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John Thompson: What’s the Matter with Deborah Gist’s Tulsa?

By dianeravitch
April 27, 2018 //
17

 

John Thompson, teacher and historian in Oklahoma, writes here about Deborah Gist, now superintendent in Tulsa, formerly State Superintendent in Rhode Island during the infamous mass firing of the staff at Central Falls High School in 2010.

He writes:


What’s the Matter with Deborah Gist’s Tulsa?

As explained previously, teacher walkouts started in Oklahoma and other “red” states are primarily caused by the rightwing agenda described in Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas? And so far, the teachers’ rebellions are mostly coming from places where corporate school reform was imposed. But as Jeff Bryant notes, teacher resistance is growing in the “purple” state of Colorado and other regions. Bryant explains:

“The sad truth is financial austerity that has driven governments at all levels to skimp on education has had plenty of compliance, if not downright support, from centrist Democrats who’ve spent most of their political capital on pressing an agenda of “school reform” and “choice” rather than pressing for increased funding and support that schools and teachers need.”

https://dianeravitch.net/2018/04/18/john-thompson-the-oklahoma-teachers-walkout-what-we-learned/

http://nepc.colorado.edu/blog/why-teacher-uprisings

Data-driven, charter-driven reforms incentivized by the Race to the Top and edu-philanthropy likely contributed to recent walkouts by weakening unions and the professional autonomy of educators. This undermined both the political power required to fight budget cuts, and the joy of teaching and learning.

And that brings us to the question of What’s the Matter with the Tulsa Public Schools?

Whether its Dana Goldstein writing in the New York Times, Mike Elk writing for the Guardian, or Oklahoma reporters, the coverage cites disproportionate numbers of Tulsa teachers. Their complaints start with budget cuts but often mention the ways that the TPS is robbing teachers and principals of their professional autonomy.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/education/my-idea-was-to-start-the-conversation-rank-and-file/article_5972c78f-30a2-52fc-9ef8-a03c961c1878.html

Goldstein notes that Deborah Gist is now allied with the Oklahoma Education Association in advocating for increased teacher salaries, even though she was “the hard-charging education commissioner in Rhode Island [who] tried to weaken teachers’ seniority protections and often clashed with their union.” I wonder, however, whether Gist’s policies have contributed to the anger and exhaustion that prompted the walkout. After all, Gist is a member of the corporate reform “Chiefs for Change,” and a Broad Academy graduate in a system with nine other Broadies, and who is now expanding charter and “partnership schools.”

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/education/my-idea-was-to-start-the-conversation-rank-and-file/article_5972c78f-30a2-52fc-9ef8-a03c961c1878.html

Tulsa started down a dubious policy path of “exiting” teachers around the time when Gist was attacking Rhode Island teachers. It accepted a Gates Foundation “teacher quality” grant. A Tulsa World analysis of turnover data showed that the Gates effort was followed by “a significant uptick … when it suddenly went from about 200-250 exits in any given year and jumped in 2011 to about 360-400 per year. That’s when the district began using its then-new teacher evaluation for ‘forced exits’ of teachers for performance reasons.”

From 2012 through 2014, “some 260 ‘forced exits’ were reported by TPS leaders.”

The World reports that teacher turnover grew even more after Gist arrived. Over the last two years, there has been an “exodus of 1,057, or 35 percent, of all 3,000 school-based certified staff.” The district’s average turnover rate was 21% in 2016-17, with turnover reaching 47% in one school.

And what happened to student performance? Tulsa’s test score gains are now among the lowest in the nation, with 3rd graders growing only 3.8 years during their next 5 years of schooling.

The World’s data shows that the exodus is not merely due to low salaries. About 28% of former teachers “are not in higher-paying states but in other Oklahoma school districts with comparable pay.”

The World quotes a former Tulsa teacher criticizing the implementation of “personalized learning.” He could understand how standardized laptop technology “could help bad or inexperienced teachers, but for him, it made him feel like little more than a computer lab attendant.” The teacher said the TPS “standardized it so we’re all at the low-rung of the totem pole. … That’s like a huge slap in the face for a teacher. That’s the best part of teaching for most people is to be able to design and use your creativity.”

