Mercedes Schneider did the research last year to expose the hack work of the so-called Center for Union Facts.
This is a PR firm for corporate America that has no credentials regarding education. Its agenda is union-busting,
Here is her post about the full-page ad in today’s USA Today, brought to you by the same folks who do not know that the highest-scoring states in the nation (on NAEP) have unions, and the lowest-scoring states do not.
See this ad in today’s USA Today.
Funny the ad doesn’t mention that the highest performing states in the U.S. on the NAEP are Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut, all of which have strong unions.
Or that the states at the bottom of the NAEP ratings do not have strong unions (or, in some states), none at all.
The ad was underwritten by the deceptively named “Center for Union Facts,” which last year ran a full-page ad in the New York Times blaming the AFT and Randi Weingarten for our international test scores.
I responded at that time by describing my encounter with the Center for Union Facts as an organization that exists to bash unions but has no knowledge about American or international education.
At that time, the Center for Union Facts was exposed by Mercedes Schneider as a front for anti-union corporate groups.
When facts don’t matter, when lies are presented as facts, discussion is impossible.
Jonathan Pelto reports that the AFT’s Legislative and Political Action Committee endorsed Governor Danell Malloy for re-election, despite his dismal record on education.
The committee did not interview Pelto.
He wrote:
“The decision to endorse Malloy without an open process is a sad commentary on the state of politics. Putting aside the work I’ve done to speak out for teachers and their unions over the past two years, and my lifetime commitment to public education, Governor Malloy has proven himself to be the most anti-teacher Democratic governor in the country. There is not a teacher in Connecticut who has forgotten that Malloy proposed ending teacher tenure and unilaterally repealing collective bargaining for teachers in ‘turnaround schools’ when he put forward his “Education Reform initiative.”
If their own unions don’t defend the rights of teachers, who will?
The New York State United Teachers issued a statement supporting th districts that are opting out of state field tests.
“ALBANY, N.Y. May 30, 2014 – As tens of thousands of students statewide prepare to begin vfield testing” questions for future state exams, New York State United Teachers President Karen E. Magee said today more time should be devoted to teaching – not testing – and called for an end to student participation in field tests.
The State Education Department is administering field tests from June 2-11 to try out prospective standardized test questions developed by the giant testing company, Pearson PLC. These tests do not count for students, teachers or schools and are solely used to “test the test.” Stand-alone field tests in English language arts and math will be administered in most schools to students who took the state’s 2014 Grades 3-8 Common Core ELA and math tests.
“New York’s over-reliance on standardized tests continues to have a negative effect on our students,” Magee said. “Teachers and parents are united in our concern that excessive state standardized testing takes important time away from instruction.”
Magee called on the state to grant the SED’s request for sufficient resources so it can develop a bank with enough age- and grade-appropriate, reliable and valid questions to entirely eliminate the need for field testing.
Magee noted a number of school districts – Comsewogue and Ossining, for example – are reportedly boycotting this year’s field tests.
“NYSUT applauds those school districts that have recently opted out of this year’s field testing. Just as we support parents’ rights to opt their child out of the state tests, we support those districts that are opting out of the field tests,” Magee said. “Why should New York state students be unpaid researchers for Pearson?”
“NYSUT Vice President Catalina Fortino, who oversees the union’s Research and Educational Services Division, added, “These upcoming field tests mean that, once again, too many students in New York state will be spending time on standardized tests that take time away from real learning.”
Jersey Jazzman goes through the reasons why the corporate elites and rightwing think tanks love charter schools.
It is not because they get better results. They don’t.
It is not because they save money. They don’t.
They are very effective at busting unions. Nearly 90% of the nation’s charters are non-union. This makes possible a flexible workforce that works long hours, accepts whatever pay management wants to pay, and makes no demands.
Barbara Madeloni, who led the fight against outsourcing teacher credentialing to Pearson, was elected president of the Massachusetts Teacher Association, will take charge of a union of 110.000 educators
“Until last August, Madeloni directed the Secondary Teacher Education Program at the University of Massachusetts.
“While UMass said her employment ended as part of a move to reduce the use of adjunct professors, Madeloni stated in interviews that the school was punishing her for opposing a project in which UMass tested a teacher assessment program for the for-profit company Pearson.
“Madeloni, 57, said in an interview Sunday she plans as MTA president to “amplify the voice of educators and be a leader at the national level.”
“She noted that her victory comes amid efforts in Los Angeles, Seattle and Chicago to shift the debate back to supporting high-quality public education and the people who provide it over the interests of for-profit companies in the field.
“It should be national news,” Madeloni said of her win in Massachusetts. “It’s a message to everybody that teachers will not be silent and compliant as this assault on public education continues — and undermines public education. This is foundational to democracy and we need to defend it.”
Anthony Cody hails the Chicago Teachers Union for its unanimous vote to reject Common Core.
This vote is important for many reasons. First, it undermines the repeated (and false) claim that almost all teachers favor CC.
Second, it recognizes that CTU is worried about the standardization and double-duty testing, as well as the loss of creativity that CC will bring.
Third, Cody believes that the CTU vote will encourage other locals to speak out and voice their concerns, not only about the problems of CC, but the diversion if billions of taxpayer dollars to corporations and vendors.
Cody believes that Randi Weingarten’s recent statements indicate that she is growing skeptical about the CC.
The issue is likely to be hotly debated when the AFT holds its national convention in Los Angeles this summer. California has not yet suffered the CCSS testing, but LA lost thousands if teachers while Superintendent Deasy committed $1 billion to buy iPads for Common Core testing.
Arthur Goldstein is a high school English teacher and chapter chair of the United Federation of Teachers at Francis Lewis High School. He is part of the opposition to the Unity Caucus that leads his union, the UFT in New York City. In response to my post praising the recent contract agreement between New York City and the UFT, Goldstein wrote this dissent:
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It’s been almost six years since NYC teachers have received a raise. This was particularly frustrating since most NYC employees received twin raises of 4% in the 2008-2010 round of pattern bargaining. While they got more money with no givebacks, our leadership helped craft the junk-science based NY APPR law. The entire state got a junk-science based evaluation system. We were told the beauty of it was that it could be negotiated, but when that didn’t work out leadership allowed John King to write it for us.
Now there is an agreement, but UFT members will receive not only the retro money, but also the salary raises almost a decade later than FDNY, NYPD, or DSNY. Being a teacher, I don’t know a whole lot about money. Still, I’m fairly certain that money has more value in 2010 than 2020, when we will finally be made whole. It’s plainly disingenuous to argue we have parity with the other unions.
There are other issues in this contract that are troubling. Paramount to me is that of due process for ATR teachers. The UFT agreed in 2005 to create the Absent Teacher Reserve. The UFT had supported mayoral control, which helped enable the massive school closures favored by Bloomberg, and rather than insist teachers in closing schools be placed in classrooms, it made them wandering subs, covering for absent teachers. They now wander from school to school, week to week. They are vilified and stereotyped in the media on a regular basis.
I’ve worked with and advocated for several ATR teachers. I can assure you, despite the nonsense propagated by self-styled expert Campbell Brown, that those teachers were guilty of nothing more than either being in the wrong school at the right time, or being targeted for no good reason . Under our new system, any ATR teacher accused by two principals of ineffective behavior will receive an expedited one-day 3020a hearing, after which this person may be fired on the spot. I fail to see why ATR teachers should have fewer due process rights than I do.
As for Ms. Campbell Brown, apparently there is hat tip in the agreement to her:
The rules also expand the definition of sexual misconduct, which will make it easier for the city to fire teachers for actions like inappropriate touching or texting, officials said.
I can’t really say whether or not this rule is reasonable, since neither I nor anyone who voted on this agreement has actually seen it. Generally, it would be shocking that a 300-member contract committee could approve an agreement it hadn’t seen. However since the overwhelming majority of that committee were members of the elite, invitation-only UFT Unity Caucus, and had signed an oath promising to support whatever leadership told them to, it would not be surprising to me if they had nominated a cheese sandwich for President of the United States.
We’re also looking at a program that strongly smells of merit pay, something that’s been tried and failed in the US for about a century. This is the UFT’s second flirtation with such a program, and like the last one, discarded as a failure, it is presented as not merit pay.
Another mysterious issue in the proposal is this:
Under the tentative deal, collaborative school communities will have new opportunities to innovate outside the confines of the UFT contract and DOE regulations. A new program known as Progressive Redesign Opportunity Schools for Excellence (PROSE) will give educators in participating schools greater voice in decision-making and a chance to experiment with new strategies.
This sounds very much like the original concept of charter schools, and we all know where that has led us. I’m wary of anything with “excellence” in the title, because it clearly implies those of us who do not participate somehow oppose excellence. Also, there is a clear implication in such programs that our Contract somehow hinders excellence, which I do not believe.
My experience and observation suggests schools do better with strong principals and strong chapter leaders being adversarial when necessary, but working together when it benefits the school. I’ve also observed schools with little or no union presence having programs imposed on them that are less than productive, and I can certainly envision that happening here.
I’m further puzzled by several things UFT President Michael Mulgrew wrote us when he announced the agreement.
The union won major changes, including a focus on eight instead of 22 Danielson components and a better system for rating teachers in non-tested subjects.
I have heard directly from union sources that they’d insisted on focusing on all of Danielson, and that making them focus on all aspects was a great victory. Apparently making them focus on fewer factors is also a victory. We shall see what happens with non-tested subjects.
A more substantive improvement might have been to let supervisors off the hook from so many observations. If a competent supervisor observes a teacher doing a good job, and receives no complaints about that teacher, the supervisor ought not to have to revisit that teacher 3 to 5 additional times that year. Supervisors ought to be focusing their attention on supporting teachers who actually need their help.
We succeeded in eliminating time-consuming teaching artifacts.
Again, union sources have told me directly that the inclusion of artifacts was a great union victory, empowering teachers. Apparently the exclusion is also a victory. When the union does one thing, it’s a great victory. When they do the opposite, it’s another great victory. I’m troubled by that.
Moving forward, fellow educators — rather than consultants or other third parties — will serve as the “validators” brought in the next year to review the work of a teacher rated ineffective.
In 3020a hearings, in which teachers can be fired, the burden of proof has traditionally been on the DOE to establish teacher incompetence. The validators would have had the option of placing the burden on teachers to establish they were not incompetent, a very high hurdle. Now, though this practice has never even been tested, with no evidence whatsoever, it is deemed to be improved. I would not wish to ever sit in judgment of my colleagues as to whether or not the city should have to establish their incompetence. I would question the motives of any colleague who would.
I fail to see why my brother and sister UFT members deserve any less financial consideration than those in other municipal unions. As for the other factors in this contract, the devil is in the details. Thus far we haven’t seen them, but history suggests a lack of foresight in insular UFT leadership, which has supported allowing teachers to become ATRs, charter schools, co-locations, the NYS APPR law, junk science teacher rating, Common Core, and mayoral control, none of which have helped public school teachers, parents or children.
Finally, I’m not particularly proud that we’re set to impose a pattern for all other city unions that will not allow them even to keep up with inflation for the next 7 years. If the best we can do is worsen conditions for our brother and sister unionists, we’re not doing our jobs very well at all.
A New Contract, A New Beginning
The other day the largest teacher union in the nation (New York City’s United Federation of Teachers) and the New York City Department of Education reached a ground breaking agreement on a new contract. Subject to approval by union members, this agreement should explode many of the myths that corporate education reformers like to spread about teacher unions. It shows that in an environment of trust and respect unions and districts can come together and agree on innovations that make sense for students. These innovations are not driven by the unimaginative test-based accountability metrics and privatization schemes that corporate reformers espouse and are now being imposed on the community and students in nearby Newark. Rather, they are founded on principles of mutual learning, collaboration, and support.
First let’s take a look at the history.
New York City’s teachers have been working without a contract for five years. There was no agreement because Mayor Bloomberg insisted that in any new contract “schools identified as being at risk of phase out or closure” be forced to follow “a modified, scaled down version of [the] collective bargaining agreement.” This ignored the fact that it was Bloomberg’s own policies, such as deliberately overloading specific schools with the most challenging students, which created these so-called failing schools. Bloomberg wanted to modify the pay scale so that teachers with high value-added scores would receive additional pay. This, despite all the research showing that such metrics are not valid. At the same time Bloomberg insisted that teachers not get raises that, at a minimum, kept up with the rate of inflation. Bloomberg demanded that any teachers who lost their positions due to declining school budgets or closure be fired after 4 months if they did not find another permanent position (they were, of course, used to fill temporary teaching positions and were working with students every single day). Again he ignored the fact that more experienced educators were over-represented in this pool, due to his policy of charging schools for the actual salaries of teachers rather than the district average. This meant that schools were incentivized not to hire experienced educators. Research in other districts has already shown that this approach does not help students and must therefore be chalked-up to pure ideology rather than an interest in improving public education.
What changed? Carmen Farina, the new Chancellor, is a true educator, having taught for 22 years before becoming a principal, then a superintendent, and then deputy chancellor for teaching and learning. Bill DeBlasio, the new mayor, praises public servants for their dedication to public service. Together with the UFT leadership they were able to come to agreement on a genuinely innovative set of ideas.
First they addressed the bread and butter issues. Teachers will receive raises that slightly exceed the rate of inflation over the past 5 years and will receive additional raises, including back pay, going forward. These raises and payments will be spread out across a number of years, which will ease the impact on the city budget and allow city social programs to access funding after being squeezed for many years. Teachers will continue to receive free health insurance which, in an environment of continuously increasing healthcare costs, represents an additional and significant raise. At the same time the city and the union agreed on over a billion dollars in savings through more efficient provision and management of the health insurance programs.
Then they agreed to build cultures of collaboration and learning in schools. Schools will be permitted to modify the contract to meet the individualized needs of their school with the agreement of 65% of the faculty. Teachers who take on leadership roles by sharing their expertise with colleagues, coaching colleagues, spreading best practices in their schools, and opening up their classrooms as learning labs will be eligible for career ladder bonuses. None of this will happen in a top-down manner.
They agreed to move away from an overemphasis on test-prep by ending the 150 weekly minutes of small group test-prep sessions. They repurposed that time to create structures for professional development and parent engagement that will support genuine teaching and learning. This includes adding parent-teacher conference days, adding weekly professional development and collaboration time for faculty, and adding time for weekly parent outreach.
They also agreed that teachers would not be evaluated based on the test scores of students they don’t teach. That this was even a possibility is one of the absurd outcomes of the corporate reformer obsession with putting a number to everything, even when that number clearly makes no sense.
They agreed that teachers will hold each other accountable to the highest standards of the profession. This includes teachers serving as peer-observers and validators for colleagues who received poor ratings the year prior.
They agreed to ease out the small number of teachers who are not suited to the profession. This includes an expedited firing process for teachers who are unable to find permanent positions (despite being given the opportunity to teach at schools with openings and their salaries being paid independently of the school’s budget) and who have been released from two schools for documented unprofessional behaviors.
Importantly the New York City Department of Education committed to providing curricula to all teachers. Under the former management, when the headquarters building was populated by data analysts with no expertise in education, such a promise would have been impossible to fulfill. This foreshadows a return of educators to the central offices who can support teachers and schools, appointed to positions of influence.
This agreement will help turn the page on the corporate-reformer playbook. For all their money, and powerful lobbying groups, and media influence, it will be hard to argue now that top-down mandates, teacher bashing, and test-driven accountability is the way to innovate in education. Districts such as Cincinnati, Ohio, Union City, New Jersey, and Meriden, Connecticut have already shown that collaboration and educator-driven change create the innovations that lead to better student learning. With this agreement, New York City has joined this group of dynamic innovators.
Jersey Jazzman heard NPR describe the reason that Washington State refused to bow to Arne Duncan’s demand that the sate use test scores to evaluate teacher quality.
It wasn’t because the methodology has no evidence behind it.
It wasn’t because the method has been questioned by theNational Academy of Education, the American Educational Research Association, the American Statistical Association, and leading scholars.
No, Washington State said no to our omnipotent, omniscient Secretary of Education because of those terrible unions who are afraid of being evaluated.
Or could this explain NPR’s rationale:
“So, as I was sitting at the kitchen table this evening, my ears perked up at the 5:30 break for WNYC, the NPR outlet here in the greater New York area. The announcer let us know that All Things Considered was proudly sponsored by the Walton Family Foundation, which was supporting (I’m paraphrasing here) educational “choice” for families.”
– See more at: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2014/04/corporate-education-reform-buys-public.html#sthash.DkIcHS3q.dpuf
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