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Steven Singer: Should Teachers Have Strong Opinions?

By dianeravitch
February 20, 2016 //
111

Steven Singer asks the question that is the title of this post. It is not a simple matter. Many people fear that teachers with strong opinions will try to indoctrinate students with their views. Some think that teachers should have no opinions. After all, any strongly held views will annoy someone. One of the strongest argument for tenure (i.e., due process) is that teachers cannot teach if they may be fired capriciously because a parent or another teacher or the principal disagrees with their views.

 

The bottom line question is: should teachers have freedom of speech? Are there limits to that freedom? Singer argues yes, that teachers should have strong opinions, but yes, there are limits to that freedom. Students do not come to class to learn the teacher’s views, but to learn how to challenge the teacher’s views and to question the conventional wisdom. They are learning how to think for themselves, not to mouth whatever they are told.

 

Read on and see how Singer wrestles with these issues:

 
I am an opinionated person. I am also a public school teacher.

Those two things should not be mutually exclusive.

You should not have to give up the one to be able to do the other.

Teachers should not have to relinquish their judgment in order to run an effective classroom. In fact, you might expect good judgment to be a prerequisite to doing the job well.

Yet it seems many people disagree. They like their teachers tame, docile and opinion-free.

That’s just not me.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying teachers should instruct their students to think just like them. I’m not saying they should indoctrinate or unduly influence the young people in their care.

Just the opposite. They should spur their students to think for themselves. They should teach the young how to entertain an idea without immediately accepting it.

But they have no business telling students, “This is what I believe.” They have no business misusing their authority to make their views seem normative.

So I agree that teachers should be careful about expressing their opinions in the classroom. The problem comes after the school day is through.

When a teacher goes home, all bets are off. When a teacher is not in front of a class of impressionable children, he or she should be afforded the same rights and privileges of any other citizen – and that includes the right to form an opinion and express it publicly.

I am an educator. Hear me roar.

 

And yet, as a blogger, Steven receives responses from people who ask why he, a teacher, has such strong views! They imply, how dare you!

 

 

 

Categories Education Reform, Freedom of Speech, Teachers

David Denby: A Valentine for Teachers

By dianeravitch
February 14, 2016 //
10

In 2012, Néw Yorker writer David Denby wrote a profile of me. He traveled to hear me speak about the absurd attacks on public schools and teachers and read “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.” He joined me in April 2012 when I spoke at Rutgers in Néw Jersey, and we drove back to Néw York City together. He said he had two ideas for me. One, he said, I should start blogging so more people could hear my views. And two, I should write another book, going into detail about solutions. I did both. I started this blog, and I wrote “Reign of Error.”

David, for his part, wrote a wonderful new book based in his experiences sitting in classrooms and listening to high school students discuss literature. It is called “Lit Up: One Reporter. Three Schools. Twenty Four Books That Can Change Lives.”

And he wrote this article about the recent and current outrageous attacks on teacher, blaming them for every social ill. It appears in the current issue of The Néw Yorker.

“A necessary commonplace: Almost everyone we know has been turned around, or at least seriously shaken, by a teacher—in college, maybe, but often in high school, often by a man or a woman who drove home a point or two about physics, literature, or ethics, and looked at us sternly and said, in effect, You could be more than what you are. At their best, teachers are everyday gods, standing at the entryway to the world. If they are fair and good, they are possibly the most morally impressive adults that their students will ever know. For a while, they are the law, they are knowledge, they are justice….

“By the time kids from poor families of all races enter kindergarten, they are often significantly behind wealthier children in vocabulary, knowledge, and cognitive skills. Of course, good teachers can help—particularly that single teacher who takes a kid in hand and turns him around. But, in recent years, teachers have been held responsible for things that may often be beyond their powers to change. They are being assaulted because they can be assaulted. The real problem is persistent poverty.

