An earlier post today described No Nonsense Nurturing as training teachers to be robots.
Here is a video by its developers. It is indeed interesting, especially the product endorsement by Dave Levin, co-founder of KIPP. Probably the product reflects the KIPP style.
A reader in Los Angeles sent this reflection on LAUSD’s demand for Rafe Esquith’s personal financial history.
“This whole thing getting really wacko.
“Can an employee—under threat of being fired—be compelled by his employer to turn over private
information such as this—i.e. 15 years of tax returns, loan documents, monthly bank statements?
“I mean, why stop there? Why not demand all your private diaries or journals? All your computers with all the personal data, internet activity, emails etc.? How about your
medical records? Your private written correspondence?
“This is especially ridiculous in this case, as the employer refuses to divulge the foundation for such a demand, or the suspicions, or the
testimony/evidence that warrant this demand to give up one’s privacy?
“And again, THESE INVESTIGATORS ARE NOT AGENTS OF ACTUAL LAW ENFORCEMENT!!! They’re
retired LAPD detectives working as bureaucrats in a public school district!!! WHO THE HELL DO THESE GUYS THINK THEY ARE???!!!
“In your own life, if a past employer — New York University? or whomever? — sicced two investigatorson you who demanded this of you, what
would you have done?
“I would have been left utterly speechless. Could this even be possible in the U.S.?
“Whatever happened to the Constitutional right to privacy?
“This is as at least as bad as quid-pro-quo sexual harassment—i.e. “have sex with me or you’re fired”—in its enabling of the employer to use the threat of losing one’s job, livelihood, income, etc. as a way to take away one’s basic civil liberties and innate human dignity.
“This is way bigger than Rafe’s case.”
Jay Mathews of the Washington Post tells the story of LAUSD’s relentless investigation of celebrated teacher Rafe Esquith.
Having first pursued a lead about Rafe referring to nudity (based on a scene in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”), then explored a 40-year-old claim that he abused a boy in a Jewish summer camp, now the investigators are poring through his financial records.
Here was the offense that led to his suspension:
“The next day, Esquith learned the truth: A school staffer had reported to administrators that Esquith made a joke about nudity that she thought might offend students and their parents. Esquith had read to his students a passage from “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” in which a character called the king comes “prancing out on all fours, naked.” Esquith reminded the students that the district did not fund the annual Shakespeare play, and if he could not raise enough money “we will all have to play the role of the king in Huckleberry Finn.”
Asked to apolgize, Rafe did. But the investigators were not satisfied.
This sounds like “Les Miserables,” with Rafe as Jean Valjean. Not sure who is playing Inspector Javert.
Laurie Gabriel, a teacher with nearly three decades experience, decided that she had to do something to fight back against the absurd attacks on teachers.
The first thing she did was to create a documentary to explore the critical issues of the day. It is called “Heal Our Schools,” and it offers practical advice that most teachers would vigorously agree with. In her video, she interviews teachers, students, and a few outsiders (like me). The people she spoke to talked about what matters most in teaching and learning, which she would say is to encourage students to find their passions and pursue them. Her first recommendation, by the way, is to reduce class size so children can get individual attention when they need it.
The high point of the film, in my estimation, was when she spoke to some vocal critics of teachers. She invited them to teach a list of vocabulary words to ten students, and they accepted her offer. The scenes were priceless. The students were restless; one put his head on the desk. Announcements on the public speaker interrupted the lessons. When one of the “teachers” reprimanded a student and told him that when he was in the Army, he would have gotten 50 push-ups for his behavior, another student piped up and said, “We’re not in the Army.” After their students took their tests, Laurie gave them feedback about their performance. They were less enthusiastic about grading teachers by their students’ test scores and even seemed to be more respectful of the skill that it takes to teach middle schoolers.
The second thing she did was to take her documentary on the road, showing it to interested audiences. Her current schedule starts tonight in Wyandotte, Michigan. You can see her other stops listed below. If you live in one of these cities or towns, please show up and bring some friends.
