaluations, its passivity in the face of aggressive charter expansion, and its complete indifference to the attacks teachers face.
Randi may be a personal friend, and a good one, but the truth is that she is no friend of teachers or public education; the harsh truth is, she is one of Them.
Agreed. This is why I am opposed to a dues check-off if someone refuses to join the union. The agency fees may have strengthened unions in the short run but by guaranteeing their survival (and leaders high salaries) they have become nothing more than service organizations for members whereby leadership pays lip service to members while really doing the bidding of the politicians guaranteeing its survival.
Michael Fiorillo, I agree with you almost always but not your attack on Randi. I know her well. She knows the score. She is fighting on many fronts, including some that are not public. I visited D.C. last spring and she arranged for me to have private meetings with key senators and members of Congress, where I was very outspoken on the issues that concern you and me. She is always trying to figure out how to win over enemies. I am less hopeful about winning them over. I would like to beat them as I think they are implacable foes of experienced teachers and public schools. We differ on strategy but I know her well, and I want her on my side.
Diane, I worked beside Randi in NYC for 4 years, when I was a UFT chapter leader in the Bronx. I stood beside her as we picketed city hall under Giuliani, ready to go to jail, if necessary, to fight off merit pay. We won those battles and they were not easy nor cheap wins.
I walked informational picket lines before and after school, educating parents and the public about the attacks on public schools. I manned phone banks and walked neighborhoods every election.
The Randi, who was willing to go to jail to thwart Giuliani, is hard to find today.
I have no doubt that she means well and that her heart is in the right place. Plainly put though, her strategies are not working. Things get progressively worse every single day.
When Florida hopped on the VAM bandwagon and declared teachers would lose their teachers’ license after 2 poor evals I went to the AFT website, including the “Members Only” section to find some kind of a statement, some plan for fighting, some offer of help. There is no such thing. You will be hard pressed to find anything resembling fighting back against the deforms.
What I found was the “Share My Lesson” initiative supporting Common Core State Standards with many embarrassing and often pathetic excuses for lessons. There are dozens upon dozens of free lesson plan sites on the Internet. This initiative did nothing to help the rank and file and cost quite a bit of money and received much of the AFT’s focus and publicity.
I was gobsmacked. I got the same non-repsonse from the NEA. Lots and lots of legislative initiatives covering everything from Palestine and Israel to tracking but next to nothing for desperate teachers.
I read about Mexican teaches shutting down the capital and the airport and bringing them to a halt over minor oversight.
I read about British teachers refusing to start the new school year over toxic testing policies which they pushed back.
I read about Australian teachers conducting a nationwide strike in a few days when they are threatened with Americanized reforms.
I read sternly worded open letters which accomplish nothing while teachers lives and careers are being destroyed in the USA and Bill Gates and Arne Duncan are invited as honored guests to our conventions while sticking sharp and deadly knives in our backs.
What’s wrong with this picture?
The NEA and AFT are pursuing the wrong path and soon enough they will have little left to fight with. After the Supreme Court decision earlier this week and with thousands and thousands of teachers facing firing, loss of licensure, school closings, and nullification of contracts and due process there will no longer be an NEA and AFT in the near future.
Writing sternly worded letters and speaking carefully, so as not to offend those in power while appearing publicly with them and attending events alongside them has not stopped the deform juggernaut nor even slowed it down slightly. Neoliberal triangulation is not the answer.
I am a building representative for the FEA. I recruit new members every year. I hear the worries and concerns and fears of the rank and file every day. I try to convince the extremely underpaid teachers to fork over a huge chunk of their salary to join the NEA and AFT every year despite the fact that we are now at will employees, our jobs and our pensions are slowly being destroyed, and the only real benefits they get are a few spotty quality lesson plans, a 5% or 10% discount at a few businesses, and the option to purchase life insurance at a very slight discount. It’s not enough anymore.
Randi and Dennis are completely out of touch with the rank and file. They are not communicating ANYTHING that gives us hope. They are not publicizing ANY strategy or plan to fight for our lives and our profession that is not safe for the deformers and watery soup for the teachers. They are not reaching out to us and asking us to man the front lines, to take part in actions, to be a part of our own liberation. We are in the dark and that is not a safe place to be anymore.
Since you are close to Randi I hope you will share this with her. We are desperate, depressed, sick and dying (literally — I’ve known 3 teachers who have died from stress-related heart attacks and 2 that committed suicide in the past 4 years), and we are STARVING for leadership that gives us hope in something, some way that we might triumph instead of forever capitulating and being reactionary, defensive losers in every bargain.
We are hurting financially with no raise for years at a time and huge increases in benefit costs. We face losing our pensions after a lifetime of work. We are paying exorbitant student loan payments for now-worthless education degrees. We face entering a hostile and unwelcoming job market at an advanced age that is only interested in young, cheap labor, endangering our futures and our families.
WE ARE DESPERATE. What Randi and Dennis are doing is not enough. Not by a long shot. Speak with us. Encourage us. Give us some kind of hope, for God’s sake. LEAD US.
We are ready to fight because we love our profession and we love our kids but we can only take it on the chin for so much longer before we start giving up and dropping out, taking our dues with us. The new teachers are paid horribly are will not join and pay dues. There is no one to replace us. At that point the AFT and NEA die from attrition.
HELP US, PLEASE!
Chris in Florida,
There is nothing wrong with those other scenarios in other countries.
