Archives for category: Teacher Tenure
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The Attack on Tenure Is “Orwellian Reform”

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2013 //
11

Robert D. Shepherd comments on the story this morning about the teacher in Missouri who was suspended after writing an article on the Huffington Post about the abuses heaped on teachers:

“Teaching is a unique profession. Teachers are responsible for cultural transmission–for passing on to a new generation the best of what the culture has created–and it’s extremely important–it goes to the very heart of what it is to be a pluralistic democracy–that students be exposed to a variety of viewpoints presented by teachers who are opinionated scholars. In the past, we didn’t give tenure to teachers right away because we recognized that people had to earn the right, but we also recognized the importance of that right–of intellectual freedom. If someone wants to have an official single view enforced by a top-down, absolutist authority, then a very good place to start is with the killing of due process and tenure. The attack on tenure in the U.S. is not a free market reform. It’s Orwellian.”

Categories Teacher Tenure

Outrage! Missouri Teacher Suspended For Speaking Out

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2013 //
27

This post explains why teachers need tenure. Tenure is not a job for life. Tenure protects freedom of speech. Tenure protects academic freedom.

The previous post linked to an article by a teacher in Missouri who warned his students not to become a teacher because of the outrageous attacks on teachers. He was suspended. He does not have tenure. He does not have academic freedom. He was suspended for speaking his mind about the destruction of his profession in a public forum.

Here is the story, sent by a fellow Missouri teacher who must (of course) remain anonymous or he will also lose his job.

*******************

Randy Turner, a veteran teacher in Joplin, Missouri, posts
an opinion on the HuffPost regarding the destruction of the
teaching profession—

… TFA replacing veterans;

… legislation banning / removing tenure;

… making ony $37 K-per-year after 14 years, then
being publicly shamed for being “greedy”…

and on and on…

HERE it is at the Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randy-turner/a-warning-to-young-people_b_3033304.html

then gets immediately suspended for expressing his 1st Amendment-protected opinion:
(quite a civics lesson for the students in Joplin, MO, don’t-cha think?)

http://www.koamtv.com/story/22046153/students-hope-to-bring-suspended-joplin-teacher-back

Here’s Randy’s blog with the latest on his own situation:

http://rturner229.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-did-koam-scoop-me-on-this-one-randy.htmlv

and if all this is not bad enough, some ignorant, profiteering edupreneur chimes in. The guy admits that
“as an education entrepreneur, I do not claim to understand every nuance of the classroom. I am not a
teacher..”, but that doesn’t stop him from rubbing salt in Randy’s wounds with this atrocity (also posted at the HuffPost):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fahad-hassan/teacher-pay_b_3135114.html?utm_hp_ref=@education123

Categories Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching

Warning: Don’t Become a Teacher

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2013 //
22

[WARNING: after the following essay was published in Huffington Post, the writer was suspended from his teaching position. The next post will give details.]

This teacher in Missouri loves teaching but he doesn’t love what the legislature is doing to restrict, evaluate, and control him.

After two decades as a journalist, he became a teacher. He has taught for 14 years.

Today, he would urge young people not to enter teaching because the conditions and lack of respect are so wearing. “Classroom teachers, especially those who are just out of college and entering the profession, are more stressed and less valued than at any previous time in our history.
They have to listen to a long list of politicians who belittle their ability, blame them for every student whose grades do not reach arbitrary standards, and want to take away every fringe benefit they have — everything from the possibility of achieving tenure to receiving a decent pension.”

This week, the Missouri legislature will vote on a proposal to tie 33% of his evaluation to test scores and to add student surveys to his evaluation. He writes:

“Each year, I allow my students to critique me and offer suggestions for my class. I learn a lot from those evaluations and have implemented some of the suggestions the students have made. But there is no way that eighth graders’ opinions should be a part of deciding whether I continue to be employed.”

Categories Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching

Nine of the Ten Richest in US Are Attacking Unions

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2013 //
88

Leo Casey explains here that there really is “class warfare” in the U.S. today.

It is not the 1% that is attacking unions and working Americans.

It is the 1% of the 1%.

Nine of the ten richest Americans–all billionaires–are united in opposition to rights for working people.

They don’t want working people to have an assured pension.

They don’t want teachers to have any job security.

They want to roll back the New Deal.

They want capital to be unfettered.

They want teachers to have no rights at all.

They want to open up public education for entrepreneurs and profiteers.

They want privatization of public education.

But do not despair.

Armed with knowledge, we can beat them where it counts: at the polls.

Categories For-Profit, Privatization, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching, Unions, US Education

The Attack on Unions: Which Side Are You On?

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2013 //
123

The attack on unions flared into public view in 2011, when Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin attacked public sector unions, and thousands of people surrounded the State Capitol in protest.

Since so many radical Republicans took office in 2010, the effort to destroy public sector unions–especially the teachers’ unions–has accelerated.