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/education/tulsa-public-schools-loses-percent-of-its-teachers-in-two/article_c714f36d-f8cb-5447-9dfa-2b2c0cfc0dd9.html

Earlier this year, Tulsa teacher resistance began in Edison Preparatory School, a high-performing school with a five-year teacher turnover rate of 62%. An Advanced Placement teacher, Larry Cagle, has been quoted extensively by the national press. Cagle recounted how “year after year, high-quality teachers retire early.” So, he and fellow teachers started to address both the deterioration of school climate and the increase in turnover.

Even though Cagle has sympathy for the administration which has to face serious budget challenges, he challenges its Broad-style, top-down policies. Despite the teacher shortage, the administration is incentivizing the retirements of older teachers. It is also using philanthropic donations to fund the Education Service Center (ESC), which sounds to me like a misnomer. Its highly-paid administrators have disempowered rather than served administrators and teachers.

Cagle says, “We would like the ESC to stop lobbying philanthropists,” and start lobbying legislators.

http://www.tulsakids.com/Editors-Blog/Web-2018/Edison-Teacher-Talks-Money/

A detailed analysis by Tulsa Kids shows that the Tulsa micromanaging is consistent with that of other failed Broad-run districts. And its comments by TPS teachers is especially revealing. A teacher who worked with the Broad-laden administrative team wrote that they identified themselves as the “Super Team.”

http://www.tulsakids.com/Editors-Blog/Web-2018/Its-Not-Just-Edison/

And that helps explain why so many Tulsa teachers walked out of their classrooms before the statewide walkout. If the reign of Gist is not stopped, even the $6,100 pay increase will not be enough to start rebuilding its schools. What happens, however, if Oklahoma’s reenergized teachers fight back against the Billionaires Boys Club’s mandates? Maybe Colorado teachers will do the same with its corporate reforms that were choreographed by the Democrats for Education Reform, as Arizona teachers resist their state’s mass privatization, and Kentucky teachers challenge last year’s attacks on their state’s profession.

Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Chiefs for Change, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privatization, Teachers and Teaching, Tulsa, Unions

Matt Barnum: Part 2, Waltons’ Secret Memo: Why Charter Expansion Lost in Massachusetts

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2018 //
7

 

Matt Barnum of Chalkbeat obtained additional portions of the postmortem analysis of why the corporate reformers lost in a state referendum to expand charter schools in Massachusetts (here is his first report). It makes for fascinating reading, both his summary and the original document itself. The Walton family and their allies invested millions in the referendum, hoping to increase the number of privately-managed charter schools in the Bay State. The Walton Education Coalition funded the postmortem, hoping to learn from the resounding defeat of the “Yes on 2” campaign.

The referendum was held in November 2016. “Yes on 2” advocated for expanding the number of charters in the state by 12 per year, anywhere in the state, indefinitely. “No on 2” warned that charters took funding away from local public schools. The YES campaign was funded by the Waltons, out-of-state financiers and corporate interests, and the New York City-based Families for Excellent Schools (FES). The NO campaign was funded mostly by the unions (including the National AFT and NEA) and small individual contributions. The YES campaign spent about $25 Million, the NO campaign spent about $15 Million. The successful message of the NO campaign boiled down to: “Do you support public schools or school privatization?”

If you read the original memo, you will see that the consulting firm really doesn’t understand why voters supported their local public schools and trusted teachers rather than the governor. Massachusetts public schools are the best in the nation, which raises the question of why the Waltons and FES decided this state was ready for privatization. Maybe they thought that if they could win in Massachusetts, they could win anywhere.

The second memo paints Massachusetts Teachers Association President Barbara Madeloni as a radical villain, because she outsmarted the charter lobbyists. She mobilized teachers and parents and did not compromise, and her side won. The consultants don’t understand or sympathize with her point of view, so they call her an “ideologue,” who “vowed to stop the corporate takeover of the public schools.” She beat the privatizers, and she rallied the public to save their public schools. I’d call her a successful strategist.