We will be left with nothing. The union needs to take an altogether different approach. If not, they will not be effective for anyone.
Cooperating and partnering has not worked for the most part. Good try, Randi Weingarten, but it has not only done nothing; it has worsened things.
The reformers do NOT care about your teamwork and contribution. They don’t want you copying some of their major moves; they want you as one of them, performing the entire choreography, not one step missed.
No one from the Duncan team will be won over by the unions. No one.
We need Randi on our side. The question is, “Will she be wiling to join it in a radically differeny way and sustain her membership and participation by listening to her contsituents.”
Time does not heal all wounds, but it does reveal ALL of them.
Meantime, the healing will be up to us, the teachers and parents across this vast nation . . . .
Diane, I wish I could agree with you, but I have closely observed Randi’s (mis) leadership in my almost twenty years as a NYC public school teacher, and can only say that the terrible conditions we find ourselves in would not have been possible without the enabling of the UFT/AFT.
Whatever the issue might be – mayoral control of the schools, the role of venture philanthropy as a Trojan Horse for privatization, high stakes testing and Common Core, charter school invasions, merit pay, VAM, “thin” contracts that eliminate protections for teachers, etc. – Randi has sold us out in exchange for a few inflation-lagging crumbs.
With the exception of some cynical, throwaway rhetoric intended to mollify and distract the rank and file, she continues to accept the premises of the so-called reformers, dooming any possible resistance before it can even gestate. After observing her dissembling and duplicity for years, I can only conclude that it is all intentional.
The mis-leadership of Randi Weingarten and her faux tough guy placeholder in NYC, Michael Mulgrew, have been and continue to be disasters for public school teachers and students, and as long as teachers passively accept their anti-democratic practices and deceptive posturing, things will continue to worsen and we will come closer and closer to losing public education altogether.
I tend to agree but have recently corresponded with RW . She is asserting that she will help us clear our names and provide access to legal resources. She made this assertion on an email thread that included a number of LA and NYC resistance leaders. We are all keeping it in our files. Both Diane and Lois Wiener have encouraged us to find solidarity which is clearly our only means of survival. I am not that impressed with RWs rhetoric but I give her props for engaging with us. Local union leadership will not respond to anyone and have a habit of hurling the district’s lies about us like bombs whenever we challenge them . Lenny Isenberg, probably the pioneer of LA rebellion via blogging and obnoxiousness was banned from entering the union offices after decades of paying dues and years of being denied due process.Lenny is a pain in the ass but he is not violent or opposed to using protocol. I am more subversive but I never step foot in that temple of money changers for fear I will go Christ on the place, overturning tables and cursing.
Our union used Educators for Excellence and Teach Plus as oversight. Wtf? Needless to say the contentious uprising of a new breed was swiftly shot down as the district enabled cheating and influenced the media to depict its choice in a flattering light while offering him a platform. Others were not permitted to visit schools or taking time off as he got to, but it is more telling that they were routinely defamed by LA School Report, Daily News and WSJ. The turn out was still dismal. But we are stuck with more of the same because some one is always willing to sell everyone out to save himself or worse yet to gain what he wants. I think Randy may fall into that camp. But we plan to let her prove us wrong. We need her help. And if she comes through, no one will be happier than me. If she screws us, I am willing to bet Diane will cut her off.
Isaid as much to Diane ,years ago, when Randi revealed herself to us in NYC, and the union to look the other way when teachers grieved serious lawless slander. The rubber room in NYC is testimony to the UFT under her leadership.
Rene,
Yes, Randi is quite good at engaging with people, and I have always found her to be accessible and respectful.
In terms of relating personally with teachers, she’s far better than her UFT successor, who has a hard time veiling his contempt for classroom teachers, whether it’s his thinly disguised sexism when addressing female members, or the grossly undemocratic way he filibusters for entire Delegate Assemblies and brazenly does not permit discussion or debate. As a lawyer, Randi seems to enjoy a good debate, and recognizes the benefit of making it appear that you are listening to questions or opponents.
Michael Mulgrew, on the other hand, can’t be bothered, since he’s too busy being a doormat for Andrew Cuomo.
That said, it’s all words, empty words.
Don’t listen to what she says; watch what she does.
We have a hostile and dangerous president and administration who are achieving the long-unfulfilled fever dreams of Milton Friedman in destroying public education and unions and allowing if not outright supporting the passage of the most reactionary extreme right-winger fascist legislation in his 2 terms as a democrat than ever would have been possible under a republican president
There are next no public schools left in New Orleans, several districts in Michigan, several cities in New Jersey, and soon to be Philadelphia.
We have public schools being forcefully closed in city after city, costing huge numbers of already under-represented teachers of color their careers and their middle class status, and being replaced with unaccountable charter schools staffed with privileged white graduates of upscale colleges and universities where grifters skim millions from the public with no oversight.
We have hundreds of senior teachers in LA and NYC relegated to purgatory mostly because they are top earners.
We have thousands upon thousands of Title I school teachers facing termination and loss of licensure under ALEC/RTTT legislation through the bogus VAM requirement.
Robert Marzano and Charlotte Danielson, neither who have the slightest bit of standing or experience in actual teaching or a history in educational research, have been ceded all ground in teacher evaluation, along with a series of economists who have absolutely no conniption to education, and the union offered not the slightest protest but rather partnered with them in their destruction of the teaching profession while they both claimed it was not what they intended but doing NOTHING to stop it from happening.
