A few days ago, I posted about a plan by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to take away teachers’ licenses if they received poor evaluations. Not just to take away their tenure or their job, but their license to teach. I relied on a terrific post by Peter Greene saying that Massachusetts had come up with an ingenious way to chase teachers out of the state. Given how flimsy and flawed the new test-based evaluations are, this was a horrendous plan that lacked logic, common sense, or basic decency. Given the fact that Massachusetts is by far the highest performing state on NAEP, these draconian measures were incomprehensible.
The Massachusetts Teachers Association rallied their members against the DESE plan, and the state DESE backed down. This is the MTA’s description of what happened, how they mobilized, and why good sense prevailed.
Here is the communique from the MTA leadership:
MTA MEMBERS SHOW UNION POWER; DESE RESCINDS PROPOSALS LINKING LICENSURE TO EDUCATOR EVALUATION
MTA President Barbara Madeloni and Vice President Janet Anderson sent the following message to MTA members on Friday, November 14:
We did it! In recent days, thousands of you have contacted state education officials to express your opposition to linking your license to your evaluation. MTA members sent e-mails, spoke out at DESE’s “town halls,” organized building meetings and made plans to attend upcoming DESE meetings in Malden and Bridgewater.
Today, the commissioner of education released a letter that says: “… we are rescinding the draft options that link licensure to educator evaluation.”
Our message — Union Strong — is making a difference.
While the immediate threat is lifted, there is much more to be done to make sure state officials hear what educators think we and our students need.
Here’s the background on the licensure story.
Twenty-five days ago, MTA received notice of licensure changes proposed by DESE that would connect performance evaluation to license renewal and advancement. These proposals and the façade of voice given within the DESE “town halls” exposed the deep disconnect between educators and the department. Union members spoke out resoundingly. Several members of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education joined us in telling the commissioner they opposed this licensure plan.
The decision announced today is a good start, but other aspects of proposed licensure changes are still unsettled, and the disconnect between educators and DESE remains.
The commissioner has invited us to “continue the conversation.” Let’s do just that by showing up in Malden on Nov. 19 and Bridgewater on Nov. 20 to tell our stories, speak our truth, and reclaim public education.
Here are the details of the meetings next week:
DESE-sponsored Town Halls on Licensure
Wednesday, November 19
4:30-7 p.m. (arrive at 4:15 p.m.)
Malden High School
77 Salem Street
Malden
AND
Thursday, November 20
4:30-7 p.m. (arrive at 4:15 p.m.)
Bridgewater State University
Crimson Hall – Dunn Conference Room
200 East Campus Drive
Bridgewater
Even as we move forward with our plans to make our voices heard, this is a moment to celebrate our strength and acknowledge the hard work of our members on this crucial issue. So thank you, and let’s keep up the fight!
In solidarity,
Barbara and Janet
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is only the first of MANY “push-backs” by Massachusetts teachers. We CAN do this! We CAN take back true education for our kids. Barbara Madeloni is an inspiration for us all.
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There is power in a union!
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Thanks for that song!! TAGO!!
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Barbara Madeloni is leading us with a strong voice and passionate action. I am so proud to be an MTA member!
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Bravo! Bravo! Bravo! The MTA has demonstrated what can be accomplished when elected leadership actually leads and represents its members. .
The MTA has taken exemplary action that harkens back to the activist trade and craft unions in the 1930s. It’s time for other state and local unions to sit up, take notice and confront those that propose to harm their memberships and their public school students.
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Wow! First Kevin Huffman resigns and now this–WONDERFUL news!!
Yes WE can…yes we DID and yes, YES we WILL!!!
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What I never understood is why Massachusetts is “partnering” with Keystone and TNTP to come us with such a demonic system in the first place. It makes no sense to me. Glad it is gone, but watch your backs teachers, watch your backs! They don’t stop, they won’t stop and someone entertained this approach. The reformers want you gone; beware.
