Archives for category: Corporate Reformers

Melissa Tomlinson: What Do Teachers Want?

November 3, 2013 //

Thanks to Kipp Dawson of Pittsburgh for drawing my attention to this letter written by Melissa Tomlinson, the teacher who confronted Governor Chris Christie, who shouted her down and said contemptuously, “What do you people want?”

This is her answer, which appeared on Mark Naison’s blog:
Dear Governor Christie,

Yesterday I took the opportunity to come hear you speak on your campaign trail. I have never really heard you speak before except for sound bytes that I get on my computer. I don’t have cable, I don’t read newspapers. I don’t have enough time. I am a public school teacher that works an average of 60 hours a week in my building. Yes, you can check with my principal. I run the after-school program along with my my classroom position. I do even more work when I am at home.

For verification of this, just ask my children.

I asked you one simple question yesterday. I wanted to know why you portray NJ Public Schools as failure factories.

Apparently that question struck a nerve. When you swung around at me and raised your voice, asking me what I wanted, my first response “I want more money for my students.”

Notice, I did not ask for more money for me. I did not ask for my health benefits, my pension, a raise, my tenure, or even my contract that I have not had for nearly three years. We got into a small debate about how much money has been spent on education. To me, there is never enough money that is spent on education. To invest in education is to invest in our future. We cannot keep short-changing our children and taking away opportunities for them to explore and learn.

As more money is required for state-mandated curriculum changes and high-stakes standardized testing, it is our children that are losing. Programs are being cut all over the state as budget changes are forcing districts to cut music, art, after-school transportation, and youth-centered clubs.

But let’s put money aside for a moment. What do I want? What do ‘we people’ want? We want to be allowed to teach.

Do you know that the past two months has been spent of our time preparing and completing paperwork for the Student Growth Objectives? Assessments were created and administered to our students on material that we have not even taught yet. Can you imagine how that made us feel? The students felt like they were worthless for not having any clue how to complete the assessments. The teachers felt like horrible monsters for having to make the students endure this. How is that helping the development of a child? How will that help them see the value in their own self-worth?

This futile exercise took time away from planning and preparing meaningful lessons as well as the time spent in class actually completing the assessments. The evaluations have no statistical worth and has even been recognized as such by the NJ Department of Education. I am all for evaluation of a teacher.

I recognize that I should be held accountable for my job. This does not worry me, as long as I am evaluated on my methods of teaching. I can not be held wholly accountable for the learning growth of a student when I am not accountable for all of the factors that influence this growth. Are you aware that poverty is the biggest determination of a child’s educational success. If not, I suggest you read Diane Ravitch’s new book Reign of Error. Take a moment and become enlightened.

Getting back to the issue of money. I am fully aware of our educational budget. Where is all of this money? To me it seems like it is being siphoned right off into the hands of private companies as they reap the benefits of the charter schools and voucher programs that you have put into place. It certainly hasn’t gone to improve school conditions in urban areas such as Jersey City. The conditions that these students and teachers are forced to be in are horrifying. Yet you are not allowing the funds needed to improve these conditions. Are you hoping that these schools get closed down and more students are forced to go to private charter schools while the districts are being forced to pay their tuition? I know for a fact that this is what has happened in Camden and Newark.

Yet these charter schools are not held to the same accountability as our public schools. Why is that? Because deep down you know that you are not really dealing with the issues that influence a child’s education. You are simply putting a temporary band-aid into place.

Unfortunately [for you] that temporary fix is already starting to be exposed as Charter Schools are showing that they actually are not able to do better than public schools. You are setting up teachers to take the blame for all of this. You have portrayed us as greedy, lazy money-draining public servants that do nothing. I invite you to come do my job for one week Governor Christie. I invite you to come see my students, see how little they really have during the school day as they are being forced to keep learning for a single snapshot of their educational worth.

For that one end-all, be-all test, the NJASK. The one that the future of my job and my life is now based upon. Why do you portray schools as failure factories? What benefit do you reap from this? Have you acquired financial promises for your future campaigns as you eye the presidential nomination? Has there been back-room meetings as you agree to divert public funds to private companies that are seeking to take over our public educational system? This is my theory. To accomplish all of this, you are setting up the teachers to take the blame. Unfortunately, you are not the only governor in our country that has this agenda.

What do “we people’ want, Governor Christie? We want our schools back. We want to teach. We want to be allowed to help these children to grow, educationally, socially, and emotionally. We want to be respected as we do this, not bullied.
BadAss Teacher, Melissa Tomlinson
http://withabrooklynaccent.blogspot.com/2013/11/letter-to-governor-christie-from-new.html

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, New Jersey, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Kitty Boitnott Reviews “Reign of Error”

By dianeravitch

November 3, 2013 //

Kitty Boitnott is a National Board Certified Teacher in Virginia who now coaches teachers and teacher leaders.

She here reviews Reign of Error.

