Candidate Mitt Romney, pictured here chumming up with a poster urging "No to Obama, Osama, and Chelsea's Moma," has come out swinging against YouTube.

"YouTube is a website that allows kids to network with one another and make friends and contact each other," Romney explained. "YouTube looked to see if they had any convicted sex offenders on their web site. They had 29,000."

Actually, Mr. Romney was speaking of MySpace. Incidentally, here's Mitt's MySpace page.

Thanks to reality-based educator

Catch Diane and Michael Ravitch blogging on education, literature and the arts.

Ms. Ravitch is one of very few prominent voices speaking out in favor of teachers and teacher unions nowadays. We need to clone her and send her all over the country. If any readers are scientifically inclined, suggestions on how to accomplish this are welcome.

Well, another place anyway. In Massachusetts, a high school is being placed on probation because of its propensity to allow too many oversized classes. If the school doesn't fix the situation, it could lose its accreditation.

This is because a pattern has been detected, demonstrating that the district has repeatedly permitted classes of more than 30 students.

Here, class size has been contractually set at 34, and a great deal of classes have 34, if not more (loopholes being what they are). I followed the CFE case for years, hoping and believing this situation would change substantively. However, the final ruling left little or no oversight over Mayor Bloomberg and Tweed, and the mayor, who often talks about accountability, was openly delighted there was none for him.

The last deal, much-ballyhooed by the UFT patronage mill, had more holes in it than most Swiss cheese. I sarcastically (but correctly) predicted this would result in class-size reductions of fewer than one student per class.

It was obvious from the wording of the agreement. But our leadership is either so blatantly incompetent it doesn't understand basic English (I'm no lawyer, but this was not written in legal jargon), or it has no qualms about making unsatisfactory agreements and pretending they're otherwise.

Either way, it does not bode well for New York City students or teachers.

Mayoral control is set to sunset in 2009. What does mayoral control mean for teachers?

Well, it means thousands of them are overpaid subs with virtually no chance of landing real teaching jobs. It means principals have to decide between paying 40K for a new teacher and 80K for an experienced one. Take a look at suburban schools, the many excellent ones that surround the city, and ask yourself how many of their new hires have 20 years of experience, let alone get paid for it.

It's meant an atmosphere of fear and loathing the likes of which I've not seen in over 20 years. It's meant a system in which higher test scores are loudly trumpeted in the press, and lower ones are just as prominently ignored. It's meant a system in which "accountability" is the watchword, even though it applies exclusively to working teachers (whether or not they've actually done anything negative).

It's meant a system in which the first reorganization didn't work, the second reorganization didn't work, and one in which the third reorganization, the one which encourages "McTeachers," is loudly and wrongheadedly endorsed by the United Federation of Teachers. Randi Weingarten, UFT President, takes a page from her idol, Hillary Clinton, and endorses this disaster despite overwhelming evidence it's utterly failed to help her constituents:

"There's lots and lots of my members, as well as parents, who believe the governance system has to be changed," the president of the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, said. Ms. Weingarten, who originally supported mayoral control, said she stands by her admiration for Mr. Bloomberg's decision to take over the schools. "Until he said let me control the schools, there was never a mayor who put his entire political capital behind the schools," she said.

I had a great English teacher who once said, "Once people use the word but, you can forget everything they said beforehand. Only after but do they tell you what they really mean. I often tell my kids, "When your girlfriend says she really loves you but---it's time to look for a new girlfriend."

Ms. Weingarten acknowledges UFT members oppose the system. But she stands by her decision to support and enable mayoral control. Ms. Weingarten's job is to represent the interests of working teachers. The majority of working teachers in New York City now have fewer than five years experience, and are unlikely to stick with it.

But they pay dues anyway. It behooves Ms. Weingarten to consider beyond that, and to also think of what's good for those of them that will stay on. Career teachers are good for our kids, and also good for our union.

