Which side are YOU on?

The New York Teacher calls itself “the official publication of the UFT,” which I daresay it’s supposed to be.

Trouble is, I’m not really recognizing a labor union here in this rag. I’m thinking instead the UFT has morphed into some kind of arm of the DoE.

But, you be the judge. Here are the titles of the news articles in the the Sept 12th issue, and then maybe there’ll be time for a little song.

The ones in RED are Tweed friendly, Tweed collaborative, Tweed duped, or Much Ado About Nothing. The BROWN are informational or anemic.

What the content clearly does NOT show are the issues that most concern the membership: outrageous class size, DoE thuggery, rubber rooms, autonomy in the classroom, inexperienced non-educator administrators, the ramifications of three restructurings in 5 years, fake accountability, teaching to the test, one-size-fits all methodologies and staff development, abuses in the parking and merit pay deals, overambitious excessing, and the gross corruption in the whole system of grievances and arbitrations.


Let the list begin:


“UFT, city reach parking agreement”

“Union gets hazardous condition repaired at Queens school”

(If it was that bad, it took many years to get that way. Where was the union during all that?)

"Arbitrator upholds 3-mo. time limit for placing letters in file”

(Not much of a victory, since the arbitrator said that “Given that there never was any right to place the LIF in the first place, due to its untimeliness, it obviously cannot be kept in the file.” Ho-hum.)

“Good first impression: Hardly a glitch in ‘one of the smoothest’ school openings”

“Union’s Green Dot ‘adventure’ begins”

(In case you didn’t know, that’s a unionized charter school. Charter schools mean the demise of public education.)

“41,500 take advantage of 55/25 plan”

(Remember the trade-off was merit pay, and remember how they linked 55/25 to merit pay behind our backs.)

“Hard work by all pays off in improved graduation rate”

(If you buy into any of BloomKlein’s faked statistics and general dis-transparent accountability.)

“Public schools spared mid-year state cuts; property tax cap averted”

“Weingarten boosts Obama at DNC”

(After backing Hillary for a year and making power moves towards Washington on our paychecks.)

“Members urged: Join COPE now!”

“Finding meaning as a new teacher”

(Welcome to Disneyworld, where everyone's happy and finding meaning!!! Never mind the brutal attacks — nowhere mentioned— on senior teachers, especially those who no longer have position.)

“New teachers ‘thrilled,’ ‘excited’ — and ‘terrified’”

(As if one article for new teachers wasn't enough.)

“UFT, DOE laud school crime drop”

(Again if you believe BloomKlein statistics, which I guess they do, since it's the second article in this issue that implies as much.)

“UFT, allies fighting to protect, improve public pensions”

“Union makes recommendations on mayoral control”

“New early literacy curriculum to be tried at high-needs schools”

(That's the 3-yr pilot program the union is supporting.)

“UFT: K-2 testing pilot a ‘bad idea’”

“Union: Added [11.471] seats welcome, but mayor’s real test lies ahead”

“‘A good year to teach!’”

(A fluff article about the HS for Civil Rights in East NY: Keep fiddling while Rome burns, I always say.)

“A perfect learning lab”

(Another fluff article about PS 266 in Queens, with staff in full throttle and smiling. And what about all the schools with MISERABLE conditions, like the ones squshed into the top floor of an existing school, or those with classrooms in trailers, or all those campus schools fighting each other for space and governance.)

“UFT shows new teachers a good — and informative — time”

(Again with the new teachers? What’s with this paper?)

“Are you ready to vote on Nov. 4”

(A reminder to vote, as if our membership, one of the most educated sectors of society, need a reminder to vote. It's condescending but relatively harmless. )

“P credits: Another way to earn differentials”

---

And now for the song, which I invite you to join in on at the top of your lungs:

Come all of you good workers
Good news to you I'll tell
Of how that good old union
Has come in here to dwell

(Chorus)
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?

Don't scab for the bosses
Don't listen to their lies
Us poor folks haven't got a chance
Unless we organize!

(Chorus)
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?

Steinem says: "Wrong woman, wrong message"

Soon into watching the Charlie Gibson interview the other night, I was already revving up to write a piece on Sarah Palin’s proclivity for wide-eyed, zealous missions that will cause more people to die.

Gibson was asking her about her obvious inexperience and hubris. She responded with what she values: Not blinking and Not thinking.

This world is getting too fast for people my age.

While I was making some mental notes of what I was planning to write on this idiocy, some techie was already posting the very same segment from the interview on YouTube.

Everyone can now see the terrifying reality of this potential future president who would be in a position to not blink and not hesitate our country into more wars, wired as she is to commit missions rather than diplomacy and believing that victory in Iraq is actually definable and possible.

Panicky then and panicky still that our good ol’ bean Barack Obama, modulated college prof that he is, has not been doing nearly enough to win any moderates over to his side, I’ve been thinking with a fair degree of consistency that we are all doomed.

Until someone sent me this Gloria Steinem essay this morning, which appeared in the LA Times.


I can’t say it erases my dark premonitions for the November elections, but perhaps there’s time for enough people to come to their senses and nullify the stupidity.

ADDITIONAL COMMENT 9.14.08:
Ednotes posted a link to the incredible anti-Palin rally that's just taken place.

Lots of pics, video, and a whole bunch of signs like this one:

Davids and Goliaths

It's starting to take on biblical proportions, this Bloom/Klein thuggery.


This is the second year Veteran Teacher X has been passed over for a teacher fellow.

X is super-qualified for the job: with more than 10 years experience, she’s bilingual and has two permanent licenses for what she’s trained to teach. It seems the newbie might not even hold the right license for the job that should have been X’s. When the announcement was made at a faculty conference that X was going to get a full program this year instead of the day-to-day subbing she was doing last year, everyone broke out into spontaneous applause; some came over to hug her. X had to tell them that she’ll only be filling in for someone on sabbatical this year. She’s still in excess and still an ATR.