Boitnott summarizes the main arguments of the book and then says:

This is a must-read for any public school educator, for any parent who still cares about public schools and their role in the community, for the administrators who haven’t been so brainwashed that they have forgotten why they went into education in the first place, and many, many more. I cannot recommend this book more highly. If I were writing a review for Amazon (which I may do come to think of it) it would definitely get a five-star rating. For teacher leaders and parents who are concerned about what is happening to their communities because of the demise of the neighborhood school, I urge you to read it as soon as possible and start using the information inside its covers. More importantly, I urge you to get involved in the grassroots movement that has already started in some parts of the country. There are a number of groups around the nation where the push back has begun. Some of these groups have been founded by parents, some by students, and of course, teachers have started some. It isn’t too late, but time is ticking away. We need to start speaking out and organizing now.

She is right. As more parents and teachers become informed about the coordinated campaign to privatize our schools and to destroy the teaching profession, it becomes urgent that we organize and resist. Those who are funding and leading this campaign have wealth and power, but their numbers are few. Leaving aside their paid employees (some of whom send me their personal disgust with their organizations), the number of those pushing the privatization movement are quite small. I have often speculated that they could probably fill a hotel ballroom. But perhaps not.

Those of us who oppose their efforts to destroy our community public schools are in the millions. We can stop them if we organize. They have money, but we have numbers. This is still a democracy.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Privatization, Reign of Error

Will Public Education Die in Douglas County, Colorado?

By dianeravitch

November 2, 2013 //

Investigative reporter Stephanie Simon of Politico reports on the most bizarre school board race in the nation: Douglas County, Colorado.

There, a powerful coalition of rightwing extremists has gained control of the school board and is determined to turn education into a free market, where competition and choice replace public education. They want vouchers, charter schools, and differentiated pay for teachers.

Simon writes: “The conservatives who control the board have neutered the teachers union, prodded neighborhood elementary schools to compete with one another for market share, directed tax money to pay for religious education and imposed a novel pay scale that values teachers by their subjects, so a young man teaching algebra to eighth graders can make $20,000 a year more than a colleague teaching world history down the hall.”

The future of this free-market policy will determined in the school board election, where powerful rightwing ideologues have funded the pro-market members of the board, and teachers’ unions and parents are funding those opposed to the elimination of public education.

The Koch brothers have contributed $350,000 to the free-market campaigners. They would, if they could, privatize all of what we now know as public education. The current board, fighting to maintain control, hired conservative icon Bill Bennett for $50,000 to be a consultant. It also hired Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute to write a paper praising the district’s initiatives, for $35,000.

Among the changes that conservatives admire:

Pushing the free market farther still, the board has urged district elementary schools to compete with one another for enrollment, rather than simply serving all students in the neighborhood. Principals are encouraged to budget creatively so they can develop a marketable niche, a practice that has left some schools without art or music teachers as they build up science programs or bring in foreign-language classes. Then there’s the market-pay system, in which a first grade teacher is valued, and paid, more than a second grade teacher and teaching physics far outweighs teaching art.

Some parents are upset, like one who told Simon that what bothered her most was “the splintering of her community.

“Five years ago, Scott said, all the kids on the block walked together to the local elementary school. Now, each family goes their own way — some to charters, some to private schools and some to public schools across town that have successfully marketed themselves as worth the drive. She has stuck with her neighborhood school, but often thinks of pulling up stakes.

“It’s truly broken up the community,” Scott said, “and it’s sad.”

Categories Charter Schools, Colorado, Corporate Reformers, Privatization

Charters in Buffalo: The Return of Segregation

By dianeravitch

November 2, 2013 //

Charter schools were created twenty years ago to address problems that public schools could not solve and to collaborate with public schools, sharing their best ideas. They were not intended to compete with public schools, but to support them. Today, however, many charter schools (especially the chains) see themselves as antagonists to public schools. eager to take their funding and their space. A reader from Buffalo sent in this comment:

Many of the charter schools in Buffalo are a throw back to segregation. These all black schools are actually favored by the parents, but they aren’t getting different results.

Anyone can start a charter school, you don’t need to be an educator (and it shows). Some of the charter schools are run by for profit corporations funded by public money.

Besides being a way to weaken the unions, charter schools are funded on the back of public education.

I am not against the idea of charter schools, I am against the reality. Charter schools could provide unique services, such as schools specializing in autism or all male schools for wayward boys. How about a charter school for pregnant teens or teen mothers? Maybe a hands on school for the child that learns by doing instead of seeing and listening. However, these schools should not take away funds from the public schools, they need their own funding line. The teachers should be given some rights and guarantees, even if not unionized – i.e. They are not slave labor to be made to teach almost year round, Monday to Saturday, 9:00 to 5:00 or later, then cast aside when rightfully complaining or when due for a salary raise.

Buffalo has lots of problems, charter schools should not be one of them.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Privatization

A High-Stakes Exam for the People of Indiana

By dianeravitch

November 2, 2013 //

Cindi Pastore created this multiple-choice exam for the people of Infiana.

It illustrates the current crazy situation there. Glenda Ritz won a startling upset victory last fall, winning more votes than Governor Pence. Yet Governor Pence has worked unceasingly to dilute Ritz’s authority and render her powerless to carry out her official duties. He and the unelected state board are thwarting her so they can continue to privatize education in the state of Indiana.

Here is the test:

An Eight Question High Stakes Test for Governor Pence, Brian Bosma, David Long, and Members of the State Board of Education

1. Who was elected by an overwhelming majority (roughly 1,300,000) of the voters (many of whom crossed their party lines) of this state to be the Indiana Superintendent of Public Schools?