Teachers have been the “collateral damage ” of the so-called reform movement. The reformers’ false claims and teacher-bashing is taking a predictable roll of some of the most talented teachers while discouraging young people from entering the profession.
This article explains why so many teachers are discouraged and how reformers disguise their nefarious intentions with lies.
Dora Taylor, parent activist in Seattle, writes:
“The self-designation of “reformer” by people who have never been in the classroom and have no actual training or experience in education is a smokescreen. What they are really after is profitability for their investor-owned charter school corporations that will deliver as little education for the buck as they think they can get by with.
“The public schools are losing well-qualified and experienced teachers who have made a commitment to our communities and dedicated themselves to teaching our children and and yet we are losing them in large numbers. Why?
“There are many reasons but for the most part has to do with the phrase “Education Reform”.
“The term encompasses charter schools and who teaches in those schools, the Common Core Standards, high stakes standardized testing, as well as the failed idea of merit pay for teachers….
“The teachers union is getting bombarded from two sides right now. First, by billionaires who would rather not see any unions in our country such as the Koch brothers, the Walton’s and corporate backed ALEC and from the other side by charter school enterprises who would love to have certified teachers but don’t want to pay a decent wage to hire them.
“With Race to the Top we had schools closing based on test scores and then many converted into charter schools and folks like Broad-backed Michelle Rhee who fired several hundred teachers, most of them minority women, basically on a whim.
“Then you have Common Core Standards and a battery of standardized tests, which make it difficult for a teacher not to teach to a test and thereby narrow their curriculum. This takes a lot out of a teacher who loves teaching, gets excited about their prepared curriculum, which is designed not only in terms of standard expectations but also to the students they are teaching. It destroys any creativity on the part of the teachers and students and makes teaching and learning a rote and tedious daily routine.”
Brett Dickerson of Seattle writes:
“For the last ten years now, a steady drumbeat of trash talk about teachers has made its way into the public comments about education. Experienced teachers are portrayed as lazy and incompetent, incapable of teaching students in any kind of adequate way.
“Teachers unions are pointed out as a telling sign that teachers know that they are no good and need “job protection” with tenure laws.
“None of these statements accurately portray the quality of teaching or the actual situation of most students who graduate from public schools. Why would these be circulated so widely?
“Not “education reformers”, but school raiders
“To understand the teacher brain drain we have to get the reality of what passes as “education reform” in the press and media. True reformers want to engage those who have the most experience in the classroom and in leading teachers as administrators.
“To achieve reform, there must be a collaboration and engagement of those who know what needs to be reformed the best. But that’s not what is going on, is it?
“That’s because those who call themselves “education reformers” usually are not. Instead they are those who want only to raid public funds taken by force as taxes and then converted to the wealth of investors who do not care about your children, only their own.
“The self-designation of “reformer” by people who have never been in the classroom and have no actual training or experience in education is a smokescreen. What they are really after is profitability for their investor-owned charter school corporations that will deliver as little education for the buck as they think they can get by with.”
So it’s working …
Thank you for an excellent post.
Reblogged this on charles french words reading and writing and commented:
This is an excellent post on the difficulties teachers are facing and why our society is losing so many excellent educators.
““Not “education reformers”, but school raiders”
Apropos
It really was a good plan by the reformers in its totality. Step one: let Charters explode at a rate that would starve Public School budgets. Step two: as the quality of students diminished in Public Schools due to the mass influx of students into the Charter School system (who do not accept troubled students wink wink) more teachers will move to the Charter Schools system in hopes of improving their working environment which would indirectly reduce local governments pension obligations. Step three: set unattainable goals in education tied to false metrics that could be used to scapegoat teachers for all of the shortcomings of society. Step 4: legalize vouchers to further starve the budgets of Public Schools. Step 5: sit back and watch the best teachers leave who ultimately get fed up with the BS. Step 6: enjoy the cash that comes along with the biggest theft in American history. ” A fully privatized school system”.
Same plan used to push 401ks.
Love your comment.