Thanks to 17 More Years

Money back guarantee---Give this a watch. You'll love it.

You turn on the TV and you see people say no, universal health care is not the way to go. Not one word about catastrophic medical emergency being the number one cause of bankruptcy. Not one word about the impossibility of such a thing occurring in most countries. Not one word about President Bush signing a bill that ensures you'll still be liable for Visa payments after your catastrophic medical emergency.

And then they roll out their big guns--It's "socialized" medicine. Socialism. That's bad, right? Well, you'd certainly think so if you listened to demagogues like Bill O'Reilly or Randi Weingarten, who vilify their opponents by tossing about scary names. But they do that only because it's easier than putting forth a viable argument.

What would such people say if women today were trying to get the vote?

Well, in Canada women vote. And what happened there? They speak French. That's right. French. Do you want to speak French?

Well, what if they're having their time of the month or something? Maybe they'll hang the wrong chad and end up voting for Pat Buchanan instead of Al Gore.

What if they get in the booth and can't make up their minds? Do you want to spend a half-hour waiting for your chance to get in that booth? Waiting time is a huge issue.

It's feminist! Wait, no, it's radical feminist! Yeah, that's the ticket.

Well, in Ohio women voted, and in 04, people had to stand in the rain for ten hours waiting in heavily Democratic districts (Oops, sorry, that happened here).

If you're determined enough, you can make up an argument for anything. Still, it's incredible in this day and age that Americans stand up and argue against systems that provide decent health care, reasonable work hours, affordable child care, and higher education that doesn't require a second mortgage.

In 1984 I spent some time in Communist East Berlin. They sold Pravda on every street corner but nobody bought it. They had TV channels showing tedious meetings and great reverence to their highly reppected comrades from the USSR. If Rupert Murdoch had been running Pravda in the style of Fox News, with Wilhelm O'Reilly, there'd still be a Communist East Berlin.

This is just to say
I have squandered
the hard won gains
that were in
the contract

and which
you were probably saving
along with tenure and seniority rights

Forgive me
it was politically expedient
so simple to get you rubes to vote for
and so likely to get me that DC gig

with apologies to William Carlos Williams

...para el Carnival.

Well, they had a meeting over at the Ross Charter School. That's the school run by billionaire Courtney Ross. As you may recall, Ms. Ross did not care for the digs first offered her by the city, so they decided to push her school into the NEST school, the one parents had spent hundreds of thousands of their own dollars fixing up. As those nasty NEST parents fought Ms. Ross in the press, of all places, there was no choice but to relocate them.

So the DoE placed them in their state-of-the-art facilities at Tweed. I often think of them in my trailer. After all, who knows if they could fit 34 kids in a state-of-the-art classroom? Who knows if Ross kids could do without AC, or computers, or soap in their bathrooms? You have to be a real man to put up with that sort of thing (even if you're a little girl).

You'll be happy to know that the Trustees (Ms. Ross was not in attendance) determined to keep class size at twenty.

While your classes may appear to still have 34 (or more), in actual fact they will only have 33.5. That's because of the great strides we've made in class size, and don't doubt that in five or ten years you'll only have 33.2.

And stop whining. In Mr. Bloomberg's New York, it's all about rugged individualism.

How do they do it, those folks at KIPP? I mean, how do they achieve such amazing success with the kids (at least the ones who don't drop out of the schools they don't take their names off)?

Well, here's a comment, from a KIPP student:

I am a KIPP student from Oklahoma and KIPP is "GREAT".Ilove it very much.That I will go around the United States just to find a KIPP college.

Makes ya wanna pack up yer kids and send 'em, doesn't it? But the next comment, from a former teacher, goes into just a little more detail:

The Human Brain, regardless of aptitude, statistically learns best through repitition. Doing things over and over and over again until it becomes ROTE (like muscle memory for an athlete or Instrument Position for a Musician). KIPP Teachers all teach with the "No Child Left Behind" morality. This means that for the most part, students who have mastered their Multiplication Tables or can easily identify Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives, do not continue with their specified curriculum, and ultimate year-end outcome until THE WHOLE CLASS or at least the MAJORITY of the (*usually) 30 students have ALL mastered the skill at hand.