July 21 WYANDOTTE MI (Detroit area)- 7:00 at Biddle Hall, 3239 Biddle Ave.
July 22 CLEVELAND – 7:00 at the West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church
July 23 PHILADELPHIA – 7:00 at the Ethical Humanist Society, 1906 Rittenhouse Square
July 24 WASHINGTON DC – 8:00 at the Holiday Inn Washington Capitol, 550 C Street SW
July 26 – JERSEY CITY – 7:00 pm at the Jersey City Union Building, 1600 W. Kennedy
July 28 NEW YORK CITY – 2:30 pm at the Actors Theatre Workshop, 145 W. 28th Street, 3rd floor
July 29 RAYNHAM MASS. 6:00 pm at the Massachusetts Teachers Regional Office, 656 Orchard Street 3rd floor
July 30 PORTSMOUTH NH, 7:00 pm at the Women’s City Club, 375 Middle Street
August 3 – GRAND BLANC, MI – 6:00 at the Grand Blanc Mcfarlen Public Library.
August 9 DENVER – 1:00 pm at the Highlands Ranch Public Library, 9292 Ridgeline Blvd in Highlands Ranch
If you don’t live in one of those locales and want to see “Heal Our Schools,” contact Laurie at aspenquartet@hotmail.com
Perhaps you could arrange a showing in your community.
Emily Richmond at The Atlantic reports on the exodus of teachers from Kansas.
“Frustrated and stymied by massive budget cuts that have trimmed salaries and classroom funding, Kansas teachers are “fleeing across the border” to neighboring states that offer better benefits and a friendlier climate for public education, NPR’s Sam Zeff reported.
To be sure, this is a tough time for the Sunflower State, where funding shortfalls forced a half-dozen districts to shorten their academic calendars, and teacher jobs are being advertised on billboards. But it’s hardly an outlier. Las Vegas, home to the nation’s fifth-largest school district, is undergoing a particularly brutal struggle to recruit, and keep, enough new teachers for the upcoming academic year. (After all, how many superintendents have been reduced to zipline stunts to draw attention to a hiring crisis, as was the case with the Las Vegas district’s Pat Skorkowsky?) And it doesn’t take much to find stories of teacher shortages in Arizona and Indiana, among many others….
“One solution: Residency programs that provide new teachers with intensive mentoring, coaching, and support for their first few years in the profession are gaining in popularity. But an underlying issue is that fewer people are opting to become teachers, and when they do, about half will quit within five years. Indeed, in last year’s Gallup poll, the percentage of people who said they didn’t want their children to become teachers jumped to 43 percent from 33 percent a decade earlier.”
The so-called reform movement has succeeded in making teaching an undesirable profession. Not only are teachers quitting, unable to live on meager salaries, but the number of people who want to be teachers has sharply declined. This fits the agenda of the reformers, who want to replace teachers with computers, encourage the retirement of costly experienced teachers, and turn teaching into a low-wage, high-turnover job rather than a profession.
According to the latest report, the Los Angeles district administration has abandoned its investigation of a 40-year-old complaint against super star teacher Rafe Esquit alleging shoving or sexual abuse and is now poring through the financial records of his independent group, the Hobart Shakespeareans. Esquith has not been informed about the charges against him.
The LA School Report says:
Now, the investigation is turning toward Esquith’s nonprofit group which is independent from LAUSD and is run by an independent board of directors. Esquith gets no salary from the Shakespeareans, and in fact donates thousands of dollars of his own money to the group, which was started because of cuts in the arts by LAUSD.
The group teaches students how to perform Shakespeare plays, and has been profiled by CBS, Time, Washington Post, PBS and other national media outlets.
The recent request for documentation came from Scheper Kim & Harris, a law firm outside of LAUSD.
“These investigations become self-fulfilling prophecies,” Meiselas said. “This is a program that has changed people’s lives.”
Actors such as Ian McKellen, Hal Holbrook, John Lithgow and Michael York have visited and praised the Hobart Shakespeareans, and donated money to the group. On its website, 17 groups and individuals have pledged $10,000 or more to them, including William McClatchy, the Roth Family Foundation, Peter and Helen Bing and The Vanguard Group. At least 19 others have donated $5,000.