Obviously, X is a beloved member of the staff, and obviously, admin's counting the change in his pocket. It wasn't so long ago when an administrator’s job involved continuity, stability, and a nurturing environment for staff and kids. Bet you don't find those concepts in Leadership Academy crash courses.


This just in from Veteran Teacher Z, also an ATR:

"I thought you might want to be made aware, if you aren't already, that the union is no longer grieving against new schools/principals who don't hire the 50% of teachers in the closing schools as is required by the contract."

Much lauded as an English teacher of long standing with not a single letter in her file except for praise, Z took student teachers in under her wings, mentored for years, and prepared (and ran) professional development. The UFT even offered her a job in its Peer Intervention program. Apart from all those credentials, she’s enjoyed a whole other career involving the very theme of a new school they’re creating in her building — and in which she was, astoundingly, not installed.

"And now I find that no one wants me."

Those are the saddest words I’ve heard since I’ve joined the fight for teachers who’ve been thrown into ATR limbo.

"And now I find that no one wants me."

Hers is like so many other ones in the saga of Goliath’s chancellorship. Z’s school is going to close next year, if not sooner. In the past two years, only two of the excessed teachers were able to get jobs in the small schools upstairs, and those were only because of connections.

Not having been called in for a single interview at any of those new ones, Z complained to the union. It arranged for an interview, but too late, of course. Two teaching fellows with no classroom experience or even much familiarity with the school’s theme got the jobs. Z grieved it, and the thing eventually went to arbitration. She says it was a test case, and the UFT lost it. It will now no longer be taking grievances for teachers being excessed out of old schools who apply to new schools in their buildings.

"Most of us are now ATRs, sitting in a room waiting to be sent as a sub to some school or other while the teachers upstairs, all fellows with no experience, are being made to work long hours (with no per session). And I have heard that the halls are insane. There are now eight other schools [here, and save for two people] NONE of them have hired any of us!

"Perhaps you can make others aware of this, how our union is further destroying our contractual rights."

If anyone knows differently about the way things are done in Arbitration World, please tell us. We want to know how far this debacle is reaching, and just how much the union is NOT willing to act on our behalf.

"Something is very, very, very wrong here, and someone needs to tell the story.”

That says it all, and the Davids out here are really trying.

Please send your stories. I’ll post them, and I’ll send them to all Jennifer Medinas and Elizabeth Greens I can find.

"Let's be honest."

So I was looking on the DOE website for something about the parking permits, hitting the main site first, then the link to Employees, and then the Teacher Page.

All of a sudden, the sound came on and a video screen started cranking up. I knew all at once they had fiddled with the site since last I had been on it (which I admit may have been never), and then I heard that voice:

“Welcome. Welcome to the 2008-2009 school year here in New York City. It’s my privilege to welcome all of our teachers back, etc. ”

It was Mr. Klein speaking, and sorry, I have to interject something here about that word “Mr.”


I think frivolous, unearned titles are not healthy from a society’s point of view. It’s an ethical issue, much as the whole field of Advertising has ethical issues. Perhaps “Honorary Chancellor” would be a better way to refer to Klein, like we do for Honorary Doctorates. But then the word "honorable" isn't the first word that comes to mind when I think of this particular chancellorship. So, for me it’s “Mr. Klein" — until, of course, the man goes back to grad school to get all those ed courses he’s missing, and a year of student teaching wouldn’t be bad either.


Back to what I was saying before I interrupted myself, every time you return to that Teacher Page, you’re gonna get this Klein greeting until you press the PAUSE button. You'd think with all the tech stuff going on over at Tweed, they could have programmed it to start up only once.

And here’s what you’ll be hearing:

“Our graduation rates are higher than they’ve ever been, significantly higher than they were only four or five years ago.”

“Our scores are up” [there's so much out there already on the successes that are just not, but you can try this for starters]

“And our kids are more excited”

“And the parents are more excited about the quality education in this city ..."

“Let’s be honest" [ad copy]

"That wouldn’t happen if it weren’t for our teachers.”

“I know that there are many challenges”

“Working together”

“Supporting each other”

“Participating on our inquiry teams”

“Inquiry teams”? Never heard of that before. Nor do I believe anyone at Tweed will listen to rank and file teachers except for show, like advertising a vacancy when you know you've already selected the candidate.

“We can really change the world for every single one of our kids.”

That’s actually as true as it is unfortunate. Klein's replaced the very essence of what makes education any good with one-size-fits-all methodologies, teaching to the test, suspending programs, stuffing classrooms with teacher trainees, and using thug tactics to break rather than nurture the unionized staff toughing it out on the darn front line.

“I believe that what’s happening in New York City is really important in terms of what’s happening in education in this country."

Yes, you and your buddies spearhead the destructive forces in education across the country. You train leaders who buy into your hedonistic abandonment of contract and social code, and install them here and in other cities (like here or here; Norm Scott pointed out this Diane Ravitch article, which includes these bits, especially the 3rd paragraph:

"The leading advocates of choice, privatization, merit pay, and accountability appeared in a panel discussion during the Democratic convention, led by Chancellor Joel Klein of New York City and Chancellor Michelle Rhee of Washington, D.C. Along with such colleagues as the Rev. Al Sharpton and Mayor Adrian Fenty of the District of Columbia, they present themselves as the true voices of 'reform.' Listen to them and what one hears is the same views that the Republicans have been expressing since at least 1996, when Republican candidate Bob Dole launched an attack on the teachers’ unions. Now it is Rhee and Fenty trying to persuade D.C. teachers to abandon the tenure rights that their union won for them.

"The 'reforms' of the Klein-Sharpton-Rhee group are not at all new. They attack the teachers’ union, bash teachers, demand merit pay, promote charter schools and private management, and laud testing, lots more testing. They love NCLB, and they want it toughened. At bottom, they would like to see the public school system of the United States run like a business, with employees hired and fired at will. They are ready to privatize and outsource whatever they can, trusting private managers to succeed where the public sector (with themselves as leaders) has failed ...