“Our view of American public education in general has been warped by our knowledge of these failing kids in inner-city and rural schools. In particular, the system as a whole has been described by “reformers” as approaching breakdown. But this is nonsense. There are actually many good schools in the United States—in cities, in suburbs, in rural areas. Pathologizing the system as a whole, reformers insist on drastic reorganization, on drastic methods of teacher accountability. In the past dozen or so years, we’ve seen the efforts, often led by billionaires and hedge-fund managers and supported by elected officials, to infuse K-12 education with models and methods derived from the business world—for instance, the drive to privatize education as much as possible with charter schools, which receive public money but are independently run and often financed by entrepreneurs. This drive is accompanied by a stream of venom aimed at unions, as if they were the problem in American education.”

David Denby has joined our movement to restore common sense to education.

Categories Teachers

Amrein-Beardsley: Sheri Lederman Rejects New York’s Offer to Settle Her Lawsuit

By dianeravitch
February 6, 2016 //
24

Audrey Amrein-Beardsley writes on her blog VAMboozled that Néw York teacher Sheri Lederman rejected a settlement offer from the state.

Lederman, a veteran teacher on Long Island, is suing the state to challenge the validity of VAM. Although she has long been recognized as a superstar teacher, she got a low rating. Her husband Bruce is a lawyer, who is litigating on her behalf.

The state offered to raise her rating if she would abandon the lawsuit. The state said that the teacher evaluation process will be changed, in some fashion, but the Ledermans rejected the offer because there is no certainty that VAM will disappear.

Amrein-Beardsley explains the situation and adds useful links.

Categories New York, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers, VAM (value-added modeling)

Chicago Teachers Union Will Protest Massive Cuts Today

By dianeravitch
February 4, 2016 //
2

 

 

CTU to March and Rally Today for a Fair Contract, City and Schools Chicago’s Students Deserve

 

 

CHICAGO—Two days after Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s handpicked Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO Forrest Claypool declared war on public school educators by threatening $100 million in classroom cuts—roughly 1,000 layoffs—and the removal of teachers’ long-standing pension pick-up, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) will continue a series of non-violent direct actions with a mass march and rally from Bank of America (BOA) to City Hall today at 4:30 p.m.

 

 

Yesterday, the CTU withdrew nearly $1 million from its BOA account in protest of that bank and other financial institutions that sold CPS toxic interest rate swaps and are demanding a payout of at least $228 million—almost the exact same amount as cuts enacted by the Chicago Board of Education to schools and special education. In total, the City of Chicago and CPS will lose $1.2 billion on these toxic swaps, despite the CTU asking the Board for years to be a partner in challenging these rip-off deals.

 

 

WHO:
Rank-and-file CTU members, CTU officers, parents, students and community organizations, public education supporters and others

 
WHAT:
March and rally for a fair contract from Bank of America to City Hall

 
WHEN:
Thursday, February 4, 2016
4:30 p.m.

 
WHERE:
Bank of America
135 S. LaSalle St.

 

City Hall
121 N. LaSalle St.

 
WHY:
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has had every opportunity to pursue revenue from his wealthy friends and backers. Instead, he has targeted educators and students to pay for the Board’s mismanagement. Today, Chicago’s educators and public school supporters take to the streets to continue their fight for the city and the schools Chicago’s students deserve.

Categories Chicago, Teachers, Unions

Michigan: Rightwingers Want to Punish Detroit Teachers

By dianeravitch
February 4, 2016 //
18

The fabulously wealthy DeVos family of Michigan bankrolls vouchers and hates unions. Now they are promoting legislation to punish the teachers of Detroit for their sickout action, which brought national attention to the abysmal physical conditions in the Detroit schools.

This message was distributed by the Michigan Education Association:

“Member Call to Action

“Urgent MEA member activism is needed to stop a package of anti-strike bills that passed the Senate Education Committee today — in even more extreme versions than originally proposed.

“Members are urged to call their state senators and representatives to fight back against this latest attack on school employees and their unions.
The bills were introduced to stifle the voices of Detroit teachers participating in alleged “sick-outs” to call attention to unsafe, unhealthy, and unacceptable conditions in Detroit Public Schools. The provisions would affect school employees statewide.

“Among the more far-reaching provisions in the substitute versions of Senate Bills 713, 714, and 715:

+ Teachers involved in alleged “strike activities” would face fines and loss of their certification.

+ To be considered a strike action, only one school employee must be found to be engaging in the activity.