• In order for that to occur at KIPP Schools, unlike Public Schools, students are provided with AMPLE opportunity in terms of "seat time." By the end of October each school year, KIPP students have already put in as many hours as Public School students do FOR THE ENTIRE SCHOOL YEAR. (*Taking into account KIPP's 2 week Summer School Session, and mandatory every-other Saturday morning School)

Well, you certainly won't leave anyone behind that way. Hopefully, you're not one of those kids who catches on quick and needs to sit through the rest of it. But it's all for everyone, kinda like a communist re-education camp (and I'm told they were often quite effective).

Despite that, this teacher remains distinctly unenthusiastic:

KIPP students do very well ... but ... it is due to REPITION and ROTE LEARNING. OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER ... (get it?...ok, once more...OVER AND OVER AND OVER....)

• Children will only be children ONCE. KIPP students are college-bound...so...after going to school for 55+ hours a week IN THE FIFTH GRADE, they can look forward to school for AT LEAST another TEN YEARS. (55hrs/week x School year...FOR TEN YEARS. Besides....didn't we learn anything from CHILD LABOR LAWS?!

My kid isn't perfect, and does not get straight As. But I adore her for what she is. I wouldn't dream of sending her to a place like this. Still, KIPP, and its various emulators are not really about the kids. As my buddy, reality-based educator, pointed out, they're about getting people used to working 200-hour weeks. They're about getting working people to give up any shot at personal lives. They're about worsening working conditions, and shedding crocodile tears for the children.

But the children will grow up, and when they do, I don't want them to be wage slaves. There's just no reason we need to treat one another like that. Make no mistake about it--teaching is one of the very last bastions of unionism in these United States. There's nothing some people would like better than to crush us.

But our kids will then grow up without the benefits of unions, at the mercy of their bosses, with few or no alternatives. If we love our kids, we have to protect them. We have to stand up, say we aren't slaves, we won't be slaves, and our kids won't be either.

It's tough to make kids just say no to sex and drugs. But we're supposedly wiser than they.

Let's just say no to the degradation and destruction of our calling. We're not robots, we don't aspire to be robots, and neither should our children.

Thanks to California Teacher Guy

She was from Bangladesh, and she had two sisters. She was the oldest, and the brightest.

The next sister was a year younger, and also bright.

The youngest sister, I'm afraid, was simply not in the same league.

When they took the NYC LAB English proficiency test, they scored precisely as I'd have expected, Jasmin highest, the middle sister in the middle, and the youngest lower. But only the youngest, the least capable, was placed in regular English.

That's because NYC had determined that the younger you were, the more difficult it is to learn a language. Reality dictates precisely the opposite.

But testing does bring out life's little ironies.

Jasmin wanted to be an English teacher. That was too much for her father, who took her out of the country and forced her to become a doctor (or at least planned to).

I hope she's well. I hope she's happy. You can never know about some kids.

To drugs. To sex. To smoking.

But a new study suggests when we tell kids not to smoke, guess what happens? They do it anyway.

So much for all those glitzy ad campaigns from the cigarette companies urging kids to quit. A few years back I'd seen some ads with cartoon-like corporate-head types plotting to make kids smoke, and laughing about them doing so. Such ads were supposed to be effective, but were quashed in negotiations with companies preferring the white-bread "Don't do that" approach.

So just say no amounts to just say yes.

And it may well have been planned that way. Can't we do this better?

The most egregious and short-sighted giveback of the 05 contract was that of seniority transfers. While there is a school of thought that downsizing is part of industry, and should therefore be part of education as well, there's another that says you don't exchange very valuable benefits for compensation increases that don't even meet cost of living. I'm not an expert negotiator, but it stands to reason if they want to remove very valuable benefits, they ought to pay to do so.