We now see the very foundations of our professions, the colleges and universities that train and prepare teachers for teaching under all-out assault and under threat of destruction and the union does nothing.
And this weak speech was the best the NEA president could do? It’ s a good thing he’s retiring. He, once again, gave political cover to the reformsters by accepting the “need” for standards (despite the fact that the standards movement has been a dismal failure), and agreeing that there even exists a “crisis” of “bad teachers” that he calls upon us to fix.
Rest assured that Van Roekel and Weingarten will both retire with a very, very generous pensions plan from the NEA/AFT and the districts they once taught in. They will be offered board memberships with generous compensation from all the corporations they carried water for over the years.
They will not be facing anything even remotely near the panic that we, in the rank and file, face daily, fearing being fired under at-will employee laws in the right-to-work states or being sent into the wormhole of teacher jail for disagreeing with some upstart or simply for costing too much.
Until the rank and file stand up and leave, in massive numbers, taking their dues with them nothing will change. We must rethink unions for the 21st century and get away from the corrupt, protected systems we have now where the “top” people draw huge salaries and benefits while hobnobbing with our enemies while we in the rank and file are chipped away, law by law, evaluation by evaluation, test after test.
Occupy the NEA and AFT! Take your dues and give them to organizations that will represent you, fight for you, and protect you! Stop feeding the borg! It is time for revolution NOW, before it is too late.
Chris in Florida, you have said it all, well stated.
Chris in Florida,
The situation in New Jersey is not as bad as what you describe in Florida. We are headed in your direction. Replacing Duncan is window dressing. Obama is the problem. Are we replacing him?
I always read your posts Chris. I am hearing you.
How about an organized campaign to call out Obama for his duplicitous nature. He relied on union support but ignored them in general and lead an all out assault on teachers after using them for support in 2008. Let’s call him out. There are over 80,000 followers of Diane Ravitch and 48,000 on BATS (some debate that). I would be happy to contribute to one or more big ads in the NYTimes describing his pre-election promises and post election duplicitous acts.
Michael,
Only the unions have the resources to lead such a campaign. Tats why we need them to tell the truth. Obama betrayed teachers and unions ad continues to do so. Remember that Rahm Emanuel was his chief of staff. Robert Gibbs was his Press Secretary. What kind of administration is this? What do they believe? Why are they so committed to privatization and TFA? Why does Arne heap praise on so many rightwing state superintendents (e.g., Hanna Skandera of Arizona, Kevin Huffman of Tennessee, John White of Louisiana)?
Michael Fiorillo,
Do you really think she’s one of THEM?
I have sometimes had similar thoughts, but I’m not completely decided. In either case, things don’t look so great for teachers and our unions . . . .
Run for your life:
http://thetruthoneducationreform.blogspot.com/2013/02/run-for-your-life.html?view=flipcard
Yes, Robert, I do think she is one of Them.
Or, to be more precise, she thinks she is/aspires to be one of Them, thus her shameless groveling for proximity to power.
However, once she has served her purpose for the so-called reformers, and the union has been sufficiently neutralized and teachers sufficiently churned and demoralized, she will find herself having a hard time getting her phone calls to Bill Gates and Eli Broad returned.
Is Randi corrupt? No, I don’t think she is corrupt in the traditional sense of being on the take – though politically, with the UFT gerrymandering it’s voting rules to give even more power to retirees, the UFT is quite corrupt – but in some ways it’s worse than that: in her seemingly desperate need for proximity to power, she has given away for free what others might have sold for money.
Actually she did get a lot of money from Gates, at least for some “educational” purpose that I forget, that in my opinion further shows she is squarely one of Them.
They will not do it. They are compromised and cowardly. Let’s see where they are in five years. Maybe working for one of our corporate masters or in the federal government (same thing).
Imagine the impact were the NEA and AFT to embark on a public information campaign exposing who the deformers really are and why they want to privatize public education. The population, especially parents, are beginning to wake up to the damage Common Core is wreaking; what’s necessary is for them to be shown how CC fits into the deformers’ overall strategy and how they can fight back in defense of true public education. I don’t understand why the national teachers unions don’t hit the national media with hard-hitting ads that state flat out what’s being done to public ed by both Dems and Republicans, and why. Does the union leadership still harbor the illusion that it can make a deal with the Obama Administration, despite all the evidence to the contrary, including the recent news that Robert Gibbs and other Obama alumni are working to expand Vergara nationally?
As the Founding Fathers came to realize, at certain times in human history, it becomes apparent that the status quo can no longer be allowed to stand. The stakes become much higher–life vs death–and as they do, so does the need to mount an effective resistance. James Risen’s article in the New York Times this past Monday, which reported that a top official of Blackwater had actually threatened to kill a State Department official if he persisted in investigating Blackwater’s corrupt, murderous operations in Iraq, should scare the daylights out of parents and others. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/us/before-shooting-in-iraq-warning-on-blackwater.html
Blackwater, of course, was founded and headed at the time this incident occurred by Erik Prince, whose sister is a member of the DeVos family, the mini-Kochs who’ve been involved in pushing privatization for decades. And Prince himself, who’s gone on to found his own hedge fund, has become more openly involved in these efforts recently.
Shouldn’t the AFT and NEA be warning the population that the Erik Princes of this world will soon be running their children’s schools? The population needs to be galvanized, but they need to understand what’s going on. The teachers unions must take on this responsibility at a national level or they simply will be driven out of existence, along with public ed.