+ Once a strike is declared, the school’s bargaining unit would be dissolved and prohibited from representing the unit for five years, whether or not it agreed to the strike and regardless of whether the school employee(s) involved in the action belong to the unit.

+ School districts that fail to enforce strike-related sanctions against employees would face a fine of 5 percent of their total state school aid.

“The bills’ sponsor, Sen. Phil Pavlov (R-St. Clair) tried to say in a press conference after the committee vote that the bills have nothing to do with the situation in Detroit. However, it’s clear this is an attempt to muzzle educators and their representatives at the bargaining table.

“The full Senate may vote on the measures this week, so urgent action is needed. Contact your legislators today!”

###

BILL LINKS:

SB713
http://www.legislature.mi.gov/%28S%28amvv05vynhqspffzjidgeuoa%29%29/mileg.aspx?page=BillStatus&objectname=2016-SB-0713

SB714
http://www.legislature.mi.gov/%28S%28fr0hrd2mcwpjvff4zt4ntcbc%29%29/mileg.aspx?page=GetObject&objectname=2016-SB-0714

SB715
http://www.legislature.mi.gov/%28S%28vxp43pe521p1fkxchrqobzjl%29%29/mileg.aspx?page=getObject&objectname=2016-SB-0715

Categories Detroit, Michigan, Teachers, Unions

Mike Klonsky: CPS Threatens CTU with Deep Cuts

By dianeravitch
February 3, 2016 //
10

Mike Klonsky reports that Forrest Claypool, CEO of Chicago Public Schools, reacted to the Chicago Teachers Union’s rejection of his contract offer with a threat of layoffs and cuts.

 

 

“A letter sent by Forrest Claypool to the union Tuesday said that within 30 days, CPS would stop paying the teachers’ share of pension contributions (as if they’d been paying them up until now), order school administrators to cut $50 million by laying off 1,000 teachers and “re-shuffle” $50 million that goes toward general education funding to schools. That re-shuffling of Title I and II funds will hit hardest at kids with special needs and English-language learners.

 

“Claypool says he will drop the threats if the union would only agree to his contract offer which CTU’s bargaining team unanimously rejected. I believe that’s called blackmail. Or maybe — hostage taking.”

 

 

Categories Budget Cuts, Chicago, Education Reform, Teachers, Unions

New York: Opt Out Advocates Apply for State Board of Regents

By dianeravitch
January 29, 2016 //
6

When you are locked in a tough battle, be pro-active. New York opt out advocates are encouraging allies to apply for two open positions on the Board of Regents. One of the co-founders of New York State Allies for Oublic education, Jessica McNair, parent and teacher is applying. The lesson here is: get involved. Run for office. Help good candidates win. If there are no good candidates, become a candidate.

 

This article is behind a paywall.

 

I am excerpting it here:

 

ALBANY — The parent-led coalition that last spring spurred one of the largest test refusal rates in the nation is pushing to have a voice on the state Board of Regents, as one of the opt-out leaders and several opt-out supporters have applied for a position on the education policymaking board.

 
“The people in the opt-out movement, or who have opted their kids out … are people that believe in a transparent research-based process,” said Lisa Rudley, co-founder of New York State Allies for Public Education, a coalition of more than 50 groups statewide.
Two seats on the 17-member board will be open after chancellor Merryl Tisch, a member at-large, and vice chancellor Tony Bottar, who represents the 5th Judicial District, which includes the Mohawk Valley, said they will not run for re-election. Their departures will significantly change the dynamic of the board as it continues to be impacted by the controversy over the Common Core learning standards.

 
The opt-out groups have announced their endorsement of regent Betty Rosa, who represents the Bronx, as chancellor and Beverly Ouderkirk, who represents the North Country, as vice chancellor.

 
But the parent-led movement is looking to take it a step further by getting opt-out supporters on the board itself.

 
One of the most notable applicants for Bottar’s seat is Jessica McNair, 36, a New Hartford teacher, parent and co-founder of Opt Out CNY, a NYSAPE coalition member that represents nearly 4,200 parents in Central New York. Opt Out CNY this fall called for Bottar’s resignation, saying he “ignored” their concerns.

 
McNair told POLITICO New York that with her experience as a teacher still in a classroom setting, as well as having a first- and third-grader attending public school she has a “good read on the pulse of what’s happening.”