Diane,
I spent the last two hours listening to you on Youtube being interviewed by various people including Charlie Rose. There is no doubt that you have a complete grasp of the problems besetting public education, and I defer to you’re expertise and analysis of the external pressures put upon teachers and students. You are the best I’ve heard when it comes to synthesizing and articulating both sides of the issues. What you fail to do is make any mention of the internal pressures that teachers have to face within the school environment. There is no mention of the level of intimidation on the part of administrators, the fraudulent posing as master teachers, the corruption at the highest levels of the educational hierarchy, and the stressful nature of the job brought about by the paranoia of administrators who employ CYA (Cover Your Ass) as SOP. (Standard Operating Procedure taught in the certification classes for administrators) The system is inundated with self serving administrators who have turned the public schools into a veritable den of intrigue that pits teacher against teacher, and separates the staff into loyalist and the opposition. The manner in which this accomplished is outlined in my book New Money For Old Rope, that describes the true conditions that are present in every school in the country. I’m told that it’s not cricket to advertise one’s book in this fashion, but I have tried to expose these conditions in sound bites, and I find it too confining a forum to explain fully the things that teachers are unwilling or afraid to divulge. I am proposing a change in the school culture that flattens the administrative pyramid, eliminates present administrative titles, replacing them with support personnel culled from the senior staff on a rotating basis, so that they never form an adversarial relationship with the rest of the staff. In the book I describe the fraud perpetrated by intuitive leadership, and the stress put upon the system brought about by the litigious environment imposed on everybody within the system. I wish that you would address these conditions, and begin to change the narrative from what has become a redundant, narrow focus on issues created by external forces. I don’t deny that these issues are having a deleterious affect on the lives of teachers, but changing the school culture from authoritarian leadership to a support driven one will go a long way to solving the issues that are causing the disintegration of the public schools.
Respectfully,
Ian Kay
Well, this explains why you’ve been posting here. Thanks.
Ian Kay… there was a pilot school I ran into in the Boston area that had what you propose… yes there was a principal but the principal acted as a moderator and a panel of teachers along with the principal set policy and the panel changed every two years. Graduating students actually presented portfolios and met one-on-one before teachers in order to graduate.
Ian: You are correct in your assessment of the current environment that exists in schools.
This is not what I remember as a student back in the day. Administration and teachers actually worked together, were respectful of each other, and seemed to be working together for the common goal, that of educating us to take our places in society. Teachers seemed to have autonomy, they were respected by students and parents, and were seen as role models for the community and students alike.
What has changed in those years? The whole situation is very sad for all of us.
Karen Horwitz of NAPTA has been talking about this for years. So have others. Only if you have experienced the filthy politics in public ed against teachers firsthand can you truly appreciate it. The major problem with principals is that they are not closely supervised. Many, many people cannot responsibly work unsupervised; principals are no exception.
Congrats! Congrats! Five years ago I tried to get a book I wrote published, called “Orphaned: The Abandonment of America’s Public School Teacher.” It was an account of reform change told from a teacher perspective, and had a lot about the toxicity of administrators within the educational environment. Publishers told me it was a good book but I lacked a national platform, so no deal. I thought about self-publishing, but I was also told as a college-level professor/scholar, self-publishing can ruin a career.
Good luck, and thanks for exposing the truth of what is going on!!
“Teacher Exodus ”
Collateral or convenient?
And just a little too
Stampeding or subservient
Is not a freakish fluke
When we make an entire career punitive and devalued, what do we expect? Teaching is challenging under the best of circumstances. When everything designed to be subtractive, why would quality people want to stay? This is no way to encourage the best and brightest to this field or encourage them to remain.