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Donna, As a lifetime MA resident and veteran teacher in the state, I think you’re asking the most important question and sounding a very important alarm to all of us. Personally, I think many educators were simply blindsided by how quickly the whole “ed reform” movement demonized our profession in the media, and than its architects began to take it over. Our unions were slow to respond, and began making deals with the devil, because, you know…Democrats LIKE teachers and public education! But most of us are, after reading blogs such as Diane’s, Peter Greene’s, and Mercedes Schneider’s, and living through, on a daily basis, the dumb and ill informed mandates imposed upon us and our students, by both Republicans AND Democrats…are so over THAT marriage and are now simply pissed off. Hence the “no great shock” that this Draconian evaluation suggestion came from policy makers in a pretty blue state, and our quick reaction. We KNOW we have few allies in either party, so I guess we stared in Denial and have now reached the Acceptance, stage…Acceptance that we have no choice but to fight back ourselves on behalf of our profession and our students. With a collective middle finger pointed towards the hypocrites in the Democratic Party, starting with our president, who so energetically sold us down the river.
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As a thirty plus year educator in Mass public schools, I agree totally with your analysis. Local unions have played ball with school administrations and school committees, under the false assumption that their members would be spared from the worst effects of both the hellacious Common Core implementation and new evaluation procedures Both actions were played out under the pressure of shrinking local school budget.
Well, it seems that after a too long sleep, the MTA has awoken with a roar and union locals are beginning to feel the effects of ed ‘deform’ and figured out that they had best start following the new activist MTA leadership.
Finally, the MTA must not trust Mitchell Chester and his gang of true believers as far as they can throw them. Chester et al are invested up to their eyeball, both financially and programmatically in the status quo. They will not make significant changes unless they are under fire from the MTA and the legislature. Unfortunately, we are now saddled with a Republican governor who has a deep commitment to lifting the current cap on Charter schools, as well as implementing the key components and objectives of the ‘deformer’ plan.
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Often in trying to defeat a group you only make it stronger…maybe the people trying to kill unions should pay more attention to this example.
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My guess is it’s a bait and switch. The next go round won’t be so bad. It’s a game. Same bill in Michigan became the garbage we now have in Michigan.
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jon…I completely agree with your “bait and switch” concern. What we were able to do here in MA was stop another really egregious policy from being implemented, BUT..and this is a BIG but…we have the unfortunate “benefit” of seeing how these policy decisions have played out with our fellow teachers in other states, so we have to be careful to not be complacent and naive. So I’ll take this “win,” but with my eyes wide open. We’re still dealing with much of the same crap every other teacher in the country is enduring, so we certainly have a lot of fighting left to do. But I must say, even a small victory makes THIS demoralized teacher feel a bit more emboldened.
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I don’t see how it can possibly even be legal for a teacher to lose their license for anything other than gross misconduct. Doctors don’t lose their licenses when a patient dies unless it can be definitively proven that they engaged in deliberate malpractice. Lawyers can’t be disbarred except for gross ethical violations. In fact, no other licensed field can lose their license for “poor performance”, especially when “performance” can’t be objectively defined.
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Dienne,
I am no legal expert. We have the same law in New Jersey. After two years of Partially Effective evaluations, teachers may be brought up on tenure charges. This is the second year the law has been in effect. The manure will hit the fan in June.
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In New York city if a teacher is denied tenure during their probation they are “black listed” and are never allowed to teach in NYC again. Thus, they loose their teaching license in NYC by proxy.
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Which should be illegal. Nobody has the right to take away your teaching license unless you have committed a criminal act. Period.
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Sounds like some good news for a change. The fact one person–a principal who is unsupervised and unaccountable for his or her actions–has complete control of your career and is often a vindictive or otherwise unfit individual, is frightening enough. If that person has the power to take away your teaching license so that you never, EVER work in any public school district in the United States is even more terrifying. NOBODY should EVER have that kind of power to destroy your livelihood by lumping you in with people with criminal records, child molesters, and substance abusers because they can game those test scores as a way to drum you out of the profession.
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I didn’t see that earlier post on your blog, Diane. I would have chimed in since I know the termination process so well, better than 99.99-percent of the country. It’s laughably easy to fire or force teachers out as it is. They are already effectively made destitute and blackballed when an administrator screws up–my situation–because school districts routine game the legal system for their benefit. To give principals even MORE obscene power is criminal.
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Like I tell everyone… you are the voice that gets it out there….we teachers know you…now it is time to let the public know what is going on. Here is the purpose and the methods, in the words of John Taylor Gotto.
http://www.opednews.com/Podcast/John-Taylor-Gatto-author-by-Rob-Kall-100919-193.html
DON’T MISS THIS ONE:He sounds like Garrison Keillor channeling Jimmy Stewart! I missed stuff, AND went back to read the transcript…
Gatto puts forth, with barely a breath, some very complex CRUCIAL IDEAS: such as THIS ONE: We MUST KNOW, the PURPOSE and the methodology that lets ‘THEM’ reach their GOAL!
The shenanigans in Massachusetts and Ohio and everywhere in the 15,880 are simply THE PROCESS–THEIR METHODOLOGY for ending public education by the removal of the real educators who the tarnished and continue to slander in the media… and the public is made into helpless fools because the process is hidden by the media and complicated by the huge division of school districts… almost 16,000. Who follows even the district next door?
Gatto gives us a crucial ‘take-away’ — AN ESSENTIAL TRUTH, a BIG IDEA (as my students would have concluded had they read or heard this convuluted sentence:
Gatto: “Without knowing that [their purpose of life and the methodology to reach that purpose] and much, much, more than that, you are like some helpless intelligent fool as you pass through your daily life, you are absolutely disadvantaged because you’re unable to see how compellingly theology has written our laws, our customs, our preferences; and now it’s true, it’s thoroughly secularized today, but the line of ascent is very clear to see.” because I could not stop laughing at this man’s odd voice as he talks with such clarity about big ideas, such as Darwin’s take on mankind — the “good stock and the bad stock.”
The ‘essential truth/big idea in that long sentence is simple: “we” MUST GRASP the billionaire plutocrats’ “PURPOSE,” or we will be “disadvantaged, helpless fools”
You bet, John Gatto, that ‘we’ the people, will be at a ‘disadvantage’ if we don’t get it — WHAT THIS PROCESS/Method IS –before it is too late! We are more then “disadvantaged,” by Duncan Broad and Gates or by Koch,Walton and Murdoch? I call it totally BAMBOOZLED (at my author’s page at oped). http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
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Here’s an interesting quote from the Boston Globe’s report:
“ ‘It’s disrespectful to stakeholders who haven’t weighed in,’ said Linda Noonan, executive director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, which has pushed for more rigorous evaluations of educators. ‘Everyone should have their say.’”
“Everyone should have their say” – those of us most affected are seldom heard and even more seldom listened to (thinking of Newark and Cami Anderson) so now MBAE is going to go pout in their corner. How is a business group a stakeholder, anyway? Their sponsors include Microsoft, Intel and Houghton, Miffllin & Harcourt. Just guessing, but I don’t think most of the folks running MBAE are public school parents.
Anyway, shout out to the intrepid Barbara Madeloni. It’s pretty clear why the reformistas didn’t want her educating any students during their teaching practica.
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No, everyone should not have their say. THAT idea of balance has destroyed journalism, and public debate. At some point, when the facts are clear there is no room for noise. This concept that ‘freedom of speech’ means every one should state their opinion is being used to confuse every issue. Take climate change… the scientists are 1005 positive that we are at a tipping point, but the noise-makers out there insist there is a controversy. THEY are causing this ‘controversy; where none exists.
The public is vein manipulated like never before, with 24/7 rants.
The union must REPRESENT the reason behind the actions. If they fail, nothing we teachers say will make a difference… there will always be someone who says, “But we have to listen to….?”
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Barbara Madeloni came to Vermont âTroublemakers Schoolâ Sunday, Nov. 9 to lead discussions on encouraging democracy in union governance. In talking about her winning the MTA presidency, I was really impressed by her I-have-only-been-at-this-four-months humility. Massachusetts is blessed to have her leadership.
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Barbara Madeloni is a beacon of light to those of us drowning in this sea of despair. I hope she can help us stave off the next round of attack.
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She is an activist leader, who will fight for the union members.
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