 
“Typically teachers don’t apply because the demands of serving on the Board of Regents and working in a classroom can be pretty great, however, I really feel that an educator’s voice is what’s needed on the Board of Regents right now,” NcNair said.

 
McNair and NYSAPE have expressed frustration over the continued use of student test scores in teacher evaluations, over-testing, the use of standards that are not developmentally and age appropriate. They also have said they are disappointed in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Common Core task force recommendations.

 
The task force, charged with reviewing the Common Core, made a number of recommendations in December, including placing a moratorium on the use of state test scores on teacher and principal evaluations — a hold the Regents later put in place through the 2019-2020 school year. Local assessments will be used in their place.

 
“We’re not really addressing the issues at hand,” said McNair, who also served as an advisor to the task force. “I feel like I’ve been very outspoken in advocating for children and that we still haven’t gotten where we need to be. I also want to be a part of the solution in advocating for kids.”

 
Regents board members are selected by the Legislature during a joint session in March, a process currently controlled by the Assembly Democrats, the biggest conference. The chancellor and vice chancellor are selected by the Regents board.

 
The Assembly has collected approximately 50 applications to fill the two positions, which have a five-year term that begins April 1, according to Michael Whyland, spokesman for Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie. Whyland did not at have the number of applicants broken down by seat at this time, or the names of who applied. The Legislature will next schedule interviews and in March elect members to the board.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, New York, Opt Out, Parent Groups, Teachers

More on Alabama: No College Degree Necessary to Teach

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2016 //
35

Alabama is certainly an innovative state. Its political leaders seem to want to take the “reform” drivel about innovation to the very depths. “Reformers” have been saying that teachers don’t need added degrees; they don’t need certification; they don’t need any professional education. Of course, they were promoting TFA.

 

But Alabama took the claim to an extreme, according to this parent in Huntsville:

 

 

It’s even worse now. The state boe passed a resolution on jan. 14, 2016 stating that anyone with a high school diploma can be an adjunct teacher.

 

This is worse because the subs with a hs diploma couldnt work in a single classroom for longer than a certain amont of time (5 weeks maybe?) But now they can be assigned a class and work indefinitely, as long as it’s part time.

 

Next, the “reformers” will tell us that we don’t need teachers at all, that computers can teach kids just as well as live humans with an education. Oh, wait, that’s what they are doing already, and they call it “personalized learning,” just you and your computer, face to face.

Categories Alabama, Teachers

Jonathan Lovell: How I Learned to Teach Writing Without Teaching

By dianeravitch
January 24, 2016 //
32

Jonathan Lovell is a professor of English at San Jose State University in California. In this delightful post, he portrays his development as a writing teacher and how he learned to teach without teaching. It is beautifully illustrated (using graphics to illuminate the text). And if you read it, you will see a teacher at work, learning and growing and refining his craft. 

Categories Higher Education, Teachers

Nancy Flanagan: Hear the Voices of Detroit’s Teachers: Heroes of Education

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2016 //
13

Nancy Flanagan is a veteran NBCT teacher in Michigan, now retired an blogging. She shared the following posts about what is happening in Detroit. Let me add that in my view the public school teachers of Detroit are heroes. Despite the vilification heaped on them by politicians and the media, despite being blamed for the poverty of the children and the state’s persistent neglect, they serve. They are first responders. I name them heroes of American education and add them to the blog’s honor roll.

Flanagan writes:
“Here’s some commentary directly from Detroit PS teachers–the situation is much more complex than crumbling buildings and overstuffed classrooms. The entire system has been taken over by an Emergency Manager:
<br />
<br />http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teacher_in_a_strange_land/2016/01/teacher_protests_unethical_and_union-led–or_evidence_of_professional_courage.html
<br />
<br />ANd here are more teacher voices–both from those who were protesting via sickout and those who went in to work:
<br />
<br />http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teacher_in_a_strange_land/2016/01/whats_going_down_in_detroit_today.html
<br />
<br />What has happened in Detroit is now a template for the rest of the nation–witness the IL governor’s call for an Emergency Manager system there.”

Categories Detroit, Education Reform, Honor Roll, Teachers
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