Yes, imagine the impact of an expose PR blitz! That would be a good first step toward reparations, as would crossposting Diane’s blog on their national sites, per KrazyTA.
Collectively, they have a lot to answer for.
Please post John Stocks speech today at NEA conference. Also, if you can, please place AFT’s video about PISA results on your blog.
Thank you.
C. Ritz
Mark Twainfire, send me links for those items.
Here is the prepared text for executive director John Stocks’ address to the Representative Assembly
http://www.nea.org/grants/59626.htm
Thank you chemtchr for posting here.
As I looked back at some of your earlier Blogs, I remembered that you had already posted the AFT video about lessons to learn from PISA results. I am sorry to take up your valuable time.
Thank you for all your efforts in regard to supporting a Public School System that works for ALL of our children and grandchildren. Unfortunately, the same Billionaire Boys club have now filed a similar law suit in NY attaching teachers due process rights as they did in California. I hope when this gets to the Supreme Court, we can see a rematch between Boies and Olsen. They already have Olsen, but can we afford Boies. He did go to a Public High School that was an average American high school in Fullerton California. Hopefully, we can stall long enough to get a new Supreme Court Justice to replace Scalia.
I’m with Chris in Florida on this one. Maybe this is exactly what the “Reformers” wanted, but it doesn’t matter..the NEA/AFT, along with Obama, have sold us down the river. I think we should, as educators, embark on a very public “Refuse The Dues” campaign until the leadership changes. I’d rather give my money to a public relations firm..at least we’d get some bang for our buck. And a “Don’t Do It” messaging assault on college kids thinking about going into this field wouldn’t hurt either. Sorry to be so cynical, but I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I’ve never experienced anything quite so demoralizing as what’s happening to us right now.
The leadership has changed, Bemo, and is continuing to change as fast as we change it.
Meanwhile, who is the “we” for whom you supposedly speak? Your call for teachers to cripple ourselves rather than shake off our misleaders is the voice of an enemy of American labor and of American public education.
No, forming a different kind of union does not “cripple ourselves” and we are not “enemies of American labor” and of the “American public”.
And by the way, American includes Canada, Mexico, Central America, and South America.
Staying with the same course and working “as fast as we can change it” within the current system, with all its corruption, is pretty much that famous definition of insanity — doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.
The old guard who are set in the ways that won’t and don’t work anymore need to let newer thinking try its hand. By the time the grindingly slow processes of the NEA and AFT bring about internal change the majority of us will no longer be licensed teachers and it won’t matter any more.
Teachers will start being fired next year here in Florida. We’ve already had the majority of our ‘teachers of the year’ rated ineffective. One more year of that and they lose their licenses and their jobs forever. The law says they can’t be rehired anywhere in the state and there is no recourse to become rectified. You’re OUT forever!
But keep on advocating for the status quo and calling those of us on the from lines “enemies”. I’m sure your job and license are quite safe, right?
Chris, this troll said nothing whatsoever about “forming a different kind of union.” He said,
” I think we should, as educators, embark on a very public “Refuse The Dues” campaign until the leadership changes.”
I have just helped change the leadership in my own state, and Hawaii is also on its way, and California has just shown leadership in leadership building.
I take your dishonest attack for a very crude attempt to undercut the increasingly successful work of the growing social justice union movement in Chicago and elsewhere.
In the unlikely event you’re uninformed, rather than part of an organized, Koch-funded campaign to take advantage of Vergara:
Try reading this handy guidebook to building unions and defending communities.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/02/class-action-an-activist-teachers-handbook/
You called me an enemy, a dues-payiing member of the rank and file and a building representative at 3 different schools in 2 different states.
That right there shows how out of touch the status quo membership is, chemtchr. You can personally attack me all you’d like and call me everything but a colleague but the fact is that many, many rank and file members agree with me.
I do not agree with your strategy. I don’t have to agree with you or what you do. I have a right to express my opinions and to oppose you.
I too am 100% union. Deal with it.
After reading the summary Chris wrote about conditions in Florida, it is heartbreaking. If the union leadership on a national level were doing their job we would be untied, but we are not. We are splintered and trying to survive on our own in each state. I think we should be kinder to each other here.
Thank you, Linda. It hurts a lot to be called a liar, dishonest, an enemy, cheap, and a lot of things for stating the truth here and for suggesting that things need to change as fast as possible and after dedicating 18 years of my life to the NEA and AFT locals and state organizations where I teach.
Florida is right to work, as are 23 other states.
We must sign loyal oath when hired and if we violate the vaguely-worded oath in any way we are subject to immediate dismissal with no recourse.
We are all at-will employees now. We lost due process and “tenure” 3 years ago.
The only thing we can negotiate by law is pay and benefits.
The state legislature has modified our pension plan and new hires will not be eligible but must invest in a 401K plan only.
A merit pay program goes into effect this year based upon VAM. If you grandfather out you will never receive another single penny in raises for you entire career — your salary is frozen for the duration. If you agree to the plan (new hires have no choice; only ‘tenured’ teachers) you are at-will and your salary will rise and fall each year tied to your students’ scores on the yet to be released Florida (CCSS, renamed and a few added to appease Tea Partiers) tests being designed by AIR in Colorado.
If we even DISCUSS any action that might disrupt the educational process in any way, which can be loosely interpreted as needed, we are subject to arrest and crippling fines compounded daily.
After the last teacher strike, which led to the right to work status in the state, teachers lost all back pay and all seniority. It was never recovered. So teachers are reluctant and terrified to take any action whatsoever here.
We are now forbidden from negotiating working conditions effectively because of so many exemptions and restrictions that favor management written into state law.
Florida has some of the most outrageous charter school laws in the country; our legislature actually devoted the entire state building budget to new charters, leaving public schools with nothing for repairs, new contraction, etc.
Florida has a voucher program that allows businesses to donate money to pay for any public school student who is ESE or who attends a D or F school to transfer to any school they choose, taking the money with them and requiring their original district to foot the bill for transporting them to their new school, private or charter or otherwise.
Florida’s take on the RTTT requirement for VAM to count as 50% of a teachers evaluation. We were rated the first 3 years on students we didn’t even teach in many instances.
We filed a class action law suit — the FEA’s only strategy, if media reports and interviews are correct, and we LOST. A Bush-appointed activist judge agreed that the law was unfair, that it would cost teachers their jobs and careers without scientific backing or basis, and he even said that he couldn’t imagine ANYONE voluntarily working under such an evaluation system. But he ruled that the law was not unconstitutional and therefore the law stands.
The Florida law states that after 2 ineffective or needs improvement ratings, in any time period, a teacher will be automatically fired and stripped of their Florida teaching license. There is no appeal process. The law forbids any public school district from hiring a teacher that has been fired due to VAM ever.
I write all of this because I want teacher who live in Chicago, NY, MA, CA, and other strong union states to understand that our needs and the threats to our jobs are very different from theirs. The NEA and AFT need to address us and our needs; we make up half the states in the United States, after all.
Chris, I suggested Bemo121 is a troll and an enemy. Are you and he the same entity?
I recommended a book to you. You spat it back at me. You say you’re opposed to unionized states following the Chicago model because … because… you can’t do that where you live? Okay, but we can. Why would you want to stop us?
You say you’re griped that Florida is a Right to Work state, which means Vergara changes nothing for you anyway. You say you hold leadership. Have you been advising members to withhold their dues till the leadership changes, but opposing any actual effort to change the leadership because it would be too time consuming?
I know Florida well. I grew up there, and an early hero of mine was my eighth grade teacher, Willis DeKalb Veal, who became chair of the Education Dept at FSU before he passed away.
BEMO121 was agreeing with me. I agree with him. We have solidarity. I read the linked book you offered. It is long on history and short on any actions that would be legal or effective here in Florida.
I attend our district building rep meetings every month and hear again and again “There’s nothing else we can do right now. Just wait on the lawsuits.” or “We can’t file lawsuits until someone can prove harm and is willing to come forward. No one is. Everyone is too afraid.” So nothing is done. Our district leadership is pretty effective and goes to bat for teachers but the state laws tie our hands more often than not.
Five years ago I had 100% membership in the union at my school. Now I have a little over 50%. Retirements devastated our ranks and the new teachers are not interested. They see no benefits and they can’t afford the dues. I was able to recruit 3 this year, leaving 7 unaffiliated. They were RIF’ed the year before. They saw veteran teachers humiliated and abused and the union was not able to protect them. They don’t want to spend the money on what they see is nothing.
I am beginning to believe that withholding dues until the national offices take notice of us and do something to help us might be an effective strategy. I have 4 veteran teachers that were moved out of their specialty this year and placed in grades they have no experience with. All were given “needs improvement” ratings last year. All will face termination and loss of license this year if they don’t produce dramatic results. This is common to every school in my county.
I just got back from attending a 2-week AFT training course in Orlando. Many teachers from all over the state, all sharing similar stories and fears and wondering why the AFT and NEA don’t seem to care about us. I don’t have the answers. I do have lots of questions.
At the NEA Representative Assembly, New Business Item 23 was moved by the California Teachers Association, and passed to rousing cheers. Arne Duncan will get a letter requesting his resignation.
Chemtchr. Do you think this is all orchestrated to make the Arne/LDH switch to appease teachers for the fall elections?
I don’t think anybody orchestrated that resolution, but they knew it was coming. The “leadership” supposedly opposed it. Denver is a Representative Assembly, however flawed, and many honest brothers and sisters are there now, fighting for our union.
The idea that the corporatists might be grooming LDH as a Duncan replacement was entirely a wild stray thought of mine, and I haven’t heard anybody anywhere actually suggest such a thing is underway.
Sawchik also claims the Board opposed the Toxic Testing NBI, but I don’t trust him or them for a minute. It is the CC$$/PARCC?VAM side who are in “damage repair mode” right now, and we can well afford to let our own side come on over. We all urgently have to search for unity based on democratic rank-and-file participation when they all get home.
I have no interest in throwing our union out with this bathwater.
Another sternly worded letter, eh? I know that presidential cabinet heads leave office all the time because an interest group writes them a sternly worded letter. I’m sure Obama will ask his best basketball buddy from Chicago who does exactly what he wants him to do will ask him to resign to appease . . . whom, exactly? When has Obama ever cared what teachers, the NEA, and/or the AFT, say or do?
What’s the accompanying action?
How are we going to force Arne Duncan to resign?
How will the pressure be brought to bear on this already unpopular administration?
What is the legislative strategy during this election year?
What is the plan to ensure that if, by some miracle, he does resign that he won’t be replaced by someone worse?
What is the plan to repeal all of the Obama’s anti-public education policies that Duncan enforced won’t be continued and worsened by his supposed predecessor?
It’s great that the NEA allowed an anti-Duncan resolution to finally come to floor and be passed but how is this not a sop to the rank and file?
Up above you called me and those who question the NEA “enemies of public education” and the “American public”. This is what you are offering as an alternative? And this makes you a friend to public education and the American public? Really?
Since we rank and file members don’t have the privilege to be there with you in Denver what other resolutions that actually have the possibility of succeeding in accomplishing something are there attempting to brought to the floor?
I’m not in Denver. Lame duck about-to-be-former MTA president Paul Toner is in Denver. My own association will fight for a contract this fall. That’s what unions do.
You’ve offered nothing positive in strategy, and your automatic presumption of disrespect for all union activists is a dead give away. Clearly, you don’t support actual efforts to redefine our unions and take them back from misleaders at all. The discussion on this page matters, because honest people who really are fed up with Van Roekel’s betrayal come here to join together.
Unlike you I live and teach in a right-to-work state where my union, of which I am a longterm member in leadership, has next to no power whatsoever.
You can keep lecturing me about how to do what you want me to do but it doesn’t mean squat here in Florida.
You refuse to listen to those who have different opinions.
I am working with many rank and file members to address and deal with the problems that those of us who don’t live and teach in California, New York, and Chicago have to deal with every day, something you don’t seem to be aware of or to care about.
We don’t have the protections you have. We don’t have the rights or the power you have. Doing what you do will not help us.
Keep calling me a troll, an enemy, whatever you’d like. But you are still ignoring a huge swathe of the rank and file in your solipsistic approach. Thanks for the solidarity, colleague.
Chris in Florida,
Don’t let Chemtchr get under your skin. She has accused me of being a misogynist and bizarrely associated my views with the horrible shooting of young women in Santa Barabara by a young, psychopathic man.
I have been called “troll” also because from time to time, I infuse a littel humor laden and dripping with sarcasm, and she considers that to be unacceptable. Of course, my humor from the above example did not linvolve anything about the shooting or anything remotely realted to it. It is untinkable that I would take that imagery to make a point. At one point, she asked the host to take down one of my comments, and I thought, “Finally, I have met the language police of my generation”.
She is socially inappropriate at times, but I will defend her politics for the most part, and we would be foolish to throw her baby out with her bathwater. She’s a great thinker.
On the other hand, your views are valid, and we can all agree to disagree. Internal disagreement within a movement is nothign new; in fact, it oftens produces a better oraganization in the long run.
So, Chris, please keep on posting; you too, your royal chemtchr, because I value you BOTH very much, and there is not sarcasm in that statement. . . . . .
Just heard this great news The Teachers have spoken Let,s get it done, Dennis , Hurry up. not more Mr. Nice Guy.
Change will only come from mass movements outside the govt and outside the Dem Party. Consolidating a mass progressive movement and an opposition party to challenge Dems is our only future, a tough road. Randi and Dennis are Dem insiders with seats at the famous alluring table of the establishment; to sit at the table you cannot criticize in public the heads of the table or anyone else who sits there with you; do so, and you will lose your seat. Randi and Dennis will not commit career suicide by turning the tables and leading their huge memberships in mass opposition. They will not break openly with the Dem Party now controlled by Obama/Duncan/DFER/Gates. This does not mean Randi and Dennis are fools or ignorant of great danger for public education. They cannot retain their privileged positions at the table if they mobilize to fight for public education esp if a Dem is in the White House. b/c NEA/AFT are arms of the Dem Party. If Hillary runs in ’16, Randi/Dennis will campaign for her no matter what her education platform is, even if RTTT/PARCC/CCSS or whatever replaces them are in place b/c these will be Dem party policies and leaders of AFT/NEA only get their jobs b/c they have already been vetted inside the Dem circle. This is why I post here suggestions that rescuing the public sector is possible only through mass opposition of the Dem Party which has captured the union leaders and union org’s;membership in the Dem establishment requires no organizing teacher militance. When GOP Giuliani was Mayor Of NYC, Dem Party-affiliate Randi had wiggle room to protest, as reported above. Since ’08, Dems in power. Randi arranged key meetings betw Diane and Congressional figures as Diane reported b/c this is what she can do without risking her seat at the table. As an insider, she has access to other insiders for behind-closed-door mtgs betw the premiere public advocate and public policy-makers. Diane absolutely did the right thing by lobbying these powerful insiders. Such lobbying can affect the insiders only if the lobbyist represents a huge pile of money or a huge mass of mobilized citizens ready to march and vote them out of office. Dems know their electorate has no place to go, no one else to vote for b/c GOP is so scary, will vote for Hillary in’16 no matter what she stands for, unlike the GOP which is now shaky b/c its electorate has a vibrant Tea Party option forcing the whole govt. as well as the GOP it to the right. At the moment, Dems have no organized mass opposition to their left, so they will not budge. Until progressive leaders like Karen Lewis and Barbara Madeloni take over their unions with lots of mass support, the unions like the PTA will not save the schools. Until millions of parents Opt Out, the Duncan/Gates regime will continue. Organized mass opposition from below is the key to turning the tide.
Ira,
I will use whatever suasion I have to encourage parents to opt out and educators to boycott the tests as the Garfield teachers did in Seattle. The best hope for change is to build a force of parents and educators so well informed and mobilized that the testing regime collapses. Without test scores, without data, the “reform” machine grinds to a halt. We have the power within our hands. We must not submit. If we do, we are like the humans who marched aboard the spaceship in Rod Serling’s episode of “The Twilight Zone” called “To Serve Mankind.” They thought they were going to a wonderful new planet but it turned out that the book “To Serve Mankind” was a cookbook, and the willing humans were on the menu.