"So this is the strange new era we are embarked upon, in which the mantle of 'reformer' has passed to those who would dismantle public education, piece by piece."

Klein wraps ups with:

"I look forward to being in touch with you”

“To correspond with you so we can keep our dialogue flowing”

"There are 80,000 of you"

Actually, according to the UFT website: 74,000 teachers, 17,000 classroom paraprofessionals, and a whole bunch of other non-teacher positions. That's a big difference in body count — Klein's 80,000, to Weingarten's 74, but what's 6,000 teacher salaries between friends. Does anyone know a good tune to set "Accountability" to music?

“What I hope is, you feel free at any time to send me an email”

“Let me know your thoughts, your concerns”

“Let me know how you think we can do things better”

“Let me know the ideas that you have about how we improve education in our city"

I could say Yeah, right!, but I have a better idea. Take the guy at his word and absolutely flood him with your thoughts and concerns. Flood him with your ideas. And make sure to send copies of all your emails and letters to the newspapers and to the mayor, the borough presidents, public advocate, and any other government rep you can think of.

Klein wants accountability? Hold him to his open and reiterated invitation for keeping the “dialogue flowing.” My bet is there won’t be any response. My bet he’s BANKING on there being no response.

“Let’s be honest.”

“Let’s be honest.”

“Let’s be honest.”

Okay, so he said that bit just once, but somehow it keeps ringing in my ear. I only wish the plural nominative "Let's" would include the man himself.

What a difference a list makes

The September issue of Jim Hightower’s newsletter Lowdown gives a list of names his readers came up this summer with to fill positions in an Obama administration.

It’s interesting enough to share, though I have real issues with Bill Richardson and his election manipulations (reported by Greg Palast, but did anyone else pick it up?):

New Mexico's Secretary of State, Rebecca Vigil-Giron, seemed curiously uncurious about Hispanic and Native precincts where nearly one in ten voters couldn't be bothered to choose a president.

Vigil-Giron, along with Governor Bill Richardson, not only stopped any attempt at a recount directly following the election, but demanded that all the machines be wiped clean. This not only concealed evidence of potential fraud but destroyed it. In 2006, New Mexico's Supreme Court ruled the Secretary of State's machine-cleaning job illegal — too late to change the outcome of the election, of course.

The list also made me think of the SATANIC names that would fill positions in a McCain/Palin win.

From Congress, pulpits and the Religious Right, Conservative think-tanks, the corrupt center of the 4th Estate, Law and Order, the dirty tricks club, the 911 devastation (as he keeps reminding us), from puerile, perilous punditry and the very heart of the Democratic Party itself come —




But, I digress. Here’s the list Hightower got from his readers:

Scratching backs, but not ours

I thought it would be appropriate to give the text of Weingarten’s speech to the Democratic National Convention this past Monday night.

Anyone who reads this blog will know that it won't go without comment.

I've also appended an important tally at the end, which has absolutely nothing to do with the Convention and everything to do with the state of our union.

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"I am honored to be here representing the American Federation of Teachers' more than 1.4 million members. We work in your schools and colleges, in your hospitals and in your government agencies. And we believe that access to an excellent education is a basic civil right.

"For the children who are denied the education they need to fulfill their God-given [there’s that useful God word again cropping up where you least expect it, grrrrrr....] potential, it is a personal [and how may we ask it your personal tragedy?] and an inexcusable injustice. It's also an affront to American values and a threat to America's role as an incubator [funny, I just used that word, too, in a totally different context, of course] of innovation. This must change.

"And that requires leadership, not demagoguery [I posted something last December on how Democratic or Demogogic this woman is]. That is why we need to elect Barack Obama and Joe Biden to the White House. And why they need all of us working with them. The American Federation of Teachers is ready.

"Our number one priority is, as it has always been, strengthening our public schools to better serve our students [I won’t niggle about the split infinitive, but I will about the veracity. As far as I can see, she focuses on her own career gambits and doesn’t sweat the kids or the teachers either.] Let's do what we do in our best schools in all of our schools. Barack Obama knows that teachers must be partners, not pawns, in federal education policy. [You can read his platform here, but keep in mind how beholden he’s become to corporate money, and a fair number of those people are falling all over themselves putting education into private hands.] And federal education policy must be about a lot more than testing.

"I ask you to join us in this quest because you believe that strong public schools are cornerstones of our democracy, because our aging population depends on future generations growing the economy, because today's students will be the caretakers of tomorrow's environment, the sparks igniting our innovations, the tenders of our global relationships, the guardians of our prosperity and the creators of our arts. And simply because every child has a right to a fair and hopeful start in life.

"When those children walk through the doors of our classrooms, they bring us their dreams, their potential and their trust. And sometimes they bring empty stomachs, untreated ailments, and life experiences that can chill you to your core.

"America's teachers take them all in their fullness, and we do all we can to help them reach great heights. Good things are happening in our public schools: teachers and para-professionals who work tirelessly to inspire their students [until, of course, they get older or if they teach one of those expendable subjects (like art or typing), when the not-so-secret campaign to save money and get them out of the system has brought harassment and marginalization to an all-time high]; students who struggle, yet strive and succeed; communities that value education and ensure students have what they need.

"I can't tell you how proud I am when I visit those schools [I must have missed something: I know of individuals here and there who make a difference and kids who succeed, but I don’t know of any Utopian schools of the kind you describe in any of the five boroughs. Stop obfuscating.] Barack Obama and Joe Biden will champion and challenge the people entrusted with our children's well-being, and we welcome it! We are ready to work together to usher in a new era of excellence in America's public schools [I’ll settle for non-educators to stop meddling and give teachers back the autonomy they need to get things done.] We can do this. We must do this. And it starts with electing Barack Obama as the next President of the United States."