Their recommendation to the Waltons and other charter friendly groups is that in the next battle, they must activate charter teachers to sell their message, to counter the messaging of public school teachers. In liberal states, they said, the charter advocates must pretend to be liberals:

” Consider specific Democratic messages, or at least targeted messages, particularly in liberal states. Advocates should test owning the progressive mantle on education reform and charters: this is about social justice, civil rights, and giving kids a chance. While this is a problematic frame for the electorate as a whole, it may speak to the values of a Democratic electorate. The initial message recommendations to refrain from splintering the electorate was not wrong; this messaging discussing achievement gaps or inequality have sunk in other case studies. However, it could be the right approach for liberals in this new Administration.”

There is something inherently ironic—if not comical—about the notion of the far-right anti-union Walton Family donning the garb of “social justice” and “civil rights” to sell their non-union charter chains.

After the Question 2 referendum was defeated by a large margin, the Massachusetts campaign finance board fined Families for Excellent Schools $426,000 dollars for failing to reveal the names of its donors (“Dark Money”) and banned it from operating in Massachusetts for five years. Soon after, FES closed its doors in reaction to a #MeToo scandal involving its CEO.

Supporters of public schools can learn about the thinking of the charter lobbyists by reading these memos and preparing for the battles ahead, if the charter lobbyists ever again dare to compete in a referendum instead of their customary practice of giving campaign contributions to legislators and governors.

Maurice Cunningham, the University of Massachusetts political science professor who tracks Dark Money, said this on Twitter about the secret memo:

“My initial reading reaction. 1. Without Walton and Strategic Grant Partners money, there is no Q2. 2. Voters hate Walton money and corporate education interests – the whole Financial Privatization Cabal. 3. @bmadeloni was absolutely right. #MaEdu #mapoli #bospoli”

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Dark Money, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Teachers, Unions, Walton Foundation

Arizona: Why Teachers Plan to Walk Out

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2018 //
2

 

Dana Goldstein writes in the New York Times about the looming teachers’ strike (walkout) in Arizona, a right to work state, where most teachers do not belong to the Arizona Education Association. The state has cut $1 Billion out of the K-12 education budget since the 2008 recession, and is currently among the lowest-spending states in the nation on education. The tax-cutting Governor Doug Ducey has promised a 20% raise by 2020, but has offered no new taxes or revenue source to back up his promise. The New York Times is fortunate to have Dana Goldstein working the education beat because she is knowledgeable, having written “The Teacher Wars,” a history of the teaching profession in the U.S.

She writes:

Arizona educators voted late Thursday in favor of a statewide walkout, as teacher protests over low pay and school funding continued to sweep across the United States.

The spread of the protests to Arizona from West Virginia, Oklahoma and Kentucky, all Republican-dominated states with weak public sector unions, signaled the depth of frustration from teachers and parents over years of education budget cuts.

The movement first arose in West Virginia, where teachers walked off the job in February, winning a $2,000 raise. In Oklahoma, the threat of a walkout garnered a $6,000 raise for teachers, but they still picketed the Capitol for nine days, calling for additional school funding that mostly did not come. In Kentucky, teachers have rallied outside the State Capitol to protest changes to their pension plans and to demand more money for schools.

“It’s clear that our educators are inspired by what they’ve seen in West Virginia and Oklahoma and Kentucky,” said Joe Thomas, president of the Arizona Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union. “They see educators rising up and lifting their voices for their students, and doing so in a way that can’t be ignored.”

The vote in Arizona followed weeks of protest across the state and promises from the governor to raise salaries. The Arizona Education Association and Arizona Educators United, a group of teachers who organized independently on Facebook, said that 78 percent of the teachers and school workers who cast ballots supported a walkout.

The groups said the walkout would take place on April 26 if legislators and the governor did not meet their demands, not only for a raise for teachers but also one for school support staff. They also called for an end to tax cuts until Arizona’s per-pupil spending reaches the national average.