None of the students or parents involved with the Hobart Shakespeareans has complained about Esquith, who was awarded Disney National Outstanding Teacher of the Year, among other awards. Because of his “teacher jail” status, the dozen sold-out performances planned this year were canceled, as well as a July trip to Oregon for a Shakespeare Theatrical Festival.
This is a bizarre situation. The sooner LAUSD winds it up, the better for all concerned.
Super star teacher Rafe Esquith has filed a class action lawsuit against the Los Angeles school system. He is represented by a super star lawyer, Michael Geragos.
“High-profile attorney Mark Geragos has notified LAUSD that he intends to file a class action lawsuit about the so-called “teacher jails” that could involve hundreds–and potentially thousands–of past and present teachers.
“The required notice for the class action lawsuit was stamped and received by the school board on June 22, and 45 days from that date the suit will be filed, according to Ben Meiselas, an associate of Geragos & Geragos who is representing noted educator Rafe Esquith, who was taken from his classroom earlier this year and placed in teacher jail, pending an investigation on a variety of issues.
“The letter, obtained by the LA School Report, deals mostly with the Esquith case, but it also gives notice of a class action complaint “on behalf of all teachers, during the applicable statue of limitations period, who have been denied procedural and substantive due process by LAUSD.”
“The notice says: “It is anticipated the composition of the relevant class will be comprised of at least several thousand current and former LAUSD teachers who have similarly been deprived of due process, and have endured arbitrary process, undefined investigations, indefinite stays in teacher jail, and capricious classroom removals.”
“The issue is an especially volatile one with LA Unified, which has been severely criticized over the years by the teachers union, UTLA, for what union officials say is a capricious and unfair discipline system. Tensions were especially acute during John Deasy‘s years as superintendent, making the elimination of teacher jail a prime rallying cry of Alex Caputo-Pearl‘s run for the union presidency last year and the union’s subsequent campaign for a new labor agreement with the district.”
There is an unprecedented exodus of teachers from the schools of North Carolina. Pay has been stagnant for years, and the legislature keeps passing budget cuts. Nearly 1,000 teachers quit in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg district. Local officials worry about replacing them.
The following letter expresses the anguish of teachers in North Carolina. Somehow I missed this letter when it first appeared in 2013. It went viral, and you will see why. The sad fact is that the situation has grown worse in North Carolina for teachers during the past two years. The legislature and Governor doesn’t think about holding on to experienced teachers. They don’t even care about investing in career teachers. They killed the successful North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program, which prepared new teachers over a five-year period in college and graduate school. They put millions into hiring the temps of Teach for America, who will stay for two or three years, then leave. Salaries in North Carolina are near the lowest in the nation. It is hard to remember that North Carolina was once considered the most progressive state in the South, known for its outstanding universities and K-12 education. I wonder how “reformers” feel about belittling teachers and driving experienced teachers out of their state or their profession.
Letter to the NC General Assembly: I Can No Longer Afford to Teach
July 25, 2013 <http://makingourway.net/2013/07/25/letter-to-the-nc-general-assembly-i-can-no-longer-afford-to-teach/> by lrkf <http://makingourway.net/author/lrkf/>
Dear members of the North Carolina General Assembly,
The language in this letter is blunt because the facts are not pretty. Teaching is my calling, a true vocation, a labor of love, but I can no longer afford to teach.
I moved to North Carolina to teach and to settle in to a place I love. My children were born here; we have no plans to leave. I reassured my family in Michigan, shocked at my paltry pay and health benefits, that North Carolina had an established 200 year history of placing a high value on public education and that things would turn around soon.
When I moved here and began teaching in 2007, $30,000 was a major drop from the $40,000 starting salaries being offered by districts all around me in metro Detroit, but it was fine for a young single woman sharing a house with roommates and paying off student loans. However, over six years later, $31,000 is wholly insufficient to support my family. So insufficient, in fact, that my children qualify for and use Medicaid as their medical insurance, and since there is simply no way to deduct $600 per month from my meager take-home pay in order to include my husband on my health plan, he has gone uninsured. We work opposite shifts to eliminate childcare costs.
