Archives for category: Unions
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Schneider: Why Is NEA Joining Forces with Teach Plus?

By dianeravitch
February 24, 2014 //
44

NEA, the larger of the nation’s two teacher unions, never ceases to surprise.

In December 2011, Dennis Van Roekel co-authored an article in USA Today with Wendy Kopp of Teach for America, expressing their agreement on how to improve the preparation of teachers. Needless to say, the article provoked outrage among some NEA members, especially those who rightly see TFA as a placement agency for inexperienced, ill-trained youngsters who provide staff for a growing number on non-union schools.

Now NEA has announced a new partnership with the Gates-funded Teach Plus, which advocates for the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers. Its model is Colorado’s SB 191, one of the nation’s harshest laws, where student test scores count for 50% of a teacher’s evaluation. Bear in mind that evaluating teachers by the scores of their students has been shown by researchers to be inaccurate and to punish teachers whose classes include the neediest students. See here and here, for example.

Mercedes Schneider here explains why Teach Plus is a strange bedfellow for NEA.

She assumes that the teachers’ union wanted “a seat at the table” by aligning with an organization that is deeply embedded in the corporate reform movement. She warns that the union and experienced teachers will be “at the table,” but they will not have a seat. They will be on the serving platter.

Categories Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Standardized Testing, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, Unions

“A Sea of Red”: A Néw Model of Unionism

By dianeravitch
February 21, 2014 //
8

In September 2012, the Chicago Teachets Union went out on strike to protest the conditions of teaching And learning in the schools. Surprisingly, the strike was supported by parents, who understood that the teachers were fighting for their children. More than 90% of CTU’s members supported the strike, outwitting the pernicious efforts by Jonah Edelman and Stand for Children to make a strike impossible by persuading the legislature to raise the threshold to 75% of members.

In this report, CTU explains its paradigm of unionism as “social organizing,” and contrasts it to an older, less valuable approach which it calls “service-model unionism:”

Here is an excerpt:

“The social-organizing model of unionism adopted by the CTU in the run up to the strike of 2012 played a crucial role in the success of the labor action.

“Broadly speaking there are two different types or poles of unionism operating in the US labor movement at this time – service unions and social-organizing unions. Service unionism, the most common model of unionism in the contemporary US labor movement, is characterized by the union providing a bundle of services to its membership (such as contract language, grievance proceedings, pay raises, and benefits) in a manner akin to how a business provides services to its customers. The leadership and staff of service model unions are the active agent and the rank and file membership are most often passive spectators in the activities of the union. Service model unions take a reactive stance towards management as union officers solve problems for members in response to complaints, concerns or issues that arise. The rhythm of union activity orbits around grievances, arbitrations, and contract deadlines. The key players in the union are the leadership, paid staff, lawyers and lobbyists. Decision- making is top-down and issues of importance are circumscribed by contract lan- guage. The de facto slogan of service model unionism is “If it’s not in the contract, it’s not our concern.”

“In contrast to service model unionism, social-organizing unionism sees unions as a social movement where the bonds of solidarity within the rank and file provide the foundation from which concerted collective action emanates. In the social-organizing model of unionism the leadership, staff and bureaucracy still exist, but their role is to organize, energize and activate the rank and file for collective action. Social- organizing model unions seek to set their own agenda in dealing with management. Social-organizing unions see organizing as a method to run contract campaigns and contract campaigns as a method to organize the rank and file; they are two sides of the same coin. Grievances, arbitrations and contracts are still key moments in the rhythm of the union, but the unity of the membership, and solidarity actions (often pre-grievance) take their place alongside the more officious features of unionism. In social-organizing unions, membership is active and decision-making is inclusive and consciously strives to expand democratic voice. Crucially, social-organizing unions see the contract, the membership and the union as embedded in a context that in- cludes the wider economy, the political system and culture. Therefore they actively engage the political process in order to fight for the conditions of their membership.”

Categories Chicago, Unions

Deborah Meier: Follow the Money!

By dianeravitch
February 9, 2014 //
55

Deborah Meier, one of the great education thinkers of our time, says we were duped.

The corporate reformers stole the good words like “reform” and “choice,” to cover their intentions. They borrowed language from the civil rights movement but not its noble goals.

What do they want?

Bust the unions.

Make money.

Their favorite vehicle: charter schools.

She writes:

“However, the idea of Charter Schools opened the eyes and ears of folks with quite different intentions. They saw that there was money to be made right and left and center. Buildings were “sold off” for nothing or nearly nothing. Public funds were used to start schools whose principals and leaders were paid a half million and more for being the principal” or “superintendent.” Publishing companies and private tech companies saw $$$$$ everywhere. By the time we wake up to what is happening we will no longer have a public education system in reality. Some charters will be legit—truly serving public purposes with public money and boards made up of educators, community members, etc. But most will be in the hands of folks with no other connection to the schools they “serve” than they have to anything else stockholders have—how much money can be made off of this! Meanwhile… that their revolutionary ideas will have demonstrated no significant improvement in the situation facing America’s poor children in terms of test scores is just fine without them.

“They did this with language resonating with the valiant words of “borrowed” from the civil rights movement. Except they seemed to have left out terms like “equal funding” or “integration.” They did it despite the cost to teachers of color, to public unions which Martin Luther King Jr. died defending. And on and on. They did this by adopting noble words (mea culpa) like choice and autonomy and self-governance and small scale and on and on. They did this by playing with data to confuse our judgment.

“Shame on us for being duped.”

Categories Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Unions

News from Washington, D.C.

By dianeravitch
February 4, 2014 //
38

I had a very exciting day in our nation’s Capitol today.

Randi Weingarten and the American Federation of Teachers invited me to spend a day in D.C. And offered to set up meetings with members of the education committee in both houses. At the end of he day, the AFT hosted a reception.

I took the train to D.C. to avoid the uncertain weather of recent days, and spent 2 hours on the train writing blogs.

The train arrived a bit before 10, and I went directly to meet with Congresswoman Gwen Moore of Milwaukee. She is well-informed and warm; she remembered me from my last visit in 2010. I was fortunate to have an escort from the AFT to make sure I got to my meetings.

All my conversations were off the record, so all I can share is that I was very candid, and so were the members of Congress.

I next saw Congresswoman Marcia Fudge of Cleveland, who is very sharp. That too was a very pleasant meeting.

Then on to see Congresswoman Rosa de Lauro, who has a key position on the appropriations committee. She is a wonderful, kind, and delightful woman.

After a fast sandwich, we went to the Senate, where I had the pleasure of meeting Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin–imagine, a Democratic senator from Wisconsin! And then we met Senator Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, who is very impressive.

Here is the news: George Miller of California, Democrat of California, announced his resignation a couple of weeks ago. Miller was a huge fan of testing and charters, as well as an architect of NCLB. Next in line was Rob Andrews, but today he unexpectedly announced he too was retiring. So very likely the next top Democrat on the House education committee will be Representative Bobby Scott of Virginia, a liberal Democrat.

Things should get interesting in D.C. We have friends in high places.

Categories U.S. Department of Education, U.S. education, Unions

Silicon Valley Zillionaire Funds Attack on Due Process for Teachers

By dianeravitch
February 1, 2014 //
73

It is amazing how many of the 1% are willing to spend millions to remove due process from teachers, most of whom work harder and earn less than said zillionaire’s secretary or chauffeur.

According to this article by Jennifer Medina in the “New York Times,” David F. Welch is a telecommunications executive who has spent millions to create a group called Students Matter to launch a lawsuit in California intended to strip teachers of due process rights.

John Deasy, the Los Angeles superintendent, testified that the union contract prevents him from firing as many teachers as he would like. Presumably, he would fire thousands of teachers if he could.

Will anyone introduce testimony to demonstrate the allegedly superior education available in states where teachers can be fired at will, as Deasy would prefer?

In many communities, the word “evolution” will not be mentioned in science classes. Books that challenge the mores of anyone in the community will not be taught. If due process ends, so will academic freedom.

Shame on the craven Mr. Welch and his all-star team of lawyers, gunning for teachers.

Categories California, Teacher Tenure, Unions

Randi Applauds New York Teachers for Withdrawing Support for Common Core and King

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2014 //
47

In an article in “Politico Pro,” which is behind a paywall, AFT President Randi Weingarten applauded the decision of the New York State United Teachers, which passed a resolution of “no confidence” in New York State Commissioner John King.

She said that NYSUT was right to withdraw support from Common Core unless there are “major course corrections.”

The implementation of the standards was badly botched, she said, and neither King nor Board of Regents Chair Merryl Tisch was listening to the public or teachers.

Randi was especially outraged that King is pushing ahead with the Common Core standards at the same time that budget cuts have caused the layoff of thousands of people who provide important services for students.

Weingarten was insistent that the standards had to be delinked from the new tests.

Categories Common Core, New York, Testing, Unions

Schneider Offers Advice to NYC’s Teachers’ Union: Operation Boomerang!

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2014 //
6

Mercedes Schneider has closely analyzed the union-busting techniques of the so-called Center for Union Facts and its leader Richard Berman. Here she digs out the details of Berman’s long-planned strategy to damage unions with negative advertising. Now Berman is plastering New York City with billboards and radio ads to lower the public’s opinion of the United Federation of Teachers. A poll a year ago showed that New Yorkers trusted the union and the teachers more than they trusted Mayor Bloomberg to protect the interests of children.

She suggests a counter-attack, which she calls Operation Berman Boomerang.

Categories Charter Schools, New York City, Unions

EduShyster Imagines Dr. MLK & Today’s “Reform” Movement

By dianeravitch
January 20, 2014 //
8

EduShyster has a dream, but it is not the one that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke about in 1963 at the March on Washington.

She has a dream of Dr. King returning today to see the new “reform” movement which so often claims that it is the “civil rights movement” of our time.

He tours the “no excuses” school and sees that it is segregated. He discovers that the new “civil rights movement” is funded by many billionaires.

He might be shocked to discover that poverty is now considered “an excuse,” not something to be opposed and banished.

He might be even more amazed to discover that in today’s world, the labor unions are an obstacle to closing the achievement gap, and not–as he thought–a valued ally in his efforts to advance social justice.