SOURCE 2008 Democratic National Convention Committee





APPENDIX

WEINGARTEN has ALREADY SOLD OUT ON:

The length of the school day and year

Seniority transfers

Excessing rights

Cafeteria duty, hall and potty patrol

An adequate grievance procedure

Principal’s presence at Step II and III

Arbitrations compromised by selectivity and delay

Rubber room abuses (unnecessary teacher removals, appalling conditions, extreme delays, misuse of financial penalties, etc.)

Merit pay

Teachers’ Choice reductions

Car permits

WEINGARTEN HAS TOLERATED AND CONTINUES TO TOLERATE:

The appointment of an uncertified, non-educator chancellor with no teaching experience

One-way accountability (us, not us and them)

Oversized classes at all levels

Salary increases that don’t keep up with inflation

Gross violations on teacher autonomy

New funding formula that encourages 2-for-1 hiring

Patronage hiring

Enforced methodologies that do not work in all classrooms or for all children

Micromanagement

Inordinate amounts of paperwork and testing

One-size-fits-all professional development

School closings and reshuffling, involving mass shake-ups and the dislocation of staff and students

Charter schools

A failed chancellorship, in scientific terms

One of the intellectual feats Tom Stoppard achieves in the best of his plays is how he juxtaposes virtual tectonic plates of human thought one upon the other.

He does this, for example, in Arcadia, which is at bare bones a love story about a couple of exceedingly clever young people, one a tutor of just about everything to the other. How Stoppard manages to flesh out these two delightful creatures against a background of Newtonian physics, thermodynamics, geometretrical equations, Chaos mathematics, Information Theory, archival research and scientific drone work, and cultural predilections of the past two centuries is as miraculous as it is inspiring.

And challenging. It’s made me want to throw some of all that up against what’s been happening in NYC schools under the chancellorship of Joel I. Klein.

I’m telling you right up front that I’m intending to riff on some loose analogies during the course of this blog. Just so you know.

A commentary on Arcadia that caught my attention this week (written by Paul Edwards, a professor of English at Bath Spa University: “Science in Hapgood and Arcadia,” 2001), led me to refresh whatever memory I ever had about the laws of thermodynamics.

The first one, relating to the conservation of energy, goes something like this:


It’s about the two ways energy gets transferred in a closed system, by heating (or cooling) and by mechanical work, and is one of the most secure laws in all of science. It remains at this moment unquestioned.

If you’re a teacher, your mind may run at this point to the boundless energy, positive and negative, that young people bring into the classroom each period, not to mention the stamina it takes to get them on task for as long as you have them. That “closed” system mentioned above is analogous to a classroom, where changes in energy and work levels are expected. Whether the energy is exciting and productive or of the bad-ass kind, and regardless of how it any of it gets dispersed and transformed during the course of the period, one thing is for sure: none of it’s going anywhere until the bell rings.

I’ll extend this analogy even further, to the Second Law of Thermodynamics (really more of a theorem than an actual law):


In an isolated setting (which I admit is tighter than a closed one), once energy starts transforming, some of it will become “unavailable”: useless for the purpose of work, and unfortunately from our analogous perspective, unrecoverable. You can actually measure how much of it is unavailable. In fact, the unavailable amount tends to increase over time, and the only way you can get more energy into the setting is to inject it from the outside — which is the problem here in New York, and why I’m really getting ticked off by the misguided ideologies of this chancellor and mayor.

Physicists call the measurement of unavailable energy “entropy,” and if you can wrap your head around this, the higher the entropy, the less energy there is that can be used to good purpose.

(You can check out an artistic version of this concept later if you want, in the song “Use What I Got [to Get What I Need]”.)

Carrying the analogy a bit further, a corresponding entropy has been discovered in the domain of Information Theory. Here, entropy is a measurement of Chaos and amounts to informational “confusion,” or “noise.” Chaos results from too many variables, missing information. Things are happening way too randomly, and the underlying patterns, structure, and order in things are not visible through this “noise.” You can’t make sense of things. Entropy is in this domain a measure of disorder: the higher it is, the more chaotic things feels.


This is not rocket science. Well, maybe it is, but I’m pressing on anyway.


Good teachers figure out in time how to regulate the energy in the room and turn as much of it as possible into the positive, usable kind, that can produce work. Low entropy is desirable.

Good teachers figure out how to streamline their lessons, explain things better, and turn confusion into quality thinking. There are way too many variables in our classrooms to be able to control them all: the kinds of families and cultures kids come from, their language, personalities, and how healthy or hungry they are. There’s the physical aspects of the classroom, intruders and unexpected observers, the weather, or even the bad sushi you ate last night acting up just at the wrong time. Tons of variables, and some you can eliminate, like making sure everyone has a desk and a chair, a piece of paper and something to write with. Again, low entropy is desirable.


Both the mayor and the chancellor have notoriously and shamelessly sought to place the blame for ineffective education on teachers, but it seems to me that the essence of what has got in the way of productive learning here in New York boils down to two things:

1. What these two ed impersonators have been doing to keep entropy levels up so high, and

2. What they’re putting into the system to bring it back down.

As to the first issue, the BloomKlein team, which with little or no personal teaching experience of its own makes all the major legislative, executive and judicial decisions relating to education in this city, has managed to circumvent — and in some cases exacerbate — practically all the problems that leach good energy out of our classrooms. Their misguided directives have resulted in confusion and noise on a very grand scale.

Not only have they restructured the system ineffectively three times, class size has not been reduced enough to make a difference, state mandates are ignored, and specialist instruction and services to all kinds of kids (including those with special needs) are cut out. They’ve created an environment where incidents are best not reported, minimal effort is often rewarded (credit recovery), and kids are not only deprived of learning time by an inordinate call for high stakes tests, but judged with manipulated and otherwise flawed standards.

