The leaders of the BATs sent the following letter to TIME magazine in response to the magazine’s insulting cover story about American teachers:
They wrote:
As delegates of an organization that represents the collective voices of 53,000 teachers, we take issue with the cover selected for the November 3 edition of Time. We believe that the image is journalistically irresponsible because it unfairly paints teachers and teacher tenure in a negative light.
The gavel as a symbol of corporate education, smashing the apple – the universal symbol of education – reinforces a text applauding yet another requested deathblow to teacher tenure. Instead of clarity, this continues the misconception that tenure ensures a job for life. It does not. It ensures “just cause” rationale before teachers can be fired.
In addition, the cover perpetuates the pernicious myth of the “bad” teacher and tenure as the prime enablers of larger failures in American education. This is a false narrative. These failures are due to structural inequalities and chronic underfunding in our educational systems, not due to teachers and teacher tenure.
The cover feeds this narrative with the misleading statement, “It is nearly impossible to fire bad teachers.” A few months ago talk show host Whoopi Goldberg made similar statements suffering under the same basic misunderstanding of teacher tenure as something akin to what college professors enjoy rather than a simple guarantee of procedural due process which is its function in K-12 education.
Nevertheless, opponents of teacher tenure have consistently invoked the “bad teacher” argument as pretext to attack not only teachers but also teacher unions, arguing that they place the needs of students second to the protection of underperforming teachers.
In fact, teacher tenure has served as an important protection to allow teachers to advocate for students— especially with regard to maintaining manageable class sizes, safe instructional spaces, the needs of students who are English Language Learners and Students with Disabilities.
Given the massive increase in student enrollments, one of the greatest shortfalls is in the number of teachers themselves. A simple accounting of all the teaching positions lost in the great recessions reveals that the nation would need 377,000 more teachers in the classroom just to keep pace not to mention combat the shameful shortage of teachers of color.
In its haste to disparage teachers, the cover inadvertently tells a larger truth. The instrument used to destroy teacher tenure is wielded against the entire profession. It seeks to obliterate due process for all teachers rather than to ensure its proper use.
More significantly, the cover uncritically situates the tech millionaires as saviors without revealing their own self-interest in the tenure fight, the creation of a nation of corporate-run franchise schools taught by untrained teachers and measured by high stakes test developed and administered by those same millionaires.
In an age where transparency in politics and journalism is sorely needed, we regret Time’s decision to proceed with a cover so clearly at odds with the truth.
The Badass Teachers Association
(Created by BAT Administrators and edited by Marla Kilfoyle, Melissa Tomlinson, Steven Singer, and Dr. Yohuru Williams)
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
Certainly, the letter is well written and ‘hits all the marks’. Does BAT honestly believe that Time will deign to offer a response? The mainstream media inhales all opposition, with no expiratory response; it is as if such opposition does not exist.
The Time editor was on Morning Joe earlier this week, basically she thinks teachers are idiots and other than Thomas Roberts the entire cast was decidedly anti-teacher.
How do the BATs know that “53,000 teachers” are members of the group?
Hmmm…How would an internet organization know the number of members they have. That’s a tough one!
They certainly know how many members they have. And they could describe “organization that represents the collective voices of 53,000 members.” But they can’t truthfully describe themselves as representing “53,000 teachers” unless they assumed every member is a teacher. And they know that isn’t true.
Does the 53,000 include people who have been kicked out for asking questions like the ones Flerp is asking?
flerp,
Much ado about nothing.
If you are as sensitive to the massive number of misstatements by teacher bashers and, to the false claims of charter schools and test/tech companies, the blog is deleting your fair treatment.
Oh my gosh! There’s membership fraud in “The bad ass teacher’s association! For some bizarre reason people who are not teachers are joining, and how do we know that their asses really are bad anyway!
Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. “You will know them by their fruits ” — Matthew 7:16
“Beware of Badass Prophets”
You’ll know them by their fruits
Specifically, their apples
The Badass teacher “truths”
Are wolves with sheepy dapples
The problem isn’t that non-teachers are members; that’s a good thing – except insofar as those people claim to speak for teachers – indicating the potential for alliances with parents, students and others.
The problem is that people are “joined” to the group by third parties, often without their knowledge or consent. This automatically drains any credibility away from their claimed membership numbers, and should be looked at at little more skeptically by Diane and readers of this blog.
I’m beginning to like BATS. I think I’ll join. I’m a teacher with 25 years experience (really well over 30, if you count my stint teaching undergraduates and medical students). Add one to whatever number you think they represent.
“TIME Covers Education”
Give the teacher an apple
Then smash it in her room
Make her into Snapple
And clean her with a broom
“I’m going to need a mop for this.”
that is my favorite one so far!
And, DAM, that broom sweeper was thus known as (drum roll, please)…Michelle Rhee-Johnson (or whatever her last name is now).
Who was also on the cover of Time.
What if some folks would display an image of a broken hour glass to TIME as a counter-publicity stunt?
Great idea.
…and it just has to feature Michelle Rhee with the broom (and witch hat) trying to clean up the mess.
Cross posted at;http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/BATS-Respond-to-TIME-by-D-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Argument_Clarity_Diane-Ravitch_Education-141031-431.html#comment517801
with this comment (which has embedded link at the site)
The Duncan narrative about teaching is bogus, meant to sell magic elixirs, not real learning. The false narrative about tenure deceived the public. The instrument used to destroy teacher tenure is wielded against the entire profession. It seeks to obliterate due process for all teachers rather than to ensure its proper use.
The stories of what happened to tens of thousands of Americans who just happened to be teachers, as due process disappeared, and the UNIONS LOOKED THE OTHER WAY, is there, but unreported. In NYC, Betsy Combier told the tale, one Francesco Portelos shows how it is still the process. The story of David Pakter shows how a great teacher needs to sue in court to get any justice., but was unreported in the media which only reports ‘bad teacher’stories.’
IN Lausd, Lenny Isenberg tells the tale of targeting teachers and of the union’s role, not unprotecting due process but eliminating it.
The real destruction of public edcuation was carefully planned, and it began by removing the PROFESSIONAL PRACTITIONER. Just imagine that a hospital director –aka the management– instead of supproting the doctors, organizing staff and providing technology and supplies- instead mandated procedures and medication that would hurt or kill patients. Then imagine that the same managers could point a finger at the doctors, becasue medicine, like learning is a complex subject, and people only know what they are told. Here are the real professionals, and THIS is what LEARNING LOOKS LIKE when teachers show what they know, which is all ggod teachers, authentic educators do… they enable learners to do what they know how to do. This is what all mentors do.
The letter is well-written. It is imperative to answer every attack and, to call out the deformers’ profit motives.
The letter, erroneously, restates the notion that professors, with tenure, can’t be fired. I understand the BATS anger at professors, who have conducted, ignored contradictory findings and, tailored their research, to serve wealthy funders. Those professors won’t be fired, not because they have tenure but, because they are protected by college contributors.
The blurring of the line between donor influence and faculty decisions about reappointment , promotion and tenure, was experienced at Florida State Univiversity/Koch.
On the other hand, a tenured professor at the University of Texas is concerned about his job security because he testified in the state capitol against the value of high-stakes testing.
As for the Time teacher-bashing article author, free-lancer Haley Sweetland Edwards, her sketchily-sourced and uninformed writing can only call more attention to the death-knell of this once prestigious weekly, founded in 1926 by Henry Luce, and featuring such writers as James Agee and Pico Ayer. This most recent piece of trivia seems phoned-in, including the ridiculous cover photo.
That’s for sure. To do an article on teachers without interviewing teachers does seem horribly biased even to a casual observer. I wonder if anyone will pick up on that and write an article about rotten journalism?
Thanks BATS from one of the 53,000.
Thank you also from one of the 53,000 – and yes, I AM a teacher.
Thanks, BATS from another one of the 53, 000 who is also a teacher.
Thanks from another of the 53,000 (and counting)!
Hmmm. how interesting , that my last comment with all the links to the stories of teachers who suffered the removal of due process, did not go up here.
Posts with multiple links often take a while to show up. I think they end up in a moderation queue.
I’m looking forward to Time’s cover that addresses the following psychologist’s concern,
“Well-intentioned educators dramatically adjusted their teaching methods to responds to perceived needs of these young ‘digital natives’. Adopting the latest technology became confused with education. Many schools wasted money on more gadgets to interact with kids, rather than investing resources for teachers and support services.” (Dr. Gregory Ramey, Dayton Children’s Hospital).
I won’t hold my breath.
^^this^^
Also, I’ll just throw this out there.
“the same basic misunderstanding of teacher tenure as something akin to what college professors enjoy rather than a simple guarantee of procedural due process which is its function in K-12 education.”
Why do people so often throw college professors under the bus on this issue? Is it actually “nearly impossible” to terminate a tenured college professor? Isn’t university tenure also just a guarantee of procedural due process?
Given the huge increase in use of adjuncts, who are contract to contract with NO protections, there won’t be many tenured faculty left at universities.
Chris,
Under the definition of adjunct most commonly used in the citations on this blog, Dr. Ravitch is an adjunct. I do not know if she is on a year to year contract though.
thanks from a BAT, a mom, a nonna, a person of the world…i appreciate all you do for the cause of reclaiming public education….
This BAT and professor thanks Diane Ravitch for reposting the letter and thanks all who fight the good fight.
Thank you Diane Ravitch. Thank you SERIOUSPROFESSOR (microsoft won’t let me do it the right way) for stating it — for all those who fight the good fight!!
The reformers also want to get rid of tenured teachers because we are the strident loud voice defying their reforms. We stand in the way of their skewered vision. How do they smoothly sail through without any opposition? Get rid of those pesky tenured teachers that won’t lose their jobs if they speak out against us. It’s simple and they will use any means fair or foul to get their reforms through.
Thank you, Diane Ravitch, for posting the BAT letter to TIME. I hope people read and consider it seriously and with respect.
This is the best article I have ever read about the whole degradation of the public schools for private profit.
Diane
Thank you for reprinting the letter our BATs leaders wrote in response to that misleading article and teacher-bashing cover. It’s time for us to fight back against those who know little or nothing about what we do each day and what our responsibilities are. Teachers needs less outside interference and more input from actual non-TFA educators. Real teachers need a seat at the table where high stakes decisions are made.
What all concerned should be doing is spreading the word to cancel subscriptions to Time magazine ,spread the word, get the National Library Associations to join the movement to hit Time, ie it’s shareholders , and hit them with a massive loss of their profits which is the only thing driving these Sub-human life forms. And Flerp, go away, you s_uck
Just a bit harsh (re: Flerp). There are times when I’ve found her comments quite in line with mine. Perhaps not this time, but….. “You S..ck”. Really? What kind of ‘community’ are we?
This is a community that at best tolerates and at worst encourages bulling of anyone who holds heterodox opinions.
To the guy questioning BATs numbers, please turn your AstroTurf-detection unit on StudentsFirst or just one of the dubious anonymous PACs buying elections to suppress wages. BATs is only one of many teacher or parent groups competing to expose theft of school funding.
Teachers organize in large numbers in every city, all saying the same things about school conditions, over testing, charters and tenure. BATs is one group that uses Facebook while others do it other ways.
So why pick on one group? Just be honest if you have an agenda. Remember Flerp, no one know who anyone is online. You could be Campbell Brown, Whoopi Goldberg or a Walton employee for all we know, and I could be a dog.
I’m not saying it’s “AstroTurf.” I’m saying they are lying about their membership — as in, they know they don’t have 53,000 teacher members, but they claim they do, over and over. They don’t need to lie about this, and yet they do. If you don’t think it matters, that’s fine. Whoever’s writing the BATs’ press releases doesn’t think it matters, either.
Flerp, refer readers to one of your blog comments, that indict deformers, for lies of great consequence..
Flerp, the BATs are primarily a FB group. They say join if you are a teacher. So it’s the honor system, just like any magazine that tells you it’s circulation, but some are really just being sent to dentists offices. Just like any website tells you how many readers they have – how do they know each and every person read their articles to the bottom of the page. Why does this keep you up at night?
Aside from you, everybody knows what FB membership means, it’s a constantly changing number of people on a spectrum of more to less activity that ebbs and flows. If the actual number of accounts that have joined includes some plumbers or bus drivers lying about being teachers, because they are SO interested in seeing what the teachers are posting, is that really a big deal to you? Why take up our time with this?
Why not go super-sleuthing to expose Jeb Bush’s Foundation For Excellence? How about Andrew Cuomo, caught sending interns to protest Zephyr teachout appearances?
You don’t know the authentic, verified membership of the NRA, Republican Party, MADD, John Birch Society, the AMA, Greenpeace or any other organization, yet you are content to stand by their self-proclaimed numbers without as much as a peep.
And you say nothing about those already caught red-handed, like Rush Limbaugh who bought FB likes from India, or Newt Gingrich whose 1 million + Twitter followers have no posting history.
Can you divide your time a little more equitably across real astroturfers, cheaters, and liars instead of taking up our time laying out unfounded suspicions of sinister member-padding of BAT member metrics on FB?
The BATs daily activity proves this is a busy, thriving website. There is a separate group for parent supporters, which adds even more support to their numbers, and the state specific pages have many more (2K members listed in NY BATs). So this is a legitimate group, period.
Begging the question, what’s your real beef? Who are you and why should we be subjected to your accusations?
“It’s Really Easy to Make a Bad Teacher”: double class sizes, eviscerate unions, cut pay and take away supplies, impoverish the families of students while taking away their social safety nets, and impose a jacked up, demoralizing teacher accountability regime run by administrators who are incentivized (i.e., at a minimum, fired for not enforcing a mandate) to match percentages of teacher retention with the percentages of students’ who pass on jacked up, demoralizing exams. E. Z.
1 like
My problem with BATs is the organization’s thin-skinned reaction to even the mildest criticism. Diane loves you, many prominent figures in educational activism admire you, but you react indignantly to those who don’t believe that BATs are the greatest thing since sliced bread. It’s also shameful how the BATs gang up on anyone at their site who offers even the mildest criticisms of the group, accusing people of “drinking the Kool Aid” if they display any divergent thinking from the groupthink approach over there. There’s also a bit of sycophancy towards the group’s founders and admins, many of whom who have never been classroom teachers, and a cliquish mutual love fest that is ego driven yet cloaked in a faux humility that’s nauseating at times.
That’s just one person’s opinion, mine, and being badass should be the ability to handle such critiques without dismissing their critics as “haters” or in the pockets of deformers or other such nonsense.
Oh, and words do matter. It’s not being “nitpicky” to say that if a group claims 53,000 teachers than those members should be teachers; otherwise, why not just claim “educational supporters” or something similar? Also, if you’re going to claim that you marched on Washington, shouldn’t you actually march? What’s wrong with saying “rally” or protest? That may seem like nitpicking to some, but to me it speaks of an honesty and being truthful in word and action.
wearewriters4life,
No, what you say is not just “one person’s opinion,” but is understood and shared by many others, who recognize that this group engages in many questionable practices that are ultimately harmful to the fight to defend public education.
First and foremost is the fact that, as we never fail to remind the so-called reformers, honesty matters.
Readers of this site need to realize that, even if a takes righteous positions, they can still be humility and integrity-challenged, as this one most definitely is.
Diane,
Thank you so much for continuing to be a prolific voice for our students and our profession.
We are working so hard every day to educate our students despite all of the political and corporate interference.
I had the great fortune of hearing you speak at Truman Days in Independence, MO.
Please keep campaigning for us📖!
Michelle Miller
Thank you for giving us a voice. I just want to be the best teacher I can be, and yet, I am so discouraged by the lack of respect for my profession. Many teachers, especially those in some of the toughest schools, put up with verbal threats within the classroom and by parents due to articles like the one written by Time. I do not work with even one bad teacher. I have, however, worked with an administrator who bullied, threatened, and abused her power. It took the school district eight years to get rid of her!
Thank you!
Thank you, Ms. Ravitch, for posting this letter in your blog. And, huge thanks to the BAT administrators for writing such an eloquent letter to Time magazine. As a BAT member, I am very grateful for this organization (and Ms. Ravitch) for keeping us teachers informed and giving us a forum to express the truths about education.
Thank you for your continued support!
Times will stop the presses to receive a response from “bad ass” teachers?
This will reaffirm their contention. a tempest in a tea pot. Whoopi Goldberg as a foil no less?
If BATS is partying with Randi at her East Hampton’s home, then it is a tool of the AFT, which supports Gates and the Common Core.
Vandykel@michigan.gov
http://www.globalresearch.ca/protecting-our-children-in-the-wake-of-sandy-hook-psychiatric-surveillance-of-public-school-children/5411780