As he completes his tour of “excellent” charter schools, more surprises in store for him:

Separate but innovative
Tough news on this issue, reformers. Even Dr. King 2.0, now with more excellence, might have a problem with our apparent abandonment of the ideal of universal public education. In Detroit, for example, where he delivered his speech at the Great March in 1963, there are now dual school systems: one of charter schools and the other a public system that must accept all children and is rapidly becoming the last resort for the toughest-to-serve kids. And in Washington DC, where King dreamed of an equal future for children of all races, two separate systems, one for strivers, one for discards, compete for public resources. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that even Dr. King 2.0 would not be a fan of “separate but innovative.”

 

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Unions

Who Funded Campbell Brown’s Campaign Against Pervy Teachers?

By dianeravitch
January 17, 2014 //
16

During the mayoral campaign in New York City, former CNN anchor Campbell Brown led a campaign against what she portrayed as a serious number of sexual perverts and deviants among the city’s teaching force. Mother Jones decided to investigate what was happening, who was behind the campaign, and here are its findings.

“Shortly after it was launched in June, PTP [Parent Transparency Project] trained its sights on the New York mayoral race, asking the candidates to pledge to change the firing process for school employees accused of sexual misconduct. When several Democratic candidates declined, perhaps fearing they’d upset organized labor, PTP spent $100,000 on a television attack ad questioning whether six candidates, including Republican Joe Lhota and Democrats Bill de Blasio and Anthony Weiner, had “the guts to stand up to the teachers’ unions.” The spot stated that there had been 128 cases of sexual misconduct by school employees in the past five years, suggesting that nothing had been done in response. “It’s a scandal,” the ad’s narrator intoned. “And the candidates are silent.”

“Before founding PTP, Brown raised this issue in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in July 2012. But what she failed to disclose was that her husband, Dan Senor, sits on the board of the New York affiliate of StudentsFirst, an education lobbying group founded by Michelle Rhee, the controversial former Washington, DC, chancellor. Rhee made a name for herself as public enemy No. 1 of the teachers’ unions and has become the torchbearer of the charter school movement. In 2012, her “bipartisan grassroots organization” backed 105 candidates in state races, 88 percent of them Republicans. (Senor was also the spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority following the invasion of Iraq and served as a foreign policy adviser to Mitt Romney in 2012.)…

“But there is much more about PTP that is less than transparent, including its sources of funding and its overall agenda. As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, PTP may keep its donors’ identities secret and spend money in electoral campaigns, so long as political activity doesn’t consume the majority of its time and money.

“Despite its nonpartisan billing, Brown’s nonprofit used Revolution Agency, a Republican consulting firm, to produce the mayoral attack ad. Its partners include Mike Murphy, a well-known pundit and former Romney strategist; Mark Dion, former chief of staff to Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.); and Evan Kozlow, former deputy director of the National Republican Congressional Committee. The domain name for PTP’s website was registered by two Revolution employees: Jeff Bechdel, Mitt Romney’s former Florida spokesman, and Matt Leonardo, who describes himself as “happily in self-imposed exile from advising Republican candidates.”

“Another consulting firm working with Brown’s group is Tusk Strategies, which helped launch Rhee’s StudentsFirst. Advertising disclosure forms filed by PTP list Tusk’s phone number, and a copy of PTP’s sexual-misconduct pledge—since scrubbed from its website—identified its author as a Tusk employee. (Tusk and Revolution declined to comment. Brown referred all questions to her PR firm—the same one used by StudentsFirst.)….

“Brown’s group paints the unions as the main obstacles to a crackdown on predators. Yet Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, says that the union’s New York City chapter already has a zero-tolerance policy in its contract, and that AFT only protects its members against “false allegations.” New York state law also mandates that any teacher convicted of a sex crime be automatically fired. It is the law, not union contracts, that requires that an independent arbitrator hear and mete out punishment in cases of sexual misconduct that fall outside criminal law. The quickest route to changing that policy may be lobbying lawmakers in Albany, not hammering teachers and their unions.”

Categories New York City, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst, Unions

Paul Thomas: Time for AFT to Take Another Look at Common Core

By dianeravitch
January 16, 2014 //
9

Paul Thomas believes that the Common Core standards do not answer any of the most pressing problems in American education, most of which are economic and social, not pedagogical.

In this post, he commends Randi Weingarten for turning against VAM but worries that states will push ahead with it anyway. He expresses the hope that AFT will take the next logical step and recognize that the Common Core standards are not a great new idea but rather a continuation of the standards-based, test-based reform that characterizes NCLB and Race to the Top. These strategies always leave those with the least far behind. They never close the achievement gap. They reflect it.

He writes:

It is now time for leaders in education—including political leaders, union leaders, professional organization leaders—to acknowledge the historical record on standards-based accountability, the research base on standards-based accountability, and the real-world consequences related to standards-based accountability; and then, CC should be rejected, the real problems facing schools should be identified, and a new reform paradigm embraced.

AFT and Weingarten could offer a brave and powerful voice in that fight, and it would be welcomed.

 

Categories Common Core, Testing, Unions
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