Klein’s minions at lower administrative levels play havoc with the contract, busing, supplies, and buildings. They’re allowed and maybe even encouraged to insist on procedures and methods that make little sense when applied across the board and don’t even necessarily work in restricted environments (e.g., the “no textbooks” directive, the trend towards illustrated and easy-read materials, the workshop model, wall clutter, and weird instructions on how to mark papers of all things). Principals write up template-like evaluations that are often less than truthful and sometimes illiterate.

Instead of being expansive places for the mind, many schools are incubators for the kinds of negative energy that can never produce good work. Parents and teachers have felt the brush-off, even the back side of BloomKlein’s mean-spirited, untrained hands.

As for no.2 above, I can’t actually think of any programs this chancellor has initiated to nurture the talents of kids and teachers and bring the level of chaos down citywide. (I’m not including his cell phone project, because bribery is basically immoral. This plan is not only an inappropriate mechanism for bringing about academic success, but materialism itself is an unacceptable educational outcome.) Those that do come to mind, like such ancillary programs as robotics and arts programs, were in place in some form or other before Klein took the job. Even the small schools initiative began earlier: his own biography says he just expanded it. (Poorly, though. These schools not only service a selected portion of the population, but displace other schools in the vicinity and draw off too high a proportion of the funding.) Average kids from average families are not getting an education that will land them a good job. New, inexperienced and not fully licensed teachers-in-training man hundreds of classrooms, union-busting is a high priority. Everyone is being lied to, and a whole department of PR people are working 24/7 to make sure no one finds out. Destructive social engineering has reached catastrophic levels.


I’m glad to have re-read Arcadia this week and once again marvel at Stoppard’s erudition. (Love you, Tom!) But I’m even happier to have had the chance to revamp my disgust for this chancellorship and the mayor who gave him one very long green light.


Teachers have used megawatts of energy preparing for and executing their life’s work. Inner-city kids do the best they can to get by with the cards they’ve been dealt; if anyone thinks we could do any “better,” we haven’t really walked in their shoes, have we?

Joel Klein has only brought an already simmering pot up to the boil, and we stand by furious, watching all that energy everyone’s bringing into school each day bubble up and out, to be rendered useless – irrevocably so – in a system full of plain hot air.

ATR links — Part III: update

REVISED Mon. noon (mostly in the dark purple paragraphs below but also the additional item at the very end, Aug. 7). "ATRs" are all those excessed teachers that haven't yet been placed in positions this term and will become full-time subs.

For some ATRs, this contract has been a career breaker. The DoE is required to try to get them placed, and for the most part just hasn't bothered sending them around on inteviews. The union, which could have protested loud and long at the DoE's failure to do this seems to have had better things to do than fight for the contract — like slathering all over the Democratic candidates for a year and accessing the top rung of the AFT ladder.

For the vets who've been excessed, age and salary do not work in their favor.

THIS IS THE RESULT OF Weingarten's negotiations with the DoE, and don't tell me she didn't know what she was doing. She built a contractual mallet to end some really decent careers.

THERE AREN'T MANY UPDATES, it seems. At least not from the horse's mouth.


You would think that three days away from the start of term, at least someone at the executive end of the UFT, if not the president herself, could have sent a message of encouragement and camaraderie to all the unplaced ATRs asking them to take heart and hang in there.

This is not a good sign. When the Prez is not talking to us and pretending we don't exist, and no one's saying anything about holding onto tenure in the next contract (a year or so from now), you know they're not going to keep fighting for us ATRs too much longer. Why should they: they've got our dues, and the tenure issue is just another bargaining chip.

You want proof?

Look at Weingarten's welcome wagon for the Teach for America recruits, written up on p.35 of the current NY Teacher and online here. Not too many of those guys care about tenure, since most of them didn't sign up to stay in this job more than a couple of years anyway. What do they care about tenure. Weingarten knows that. She tells them, according to Isaac: "We have won a 43 percent raise over six years [that's a $$$ issue], but we have been fighting not only for pay and benefits [again $$$] but also for working conditions and the respect that make our profession more attractive and teaching more satisfying." Like I said: no mention of tenure, which has always been right up there near the top of the list for most people who don't see this profession as just a jump start to a corporate career.


I'm sure I'm not the only ATR who will still be subbing come September, and I'm sure I'm not the only senior ATR who's got a measly 4.5% return on my 22 applications in the year I've been without a position. This summer I did get asked in for one interview, by the way. I didn't have the guts to follow up on it, though, after reading a blog about the school telling all applicants to stay away from the place. I think the word they used was "career buster."

---

Weingarten seems to care enough about certain kinds of staff — potential or otherwise — to give them some real friendly greetings:

As the city’s newest teachers prepare for their first classes, the UFT is reaching out to de-mystify the path ahead and provide answers to their questions to help ensure their success. (Natalie Bell, NY Teacher, Aug. 11)

I wish someone would start ensuring my success a little. And I hate to mention it, but these people are not even "teachers" yet, in spite of what she's calling them. Heck, they're not even paying dues at this point. Certainly not the 20 years' worth I've laid out.

I don't know whether to laugh, choke, or vomit, but I don't have the time for any of that, since Prez W. seems to have so much more to say to these recruits. In a message to them on p.2 of the same edition, she begins: "You are at the start of what I hope is the most rewarding experience of your professional life: becoming a teacher in a New York City public school," and it gets worse from there. She's got the compassion to tell them not to lose faith, going on and on in this vein:

As you navigate the road ahead, remember that your union is here to support you throughout your career as an educator in New York City. We want to help you be the best teacher you can be and make sure you have the respect and salary and benefits you deserve.

Lordy, lordy. "Support"? "Throughout your career"? "We want to help you"? "Make sure you have the respect . . . you deserve"?

And we want you to stick around. [Waiting for you to prove it.] We’re tired of seeing so many promising teachers get discouraged and leave [but hope that the older ones, who have spent their careers fulfilling that promise, will get the message and leave as soon as possible.] It’s bad for our profession and it’s bad for kids [so they tell me, but I have no real first-hand experience of such matters myself].

---

This is really hard to take. In any case, I veer from my intention, which was to update the two compilations I made earlier this summer on what people are saying about the ATR crisis.