It is particularly disheartening when teachers realize the amount of money that goes to charter school infrastructure and management, and how few dollars actually make it to the classroom. In Chicago we know all too well how this game works: http://windycityteachers.blogspot.com/2015/06/cps-waste-exhibit-c-charter-payments.html and http://windycityteachers.blogspot.com/2015/07/cps-waste-exhibit-d-tim-cawley-and-ausl.html
My small district lost about 30 teachers this year to early retirement and those quitting the profession. Another 15 or so were of retirement age and also left. We lost so much institutional knowledge and so many strong veteran teacher leaders, my district will never be the same again. The 3 reasons most often given for leaving 1) the Danielson evaluation system (eVal for us in WA) 2) all the SBAC testing/EOC testing and 3) the lack of pay, espicially given that my district has the most student contact time/least amount of planning time when compared to all the surrounding districts. We have had to rely more and more on subs, but there is also a sub shortage in Washington.
Legislators want even more accountability and many are still pushing for student test scores to be a part of teacher evals to kiss up to Arne. We haven’t had a cost of living adjustment since 2008, despite passing an initiative to ensure we got one every year (the legislature suspended it like they do all the education initiatives they don’t like, except for 1240 – Charter schools), but now since we are getting a 4.8% COLA adjustment over 2 years, we are told we are getting a raise and should be grateful to legislators. This despite the fact that a COLA is not a raise, it is an adjustment for inflation, and WA teachers have many years of COLA still to go to catch up to inflation, let alone get an actual raise.
We have legislators who push to dock our pay for our one-day walkout, even as they can’t manage to get their job done in the time allotted and are now into their 3rd special session. No talk of docking THEIR pay – instead they just keep getting paid more, and they got an 11% increase, meaning their pay for fewer days work is higher than most 1st-5th yr teachers, and that doesn’t include the $120 legislator per diem they get each day they are in session, plus the extra expenses they can submit for reimbursement. They are also going after our ability to collectively bargain TRI monies with our districts, which is, right now, the only way we can get an increase in pay outside the couple of hundred a step increase provides each year.
This lack of respect from the legislature, compounded with the usual Gates Foundation anti-public school drivel, the encroachment of Mayor Ed Murray’s office into controlling Seattle Public Schools, the impending invasion of charter schools next year, the exploding class sizes in the majority of our districts, and we are ripe for an implosion in public ed here in WA. We have not yet lowered our licensing requirements for teachers (though more reliance on worthless tests like the NES as gatekeepers), but I see that coming soon. TFA never really got a foothold here, but with the upcoming charter invasion and the number of ex-TFAs who will be running these new charters, I’m sure they’ll be back too. We’ve been somewhat insulated from so much that has gone in elsewhere in the country, but it’s all about to hit here too.
We aren’t collateral damage, we are the main target. Everything is our fault and it will all be hunky dory once we are all gone and the invisible hand of the market sweeps the newer, brighter, altruistic super teachers in. Our greedy pensions that allow us to live on cat food must go too, these newbies will find themselves while they teach and will not need to be a drain on society after their useful classroom time. Yes folks, it is a war, and the artillery (money) is aimed at us.
When I started teaching, you got handed a schedule of classes, maybe a room of your own to teach in, and were expected to show up for lunchroom duty at one time of the day or another. The rest was mostly up to you. This was hard, but you were surrounded by colleagues who had managed to endure and who – because they were teachers – were willing to teach you, too.
The secret is, we were left alone to do what we were prepared to do – teach in a way that matched our “teacher’s voice” with effective instruction for the kids to whom we were responsible. I remember my college practicum supervisor’s words of high praise were that I was “not afraid” to follow my students’ lead in the classroom and adapt the planned lesson. Now, this trait would give coniption fits to the adherents of scripted lessons with all on the same page!
Taking away teachers’ autonomy inside their classes is the last straw. What other group of professionals is micro-managed in this way, yet expected to do so much with so little?
And then, if deformers and administrators aren’t enough to destroy teachers, then other teachers are encouraged, either overtly or covertly, to trash colleagues’ careers by reporting so-called problems with those teachers.
I have not been in the teaching profession as long as many of you have, but it was evident to me from the beginning of my career ( 12 years ago) that corporate raiders were seeking to destroy the public schools systems and demonize teachers ( those greedy union loving, pension collecting public servants), so that they could get in on the profits to be made for themselves.
Formerly from the business world, I decided to drop out and start a second career as a high school social studies teacher. Most of my career as a teacher was under the Bloomberg Administration in NYC.
Many of my colleagues refused to listen, or believe when I saw what was happening to teachers and schools around NYC. Somehow, they felt that this couldn’t be happening. Well, lo and behold, we now have a fully formed attack and war on teachers in the public school systems, blamed for everything from the social ills of society to whoever has a hangnail on their foot. It’s not localized anymore, it’s now a national epidemic.
Unfortunately, it appears that our union here in the city are akin to the Vichy French during WWII, and are collaborators in our demise. Not to mention our DINO governor, President, and Department of Education Secretary, Arne Duncan.
Somehow, I have managed to hang on throughout this madness for 12 years, but frankly, I’m looking forward to getting out of this system and retiring in two years.
It really saddens me that teachers are being attacked this way. In any other country, teachers are revered and respected, rather than being made into villains.
It’s high time that teachers fought back, rather than slinking off into that good night. Not so much because of our careers and pensions, etc., but what will happen to all of the children and students when the public schools are either privatized or turned into charters, that cherry pick who will get in and who doesn’t?
Is this the kind of society that we want for the future? Why don’t we teachers across the country organize some kind of grass roots movement to fight for a sound educational future for those that are coming up behind us?
Well, I’ve voiced my opinion. Frankly, from all that I have seen, I fear for the future of our country, if things stay on the path they are now.
cross posted the entire piece as a comment on this quick link to the ny Times article, “An Insult to Teachers – The New York Times”
There is also reality of reductions in teacher compensation. For many younger teachers, sometimes another career offers a significant increase in pay. Also, depending on the income of their spouse, sometimes the better option is for the teacher to stop out of teaching to take care of children instead of choosing daycare.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
Susan Nunnes mentions Karen Horwitz and her site,
http://endteacherabuse.org/
where she has hundreds of stores of teachers under attack, including mine, and Francesco Porellos, who is still fighting in NY
http://protectportelos.org/a-case-for-tenure/
http://protectportelos.org/allegations-against-me/
Her self-published book “White Chalk Crime” lays out the lawlessness.
http://www.whitechalkcrime.com
Once again I publish the links here, hoping that people will go to these sites and KNOW THAT THE TRUTH has been OUT THERE , forever!
Americans who are teachers have had no civil rights because the union looked the other way. This explains the process :
http://citywatchla.com/8box-left/6666-lausd-and-utla-complicity-kills-collective-bargaining-and-civil-rights-for-la-s-teachers
and, years ago, my essay told of the scandal for teachers,
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
This, too, was posted years ago
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/former-ctc-attorney-kathleen-carroll-lays-out-unholy-alliance-between-union-and-public-education-pri.html
http://www.perdaily.com/2013/10/why-does-utla-continue-to-support-lausds-violation-of-california-teacher-dismissal-process.html
http://www.perdaily.com/2015/01/were-you-terminated-or-forced-to-retire-from-lausd-based-on-fabricated-charges.html
Betsy Combier chronicled the on assault teachers in NYC for a decade
http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2009/03/gotcha-squad-and-new-york-city-rubber.html
http://parentadvocates.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=7534
Lorna Stremcha lays out the war on teachers in her book “Bravery, Bullies, and Blowhards: Lessons Learned in a Montana Classroom”
Then,, there is the incredible chronicle of LA schools Perdaily,
http://www.perdaily.com/2013/07/how-to-use-perdaily-as-a-reference-guide-to-democracy
created a decade ago by Lenny Isenbeg, who blew the whistle on LAUSD’s social promotion…. ‘THEY’ went after him
http://www.perdaily.com/2010/02/yesterday-i-was-removed-from-class-in-handcuffs.html
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/between-dishonest-social-promotion-of.html
How did they get away with destroying the profession? The unions not only looked the other way… but THE MEDIA not only looked away as the profession was raped, it BLAMED those BAD incompetent teachers and this gave birth to VAM and PARCC
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/HAVE-REPORTERS-BECOME-POLI-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Media_Media-Bias_Media-Blackout_Media-Corruption-140322-673.html
DON’T MISS THIS LINK
and the end result… in the largest school district of the 15,880 in this nation, NYC –here is how the profession was destroyed so the schools could be controlled by the mayor.