Unlike West Virginia and Oklahoma, Arizona has never before had a statewide teacher walkout, and has experienced only a handful of districtwide strikes over the past four decades.

The state has cut approximately $1 billion from schools since the 2008 recession, while also cutting taxes. It spent under $7,500 per pupil annually in 2015, the last year for which census data was available; only Utah and Idaho spent less.

As in the other states where teachers have picketed, many districts in Arizona are facing teacher shortages in subjects like math, science and special education, with principals reporting that staff members are moving to deeper-pocketed states to earn up to $20,000 more per year, or to work in better-funded classrooms.

Noah Karvelis, an elementary school music teacher and the founder of Arizona Educators United, said he was sympathetic to the disruption that widespread school closings would cause students and parents. But, he said, that should not forestall a walkout.

“If we maintain the status quo, that is way worse than missing a couple of days of school,” Mr. Karvelis said at a news conference outside the union headquarters in Phoenix. “The biggest disservice any of us could do for our students right now is to not act in this moment.”

Across Arizona, tens of thousands of teachers, parents and students, clad in red, participated in protests outside schools on April 11. Gov. Doug Ducey said he was “impressed” by the movement, which calls itself #RedForEd. He promised to provide teachers with a 20 percent raise by 2020, and to restore school budgets to pre-Recession levels over the next five years. He said he could do so without raising taxes, because the state’s economy is improving and existing state programs could be cut.

But many teachers rejected that plan, or said they distrusted Mr. Ducey, a first-term Republican.

“You don’t rob Peter to feed Paul,” said Kassandra Dominguez, who teaches kindergarten and first grade in the Pendergast school district, near Phoenix. “That’s so wrong, and I wouldn’t want that money.”

Alternate proposals for raising school budgets include increasing an education sales tax from six-tenths of a cent to one cent, or closing corporate tax loopholes.

The average teacher salary in Arizona is about $47,000 per year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. But starting salaries are much lower, and many teachers leading the protest movement are in their 20s and 30s.

Ms. Dominguez, 27, earns $38,250 per year, and says that because of low education budgets, she has had to pay out of pocket, or raise money from private donors, to buy her students science supplies, chairs and snacks. She voted in favor of a walkout. Her district had lost a total of $1.6 million over the past five years because of budget cuts, according to administrators, and the school board had come out in favor of the #RedForEd movement.

In San Tan Valley, an exurban area an hour southeast of Phoenix, Mary Stavely, an elementary schoolteacher, said she had also voted in favor of a walkout. Ms. Stavely, 34, earns $36,800. Thirteen of 38 teachers at her school, Circle Cross Ranch K-8, are planning to resign at the end of this academic year, she said, because of factors like low pay and a lack of rental housing in the area.

“It directly affects students” when teacher turnover is high, Ms. Stavely said, because children “lose morale and the connections that were made” with caring adults. Ms. Stavely, a single mother, is currently living with her parents, and said she has considered looking for a higher-paying job. Still, she said she had spent her spring break going door to door to recruit parents to enroll their children at her public school. Arizona has aggressively expanded charter schools and private school vouchers in recent years, leading to enrollment declines — and potential budget cuts — for some traditional schools.

More than 57,000 educators filled out a ballot in the Arizona walkout vote. There are approximately 90,000 certified teachers in the state, but only 20,000 members of the Arizona Education Association, the union. As in the other red states that have had recent teacher protests, union membership is optional for Arizona educators, and labor organizing is new for many of them.

Among those who oppose a walkout is Jim Segar, 64, a colleague of Ms. Stavely’s at Circle Cross Ranch K-8 and a physical education teacher.

Mr. Segar said the proposal from Mr. Ducey was the best teachers could realistically hope for. “You can’t get everything at once after years of neglect,” he said. “I think people would be crazy to walk or strike now.”

Categories Arizona, Budget Cuts, Education Reform, Funding, Resistance, Teacher Pay, Unions

John Thompson: The Oklahoma Teachers’ Walkout: What We Learned

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2018 //
6

John Thompson, teacher and historian in Oklahoma, reflects on the recent statewide walkout and the lessons learned.

 

The nine-day Oklahoma teacher walkout was the result of two risky, ideological experiments. As the National Education Association’s Jason Walta explains, the work stoppage also previews the dilemmas that are likely to become more frustrating if the U.S. Supreme Court does what is expected and issues an antiunion decision in Janus v. AFSCME .

https://acslaw.org/acsblog/teachers-walkout-without-bargaining-rights-%E2%80%93-why-it-matters-for-janus

The first theory which drove teachers out of their classrooms was “Supply Side economics.” Oklahoma replicated the extreme budget cutting that Thomas Frank documented in What’s the Matter with Kansas. Income tax cuts that were tilted in favor of the rich cost the state $1 billion per year. The 43rd richest person on the planet and Trump supporter, Harold Hamm, has further enriched himself by ramming though a reduction of oil Gross Production Taxes (GPT) from 7 percent to 2 percent. Consequently, by 2016, the state agencies that provide the most important social and medical services had been cut by one-quarter to one-third of their 2009 levels.

https://okpolicy.org/the-cost-of-tax-cuts-in-oklahoma/

https://theblackwallsttimes.com/2018/04/02/harold-hamm-the-enemy-of-oklahomas-public-educational-funding-fight/

Secondly, the resulting education cutbacks began as corporate school reform was imposed. In 2009, I was surprised to see how many legislators were bringing a New Yorker Magazine to an interim committee on education policy. It featured Steve Brill’s article on the New York City “Rubber Room,” which claimed that value-added teacher evaluations were a valid and reliable tool for firing “bad” teachers. The legislators believed Brill’s flawed reporting and they bought into the corporate school reformers’ self-proclaimed plan which included the replacement of Baby Boomer teachers with twenty-somethings.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/08/31/the-rubber-room

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2011/08/grading_the_education_reformers.html

I emailed Brill and learned he didn’t really understand what value-added models could or could not do, and it became clear that he had not properly cross-examined the reformers’ claim that effective teaching, alone, could close the achievement gap. When completing his book, Brill had to make a dramatic change in the pro-reform narrative. Its hero, a 26-year-old with supposedly superhuman stamina and commitment named Jessica Reid, grew too exhausted to continue at her charter school. Today’s worn-down teaching profession is still enduring the effects of schools being “deputized”” as the agents for overcoming poverty.

https://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/from-whence-come-ideas-for-reforming-teaching-practices/

Oklahoma joined almost all of the rest of the nation in passing legislation that allowed it to compete for federal Race to the Top funds. Oklahoma’s grant wasn’t funded, but as in more than forty other states, teachers’ due process rights were compromised. The state spent millions of dollars on standardized testing, computer systems for keeping track of test score increases, and for using an unreliable and invalid statistical model for firing teachers. Veteran teachers (and their higher salaries) were often pushed out so newbies could be socialized into bubble-in accountability.

http://newsok.com/article/3432650

Reformers didn’t bother to inventory the capacity that would be required to implement such a half-baked agenda. They simply imposed huge workloads on teachers and administrators trying to comply with dubious mandates. Unions were hard-pressed to merely minimize the damage done.

The experiment failed, and the law was repealed, but the money and energy squandered in the reckless experiment are gone forever.

And that brings us to the ways that the Oklahoma walkout and other teacher revolts in “Right to Work” states preview a new resistance for a post-Janus world. Harold Meyerson recently recalled his old wisecrack, “‘China has strikes but no unions; America has unions but no strikes.’” These teachers’ rebellions show that the United States is “becoming more like China every day.”

http://prospect.org/article/what-teacher-strikes-mean

The Oklahoma walkout epitomizes what could be great and what is worrisome about the new era of political activism which is likely to counter Janus. It was a grassroots uprising, organized on social media. As the National Education Association president Lily Eskelsen Garcia says, this is the “education spring.”

Teachers are challenging a system that had been created by the decades-long campaign to shrink government to the size where it can be strangled in the bathtub. Oklahoma unions and other traditional advocates for progressive causes are stymied by the 3/4ths legislative majority which is required to raise taxes. And term limits mean that the legislature lacks institutional memory. Most lawmakers weren’t in office in 2010 when the fateful decisions were made to gut the progressive tax system and to impose corporate school reform on educators.

In the long run, interactions between a youthful teaching profession and the newbies in the legislature are likely to produce better outcomes. Both groups are now frustrated, but they should recall the advice American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten offered on the first day of the walkout. Weingarten said that in every job action, there is “always a moment of truth.” She also said that it is “as important to find a way back in as it is to find a way out.”

At the end of the first week, it looked like a way back to work had been found. The legislature passed $40 million in additional taxes. When combined with the already agreed upon $6100 average pay raise, 95% of the teachers’ demands would have been met. But the fervor of the teachers at the Capitol meant that union leaders couldn’t call off the work stoppage. Besides, plans had already been made for the next week.

On Sunday, a prayer vigil at the Capitol drew hundreds of supporters. Monday’s crowd was far bigger than the 30,000 to 35,000 people who came to each of the first week’s events. Thousands of education supporters marched from Edmond, Del City, and Norman. The next day, marchers arrived from Tulsa. On Thursday, the Moore schools reopened but hundreds of teachers stayed out of class and marched to the Capitol. Had the walkout ended after one week, teachers could have proclaimed an unambiguous victory, but those and other consciousness-raising accomplishments would not have happened.

Many rank-in-file teachers are frustrated with the decisions to return to school, but several key points must be emphasized. First, it took both the threat of a walkout and an initiative petition to raise the Gross Production Tax to persuade the legislature to increase the GPT to 5%. Now, energies must be devoted to initiatives that would raise it all the way back to 7%, as well as defeating an initiative that would defund the pay increase. Both efforts have great potential for building unity among education allies and dividing their opponents. (The same applies to the need for citizen actions to end the constitutional requirement for a 75% majority to raise taxes, and to curtail extreme gerrymandering.)

http://oklahomawatch.org/2018/04/13/ballot-questions-could-boost-teacher-pay-or-put-raises-at-risk/

Moreover, none of these victories would have been possible without the support of local school boards and district administrations, not to mention students and parents. As it became clear that no new money would be appropriated, teachers needed to support their allies in keeping the rest of the school year from degenerating into chaos.

http://www.oklahoman.com/article/5590781?access=17a8dbf82012571d5b94781d849851c5

Just as important, teachers should remember the needs of state employees who pulled out of the walkout just before the OEA announced its end. The Oklahoma Public Employees said, “Recent discussions focus solely on education funding and exclude public safety, veterans’ services, mental health, protective services or any other state agency services.” Given the legal and political complexities of the job actions, that mistake probably was inevitable. But, educators must refocus on the overall needs of their students and families.

http://newsok.com/article/5590683?utm_source=NewsOK.com&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=ShareBar-Twitter

http://newsok.com/state-agencies-say-they-have-funding-needs-too/article/5589886

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/02/07/harmful-tax-cuts-helped-fuel-oklahomas-budget-woes

Finally, while understanding that this new, evolving activism won’t always be pretty, we should listen to former teacher, Sen. J.J. Dossett (D-Owasso) who says that teachers had been apathetic but tens of thousands of them became activists. Led by teacher-candidates, hundreds of additional candidates filed for office last week, leaving almost no Republicans unchallenged. So, teachers should avoid recriminations, celebrate a victory, and focus on November.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Failure, Oklahoma, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Pay, Unions

Oklahoma City: AFT Asks District to Remain Closed Monday for Another Survey of Members

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2018 //
5

This announcement is self-explanatory. The online vote was compromised. Non-members voted, apparently. Most members want to continue the walkout and to press the legislature to improve funding for the schools.

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                        CONTACT:

April 13, 2018                                                                   Ed Allen

                                                                                                405-528-0801

                                                                                                eallen@okcaft.org

 

                                                                                                Janet Bass

                                                                                                301-502-5222

                                                                                                jbass@aft.org

                                                                                                www.aft.org

 

Oklahoma City Teachers on Returning to Classrooms

 

OKLAHOMA CITY—The Oklahoma City American Federation of Teachers announced  that the online survey conducted today on ending the walkout was compromised, and it has asked the district to close schools on Monday to allow teachers to continue to lobby the Legislature.

 

Among other problems, the union received reports that the online link was shared with nonmembers. In fact, there were more votes than official union members—actually, 110 percent of the membership responded to the survey, with two-thirds wanting to continue the walkout.

 

“Despite the survey problems, there’s a clear indication that people want additional time   to try to exhaust every avenue for additional funding for schools,” said Oklahoma City AFT President Ed Allen.

 

Allen acknowledged the gains made over the past two weeks but understood teachers’ frustrations with the state Legislature, which refused to find additional revenue for school funding other than through two new tax bills.

 

 

# # #

Categories Oklahoma, Teachers, Unions

Teachers at California’s Largest Virtual Charter School Unionize

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2018 //
2

 

Uh-oh. This wasn’t in the business plan. Teachers at the K12 Inc. virtual charter school in California created a union. They threatened to “logout” if management didn’t recognize them and agree to their demands. Management caved at CAVA.

While CTA welccomed the additions, some members were unhappy to embrace teachers in a for-profit virtual charter that has been subject to fines and investigations for its behavior and consistently gets poor results.

“Inspired by walkouts in West Virginia and Oklahoma, teachers in California’s largest online charter school were prepared to strike if their new union could not reach an agreement with their school’s management.

“But California Virtual Academies, which includes nine schools and contracts with K12 Inc., the biggest for-profit charter school operator in the country, and the fledgling union of California Virtual Educators Unitedhave settled on their first contract, union representatives announced Wednesday. Among the teacher demands the school has agreed to: some limits on the number of students they oversee, more flexibility in interacting with students and parents, and a whopping 17.8 percent increase in pay…

”As a unionized staff, CAVA teachers belong to a small club within the charter sector. Only 11 percent of charter schools are unionized nationally, down slightly from 12 percent in 2010, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Charter schools make up about 7 percent of the nation’s public schools. About 70 percent of all teachers nationwide participate in unions or employee associations, according to the U.S. Department of Education.”

The contract must be ratified by the nearly 500 teachers who belong to the new local.

”K12 Inc.’s financial arrangements with the schools it helps run in California were the subject of an investigation by the East Bay Times. The paper found that the schools had little independence from K12 Inc. and that the Herndon, Va.-based management company charged fees for its service that were at times far in excess of what the schools could afford. Teachers employed by K12 Inc. were pressured to inflate student enrollment and attendance numbers, which help determine state funding. The paper also reported that half of the schools’ students were proficient in reading and only a third were proficient math. Many students that enrolled in K12 Inc. did not graduate.

“K12 Inc. reached an $8.5 million settlement with the California Attorney General in 2016 over allegations that the company misled parents about how well students were doing in the California schools it manages. The company did not:admit to any wrongdoing.

“K12 Inc. and online or cyber charters in general have been under increasing scrutiny both in California and beyond. That’s been driven in part by the ascent of Betsy DeVos to U.S. Education Secretary. DeVos is a supporter of online schools—touting them as a means to bring school choice to rural areas—and an early investor in K12 Inc.”

 

 

 

 

Categories California, For-Profit, Unions, Virtual Charter Schools

Jan Resseger: Why Teachers Are Walking Out, Part 2

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2018 //
18

Jan Resseger has an excellent roundup of the conditions that are driving the walkouts in “right to work” state.

The walkout is a very effective tool. No teachers, no school.

Nothing drives a legislature crazy as much as a wildcat strike because they can’t sit down with a union leader and tamp down the rage and expectations.