Well, here's the UFT's City Sue on precisely that:

Specifically, Klein complains about the contractual right of teachers who have been "excessed" to another position in their license area in the district. He wants to eliminate that right and force these excessed teachers, whose positions have disappeared through no fault of their own, to pound the streets and find their own jobs or be laid off.

Tell 'em, Sue! Why on earth should teachers pound the streets and find their own jobs if their schools disappeared though no fault of their own? You wouldn't stand for that! I'm glad you're in our corner, fighting for us. Otherwise, the DoE could arbitrarily close schools and screw the entire union.

That, of course, was before the 05 contract. Afterward, she sang a very different tune:

In fact, there’ll be more transfer opportunities. The only thing is, like in the real world, you’ll have to sell yourself. See a vacancy? Just apply! All vacancies will be declared, not just half. No limits on how many jobs you can apply for. No release needed from your principal. No limits on how many teachers can transfer out of a single school. No discrimination in hiring allowed, not even for union activities — or age, race, etc. No involuntary transfers. It’s a free market, for those who dare! And for excessed teachers, there’s always a job for you back home (in your school or district) if you can’t find anything else.

Now, you can pound the streets and find your own job after all, or become an ATR. Of course, it beats unemployment (assuming the accompanying insecurity and frustration doesn't actually drive you to give up). Still, it's hard to see how it beats having your own classes and your own job. And now, even some from Unity are complaining about the plight of the ATR teachers the party's lack of foresight has created.

But on the official union blog, they say problems with the "open market" plan are an urban myth, and virulently refuse to answer any questions on, or even acknowledge, the situation of ATR teachers. Since there are more transfers, it's better. Period. There will be no discussion of ATR teachers, and don't look at that man behind the curtain.

Our leaders change their opinions at the drop of Ms. Weingarten's chauffeur's hat. They've signed a loyalty oath to Unity, the monopoly party that's dominated the UFT for half-a-century. Their opinions are issued by the leadership, and they alter them as the leadership demands. In the 60s, they tossed people out for the sin of opposing the Vietnam War.

And their priority is neither your welfare nor that of the kids you serve. They've tossed your hard-won rights into the trash for less than cost of living, and their principled stands evaporate as their leaders drool over national offices.

It costs us 40 million dollars a year to grease the Unity patronage mill, fully half the dues we pay them, and they aren't going to tell the truth if it means giving that up. On Edwize, you're not even allowed to mention Unity. You're not supposed to know its name, its loyalty oath, or how much you're compelled to pay to support it.

How much of it does Unity get back in caucus dues? They don't have to tell us, but patronage is never exactly free. When I was a kid, my father sold construction supplies to Nassau County. He whispered that everyone working for the county had to kick back 1% of their salaries to the local GOP. Ten years later I read about it in Newsday, and it was a scandal.

Don't hold your breath waiting for the tabloids to expose the Unity Caucus. Unlike political parties, they're allowed to charge dues. They're like the old USSR Communist Party--you need an invitation to get in, and absolute loyalty is required. They feed the state, the state feeds them, and they look out for one another.

No one who's cast a critical eye on the terms of the 05 contract could say they look out for working teachers.

ATR teachers are wearing targets on their backs, custom made by Klein-Weingarten designing team.

Part One here

Thanks to Schoolgal

You can't make me. You won't make me. Unless you marry me. Then maybe I'll do it.

Uh oh. Now you've done it. Now I've done it too. And after all those hundreds of millions of dollars we'd spent saying just don't do it.

Teenagers...crave unfettered information — the kind restricted under federal abstinence education law, which discourages intimacy outside marriage but provides no instruction for safer sex.

Instead, we tell them "Don't do that." We make them promise, swear, wear buttons, give speeches. Turns out, though, they do it anyway.