Part I — What the union has to say

Part II — Teacher reactions

June 9, 2008: The Evidence Free Zone of the NYC DoE and its New Teacher Project, by Leo Casey in Edwize:

"In an article 'City and Teachers’ Union Disagree on Reserve Pool' Saturday’s NY Times reported on the UFT white paper and the controversy over the NYC Department of Education and the New Teacher Projects attacks of displaced teachers in excess [aka ATRs] . . .

"For some time, the NYC Department of Education has gotten away with offering sheer assertion, unsupported by evidence, about these matters of education policy. Once again, this is their latest tack. But it is increasingly wearing thin. It is worth reviewing here just where we stand." Continues with a point-by-point response.

June 10, 2008: The Endgame: Comity or Conflict, by Peter Goodman in Edwize:

"This year the Teacher Union and the 'Keep the Promises' coalition are fighting to restore budget cuts, and Randi Weingarten and Joel Klein are dueling over the 'ATR Crisis,' in fact, comity has evolved into a rather nasty fight between the public school forces on one side and Klein, Tweed, some foundation types on the other."

He asks: "What programs will be cut/reduced? Will teachers be excessed? And, how will this impact the 'ATR Crisis'? Will the 'ATR Crisis' force the Teacher Union to negotiate changes in their contract?" and gives a recap of the back-and-forth tussle between the union and the DoE.

July 2, 2008: Delegates Tackle Excess of Excessing, by Michael Hirsch in the NY Teacher:

"In her report [at the DA], UFT President Randi Weingarten, after observing that 'excessing is the contractual word for displacement, not for layoff,' assured delegates that 'anybody excessed [is protected by] a contractually mandated Department of Education obligation to have a job. Members’ jobs are secure.' . . .

"This year’s large number of excess notices — particularly prevalent in the middle schools — is an expression of 'the human cost of the budget cuts,' Weingarten said, adding that the number of those excessed was 'one more human indicator of the magnitude of harm the proposed budget cuts will cause,' a fact the union used in making its case against the cuts to the City Council. . . .

"A flier distributed at the meeting noted how “at worst, the DOE will place the excessed person as an ATR [absent teacher reserve] either in his or her school or another school in the district. Unless the member hears otherwise,' the flier continued, 'the member should report back to his or her school on Aug. 28. Members who received excessing letters also have the opportunity to seek other positions through the Open Market Transfer plan if they wish.' Any member who believes he or she has been excessed wrongly was urged to file a grievance.

" 'The worst thing that can happen is, we get it wrong,' Weingarten said. 'I’d rather people file and be protected than not file.' "

August 3, 2008: With Apologies to Martin Niemöller

In an earlier post (May 20th) NYC Educator said he thought Weingarten was holding tough on ATR negotiations for the moment and hopes she would continue to do so. In this post he offers a revision the well-known Niemöller lines on governmental purges.

August 7, 2008: ATRS Meet, anon. article on p.27 of the NY Teacher

It's only a paragraph long and I mentioned this June 2 meeting already, but for what it's worth, here's all of it:

"About half of the 665 members in the city’s Absent Teacher Reserve pool, representing all titles covered by UFT-Department of Education agreements, were assured at a June 2 meeting that the job security that all members enjoy is in no way lessened or threatened by their status as ATRs. 'ATRs cannot be terminated. They are protected by their union contract and that contract is fixed, secure and closed,' said UFT Executive Assistant to the President Michael Mendel. After his presentation, Mendel and a number of other experts on staff at the union remained for more than two hours to answer every individual question."

That's true. They did hang out answering questions. But no one's promised any protection at the end of the current contract.

Sharp-shootin'

Two great new posts by the indefatigable Norm Scott over at Ednotes.

The first for the picture — "Three Amigos"— and you'll have to see who these nasties are for yourself, since I've cut their heads off here. (A metaphorical pleasure, it turns out.) Then do what he says and let the NYC Parents blog connect the dots for you.

The second is Scott at his best, taking shots at BloomKlein, Tweed, McCain, Sharpton, the widening achievement gap between white/Asian and other populations, the decrease in the number of minority teachers, and the contemptible non-transparency and stonewalling of this chancellorship that gives "reform" a very bad name — all in under 400 words.

It's like watching a pit bull do its thing.

Duty calls

I guess I’m easily persuaded by synchronicity, so when I get a number of communications on the same topic in a period of a few hours, I feel I have to take them seriously.

First it was the email circulated by Bo Lipari, a software engineer who founded the organization New Yorkers for Verified Voting, which is working to get the state’s voting machines verifiable and auditable. He’s saying that there's no way the machines will be foolproof by November:

It’s become obvious that New York State’s new voting systems will not be able to complete New York State certification testing in time for the scheduled 2009 rollout ...

SysTest, the company contracted to test these machines, has apparently gotten bogged down by delays, and guess what. Those delays aren't just from the inaction and nonaction of the manufacturers, but from the state Board of Elections as well. Here are a couple of reasons for why those machines won't be ready:

— incomplete documentation from the vendors
— documentation discrepancies
— incomplete hardware/software deliveries
— the BOE hasn’t yet approved the SysTest’s “Voting System Specific Test Plans”
— the BOE has not responded to SysTest’s request for policy guidance relating to configuration files.

One could easily ask two questions: Why Is This Happening? and How Could It Be Happening in New York State?

I'm already pissed.

Next I get an email about David Earnhardt's new documentary on voter fraud: “Uncounted: the New Math of American Elections”:

. . . an explosive new documentary that shows how the election fraud that changed the outcome of the 2004 election . . . now looms as an unbridled threat to the outcome of the 2008 election. . . .
[It] examines in factual, logical, and yet startling terms how easy it is to change election outcomes and undermine election integrity across the U.S. Noted computer programmers, statisticians, journalists, and experienced election officials provide the irrefutable proof. . . .