The public discourse on public assistance is that it is a stop-gap, a safety net to keep people from falling until they can get back on their feet. But as I see no end in sight to the assault on teacher pay, I will do what I have to do to support my family financially. We never wanted or expected to live in luxury. We did, however, hope to be able to take our little girls out for an ice cream or not wonder where we will find the gas money to visit their grandparents. And so, even though I am a great teacher from a family of educators and public servants and never imagined myself doing anything else, I am desperately seeking a way out of the classroom, and nothing about education in North Carolina breaks my heart more.
I will make no apologies for saying that I am a great teacher. I run an innovative classroom where the subject matter is relevant and the standards are high. My teaching practice has resulted in consistently high evaluations from administrators, positive feedback from parents, and documented growth in students.
I realize that no one in Raleigh will care or feel the impact when this one teacher out of 80,000 leaves the classroom. I understand. However, my 160 students will feel the impact. And 160 the next year. And the next. My Professional Learning Community, teachers around the county with whom I collaborate, will be impacted, and their students as well. Young teachers become great when they are mentored by experienced, effective educators, and all their students are impacted as well. When quality teachers leave the classroom, the loss of mentors is yet another effect. This is how the quiet and exponential decline in education happens.
Higher teacher pay may be unpopular, and I am aware it is difficult to see the connection between teacher pay and a quality education for students, so I will try to make it clear. Paying me a salary on which I can live means I can stay in the classroom, and keeping me in the classroom means thousands of students over the next decade would get a quality education from me. It’s that simple.
While I appreciate that Governor McCrory is advocating for a 1% raise for teachers in the coming school year, it is simply not enough. For me, that is $380, which after years of pay freezes, does not cover the negative change in my health coverage and copays. It does not cover the change in the cost of a gallon of milk, a gallon of heating oil, or a unit of electricity. It is not enough. A sobering fact: even a 20% raise would fall short of bringing me up to the 2007 pay scale for my current step, and that is in 2007 dollars.
My students deserve a great, experienced teacher. As a professional with two degrees and four certifications, I deserve to make an honest living serving my community and this state.
Respectfully,
Lindsay Kosmala Furst
————————————–
I was very afraid to write this letter. People have strong feelings about several of the topics herein, these things tend to take on a life of their own in the internet age, and “going public” means, of course, that when I go back to school next month, I may have to face students who know these quite personal details of my life. While I would not be leaving teaching as a statement or protest of any kind (what I really want to do is teach), I realized that the silent turnover that would happen serves no purpose at all, and that I need to at least let someone know. I’m not sure what kind of reckless abandon overcame me when I went ahead and sent the letters to both the General Assembly and the Raleigh News & Observer <http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/07/22/3049030/teachers-say-lawmakers-are-forsaking.html>, but I knew that once it was out, there was no getting it back.
I feel like I have come out of secrecy. My cards are on the table. This is the reality of being a young teacher in NC right now. We expect recent college grads to suck it up and deal with low pay for a year or two. We expect that at 30, however, young teachers may be starting families or wanting to buy houses. The fact is that those of us who began here in 2007 are only making a few hundred dollars per year more today than when we started, and our benefits have been slashed, negating even that small increase.
With a heavy heart, I have realized that if I want to remain in the classroom, I will have to leave the state. If I want to remain in this state, the place that I chose to be my home, I will have to leave the classroom. At the same time, this advocate of public education is left wondering what will be left for my children when they start school. I can’t express how deeply saddening it is to think that about my own field.
Since this was reported earlier this week, I have received many messages of encouragement. At least a dozen are from other mothers in my position, teaching full time with children on Medicaid and/or WIC, the nutrition assistance program for women, infants, and young children. They thanked me for telling their story as well. So many are afraid to stand up and speak. The public negativity directed at teachers right now is overwhelming, and it is no surprise that many do not want to enter the fray. I cannot blame them. But since I already have, I will do my best to represent them as well.