Given that, wouldn't they be better off if we stressed how they could avoid pregnancy and disease?

A recurring issue in my classroom has been standards, and why must I use them. This has proven inconvenient for not only certain students, but certain members of the administration as well. For example, though I'm certified to teach Spanish, I've only done so once. My AP determined that the Spanish teacher was throwing too many kids out of the period one Spanish class, and turned it over to me. I never threw anyone out.

Still, half the class didn't show up, and half who did failed to do any work. Consequently, only 25% of the kids passed, and I was never asked to teach Spanish again (which was fine with me, actually). It turned out the teacher who'd thrown too many kids out was passing almost everyone, and was therefore better suited for the job after all.

Closer to what I'm actually hired to do, I often teach beginning ESL. I really like the challenge of pulling language out of the reluctant throats of newcomers, and I will do or say virtually anything to do so. In my school, kids get three periods of instruction at this level--two with me, covering grammar and speaking, and one with Ms. Laconic, covering reading and writing. Last year, these classes began as level two in the fall, and became level three in the spring. For some reason, though, they were promoted or retained based solely on Ms. Laconic's grades.

In Maria's class of 34 kids, I passed 68% of the students. In my morning class of 14, I passed everyone except two kids who showed up in April and were hopelessly behind (I gave them grades of "NC", so they didn't count as failures. This may not have been necessary if the sole level two class had not already contained 36 kids).

I asked Ms. Laconic how Maria, a student who never cracked the 25% barrier on any of my tests, who regularly spoke Spanish in my class (a no-no, along with every language that isn't English), who never did homework (copying doesn't count), who was "absent" over thirty times in my class (and over 40 in Ms. Laconic's) managed to pass. "She drew a really beautiful picture," Ms. Laconic informed me.

I took Maria to my office (outside the trailer door) and asked her how she passed Ms. Laconic's class. "In her class you can copy," she told me.

Well, that explains it, I guess. I can only hope Maria isn't unfortunate enough to get a bad guy teacher like me again.

Thanks to Schoolgal

See Joel talk.

Talk Joel, talk.

See Joel say a .6% class size reduction is good.

Good, Joel, good.

See Joel sit in a big air-conditioned room while classes of 34 children are in closets, trailers, half-rooms and bathrooms.

See Joel talk.

Talk, Joel, Talk.

See Patrick Sullivan question the status quo.

See Joel's cyborg suggest that genuine class-size reductions would force principals to hire sub-par teachers.

See the rubber stamps support Joel.

Support, stamps, support.

Thanks to Sol.

Don't forget to leave comments for the writers. Well, you feed the goats at the kiddie zoo, don't you? Teachers, for the most part, are more sanitary than goats (though YMMV* in the summertime).

At The Education Wonks.

*Your mileage may vary. And if you had an eleven-year-old kid, you would've known that.

Have you heard about the next planned "Survivor" show?

Three businessmen and three businesswomen will be dropped in an elementary school classroom for 1 school year.

Each business person will be provided with a copy of his/her school district's curriculum, and a class of 28 - 32 students.

Each class will have a minimum of five learning-disabled children, three with A.D.D., one gifted child, and two who speak limited English. Three students will be labeled with severe behavior problems.

Each business person must complete lesson plans at least 3 days in advance, with annotations for curriculum objectives and modify, organize, or create their materials accordingly. They will be required to teach students, handle misconduct, implement technology, document attendance, write referrals, correct homework, make bulletin boards, compute grades, complete report cards, document benchmarks, communicate with parents, and arrange parent conferences. They must also stand in their doorway between class changes to monitor the hallways.

In addition, they will complete fire drills, tornado drills, and [Code Red] drills for shooting attacks each month. They must attend workshops, faculty meetings, and attend curriculum development meetings. They must also tutor students who are behind and strive to get their 2 non-English speaking children proficient enough to take the Terra Nova and PSSA tests. If they are sick or having a bad day they must not let it show.