UNCOUNTED is a wakeup call to all Americans. Beyond increasing the public’s awareness, the film inspires greater citizen involvement in fixing a broken electoral system. As we approach the decisive election of 2008, UNCOUNTED will change how you feel about the way votes are counted in America. Of course it didn’t help that The Chancellor did a piece this morning called "Nobody Cares." The fact remains, they do, and so do others.


But even without the coincidence of the emails and the blog appearing at the same time, there was the singularly horrific thought expressed by Greg Palast months ago that the 2008 election has already been stolen.

In an interview with BuzzFlash, Palast talked about how the big boys are working at their disenfranchisement projects, especially for people of color:

GP: [The lists to disenfranchise voters] are the purge lists. For 2004, we have the caging lists. And in 2008, we’re going to have what’s called the verification list. 

BF: Meaning the return of the Jim Crow laws, I assume? 

GP: When I say the 2008 race has already been stolen, about a million and a half voter registrations have been turned down. Even though there have been massive voter registration drives among Hispanics and African Americans, as the churches fill up the bucket, there’s a hole in the bucket where the registrations are being dumped . . . About 40% of the registrations are being rejected on the grounds that they don’t match citizenship files. Well, you know what? It ain’t the Soviet Union. We don’t have citizenship files in the United States. They don’t exist. They can’t exist under the law, which is the U.S. Constitution.

Palast has invited people to steal his new cartoon strip “Vote Theft for Idiots” and pass it around, and I'm pleased to oblige him. These are the first two lessons, and I hope the rest of them will come out before November rolls around. (If too fuzzy, they're clearer here and here.)

Black Box Voting (.org) has put out a tool kit for the elections called “Top 5 Things You can Do to Protect Election 2008”:

1. Get involved — I kinda like the way they tell you that first you have to figure out what type of person you are: hunter-gatherer, networker, empowerer, analyzer, or communicator. That makes a whole lot of sense 

2. Hook up with experienced groups — lists some great ones, and includes a section on Freedom of Information tips. 

3. Protect/defend against deceptive practices (last minute changes, consolidation issues, confusing ballots, deceptive phonecalls and fliers, etc.) 

4. Protect/defend voter lists (register people, help people get photo ID, look for racial profiling on voter registration cards, category switching, etc.) 

5. Voting machines: Protect/defend the vote counts — it mentions some horrible things under this category, like “99% of votes will be counted in secret on computers controlled by government insiders and vendors.”

I poll-watched in Pennsylvania in the last election and experienced some very last minute changes, like the polling place itself. There was also intimidation, against a first-time voter who didn't know how to handle it and against me personally, who was trying to contact the on-call lawyers on his behalf.

The Election Fraud Blog has compiled something called a Beginner’s Guide on this subject with the ominous subtitle “a Broken Democracy Crash Course.” Lots of links there also relating to this unfortunate time in the history of the country when our government disgusts us.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I have to leave blogging for now because there's a real chance of this coming true in November:




and I don’t want to feel that I didn’t do enough to keep it from happening.

The winds of change . . .

Sometimes you see a comment that needs its own stage.

These paragraphs were put up yesterday in response to the Ednotes post on the whiff of mayoral de-control in the air.

I'm sure the author didn't write it as a manifesto, but it's certainly on the way to being one.

I wanted to give that pendulum he speaks about in the first sentence just another little push, but before I do: the comments that have come in this morning are equally important. It's like viewing the burned remains of a ravaged profession.

Any student of history is familiar with the "pendulum" effect. That is to say when situations appear to have arrived at a point where the original projected expectations create a sufficient degree of social upset, unrest, and havoc, a counter balancing reaction is initiated, that generally speaking moves things in the opposite direction.

What else is the torturously long reign of "Chancellor" (by Special Waiver) Joel Klein, Esq. over the New York City Schools system, but a microcosm of the Bush years in Washington, DC.

From the very beginning of the Bush years Americans saw rights that were once taken for granted, slowly but surely weakened until those very rights did not even appear to exist any longer.

We witnessed the mindset of the Judges who were appointed and how gradually, over time, those in power became more and more confident that there was almost no affront to the American people that they could not inflict with complete impunity.

Even to the point of insulting the most basic precepts of American Justice, as we know them to be, so that it seemed these people in power might not even hesitate to defecate on the very sheets of parchment on which our American Constitution was inscribed by the Founding Fathers more than two centuries ago.

Is the above, not precisely what we have seen come to pass in New York City, at least as pertains to the mindset of those who have occupied the marbled Halls and walked with a swaggering gait, the echoing corridors of power in the Tweed Court House.

Let us never forget, and remain forever mindful, that this magnificent marbled edifice to rampant and unbridled corruption in all its most ugly forms and manifestations, located at 52 Chambers Street, was named after "Boss Tweed", one of the most nefarious political criminals in the history of this great City.

Just as the misguided policies emanating out of the White House for far too many years have finally visited sufficient pain and misery on the American people to bring this great Nation to its senses — so too can one detect the awakening stirrings of New Yorkers in reaction to having witnessed seeing their beloved Public Schools system taken over and run by a former Federal Prosecutor, from where else — that same Washington, DC alluded to earlier.

And to be more precise, that former Federal Prosecutor, who possesses not slightest or the most minimal Education Credentials to allow him to pretend he qualifies to be a Schools Chancellor, has indeed "run" our schools system - that is to say, he has run it into the ground.

But the great pendulum of History has already been set in motion.

And even as Americans will assure a new rebirth of our Democracy come November at ballot boxes all over this great Republic, from coast to coast and from sea to shining sea, so too will the good citizens of New York City make their voices heard also for the purpose of protecting that which is most dear to them. That is to say, their children.

A cabal of Wall Street types in silk suits, who would sooner give up their American Passports before they would enroll their own children in our City's public schools, are hardly the people who should be in charge of the Fate of more than one million school children who represent our most precious resource. For they are indeed the lifeblood of this thriving City and its greatest hope for the future.

