Archives for category: Teacher Tenure
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Bill Moyers on ALEC

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2012 //
4

Because I was traveling in Texas over the weekend, I didn’t see Bill Moyers’ report on ALEC. I watched it last night, and I hope you will too.

If you want to understand how we are losing our democracy, watch this program.

If you want to know why so many states are passing copycat legislation to suppress voters’ rights, to eliminate collective bargaining, to encourage online schooling, to privatize public education, watch this program.

ALEC brings together lobbyists for major corporations and elected state officials in luxurious resorts. In its seminars, the legislators learn how to advance corporate-sponsored, free-market ideas in their state. Its model legislation is introduced in state after state, often with minimal or no changes in the wording.

Watch Moyers show how Tennessee adopted ALEC’s online school bill and how Arizona is almost a wholly owned ALEC state. Watch how Scott Walker followed the ALEC template.

Moyers could do an entire special on ALEC’s education bills. ALEC promotes the parent trigger, so that parents can be tricked into handing their public schools over to charter chains. ALEC promotes gubernatorial commissions with the power to over-ride the decisions of local school boards to open more charters. ALEC promotes vouchers. ALEC, as he noted, promotes virtual charter schools (Pearson’s Connections Academy and K12 wrote the ALEC model law). ALEC has model legislations for vouchers for students with special needs. ALEC has a model law to allow people to teach without credentials. ALEC has legislation to eliminate tenure protection. ALEC has model legislation for educator evaluation.

It is all so familiar, isn’t it?

ALEC wants nothing less than to privatize public education, to eliminate unions, and to dismantle the education profession.

Categories ALEC, Education Industry, For-Profit, K12 Inc., On-Line Education, Parent trigger, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Tennessee, Testing, Unions, US Education

The Return of Michael Winerip

By dianeravitch
October 1, 2012 //
12

Michael Winerip of the New York Times has long been an invaluable source of information and perspective about what is happening in education. For whatever reason, the New York Times decided to change his assignment. He no longer writes on education, but on the boomer generation. I ask you, which is more important to the health of our society?

Be that as it may, Winerip’s first boomer column is also about education. He previously wrote about Professor Barbara Madeloni at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who led a protest against a Pearson-owned teacher evaluation system. Just weeks after his column appeared, Madeloni was informed that her contact would not be renewed. Now Winerip revisits the issue and hopefully the public discussion will persuade the University to revisits its decision to terminate her.

We are reminded, in this case, why tenure matters.

Categories Higher Education, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure

Get Involved in Saving Public Education in Indiana

By dianeravitch
September 28, 2012 //
3

A group of concerned parents, retired teachers, and friends of public education in Indiana created a website, which is here.

They are the Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education.

To lend a hand, read their materials and join them in the battle to stop privatization of public education and demolition of the teaching profession in the Hoosier State.

If you are not in Indiana, read their website to get good ideas for your own site.

Here is their list of myths about public education in Indiana:


Myths About Public Education in Indiana
MYTH: Public Schools are Failing our children.
FACTS:
National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) test scores are the highest in the history of the Federal tests. On basic NAEP scores, Indiana has outperformed the nation on all 41 NAEP assessments since 1990.
Indiana Graduation Rates are the highest in history. 85.7% graduated in four years or less in the Class of 2012, up from 84.1%, 81.5%, 77.8%, 76.4%, and 76.1% in the last five graduating classes.
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/
http://icpe2011.com/Good_News_about_Schools.html
~~~
MYTH: Charter Schools provide a better education.
FACTS:
Public schools outperformed charter schools on 2012 ISTEP tests.
IREAD-3 results for 2012 show 85% of public schools passing but only 70% of charter schools passing.
Public schools can and do offer creative and successful programs; for example, Montessori, International Baccalaureate, Advanced Placement, New Tech, Language immersion, and dual credit courses.
Public schools serve ALL students.
http://www.jgdata.net/istep
http://www.doe.in.gov/achievement/assessment/istep-results
http://icpe2011.com/Good_News_about_Schools.html/
http://www.fortwayneschools.org/
~~~
MYTH: Poverty does not affect a child’s educational performance.
FACTS:
Family income is the single most reliable predictor of student test scores.
The correlation of poverty and academic achievement is one of the most consistent findings in educational research.
ISTEP scores confirm that poverty negatively impacts student achievement and performance.
http://doe.in.gov/achievement/assessment/istep-results
http://parentsacrossamerica.org/2012/02/diane-ravitch-do-politicians-know-anything-about-education/
~~~
MYTH: Teachers’ unions use tenure to protect poorly performing teachers from dismissal.
FACTS:
Teacher in K-12 do not have tenure. They have never had a guaranteed “job for life”.
Teachers remain subject to the same disciplinary actions as employees in other fields.
Teachers did have the right to due process under state law which goverened the dismissal provess; however, the legislature changed the law and eliminated due process.
Termination of ineffective teachers was and is the responsibility of the school administration.

Click to access 2011-07-27-InfoMeeting-Handout.pdf

http://www.doe.in.gov/sites/default/files/legal/sea-575.pdf

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Indiana, Teacher Tenure, Vouchers

If You Happen to Be in NOLA

By dianeravitch
September 21, 2012 //
2

If you happen to be in New Orleans this Saturday September 22, you won’t want to miss this fascinating panel discussion about “The Education Experiment: Petri Dish Reform in New Orleans and Louisiana.”

And even if you can’t get there for the panel discussion, open the link and see what they are talking about.

New Orleans is the first American city to wipe out public education and replace it with a charter system (80% of the students are in charters). Louisiana has passed legislation that will transfer $2 billion in public fund away from public schools to voucher schools.

Pay attention.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, On-Line Education, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Testing, Vouchers

Fox News’ Conflict of Interest?

By dianeravitch
September 21, 2012 //
12

Some of the tests that Chicago teachers complained about, the tests on which their evaluations would depend, the tests at the heart of the strike—are administered by a subsidiary of Fox News.

Media Matters, a public-interest watchdog, pointed out that Fox News aired 89 segments about the strike in a one-week period without disclosing the financial ties between Fox News and Wireless Generation, both of which are part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation empire.

Full disclosure might also imply the need to disclose that Murdoch donates significant sums of money to charter schools and to Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst.

Then there is the fact that Joel Klein heads the education division of News Corporation. Klein is a member of Jeb Bush’s board and chairman of the Broad Center Board, and Rhee is on the Broad board, and so is Wendy Kopp, and so is her husband, and so is Margaret Spellings …

Such a tangled web of relationships, and all devoted to the same purposes: privatizing the nation’s public schools, selling technology to replace teachers, weakening unions and eliminating any rights that teachers have or had.

Categories Broad Foundation, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, StudentsFirst, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Testing

Dana Goldstein on the First Teachers’ Union

By dianeravitch
September 12, 2012 //
7

Dana Goldstein has written an interesting commentary on the history of teacher unionism.

Chicago was the home of the very first teachers’ union, and it was founded by a tough female teacher named Margaret Haley.

Haley hated the factory-style schools of the day, objected to rigid standardization, and wanted dignity for the teaching profession. I will quote some of her words on another post.

For now, read Dana’s overview of the origins of the teachers’ union in Chicago. I told Dana, by the way, that I don’t agree with her conclusions, where she suggests that teachers need to give up “old notions of rigid job security and near nonexistent teacher evaluation.” Maybe I am quibbling over words, but I would hate to see teachers become at-will employees with no academic freedom, living in fear of community opposition to teaching controversial ideas and books. I am not sure about “near nonexistent teacher evaluation.” That sounds like a straw man. It is not teachers who decide how they should be evaluated; it’s the central office. If they fail to evaluate teachers, shame on them. The issue is not whether there should be evaluation, but whether it will be sound and not based on spurious metrics.

Categories Chicago, Education Reform, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Unions

Do You Happen to Know a Billionaire?

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2012 //
15

Do you happen to know a billionaire? Or maybe someone with lots of millions?

Not just any old billionaire, but one who cares about supporting public education. One who thinks it is wrong to hand out children over to entrepreneurs. One who knows the difference between the free market and the commons.

I ask because of this comment that I received from a teacher in a northeastern state. I have edited it to obscure the identities of all involved, which was the condition for using it:

As part of research for my master’s degree, I interviewed [XX], whom I had gotten to “know” over Facebook. XX leads a local branch of StudentsFirst, funded by David Tepper and Allen Fournier, the billionaire hedge fund boys. By his own admission, XX fell into ed reform when he was unemployed. 
He’s not in this because of any deep abiding conviction to make schools better (though he may have developed an interest). He’s in this because he needed a job, is a private-school educated African American who speaks well and now controls a SuperPAC. It’s a chess game for him, and is quite addictive. He hangs out with Rhee and has addressed ALEC on several occasions.
He said two interesting things to me in our meeting. “I’m here because you’re not.” Translation – if the education establishment had taken on the issues, or at least been less complacent about messaging (the REAL problem in my opinion) there’d be no market for the “reforms.”  The second thing he said was, and I’m paraphrasing here, “Reform 1.0 was school choice. Reform 2.0 was tenure (for NJ). Reform 3.0 is we have a SuperPAC – we can elect candidates.

As I said, he’s developed an interest in education but he’s hanging with the wrong guys, and i told him as much. His real interest is in the chess game of politics, which is fascinating, especially when you have the resources to play for real.

Between the AFT and NEA we have millions of people on street level. Save Our Schools has thousands more folks. Where do we find super rich folks who can help us pay for someone like James Carville to craft our multi-level consistent message and actually get it out there? I’m asking you because I’m hoping you’ve run across them in your travels.

Categories ALEC, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst, Teacher Tenure

An Inquiring Mind Wants to Know

By dianeravitch
September 9, 2012 //
12

A new reader has joined our discussion and is looking for answers to important questions. I assured this reader that we have explored these topics in some depth; that we know that the purpose of reform is to eliminate unions; to get rid of tenure; to cut the budget for schools; and to privatize the greatest extent possible, with profits where possible for smart investors in “reform.”

I invite the new reader to hang out with us and join our discussion.

Any advice for the new member of our discussion group?

Please forgive me if I am pulling this conversation back to farmed-out ground (I’m new); but is it fair to say that the gist of the corporate-backed educational “reform” movements today is generating cheaper teachers?This is how the equation boils down for me (a public school teacher). As I’ve been trained to show my work, my thinking is that the greatest “reform” that privatization and charter school movements bring is the elimination of union contracts. And that the primary consequence of eliminating unions in any field is lower labor costs.If the above argument holds water, is it acceptable to eliminate the obfuscating phrase “educational reform movement ” and replace it with the clearer “reducing educator salary” movement? Or, more simply, the “labor-busting” movement? Or the “cheapness” movement?In a similar vein, I am wondering if Dr. Ravitch and others have exposed the cant behind the argument that problems with tenure stem from unions. There don’t seem to be many general-public sources pointing out that no one from a public teacher’s union awards tenure to teachers. Every single public decision to grant tenure is made by an elected school board, advised by its appointed educational managers. If the nation’s schools are saddled with incompetent tenured teachers, the blame falls on leadership and management, does it not? From all the complaints being voiced about tenure that outsiders — many from the world of corporate management — it seems pretty clear to me that the nations educational managers apparently couldn’t recognize an incompetent teacher if they got hit with a hammer by one of them. What is eliminating tenure going to help this group of apparently bumbling crop of managers transform into brilliant predictors of pedagogy? At least tenure forces educational decision-makers to live with the consequences of their incompetence. Lifting the pressure of having to evaluate their teachers in three years and educational managers will be even less accountable for their bad decisions. In the world of corporate management, weakening the chains of accountability is an insane act — something that you would think the corporate nabobs nattering about our schools would understand. Unless they absolutely do understand what they are saying is absurd but don’t care, since the real goal isn’t improving our schools at all.
Categories Corporate Reformers, For-Profit, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Testing, Unions, US Education

A Principal Supports Due Process

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2012 //
17

In a response appropriate for Labor Day weekend, a principal comments on a post about “the biggest lie about unions“:

As a principal who has removed several poor performing teachers in the past few years, I agree with this statement. I also agree that behind every poor teacher is a poor administrator.

I support due process, believing that it is not only a right for employees, but that it also provides me with a structure that holds me accountable as I take action. I view this as a form of protection for myself as a professional.

As accomplished as I’ve become as a principal, I am not immune from mistakes and misjudgments. With someone’s career on the line, I appreciate having a process and a partnership with our union that ensures that we do what’s right not only for children, but employees as well.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Principals, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching, Unions

The Biggest Lie about Unions

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2012 //
71

A reader responds to someone who lambasted the unions for preventing the firing of bad teachers:

Only poor administrators can’t fire poor teachers.  There has never been a union contract anywhere, ever that didn’t allow for a competent principal to remove an incompetent tenured teacher.  And it’s even easier to just non-renew a loser before they become tenured.  This is the biggest of all the lies told about unionized teachers.

Categories Principals, Teacher Tenure, Unions
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