In Canada our teachers are exceptionally well paid and they have the best pension plan in the country. However students are leaving the public school system in droves to attend schools under the Catholic School Board (these are students from non-catholic families). The Catholic School Board offers a better variety of programs and they offer some religious training that focuses on high moral values. What does that say about the public school system??
Nothing!
Those supposed “high moral values” and “religious training” (at least you were correct in calling it training because it isn’t teaching and learning) are as chimerical as the “spirits from the other side”. In other words they (hnv, rt, and sftos) don’t exist in the reality based world, only in your grey matter. And that’s okay in my book, just don’t attempt to pawn it off as a “reality” that is discernible by anyone else.
Where is your post? I really wanted to read it
Where is whose post?
“Two Twos” – Easy to Remember and All You Need to Know
In this techy age of accommodating short attention spans, giving us “listicles ” instead of “articles” or columns (as we used to name them), I give you this short, two two-part list:
It’s my Two Twos summation of the simmering and, often, fiery debate about the education “reform” movement in America. Take heart, once read this quick one-page essay simply counts to two twice, showing that the best approach is not complicated. Indeed, it’s much simpler than you think: Two Twos.
Actions: Two Steps
There are 2 steps – and ONLY 2 steps – that “they” should have taken if they really wanted to improve childhood development and learning:
1) Extend the school year through the summer months,
2) Do nothing else.
These two actions would have accomplished far more of a positive nature, I believe, than what actually has been achieved. And make no mistake, in view of the damage already done, I contend with conviction that both steps are essential, with the second step as important as the first.
Research: Two Places
The only two places where “they” should have looked for vital, rich, real and valuable information (i.e., raw material for their “data”, “metrics”, “KPIs”, “benchmarks”) about students and their situations, status and progress, etc., are, ironically, the only two places where nobody ever did bother to look:
1) In teachers’ notes,
2) In teachers’ heads.
Want “big data”? Go ahead, knock yourself out. There’s plenty of “data” in those notes and those brains. If only you had taken the trouble to organize all that data (and, by the way, stay out of the teacher’s way as you do that), then by now you’d be better informed about real, whole children, and far wiser for it.
But, alas, the searching looked elsewhere, the activity ran off in myriad other directions. Thus was the damage done and it continues apace. Two Twos says it all.
Lenny Isenberg offers the answer to the question of why, and adds HOW!
“FINALLY, TARGETED TEACHERS TARGET CORRUPTION’
http://www.perdaily.com/2015/07/targeted-union-teachers-finally-target-corrupt-nyc-public-schools–might-this-proactive-model-work-a.html
The organized corporate assault on public education- and more specifically costly veteran teachers- has gone on unimpeded over the last 9 years, because teachers’ unions around the country have not only done nothing to protect their dues paying members, they have actually assisted the school districts in getting rid of top of the salary scale teachers under any pretext by offering an appearance of validity to what on closer examination is a clearly illegal and morally reprehensible process that has destroyed the lives of thousands of completely innocent teachers around the country- that is until now.
In New York City UFTSolidarity under the leadership of unjustly targeted teachers and others who have finally realized that the best defense against this well-orchestrated assault against public education by the school district and their union is a proactively offense to take back their union with a substantive program designed to vigorously confront the corporate agenda of privatizing public education for profit and the further dumbing of America that has finally gotten some push back.
In going through the platform of UFTSolidarity and talking with presidential candidate and fellow targeted teacher Francesco Portellos, it occurred to me that what teachers are doing in NYC at UFTSolidarity could be cloned and applied here in Los Angeles or elsewhere around the country, where teachers’ unions have also rolled over ensuring the illegal elimination of huge numbers of their older and higher paid teachers.
If after reading more about UFTSolidarity’s platform and actions you find what they are doing to finally represent a reasonable response to the war on public education, contact them to get some help on doing the same thing here:
646-883-8487
info@uftsolidarity.org