Stop the testing and the plan dies.
Yes, Diane, you’re absolutely right, keep our eyes on the prize. Get parents to opt out, boycott the tests, stop the train from running. Extremely impt. to build the opt-out campaign. Second, encourage teachers to oppose CCSS/PARCC/VAM en masse, especially in districts without leaders like Karen Lewis. I’ve been doing this in my son’s public school system. I also worry about the big picture and the long story entangling us, b/c the billionaire bravos will come back at us using all the tools they control, like mass media, govt. officers, AFT/NEA/PTA/Ed Week/Dem Party.
As part of this particular thread, I am in complete agreement with Diane that—
“Without test scores, without data, the “reform” machine grinds to a halt.”
For example, take away the standardized test scores and VAM starves to death.
Audrey Amrein-Beardsley’s very recent book makes that crystal clear—if it wasn’t clear already.
😎
P.S. “To Serve Mankind”—TAGO!
I love the Twilight Zone analogy, Diane! and KrazyTA, I want to stop the testing madness as well. I asked what would happen if I refused to give the test to my 1st graders. I was told that I would be fired on the spot for insubordination. There were 2 student in my county of 39 schools who opted out last year. I’m hoping there are at least 200 this year. So far it’s just the highly-educated, upper middle class white parents who are talking about opting out. We are trying to figure out ways to involve our poor EEL parents, immigrant parents, and poor parents of color, all of whom are reluctant to engage the authorities here in the racist deep south.
Not to serve mankind!
It’s to serve the overclass . . . .
No, Robert, it’s serving Mankind to The Overclass…
Naw , MF, we need to serve the overclass to ourselves and become the new CCP-Cannabis Cannibal Party. The cannabis to give us the munchies to be the cannibals to be served the overclass at the Party.
Yes, that’s true. You’re describing a populist movement, Ira, and I truly believe one is forming itself, but has not yet found conscious leadership. We do have to do everything at once on many fronts, but fortunately we are many, and they are few.
Ira, the only suggestion I would make is please hit the spacer bar twice occasionally, to block your text into paragraphs.
Ira, your point about Van Roekel and Weingarten being Dem Party insiders is a point well made. Consider Connecticut and RW’s enthusiastic backing of Malloy. She could have withheld support (and her rip-roaring endorsement speech). But no. Endorse the Democrat, and do so with gusto.
It doesn’t have to be “forced choice”– the Republican or the Democrat. If both are no good, endorse neither. It sends a message (and withholds endorsement dollars). Sure, it breaks the mold, but that’s what leaders do under duress. They break with convention instead of weakly justifying to a betrayed constituency why the “rules” must be “obeyed.”
Great point!
Silence or a lack of endorsement of anyone makes as powerful a statement as the opposite.
We, as you imply, Mercedes, look at what is said and done vs. what is never mentioned or never done.
Words are powerful symbols in positive and negative space . . . . .
Ira,
You are on 100% correct. They union insiders will support Hillary no matter what.
Hillary is a centerist neo-liberal. She is no stinking good.
Ira, well put and right to the point!
Thank you for those astute observations . . . .
I dare not attempt to look inside the mind of Mr. Van Roeke, but when a delegate made a motion asking Mr. Van Roeke to “step outside” of his role as president and chairman of the convention to give his opinion on an important issue, Mr. Van Roeke flatly refused to do so.
.
Mr. Van Roeke did not even ask the convention delegate to vote one way or another allowing all motions to come from the delegates. This is a very important point that I make. This means that the actions of the NEA convention came from the individual members. This makes the rebuke of President Obama all the more significant as it was organic and heartfelt from the teachers. The resolution against Mr. Duncan and President Obama came from the membership. This mirrors the low opinion the rest of the country now has for our failed President.
.
I just pray that President Obama will not be spiteful and kick teachers and children in the teeth for two long years.
“I just pray that President Obama. . .”
Thinking that praying along with hoping that the Obomber does or doesn’t do something should have been excised from one’s brain structures by now. Now giving tons of money, that will buy one favors from the Obomber.
Chris, what you describe as happening in FL is what we all can look forward to. It is coming. If Charlie Crist wins, do you anticipate any positive change for teachers in FL?
I am also from a southern state totally under Republican control. It seems here that a few older moderate republicans have blocked a lot of this stuff from happening here, which I know this sounds odd. But much of the privatization legislation has not made it to the floor for a vote. We have had tp republicans attempt to introduce legislation to eliminate due process, introduce merit pay, eliminate step pay increases, create a data base for parents to see teacher disciplinary actions. Fortunately, the bill was so extreme that it did not go anywhere.
Educators put up their own candidate for superintendent of Ed. She ran as a republican and won- after a runoff, probably winning with mostly teacher votes (including a lot of democratic votes) against Bush-endorsed candidate and a tp-endorsed republican candidate. She will now run against a democratic candidate who is also proeducation. So either way we will have a super of Ed that is proeducator. It was an absolutely brilliant move orchestrated and executed by educators. Her win demonstrated the power of educators at the ballot box.
So we are a few years behind FL and we may have bought some more time, given the outcome of our superintendent’s of Ed race.
But most teachers in this state have absolutely no idea what is happening outside this state or what is going on. We are in a bubble. Most educators have no idea what life is like for teachers in FL or elsewhere and that it will eventually make its way here.
I do not understand why NEA and AFT haven’t sounded the alarm to mobilize educators on a national level. At least run some hard-hitting ads… Something…. Candidates need to value the votes of educators. We really need to find some new talent to put out on the TV airways. People are simply bored seeing the same small group of folks being paraded out. They lack energy and passion. They appear self-serving, they simply do not communicate the urgency of the situation. I am consistently disappointed with their performance. A letter of no confidence is a day late and a dollar short. Do you think we are telling Mr. Duncan something he doesn’t already know? Make some news. What are we going to do about it. We need to awake the sleeping giant. There must be some real world consequences.
Chris, we need your voice to continue to articulate just how powerless we educators are becoming, day by day, and the urgency of the situation. It is coming for us all. It is up to us to mobilize and take action to stop it. Please keep posting.
Worried, I agree with you that most teachers are not paying attention to what is really going on. I also asked Diane Ravitch if there could be enough support here and along with BATS and (even longer shot-NEA, AFT/UFT support) to run a full one page ad calling out and detailing the Obama administration’s duplicity on public education in the NYTimes, candidate Obama v. President Obama. Let’s hold Obama/Democrats accountable pre 2014 elections.
Worried, thank you for your encouragement and support! We are in solidarity.
I do not know if things will change if Charlie Crist is elected; he sided with teachers and parents and vetoed the first attempt at imposing VAM and it played a role in him losing his election bid to become senator, losing to the former Tea Party favorite Marco Rubio by a narrow margin.
I think he is politically savvy enough to realize that once he became a democrat he lost all possible support from any republican in power.
We still have a (very) few traditional republicans in the state that manage to beat back the worst of the worst sometimes. The state has become so gerrymandered that it will be extremely difficult to bring about any kind of meaningful change but nothing is impossible,
I imagine the next big headline will be: “Duncan Receives Sternly Worded Resignation Request from NEA; Laughs and Ignores It”
Chris, is there a way we can share your story about what it is like for teachers in Fl out on Facebook? I would like to share it out.
We could even get some of our folks in this state to submit your story as a letter to the editor to several city-wide papers in this state. We have folks that are pretty successful in getting their letters published.
Same for Diane, is there a way we can submit some of your writings to local papers to publish as letters to the editor. Instead of big papers with national followings, how about smaller papers that consistently publish letters from readers.
We have a couple of writers that get things published once per month as letters to the editor, which is the maximum allowed by our local papers.
We need some kind of mechanism to get things published locally.
Have you ever been to http://www.endteacherabuse.com
Do go.
Sorry, that is
http://www.endteacherabuse.org
When you read ‘A Nation at Risk,’ the 1983 publication, the “risk” is basically defined as the USA losing competitive edge in the global marketplace. (eg Japan now makes better cars than us, and Germany makes higher quality [everything].) It is a movement that has been about competition for a long time.
However, there is a warning of future disenfranchisement from material rewards that accompany competent performance (gained through certain levels of skill, literacy and training) as well as a “chance to participate fully in our national life.” This high level of education, the document reads, “is essential to a free, democratic society and to the fostering of a common culture, especially in a country that prides itself on pluralism and individual freedom.”
Heartbreakingly, it also references the promise of equality: “All, regardless of race or class of economic status, are entitled to a fair chance and the tools for developing their individual powers of mind and spirit to the utmost.”
It is incredible at how much competition took sway in edu-policy, in the last 30 years but civic preparedness and a FAIR CHANCE for upward mobility, not so much. Its the same modus operandi the religionist use…freedom of religion FOR SOME…Equality in education FOR SOME…Upward mobility FOR SOME…
Education is a basic human right in our country, yes? Now that corporations have the same rights, but a higher priority in the so-called democratic process, it’s no surprise that we are in the trenches fighting for students and teachers who give themselves to provide tools to their students.
I wish what you wish, too. I was at the top of my career, a celebrated educator on a national and star level when the UFT looked the other way as the principal and superintendent of District 2 in NYC, in 1998, went on a lawless spree inventing slander to remove me from my classroom, stealing and trashing 8 years of work, (they gave my 1000 book library to other teachers, and threw out my research with The National Standards teams from Harvard and the LRDC when I was the cohort, ending my fabulous curricula. In the end a personal phone call to Randi brought her hand into help me… into retirement, even though my students were at the top of THE STATE and CITY on every test and were accepted at top high schools. My curricula had to go, and me with it, and the union was my legal rep, and thus, the Constitution, with its 5th and 6th Amendments did not exist for me.
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/No_Constitutional_Rights-_A_hidden_scandal_of_National_Proportion.html
This has played out across the nation, because it worked so well in NYC the largest district in the country.
They imported it to the swamp which was the LA school system and veteran teachers bit the dust.
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/06/lausds-treacherous-road-from-reed-to-vergara–its-never-been-about-students-just-money.html
and now, on this blog, I read the same story as teachers across the 50 states and 15,880 districts are the victims of lawless top-down management .
I wish, I wish I wish the unions had stood up for teachers from DAY 1, when the first assault began in NYC. Maybe there would have been no Vegara.
Pay attention to what Rene Diedrich tell you… she has got it RIGHT!
The absence of a reference to RTTT was my immediate thought sitting on the RA floor, and quite telling.