Each day they must incorporate reading, writing, math, science, and social studies into the program. They must maintain discipline and provide an educationally stimulating environment to motivate students at all times. If all students do not wish to cooperate, work, or learn, the teacher will be held responsible.

The business people will only have access to the public golf course on the weekends, but with their new salary, they may not be able to afford it. There will be no access to vendors who want to take them out to lunch, and lunch will be limited to thirty minutes, which is not counted as part of their work day.

The business people will be permitted to use a student restroom, as long as another survival candidate can supervise their class. If the copier is operable, they may make copies of necessary materials before, or after, school.

However, they cannot surpass their monthly limit of copies. The business people must continually advance their education, at their expense, and on their own time.

The winner of this season of Survivor will be allowed to return to the original job.

Thanks to Schoolgal

Do half of new teachers disappear before completing five years because the pay is too high and the work is too easy? You'd think so if you examined the KIPP model of working 200 hours a week and being on call for whatever remains.

However, in an unusually thoughtful education article, David M. Herzenhorn maintains otherwise:

School professionals are called upon not only to educate children, but also to nurture curiosity and civic values, and even to teach the most basic manners. Once, while waiting to have lunch with my mother, now retired after more than 30 years as a teacher in a city elementary school, I stood in her school’s main entrance and watched a teacher walk by with her class, shouting: “Fingers out of your nose! Fingers out of your nose!”

Well, I'm glad someone is offering them that advice. As a high school teacher, I might offer different suggestions, but if kids don't get those messages at home, it's our job to help out. I know kids with parents who just work, work, and work, and who haven't got a moment to keep an eye out. I'd like to think that I might help them out somehow.

Not only do professional educators have to know how to deal with children, they have to be clever about soothing an even wackier bunch: parents.

I've been very lucky in my dealings with parents. Of course, my kids come from other countries, and other cultures. I suppose if I'd dragged my kids halfway around the world so they could have better lives, I'd take calls from school very seriously (still, as a born-and-bread all-American type, I'd take it very seriously if a teacher called my home).

Chancellor Klein, in an interview, said, “I’ve got plenty of high-needs schools with air-conditioning.”

Reading between the lines, that clearly indicates he's got plenty of schools without air-conditioning.

He said he wanted to provide teachers with terrific working conditions...

That's why I'm in a trailer behind a building at 250% capacity and growing. There's nothing quite like a trailer with a busted air-conditioner. Or one where the chancellor won't permit you to turn it on because air-conditioning season has not yet begun.

“The most important thing in education is the quality of teachers,” Mr. Klein said.”

I agree. Why, then, did he go to Albany soon after being appointed, and successfully beg for the right to hire and retain thousands of teachers who'd failed basic competency tests, sometimes on dozens of occasions?

The two major ingredients are what you get paid and a combination of working conditions and job satisfaction.”

That's why Mr. Klein continues to pay among the lowest salaries in the area, and why he's chipped away at seniority rights. That's why he continues to make it difficult, if not impossible, for teachers displaced through no fault of their own to find work. That's why he suspends teachers without pay for months based on unsubstantiated allegations.

I regret such things escaped Mr. Herzenhorn's attention. But his heart's in the right place.

The daily work in schools is so hard that most educators in the system do not distinguish between the chancellor’s office and the mayor, the labor unions and state government, the teachers’ contract and the federal No Child Left Behind law when they complain, frequently, that the “system” is against them.

That's exactly how I feel, and it's probably the worst feeling I've had since I began teaching. For me, this began when my union prominently endorsed the worst contract I'd ever seen.

But when a kid comes up to me and says, "Thank you, Mr. Educator, for forcing me to read that book. I never read a whole book in English before, and I didn't think I could do it," when a kid says that to me I feel like a million bucks.

Of course, a million bucks isn't what it used to be anymore. Maybe the young teachers who leave just have more foresight than I do.

Thanks to Schoolgal