It seems that the rightwing strategy of passing “right to work” laws and going to court to reduce dues-paying members (the upcoming Janus decision in the U.S. Supreme Court) has backfired. Unions channel teacher demands. Despite these laws, teachers can still walk out, close down the schools, and win their demands, as long as they stay united. West Virginia, with its long history of militancy, started the movement. Now Oklahoma. Now, Kentucky. Who is next? Arizona? New Mexico? The Deep South states, where salaries are abysmal?

What was the trigger? Was it the student activism that followed the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School? Did the mass demonstrations inspire teachers to say to themselves, “enough is enough”? Pay me a living wage or I won’t teach. The straw that broke the camel’s back. The last straw.

Categories Education Reform, Resistance, Teacher Pay, Teachers, Unions

Kentucky: Teachers Walk Out in Response to Legislators’ Attack on Pensions

By dianeravitch
March 30, 2018 //
17

Teachers in many districts in Kentucky closed down public schools in response to the Republican attack on their pensions. 

Schools in eight Kentucky school districts were closed Friday as teachers across the state protested Republican changes to their pension system, CBS News reports.

In Lexington and Louisville — the state’s two largest school districts — hundreds of teachers took sick days or refused to show up for work after state lawmakers passed a bill changing the structure of pension benefits for future teachers.

The strike may be hard for reformers and the libertarians in the GOP to understand: the teachers in Kentucky are not striking for themselves but for their profession.

This wildcat strike follows weeks of protest by teachers to the Legislature and the Governor.

CNN says that the legislature pulled a bait-and-switch, dropping the original bill against which teachers were protesting and putting the changes into a bill about sewage services. Was that a direct insult to teachers?

The action in Kentucky follows the wildcat strike in West Virginia and precedes the likely walkout in Oklahoma, scheduled for Monday April 2. Teachers in Oklahoma demand higher pay (pay in Oklahoma is at or near the worst in the nation despite a booming energy industry in the state that gets huge tax breaks).

These strikes and walkouts are happening in states where unions are not strong. In fact, Kentucky,  West Virginia, and Oklahoma are “right to work” states.

Note to reformers: If the Janus decision goes against the unions, you will still have to contend with the power of organized teachers. No matter what law is passed, teachers who are underpaid and disrespected have the power to walk out. There are not enough TFA scabs in the nation to replace them all.

No teachers, no schools.

Categories Education Reform, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Pensions, Teachers, Unions, West Virginia

Where Was the National Democratic Party During the West Virginia Teachers Strike?

By dianeravitch
March 6, 2018 //
82

 

An article in the Daily Beast asks the question that is the title of this post.

Another question: Where was President Obama and Secretary Arne Duncan when Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker stripped away collective bargaining, and union members encircled the State Capitol in protest? Answer: absent.

They did, however, find time in March 2011 to fly to Miami to join Jeb Bush in celebrating a “turnaround school” whose staff had been replaced. (A month later, the same high school was listed by the state as a “failing school” slated for closure, but the national media had moved on.)

Categories Bush, Jeb, Democrats, Duncan, Arne, Florida, Obama, Turnaround Schools, Unions, Walker, Scott, West Virginia

West Virginia Strike Settled! Teachers Win 5% Pay Raise!

By dianeravitch
March 6, 2018 //
15

 

Teachers in West Virginia struck across the state, demanding a 5% pay raise. Today, the strike was settled, and teachers won the 5% they sought.

“West Virginia lawmakers unanimously approved 5 percent pay raises for teachers and troopers on Tuesday after the governor reached a deal to end a teacher walkout that shuttered the state’s schools for nine days.

“A huge group of teachers crowding the Capitol’s hallways cheered their victory.

“With striking teachers looking on, the House of Delegates passed the pay raise for teachers, school service personnel and state troopers on a 99-0 vote, and the Senate followed, voting 34-0.

“I believe in you and I love our kids,” Gov. Jim Justice said.”

Unfortunately, the legislators plan to pay for the raise by cutting the budget, including Medicaid, instead of raising taxes on corporations that just got a big refund on their taxes from the GOP Tax bill last December.

 

Categories Teachers, Unions, West Virginia
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