Arthur Goldstein teaches English to immigrant students in high school in New York City. He has taught for many years. He has written about the importance of tenure, which enables him to advocate for his students without fear of losing his job. He can be a whistle blower without fear of losing his job. He has academic freedom because he has tenure.
Frank Bruni of the New York Times doesn’t like tenure. He also doesn’t like public schools or teacher unions as he was possibly the only columnist in America to write a positive review of the movie flop “Won’t Back Down,” which was underwritten by the far-right billionaire Philip Anschutz.
In this post, Arthur Goldstein dissects Frank Bruni’s opinion column, in which he cites Whoopi Goldberg as an authority and State Senator Michael Johnston of Colorado, who wrote one of the most punitive teacher evaluation bills in the nation. Four years later, does Colorado have the great schools and great teachers Johnston promised when he pushed the bill through? Of course not. Smoke and mirrors. Another DFER triumph built on demoralizing teachers.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The NY Times OpEd page disagrees with me on reform. That’s fine. I’m okay with disagreement. But their columnists have written their opinions on CCSS, NCTQ and now tenure with so little recognition that there actually IS a dynamic and lively debate around all of these issues that it has become farcical.
They write as if they got phone calls from personal friends (Mr. Bruni is a friend of Campbell Brown per a People Magazine blurb on her wedding), are put in touch with 1 or 2 people from the reform side of the issue and then write without bothering to inform themselves about what arguments exist on the other side.
If they disagree with those arguments and can counter them, fine and dandy. That’s a debate. But they demonstrate NO KNOWLEDGE that there IS a debate.
LikeLike
danielkatz2014: you nailed it.
The leading advocates for charters & vouchers & privatization are, in general, talking to themselves, generating their own Rheeality Distortion Fields—with their main targets being themselves.
They are sincerely and furiously engaged in pumping each other up, or as Yoda might have said, ‘in it to win it, that they are.’
Thus they are genuinely astonished to learn, as a few do once in a while, that they are wrong wrong wrong.
Then out comes the Teflon Defense: they didn’t know better, they were all ears but others kept them in the dark, it was somebody else’s fault. Just think of the public conduct of self-styled “education reformers” like John King and Cami Anderson and Michelle Rhee-Johnson and Chris Christie and Bill Gates and the list goes on and on and on…
It’s painfully ironic that the very folks that spout the rhetoric of CCSS can’t think their way out of a paper bag.
¿? Our pain. Their gain.
$tudent $ucce$$ anyone?
😒
LikeLike
and by god, they do not own the mantle of “reform side of the issue.” lets call them privatizers (at the very least). you are dead right in yr analysis.
LikeLike
Unfortunately, we well know the NYT positions on all ‘reform’ topics. Likewise, we know that the NYT will not give access to writers such as Arthur Goldstein, who can directly refute their Op-Ed and editorial positions ( I exclude well credentialed writers such as Diane Ravitch).
Of critical and determinative importance, we know that the only meaningful refutation of ‘deformer’ ideology can only occur at local and state levels through progressive union alliances with parents and communities. One sucessful example of this approach is the work of Karen Lewis and the CTU).
The fight will be long and arduous and ‘no nothings’ like Frank Bruni and Whoopie Goldberg, will continue to dominate the main stream media and spew forth their ‘no nothing’ opinions to the public-at-large. Regardless, Arthur Goldstein has done a fine and necessary job counter attacking the ‘no nothings’. Props to Arthur for doing what must be done.
LikeLike
Arthiur offers a great analysis of the Bruni column. Bruni used to write in depth restaurant reviews, but on education he seems to offer only fast food. Here is my take on the article from the perspective of a good principal and a bad principal.
http://russonreading.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-trouble-with-frank-bruni.html
LikeLike
Will write for cocktail party invitations.
LikeLike
The NYT courts the interests of Wall St. insiders and the corporations listed on exchanges. Teachers have financial power in their pension funds. We can tell state pension funds to stop investing in companies that fund programs like George Mason University’s “Pension Reform Seminars for Judges”. The Center for Public Integrity
identified those corporations as G.E., Ford Motor, ConocoPhillips, Pfizer and Dow Chemical. The usual Koch and Pope Foundations were identified as backers.
LikeLike
Frank Bruni should stick to what he knows best: food. He should leave the issue of education to people who understand it best. He is another corporate muppet the NY TImes has to play with.
LikeLike
All of these “reformers” (and the judge in CA) fail to understand: there is no such thing as “tenure” in public education! http://waynegersen.com/2014/08/19/there-is-no-tenure/
LikeLike
Since USA K-12 schools, whether public, charter, or private, promote students from grade to grade by attendance instead of attendance AND proficiency(the federal NCLB law), social-economic, ethnic, gender, and age generally reflect and determine student and school’s performance. Just examine data- NAEP, high school completion rates, SAT and ACT scores- which clearly documents this reality.
If you think about it, there are two assumptions that most everyone( students, teachers, other educators, media , and the public) would agree upon related to the USA K-12 system and student achievement. (1) That each grade level is incrementally more advanced than the other. (2) Students are promoted from grade to grade by the mastery of that material, usually defined as “proficiency”. If one agrees on these two assumptions, does it seem logical that students should be promoted by proficiency? The promotion by proficiency comment is especially meaningful for the STEM disciplines, in which the lower level skills are applied and required to learn at the higher levels of the discipline.
Based upon the previous comment, does any one disagree with a model that promotes students by proficiency independent of age/attendance? In other words, a student could be in fourth grade by age, but is placed, evaluated, and promoted by academic level 1,2,3,4,5,6, based upon the student’s demonstrated readiness determined by the teacher’s recommendation or empirically via diagnostic-prescriptive testing. The model places the responsibility of learning on the student’s readiness, desire to learn, and ability with the support of the parents, teachers, and others. The K-12 student would still be promoted each year by the traditional attendance model, but the academic placement and evaluation level would vary based upon the student’s demonstrated performance.(1)
In addition, do not colleges and universities promote students by proficiency and not by attendance? It seems that most of the world, by sending many of their best college students here, thinks that the USA colleges and universities’ model of promotion by proficiency is an excellent idea and practice. Is it possible that the same promotion by proficiency idea should be applied to improve USA K-12 schools and student achievement?
On the negative comments of teacher unions and tenure related to student performance, please explain why the state of Mississippi( it has been reported by teachers) has no tenure nor a teacher’s union, but the state’s scores, however measured- NAEP, SAT, ACT, ASVAT- are low( or lowest) in the nation?
(1) Programs that have successfully applied this model are available from Eric Kangas, a retired teacher and current and independent researcher. I am not selling anything, but a change in thinking that is required, before a change in practices can occur.
ekangas @juno.com
LikeLike