Leo Casey explores the context of the anti-union movement here.

In state after state, legislatures have wiped out collective bargaining rights. That meant teachers would have no voice in the funding of public schools or their working conditions. Teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions.

The so-called reformers are closing public schools and turning the students over to private corporations. 90% of charters are non-union.

The questions that I keep asking are, where was Barack Obama as the efforts to destroy America’s workers gained momentum? Why didn’t he go to Madison in the spring of 2011? Why did he go instead at the very height of the Wisconsin protests to hail Jeb Bush in Miami as “a champion of education reform?”

Why did his Secretary of Education effusively praise some of the most anti-union, anti-teacher state commissioners of education in the nation, like John White in Louisiana and Hanna Skandera in New Mexico? Why have Secretary Duncan and President Obama said nothing in opposition to the attacks on teachers, the mass closure of public schools, and the growing for-profit sector in education? Why was the Democratic National Convention of 2012 held in North Carolina, a right-to-work state? When was the last time that the Democratic Party held its convention in a right to work state?

Categories Duncan, Arne, Economy, Education Industry, For-Profit, Obama, Privatization, Support for public schools, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Unions

Poor ALEC! Someone Disagrees with Their Radical Agenda

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2013 //
9

ALEC has operated in the background since 1973, funded by major corporations who want to advance a corporate-friendly agenda into state legislatures. Some 2,000 state legislators belong to ALEC and attend its posh conferences, where they hobnob with corporate lobbyists.

ALEC suffered a PR setback when Trayvon Martin was killed last year in Florida by a man who invoked ALEC’s “stand your ground” law. The bad publicity caused some 40 corporations to abandon ALEC.

It has written draft legislation for vouchers, charters, cyber charters, ending teacher tenure, ending collective bargaining, and a host of other measures to “reform” American education so that public dollars flow to private hands with minimal or no regulation or accountability.

Life is unfair, even for ALEC. Common Cause is trying to strip them of their tax-exempt status, saying that they are lobbyists. ALEC Exposed has posted their radical legislation for all to see.

A legislator in Montana wrote a column critiquing ALEC. Ouch!

They were even wounded by a post on this blog. How touching to know that ALEC follows us.

Categories ALEC, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure

Rhee: SC Teachers Riding a “Gravy Train”

By dianeravitch
April 15, 2013 //
38

Undeterred by the release of John Merrow’s report of widespread cheating on her watch, Michelle Rhee traveled to South Carolina to attack teachers. She said they were defenders of the status quo. She said they were protecting their self-interest. She said they ride a “gravy train.”

The average teacher’s salary in SC is $46,306.67.

Rhee is paid $50,000 for lecturing and taking questions for an hour.

Who is on a gravy train?

Categories Rhee, Michelle, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching

Why the Tennessee Bill to Punish Welfare Families for Low Test Scores Was Wrong

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2013 //
17

Kay McSpadden writes frequently about education issues in North Carolina. Here she explains why the Tennessee bill to cut welfare benefits to families if their children didn’t get high test scores was a disaster. Fortunately, key Republican legislators put a halt to it and it never came to a vote.

I try not to read comments on blogs, other than this one, where I read them all.

But I couldn’t help read the ones that followed Kay’s compassionate post and was appalled by several, especially this one:

“I’m not going to profess to be a Christian scholar Joe, but would you cite for me one passage where Jesus calls on people to forsake their own family in order to take care of someone else’s family?”

Wasn’t there something called the Golden Rule?

North Carolina has some awful legislation of its own, hurtling toward passage. Right now, there is one that will remove any due process protections for teachers (aka, “tenure”). Who will dare to teach about evolution or anything controversial? The angry commenters will drive them out.

Categories North Carolina, Poverty, Teacher Tenure, Tennessee, Testing

Update on Louisiana Legislature

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2013 //
1

Mike Deshotels reports on what is happening in the Louisiana legislature.

Bear in mind that Governor Bobby Jindal proposed to “reform” taxes by eliminating the personal income tax and the corporate income tax, shifting the entire tax burden to the sales tax. This is a very unpopular proposal, which appears to have driven his poll numbers down into the mid-30s. It will also hurt the state’s public schools, as you will see in this post.

Jindal also plans to fund the voucher schools by taking money from the state’s Minimum Foundation budget for public schools, even though a state court has already declared it unconstitutional. Same for Jindal’s plan to pay for-profit course choice providers, also found unconstitutional but still in the governor’s budget. And predictably, Jindal’s allies will return with new ways to strike down teacher tenure, which was struck down by a state court a few months ago because the law addressed too many issues in the same bill.

Here is Mike Deshotel’s report:

From: Michael Deshotels
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2013 9:01 AM
Subject: Legislative update
Governor Jindal is kicking off the 2013 legislative session today at 12 noon and I am happy to report that it looks like his big tax reform proposal is in big trouble. The governor’s new tax proposal greatly increases state sales taxes and could end up depriving local school boards of a vital source of sales tax when local voters fail to renew local sales taxes to try to offset the high state sales tax. I hope that trouble spills over to the education area so that we will have a chance of stopping his destruction of public education.
The MFP: Several of you asked that I give you more details about why the legislature should reject the new MFP. Some of you have since supplied me with critical information including the changes to special education funding. So I hope the following gives you plenty of information about why we want the MFP rejected by the legislature and sent back to be reenegotiated with the stakeholders so that a more acceptable formula can be proposed.
1. The new MFP would remove the automatic growth factor in the MFP. Because of huge unfunded mandates in recent years, it is critical that the growth factor be reinstituted. Meanwhile many charter schools are exempted from paying their share of mandated costs such as the increased costs for retirement contributions. Just the increase in retirement contribution for unfunded accrued liability is a crippling drain on local school system. To add insult to injury, our DOE is forcing local systems to upgrade local computers and internet access just to take care of more state tests that are making the testing companies rich and are reducing student instruction time. (Remember the Governor refused the federal money for upgrading internet services because his favored private companies may not get the contracts)
2. The new MFP still provides funding for vouchers and the new course choice programs even though this has been ruled unconstitutional. Thecourse choice program allows out of state companies to raid the MFP while the student testing scores still go to their local home schools. These private companies can get paid even if the students do not attend regularly or learn nothing!
3. The new MFP begins a change to a new weighted formula for special education that is strongly opposed by all special education stakeholders because it may not provide adequately for some students individual plans and may penalize gifted and talented programs based on as yet untried tests.
Bills: Jindal’s allies in the legislature have filed bills that would find a way around the recent court rulings stiking down Acts 1 and 2 of last year. I will send more details on this later but for now I want to point out just a few important bills. You can read the bills just by clicking on the highlighted bill numbers.
SB 89 by Appel: Please ask your Senators to defeat this bill if it is brought up because it destroys all teacher due process and makes many teachers’ fate rely on a very innacurate evaluation system.
HB 160 by Reynolds: Please ask your representative to support this bill which will put off the evaluation system until the VAM can be reworked. (I hope VAM can be done away with because in my opinion it can never be accurate for all circumstances)
SB 41 by Kostelka: I am hoping we can support this bill because it will allow a vote of the people to make the State Superintendent an elected position. As it stands now, the Governor totally controls both the State Superintendent and the majority of BESE. The present system does not have checks and balances and allows a radical like Jindal who has other motivations to practically destroy public education. Again this would just let the general public vote on a constitutional amendment to make the position elected.
Please go to the Louisiana Legislature web site and click on the name of your Representative and Senator so you can get his/her local office phone number where you can leave him/her messages with his legislative assistant, or send an email. Just introduce yourself and make sure they know you live in their district and that you want their support on education issues.
Thanks in advance for your efforts,
Mike Deshotels
____________________________________
Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Teacher Tenure, Vouchers

Why I Apologized for Something I Did Not Say

By dianeravitch
April 6, 2013 //
49

A number of readers have written to ask why I wrote an apology to Michelle Rhee when I had not been the one to speak the offending words (“Asian bitch”). I wasn’t even present when the words were spoken.

Frankly, the story focused on the negative, rather than the reasons that the rally was happening. The story presented a false, demeaning, and hostile portrait of the rally. It was akin to the stories about Occupy Wall Street that presented a peaceful assemblage of citizens exercising their First Amendment right to assemble as if they were a dangerous mob. Perhaps we should ask the reporter Michele McNeil of Education Week to apologize for her misrepresentation of the parents and teachers who assembled peaceably to protest school closings, high-stakes testing, privatization, and other abuses, while ignoring our positive message about the importance of providing every school with the resources it needs to succeed–with small classes, librarians, guidance counselors, social workers, the arts, physical education, a full curriculum, and professional working conditions.

Let me explain my apology for a term I did not utter or even hear.

A reader on this blog asked me my reaction to the ethnic slur made referring to Rhee. I wrote a comment, then decided to say it louder in a post.

I don’t play by the same rules as Rhee. She goes around the nation insulting teachers and trying to persuade the public to support reactionary legislatures and governors who take away their right to have a collective voice, cut their pensions and their health benefits, and remove any job security from them. That’s wrong and I will say it’s wrong again and again.

But I won’t condone the use of ethnic or racial slurs.

My rules include civility, courtesy, fairness, and reason. Is it fair that someone who makes $50,000 to give a speech for one hour attacks teachers who make that much in a year? Is it fair that she belittles people whose jobs are so hard and so valuable to society?

I don’t think so. I will argue it, say it, and insist upon it. But without any slurs based or race, ethnicity, or gender.

Categories Rhee, Michelle, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure
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