Thank you for your support.
———
Update 1: WOW! I am overwhelmed by the response I have received. Thank you, thank you. Your support is incredible. Thank you for sharing your own stories here, as well. I am reading every single one of them.
Let me say this: While I appreciate difference of opinion, I will not be approving abusive comments. If you see one that has slipped by, please let me know. Thank you.
———-
Update 2: You guys. Honestly, you bring tears to my eyes. I’m heartbroken to see so many of you feeling the same way. If you want to leave a comment, please scroll to the very bottom where it says “Leave a Reply.”
A few days ago, I posted a statement by a teacher-candidate of Hispanic origin who was trying to get certification as a teacher of special education. She had a high grade point average, she took and passed several state-required tests, at great expense, but she could not pass the edTPA. And she could not afford to pay Pearson again. As a result of the post here, she was contacted by someone in the Néw York State Education Department (I supplied her contact information). Several readers offered to pay the cost of taking an alternate assessment. Someone helped her.
The woman who wrote the post sent me this email:
“I cannot thank you enough for providing me with a platform to express myself freely and share it with the public! After that post, I shortly received a voucher to take the safety net test. None of this would have been possible without your help. I was just trying to raise awareness of the exploitative practices and fees from Pearson. I think the amount of tests and the prices were exaggerated. If teacher candidates are expected to pass more challenging exams at expensive rates while obtaining a Master’s Degree then they should be paid accordingly. Again, thank you for your time and efforts! It will never be forgotten.”
I received the following letter from a teacher at a charter school, who was recently fired for her efforts to start a union.
Kate Connors writes:
I was excited when I accepted the teaching position at New Dawn Charter High School, in Brooklyn, NY. It was the 2012-2013 school year, the school’s opening year. The teachers reported to work in mid August for orientation. I immediately liked my colleagues and was happy to be working with them. During the orientation, we attended workshops led by the principal that addressed the school’s expectations, lesson planning, and preparing for the school year. At the end of one of these days, the principal told us to dress comfortably for the next day, that we had to get the school ready for the students. Because the school was brand new, the four-story building was still not furnished. On the first floor, in the cafeteria were all the school’s furnishings. The teachers were given the task of moving the items from the cafeteria to the room to which they belonged. The school has four floors and many, many rooms. The cafeteria was filled with desks, tables, file cabinets, bookshelves and more. The teachers worked together moving these large and heavy items. A hand truck was provided for the heavier items. It took a few days, and when we were finally done, the teachers’ desks arrived in flat boxes and in pieces. We were given tools and told to build them ourselves. We were also asked to help clean the building. We were given Windex and paper towels, we were told to clean the windows and lunchroom kitchen. The faculty began discussing amongst themselves how inappropriate this was to ask of the teachers. It was the school’s first year, and we did want to help it get off to a successful start, but this certainly was the start of a steep decline of morale and disappointment with our administration.
The students arrived in September, and I was happy to focus on teaching. I knew that our student population would be challenging, since we were a transfer school that enrolled under-credited and over-aged students. However, I did not anticipate the lack of disciplinary action taken by administration to address student behavior. The students were essentially running the school. There were thefts (phones and computers; all personal property of teachers), cursing and homophobic slurs launched from students to teachers, fights, marijuana use in the building, etc. The worst part is that the teachers began to have safety concerns about coming to work each day. Drug deals were happening outside of the building, a student was chased down the street by someone with a gun and non-students were entering the building. The faculty begged for security. We were told that the janitor would also be acting as a security guard. That wasn’t satisfactory, and we were insistent. They finally hired two security guards, and it was another fight to get the security guard to use metal detector wands.
Despite the unacceptable behavior of the students, the administration justified their inaction by standing by their philosophy that nothing was more important than keeping the students in the classroom and giving them the opportunity to learn. None of the teachers felt supported in or outside of the classroom. It became crystal clear that the administration did not have concern for our safety. During the week of Hurricane Sandy, the Mayor closed down New York City schools for the entire week. Traveling or even being outdoors was dangerous in such weather conditions — even the subways were not running. I was shocked when I received an email from the executive director, Sara Asmussen, telling us to report to school on Thursday and Friday of that week. No students were in attendance, but the faculty was expected to come in and stay in school during the normal 9-5 workday. The administration wanted to open the school for the two days rather than lose two days from our February break.
The faculty’s morale continued to plummet. We spoke about forming a union. We called a meeting of the teachers and had a serious discussion. We all agreed it was essential. However, we didn’t reach out to the UFT until the following year. The school year was coming to a close. I was interviewing elsewhere and had hopes of leaving; however, I could not find a position so I returned to New Dawn. Our math teacher, science teacher, social studies teacher and social worker had found positions elsewhere and resigned.
New Dawn is a year round school, so again, the teachers reported to work in the summer. We met with the new teachers who replaced those who resigned, in addition to the new staff members that were hired because we were enrolling more students. The summer was a repeat of the previous year. We were asked to take trash from the back of the school to the curb. There were month’s worth of boxes and bags just left there because the custodial staff left in June and were not replaced. We were given gloves and plastic aprons to use while doing these duties. I continued to search for open positions in other schools hoping that I could find something before September, but as I mentioned, it did not work out.
Come September, the students arrived, and similar behavioral issues ensued. Despite the horrible climate set by the administration, I was able to feel good about building a positive rapport with some of the students. I also feel that I made a difference in some of the students’ lives, no matter how small it may have been. I did my best to give to our students while I was employed at New Dawn.
Again came the discussion of unionizing. We had to act. I reached out to the UFT and was assigned a union representative. A teacher and I met with her after school. We outlined our grievances with her, and she advised us on starting a union. The senior teachers were on board right away. The new teachers were reluctant because they feared repercussions. In the end, all teachers signed a union card and we announced to the administration that we formed a union. After this announcement, the teachers’ fears became a reality. The administration responded harshly. Walking into the building, the executive director would not even make eye contact or interact with you. The principal canceled the majority of our after school professional development programs, and I received several emails accusing me of grievances that I did not commit, including not showing up to class and breaking a student’s confidentiality. A colleague had to speak with the executive director about his vacation plans to see his family, and he was told that the time might “not be available” to him. When asked why, the executive director pointed to the UFT keychain sticking out of his pocket.
We worked hard to motivate the faculty to keep their heads up. We attended board meetings monthly and requested that the school acknowledge that we were a union and to begin negotiating with us. Again and again, we were shut down. The simplest requests, such as changing the time of the board meeting to after-school hours so we could attend the entire meeting, rather than the last portion of the meeting, were turned down.
I wasn’t completely surprised when, at the end of the school year, four of the most vocal union supporters were terminated. It was no coincidence. The employee handbook discusses a progressive disciplinary plan, which begins with a verbal warning and proceeds to written warnings before a termination can take place. None of the four teachers ever received a warning that their employment was in jeopardy. We immediately filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRB found our complaint valid and notified the school of the charges against them. It wasn’t long before the school settled the charge and provided backpay to the teachers and expunged all records of our termination. In addition to losing us, five staff members resigned. Unfortunately, the remaining teachers continue to work in this turbulent environment. On the first school day that the remaining teachers reported to work in early July, the executive director made a speech that was coercive and punitive. She reprimanded the staff for union activity and threatened them with legal action if they used the students’ contact information to speak with them about supporting the teacher’s union. This speech was recorded by a teacher and was presented to the NLRB, who filed another charge against the school. I hope that the conditions change for the sake of the teachers and the students, but I am doubtful that any change will occur.
Despite this negative experience, I have decided to continue my career in education. I am proud to say that I am now a teacher in a New York City Public School. The four terminated teachers, as well as the five teachers who resigned, all found jobs in public schools. Working in my current school is such a different experience. I am so happy to get up for work in the morning. I feel appreciated and supported by my administration. I am able to focus on growing as a teacher rather than protecting myself. I hope to continue in the public school system for many years to come.
Kate Connors
Diane Ravitch's blog 