In the US Military do we take a former Partner from "Bear Sterns" and make him a Four Star General, responsible for the lives of one hundred thousand brave men and women in Uniform.

Do we place former stock brokers in Air Control Towers and pray that they bring our planes down safely? Or perhaps you would like the next "triple by-pass" operation on your heart to be performed by a Wall Street Funds Manager or some former Federal Prosecutor.

How did we ever get to this point where someone decided that the best people to run the largest schools system in the nation were people who had little to zero experience in the field of Education.

The damage done to this great Nation by people in Washington ill equipped to lead a Nation much less a corner candy store, is also the same type of horrendous harm that has been visited on the New York City schools system by appointed hacks, stooges and lackeys that do not have a clue, much less any real experience or bona fide credentials to be trusted with the lives and futures of one million children.

We note the countless numbers of "disappeared" teachers who have been exiled to Mr. Joel Klein, Esq.'s vile "Rubber Room gulags", simply for having refused to march in "goose step" order to all his ill conceived policies originating from a lethal combination of abysmal ignorance about the field of Education and learning in general, and of course Mr. Klein's limitless degree of "Hubris".

But let us take heart and recognize that "Change" is indeed in the air. It will rise like a great wind and blow the old order out of the seats of power in our Nation's Capitol. Just as the winds of change will sweep people from the field of Education in New York's public schools system who have no business being there now or should ever have been placed in control of our schools in the first place.

If one is a Federal Prosecutor, then let him stay in the Court System and prosecute. And let those who have devoted their entire lifetimes to the noble field of Education, be allowed to run our public schools system in New York City.

One million school children deserve no less.

— David Pakter

When deception is gross

Talking about integrity (and how Weingarten doesn't have much), I wanted to say a few things about the DoE website and how it sells its stuff.

This picture caught my eye a few weeks ago on its teacher recruitment page:


It's arguably the least representative image of public education in the city of New York that I know of, and I am a music teacher. It certainly sets new parameters for the word chicanery.

For one thing, music is not really high on the list of subjects Joel Klein cares about. In his first year as chancellor, he told the middle schools to make more room for literacy and math and cut anything that would get in the way, like the arts, foreign languages, sports, library and guidance (see the NY Times on this). A couple of months ago he slashed funding for the arts (as reported in the Daily News), and The Sun reported recently just how few middle school and HS kids took classes in this group of subjects this past year. There's a consistency in this, albeit of the negative kind.

Then there is the inscrutable choice of focusing on violins, given that string ensembles are fairly arcane and pretty much a thing of the past. If inner city kids are to be given any kind of musical instruments to practice on at home, fragile wooden ones that are constantly in need of tuning are not an ideal choice. That’s why there are way more bands than orchestras these days. So, I can’t figure out what this picture is actually trying to “push.” Esotericism? Elitism? Excellence?

The other thing that puzzles me is why they’ve used a music class, of all things, on a site for teacher recruitment. I’ve applied for 22 music positions in the past year, and if I stood up on a chair and yelled through a megaphone the size of a Chinese gong, no one would ask me to come in for an interview. In a few cases I can document, neither the position or the school itself even existed.

In fact, putting up this picture of student violinists on its recruitment site is a tragic reminder of what the DoE is specifically NOT doing to further arts education in NYC public schools. It also demonstrates how content the department is to portray itself more through artifice than actuality.


The DoE enlisted two outside agencies, Appleseed and the Ad Council, to help with teacher recruitment, and two of the products of the campaign were lay-outs for full-page ads in the NY Times (June 29th and July 6th), their own website (here and here), and public placements such as the one on the left.

I’m not crazy about either one of them. The first ad claims that “The classrooms of New York City are wonderfully diverse.” In aggregate perhaps, but so many are not. An African-American girl is represented primarily by her right arm and the back of her head.

In the ad at the right, the lower-case “t” is very cool, but now is hardly the time to be cute with our language. There was half of an African-American boy in the ad when it appeared in the Times, but he’s been cropped right out of the image on the website, as you can see for yourself.

As for the message in the logo:

it says to me that “New York’s brightest” recruits are bound to be attracted by pictures of super-engaged white and Asian kids, so let’s not make too much of the African-American element in the student population. Or the Indian one. Or even the Latino one.

Even if you don’t have the same take as I do, very few schools in this city look like these ads.

The Ad Council claims it’s been “raising awareness, inspiring action and saving lives for more than 65 years.” It certainly raised my awareness on what passes for truth at the DoE, and inspired me to write something about it on this blog.

In spite of the fact that they say they drum up pro bono volunteers to motivate action, I must say I get that same creepy feeling whenever I read propaganda like this:

The Ad Council relies largely on donations from corporations, foundations, and individuals to provide the funds that allow us to deliver our important campaign messages to millions of Americans.

I’m being sold a corporate line.

The DoE is listed as one of the Ad Council’s sponsors, and I have to assume that sponsorship includes payments. Unfortunately, neither its site, Appleseed’s, or the DoE site itself mentions anything about the cost of this campaign.

“Klein has the most extensive — and expensive — PR staff in city government, short of the Mayor,” says Leonie Haimson on the parents blog. Some of it must be housed at the Office of Communications & Media Relations, but it’s all a big secret because that page on the DoE website doesn’t actually say anything about it.


In short, I’m not against recruitment campaigns, I’m against subtle appeals to our prejudices.

I’m not against paying to get the job done, I’m against using the public purse for unspecified payments and no-bid contracts.

I’m not against governmental bureaucracy, I’m against non-transparent bureaucracy, which means it’s anyone’s guess who’s executing the corporate agendas that are reconfiguring public education in New York City.

The missing word

On the occasion of Weingarten's election to the presidency of the AFT, a referral to my post of a couple of weeks ago on how particularly unsuited she is to the job we want her to be doing.

And even if you don't have the time to go back there, did you get a look at the press release the AFT put out?

The missing word in all this is: