Yesterday I got an email suggesting GothamSchools' call for civility in its comments was motivated by criticism of its main community section writer--a member of a Gates-funded group openly dedicated to eradicating basic union rights. (Like all other such groups, it does so in the name of helping the children whose schools Gates money aims to close.)

I wrote back it was a coincidence, and that the move was possibly long overdue. After all, I'd just seen a commenter imply someone was paranoid over concern revised Gotham policies might cause his ID to be leaked to the DOE. The DOE has sent teachers to the rubber room for bringing plants to school, for using school fax machines, and for who knows what else. I think there's plenty of reason for wariness. The same commenter said to Mr. A. Talk:

You sound just a bit overly paranoid. What evidence is there that the “regime,” as you delicately term it, gives a hoot about bloggers posting their professional perspectives here? 

In fact, the DOE has been specifically known to monitor blogs. Joel Klein seemed acutely aware of Education Notes Online when he saw fit to embrace Norm Scott at a PEP meeting.

In any case, my correspondent emailed me back, saying look carefully at the picture they chose. It's their resident Gates front group member, (the one they feature without regard to taste, accuracy, or quality), and the guy who calls people paranoid (for fearing a Department that is right now proposing to fire 25% of NY City teachers). I was pretty surprised. Is that what Gotham considers a model?

Couple that with the fact that GothamSchools and the New York Post have been closely following the Gates union-busters (though the Post has yet to give a group member a regular column), and you have to stop and think. I don't expect much from Murdoch publications, but I hope for better from Gotham.

In fact, Gotham prints bits of Gates-funded PR unedited and unchallenged. I noticed, as did Michael Fiorillo, the absurd assertion that the group was “Founded with the goal of injecting teacher’s voices into citywide education policy debates.” It's preposterous on its face to say that about a group whose main purpose is eradication of union seniority rights for teachers, but that's what the group publicly states, and that's what GothamSchools presented, sans a single modifier, like "the group maintains" this. In fact, the people running this particular anti-union group are not even teachers anymore, somehow managing to work one day a week.  Perhaps they make up for this with the largesse of Gates and who knows who else. I don't know and I haven't seen much in the way of investigation from Gotham.

Fiorillo writes:

In paragraph three, you write that opponents of the group criticize it “for failing to understand the importance of protecting senior teachers.” This shows a lack of understanding of what seniority is; it is not about protecting senior teachers, but protecting  all employees from arbitrariness when layoffs occur (and in many other instances, as well). That arbitrariness affects senior workers is a fact of life, but it is far from limited to that. Seniority also protects workers from vindictive administrators.

New teachers who intend to make  teaching a career - which clearly does not include the founders of this group, as with so many ed deformers - are also protected by seniority, since if they are laid off it guarantees their right of return when hiring begins again. Your phrasing narrows the scope of the issue, and subtly reinforces E4E’s agenda, which is to pit teachers against each other.

I expected better from Gotham and thought I should let them know. Their civility piece suggests the following:

If you have a correction or a criticism of our coverage, the fastest way to reach us is by email. We do read the comment threads (though often not immediately) and will occasionally respond, but commenting isn’t the most efficient way to get our attention.

I did so. (In fact I regularly email journalists, with comments both positive and negative.) In this case, I received a response that, at best, "dodged" the issue--precisely what the reporter accused UFT President Michael Mulgrew of having done.

It's remarkable that Gotham devotes such energy to people who shill for billionaires while utterly ignoring the hearty group that rallied outside City Hall, braving the miserable snow day to protest school closings. This was organized by GEM, a real grassroots group as opposed to an obvious corporate front. Not only that, but it was supported by many other groups including, but not limited to, Class Size Matters and the UFT.

Gotham is of course free to cover and feature what it chooses.  If it wishes to portray itself as unbiased, however, it needs to examine those choices more carefully.

When I was in college, I played in a bluegrass band with a guy named Gerry Tenney. He was the banjo player. Years later, I came across this video with Gerry singing A Hard Day's Night--in Yiddish.

Never heard anything like this before:

Snarky headline aside, I think we're all relieved that we can stay home today. Mr. Eyre directed my attention outside just before I hit the hay last night, and I was not looking forward to shoveling my car out in the dark this morning. I am a hardy soul, mind you; I come from a region that gets its share of wintry weather, and I have driven in snow enough to not be freaked out by the prospect. But today is a ridiculous day to try to have school. Good call, I say, Ms. Black.

If you, like me, find Presidential addresses too sickening and disingenuous to sit through, check out the education wrap-up at Schools Matter.

One of the best things about taking a gig with good ol' Rupert Murdoch is he doesn't care what you do with your spare time. You can make a few mil a year, and in your spare time, you can chair Education Reform Now. You remember them? They're the folks who started bankrolling our pals at Educators 4 Excellence. Gotham Schools mentioned that after commenting on the E4E lovefest with Joel Klein.

And now, waddya know, Joel is in a position to fund them even more, surreptitiously or otherwise. So now, when Joel fumes about how much he hates having job protections for Americans with families and mortgages, he can fund a bunch of people who agree, keep them on for a few years, and then fire them to save even more money. It's a win-win.

Oddly, the piece about Joel Klein's continued sellout tour didn't merit mention in Gotham. Maybe they consider Joel old news. After all, he's been replaced by Cathie Black, who's not only devoid of any educational experience (Joel apparently taught for a few months), but is of an entirely different sex. That she shares every single policy position, without exception, is neither here nor there.

Anyway, DFER calls Education Reform Now it's "non-partisan partner." Perhaps that's why they selected Joel Klein to run it. It's well-known that Joel Klein is absolutely non-partisan about education, except for his opposition to teacher tenure, LIFO, raises, contracts, class-size reduction, decent learning conditions, workers' rights, democracy, Mom, or apple pie.

Other than that, I'd vote for the man myself. Anyway, congratulations to Joel Klein on that new gig, and congratulations on that nifty new pension. After all, what's important is making sure those who've devoted their lives to educating children don't get a dignified retirement. Since you've devoted your life to nothing of the sort, you deserve everything you get.

Just make sure, when you're trying to retroactively destroy government agreements with the working class, that there's a loophole for you. Losing pensions is for the little people.


Card via Leonie Haimson

As we high school teachers kick off Regents this week, the English teachers among us will have no doubt turned away dozens of students looking for their scores on the English Regents. The English Regents was given two weeks ago, two weeks before any other Regents, because it is a brand-new test format and the testing gnomes in Albany will need to norm it and curve it and all that before they establish what the raw cut score is.

I'm interested to see the results of this process. I scored the exam at my school, of course, and I was underwhelmed by the results. When I first saw the new exam format in the fall, my first reaction was one of something like revulsion; namely, "This test is so darn easy." But I don't know that the students at my school did all that well on an exam that I thought was lowballed quite a bit.

I think, then, what comes out of Albany will likely send a message about what direction testing is really going in. If we have a huge passing rate, it will signal a retreat from (at least paying lip service to) the idea of higher standards and more difficult tests. If we see a precipitous drop from scores in past years, then perhaps we can expect a continuation of the tough-love policy on students, which might not be such a bad thing. But if Regents passing rates are going to go the way of the proficiency exam results in elementary and middle schools--that is, that they'll be factored into a "teacher report card" grade of some kind--then we as teachers will need to be even more involved with what these tests represent and what they actually measure, as well as with what the scores are and where they come from.

What are you "reading" into the new English Regents?

Marvin Gaye asked, but no one's answered yet. How on earth have public employees become the bad guys? How have we, one of the last bastions of the middle class, become the scourge of society?

It's all about money, actually. The government hasn't got enough. Municipalities are struggling. Why? You need look no further than the President of the United States, who, in these tough times, extended tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. Chuck Shumer said let's make the cutoff 1 million per year, so as not to inconvenience those impoverished Americans scraping by on $250,000 per annum. Even that was not good enough, and projected losses in tax revenue are astronomical. So someone has to pay.

Could it be the rich? Absolutely not. Rupert Murdoch, who just bought off Joel Klein, runs a 24/7 "news" network prodding downtrodden Americans to loath taxes, and he's been enormously successful. Thom Hartmann points out the rich are paying half of what they paid before Ronald Reagan took office,  before we had all these deficits, before we financed wars by borrowing from China. In fact, Hartmann suggests that extending the tax cuts even for the middle class may have been a mistake:

We’d been discussing taxes on the air and the fact that Denmark has an average 52 percent income-tax rate. I asked him why people didn’t revolt at such high taxes, and he smiled and pointed out to me that the average Dane is very well paid, with a minimum wage that equals roughly $18 per hour. Moreover, what Danes get for their taxes (that we don’t) is a free college education and free health care, not to mention four weeks of paid vacation each year and notoriety as the happiest nation on earth, according to a major study done by the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom.

Some things are worth paying for, but here, we're all cowboys. We ride around, watch Fox News, and don't bother checking their veracity. But as cowboys, it's every man for himself. Unless you're wealthy. Then Barack Obama will step up and say you get a break. NY Governor Andrew Cuomo will do the same, and so will our esteemed Mayor Bloomberg. Why would the richest man in New York City raise taxes on himself when he can simply attack unions?

There's a great book called What's the Matter with Kansas? It paints the image of the poor, the downtrodden, all marching to the rich man's house with torches and pitchforks, declaring, "We're here to lower your taxes!" That about sums up what's happening. Make no mistake, the current attack on teachers and unions is part and parcel of an overall attack on the middle class.

How do we get the word out to snookered Americans who get all their news from MSM?

I always go in on snow days. My wife speculates it's because I'm out of my mind, and some days it's tough to maintain otherwise. It gives me something to consider while navigating the icy roads to Fun City.

I remember once driving west on the Long Island Expressway, cars crashing to my right, cars crashing to my left, and hearing then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani advising me not to come in via my AM radio. I wrote his words on the board, for the amusement of the handful of kids as crazy as me.

There is a delayed opening procedure, introduced by former chancellor Harold Levy. It's been utilized precisely once, during a transit strike. Actually, thus far it doesn't look so bad out there today. But wouldn't it have been a good idea, if they were going to open the schools last Wednesday, to at least allow for the inevitability of thousands being unable to arrive on time? Wouldn't thousands more teachers and students have shown up had they been given time to dig out, to walk through the snow, to wait for that bus or train?

Every other area school system closed. Every private school was closed. Mayor Mike "Accountability" Bloomberg (who refuses to even say where he was during Snowmageddon) didn't see fit to announce whether schools were open until 5 AM. I don't know whether he or socialite Cathie Black know there's a delayed opening procedure in place. I've seen even less evidence that they care one way or another.

If they were truly concerned about NYC public school students (We already know how they feel about teachers), they'd at least give them a fighting chance of getting in.

Ruben Brosbe at GothamSchools penned a column explaining his motivation for joining Educators 4 Excellence, the "grassroots" (and I'll try to limit my snark after that) organization that supports higher salaries (good), more rigorous teacher evaluation (good, maybe), ending seniority-based retention (possibly not so good), and, it would seem in effect, further diminishing the role of the union in debates over salary, evaluation, and retention (definitely not good). As someone who has long been suspicious of E4E, I'll take his challenge to disagree passionately without, in his words, "vitriol" directed at him personally.

Following up on Miss Eyre's post of yesterday (which was quoted in the New York Times, mistakenly attributed to me), Mayor Bloomberg indeed has a dream. Essentially, it entails firing anyone he wants, whenever he wants, for whatever reason he wants.

Likely it will be the principal making such decisions. Goodbye, chapter leader. Goodbye, delegates. Goodbye, pain in the ass loudmouth who's always telling everyone about the unsafe conditions in the auditorium. Hello, teacher willing to rendezvous with principal Tuesday afternoons at the Comfort Inn. In a merit system, things will be different.

Who will be the first to wash the principal's car? To fetch the dry cleaning? Who's gonna make that run to Starbucks for a double half-caf soy latte mocachino with extra sugarless whipped cream? Who will come in on weekends to build that rumpus room the principal's been pining for? Who will pay for the permits? Who will tutor the children the principal's been neglecting, what with all that time at the Comfort Inn? Who will put the hotel bill on a credit card that can't be traced to the principal?

Meanwhile, Barack Obama gave a trillion dollars to the richest Americans in the country, Andrew Cuomo gave a billion to the richest New Yorkers in the state, and President Barack Obama is looking into ways to streamline regulation on those very same people, the ones that drove the economy into a ditch. For us to bail out.

You can't make this stuff up.

Boy, you spend a few days away from the blogging world and look what happens. Cathie Black proves once again that she isn't ready for prime-time, making this optimistic, open-minded blogger feel more foolish and dispirited by the day. E4E pops its head out again. A popular GothamSchools blogger may or may not be a deformer-crowd shill. But I'm all better now, ready to bring you this story via Gothamist: Mayor Bloomberg has a dream.

Like, dude, the kids in my class are like, puking their guts out? So, like I just figured I'd write about it, and stuff? And people are all,

Why is this moron allowed to share with us his idiocy? 

and

TMI 

and stuff in the comments?  But like, it's important, dude, to tell the truth, like, sometimes. Like, if I had a kid who had a you know, accident, I would have to, like, write my next column about it.

So anyhoo, like, when I wanted to support the release of value-added grades, and everyone was all like, "Dude, they're inaccurate and invalid," and everything? Like, Gotham Schools let me write about how even though I was supporting it, I was, like, still cool and everything? And, like, Gotham Schools is SO KEWL, because, like, they don't even make me write in my bio that I'm a member of Educators4Excellence. So I'm, like, in a group funded by Bill Gates and stuff, and they don't even tell anybody! And I'm also in a video with Michelle Rhee, and like, at Gotham, I don't even have to say why! They just say, I'm just, like, a teacher and stuff! So, I don't look, like, uncool!

Wow! How cool is that, dude?

So, like, I'm learning a LOT. For example, like, once, I like controlled the class? And I, like, figured once I did that I'd never have to do it again? But, like, the kids acted up again, and I was, like, surprised and stuff. Who could figure that once kids misbehave and stop they'd ever do it again? Or that anyone else would ever not listen to you, like ever, once someone finally listened to you? Anyhoo...

So, like, I noticed that in my school we had, like, stuff in Spanish? But not other languages? So I figured I'd, like, write about it and stuff? I was all, like, hey dude, why there wasn't stuff in other languages? So, like, I just figured every other school just had what my school had? Because I, ya know, go to my school and stuff? Anyhoo, then I heard that there WAS stuff in like, Chinese and Korean and Urdu, and, like, a whole lot of other languages and stuff? That Joel Klein's video for ESL parents was, like, dubbed into a WHOLE BUNCH of languages? And someone told me that, like, a lot of people can read numbers, even if they, like, speak other languages and stuff? But, like, I didn't check it out, and, like, no one at Gotham Schools checked it out either, but no one said anything, so it was, like, cool and stuff. So I was all, like, WHEW! Like, that was a close one, dude.

So, anyway, dude, that's all for now! I have, like, lots of other stuff to say, and stuff. Like, in my newest column I figured out when there are less kids, there's like, less noise? Who would've thunk it? So anyway, like, be cool!

L8R, dude!

My blogging buddy Reality-Based Educator has a post about MLK and economic justice. He mentions that the charter school moguls would have you believe he'd support all their nonsense about privatization and union-busting. "For the children," supposedly, MLK would have them not only abandon the concept of union, but also support billionaires like Bloomberg and Gates as they attack the pensions, salaries and working conditions of the middle class. Supposedly, he'd support them in their efforts to destroy the teaching profession, one avenue for many to said middle class.

Actually, MLK was quite opposed to such measures. Here's an early quote from him on what union-busters label "right to work,"--actually the right to enjoy benefits the union negotiated without paying the union--thus weakening it and imperiling its very existence:

"In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining…. We demand this fraud be stopped."   

Martin Luther King, Jr.

MLK also understood, as many Americans do not, that unions are precisely what brought us out of the dark days of the 19th century:

"The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old age pensions, government relief for the destitute and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival, but a tolerable life. The captains of industry did not lead this transformation; they resisted it until they were overcome."
-- MLK Jr., Illinois AFL-CIO Convention, 1965.

Let's respect his legacy. Let's not allow demagogues and ignoramuses to urge us back to those days. Even this week, Andrew Cuomo is airing ads promoting his anti-union vision for the future of New York. Let's give Andy a call and let him know how we feel. Next Wednesday there's a PEP meeting at Brooklyn Tech. Next Thursday night there's a hearing to once again try to close Jamaica High School based on blatantly false statistics.

None of us can be what MLK was. But this week we have several chances to stand up, just as he would, to those who'd destroy us to further enrich their rich friends. I'll be calling Governor Andy, and at Jamaica for sure.

How about you?

I'm NYC Schools Chancellor Cathie Black. After careful examination of the overcrowding problem, Mayor Bloomberg and I have come up with an innovative solution. As you know, many people have criticized me for having no background in education, for not having an advanced degree, for not having attended public schools, for not having sent my own kids to public schools, and some have even tried to block my appointment because of all this nonsense. What they don't understand is that I'm a problem solver. Along with Mayor Bloomberg, we've worked this whole thing out.

In fact, there is no overcrowding problem. We've got more than enough facilities to accommodate a reasonable amount of schoolchildren. The problem is that too many of you are having children, and all too frequently at that. We are, therefore, rolling out a multi-step program to deal with this. First, we will make condoms available free of charge for all public school parents. We will have training films available on the internet that will show you how to use them. Honestly, people who would irresponsibly overburden public schools with their prodigious offspring should not be having unprotected sex. It's simply irresponsible.

But that's only a first step. Mayor Bloomberg and I will be introducing legislation introducing financial penalties for people who have more than one child. Naturally we will exempt those who can afford private schools. Nonetheless, it's simply irresponsible to saddle society with all these additional expenses. Sure, there are those who think taxing the rich is the solution to every problem, but there will be no new taxes in NYC. They would hurt business, and wealthy New Yorkers should not bear the brunt of those who choose to fornicate irresponsibly.

Should these measures prove ineffective, we will explore the Sophie's Choice option. Now a lot of naysayers will complain this measure is extreme. However, it will only be utilized in the case of parents who fail to follow the first two options. And, of course, it will not apply to those of us in the top 2% income level. We've suffered enough already, and along with Mayor Bloomberg, I'm working to ease our pain. In any case, any parent, with any income, who wishes to avoid that measure, or indeed any of the above measures, can simply pay private school tuition.

And we're not simply passing this unilaterally. We're going to fully utilize the process set out in the governance measures that are sometimes misleadingly referred to as "mayoral control."  We will first propose this plan to the Panel for Educational Policy, where the Mayor has only 8 of the 13 votes. The 5 votes that don't belong to the mayor are free to vote however they like.  We will also have a public hearing and give everyone 2 minutes to express their opinions. Like we do with school closings, it's our practice to let the public say whatever they want before we do whatever we want. In New York City, we call that democracy.

What could be fairer than that?

After only several days on the job, I've gotten to see the real you--a person with a quick and ready sense of humor. I mean, who else would've thought to solve the overcrowding problem via birth control? There's some out-of-the-box thinking! And then there's that crack about many "Sophie's choices." How many people would consider likening public school options to those of a mom who had to sacrifice one of her children to the Nazis?

Not only that, but you sent 1.1 million kids to school on a day when every other area school and private school closed. Your boss told everyone to stay off the roads, but you had no problem making 80,000 teachers come in. Boy, what irony. Finally, after everyone figured you could never outdo that last thing, after asking all of them to come in, you canceled your own school visit.

Anyway, after reading all that, I was sure you'd enjoy this. An entire box of stink bombs for only $7.99. You could come to schools, set them off soon after your arrival, and avoid all those nasty questions from those uppity teachers, parents and students. And think of all the hilarity that would ensue! You could accuse the teachers' union of setting off all those stink bombs and get the tabloids to write editorials in your support.

It would be yet another win-win for the visionary leadership of New York City schools.

After years of the DOE reneging on promises, stabbing us in the back, planting nonsense in the tabloids, complaining about contracts it signed, deals it made, UFT leadership still shows far too little evidence of having learned anything. Months back, UFT President Michael Mulgrew made a deal to incorporate value-added metrics into teacher ratings. This has great potential to backfire, just as Ms. Weingarten's deal to examine value-added has, rather spectacularly, blown up in the faces of all the UFT experts who deemed this a good idea.

Ms. Weingarten was determined not to be a stereotypical cigar-chomping union boss, forever demanding more money and better working conditions. And indeed, with inflation, teachers are not making more money. Ms. Weingarten didn't hesitate to toss away decades of hard-fought professional rights for a compensation increase that failed to match the NYC inflation rate. For this, she won accolades from anti-union zealots like Rod Paige, and 5 minutes of admiration from the anti-teacher, anti-middle class tabloids--before they went back to trashing us at each and every opportunity. Then her new BFFs made a propaganda film called Waiting for Superman that gleefully cast her as the Antichrist.

There is no upside to making unenforceable deals with people who can't be trusted, as the class size debacle clearly demonstrated. Still, UFT leadership does not admit error, ever. This stubborn inflexiblity is an unfortunate quality they share with Mayor4Life Bloomberg. On both their parts, this policy is wrongheaded and counterproductive.

It's time for Mulgrew to break from Weingarten, wake up, and realize we've had enough. Teachers are demoralized and cynical, and with good reason. No more trying to show what swell folks we are by giving in to unreasonable demands of demagogues. No more selling out the few rights we have left for pennies. No more kowtowing to those who'd destroy us, like Bill Gates (who attacked teacher pensions right on the heels of the AFT lovefest in Seattle).

And not one word of a contract until we get what the other city workers got. No givebacks, and if that means no new contract, so be it. No surrender on ATRs. No surrender on last in first out.

The sad fact is, once they give in on those things, we may as well not have a union anyway.

Because, if they want to maintain union in anything more than name only, we've got no more to give.

8.8 inches of snow at Central Park. The mayor says stay off the roads. The MTA says don't come in. But NYC teachers should risk their lives and brave the storm. 1.1 million kids can do the same.

Here's how he decided--if the dual SUVs that drive Mayor Bloomberg to his favored subway stop can make it to his house, that means dual SUVs could make it to yours as well. That's why the mayor waits until 5 AM to tell you whether or not to come in. I mean, heck, if his chauffeurs can make it, so can yours. And if you really didn't want to hassle with the snow, maybe you should have taken the private jet to Bermuda, like it appears the mayor did during Snowmageddon.

A commenter just pointed out that NYC doesn't even bother with delayed openings on days like today. Hundreds of area schools are closed, but city kids don't even get extra time to come in.

In their infinite wisdom, the Tweedies have canceled field trips. After all, it's dangerous to travel in this sort of weather.

I just received a phone call telling me my daughter's school would be closed tomorrow. That's what happens when the community has a government that cares about its residents.

Mayor4Life Bloomberg, on the other hand, is not letting New Yorkers know until 5 o' clock tomorrow morning.

As high schools prepare to reorganize for the spring semester* in the next few weeks, I'm thinking about class size, and so are some other folks. Large class sizes are, as a rule, problematic here in NYC. It's not so much the size of the class itself; rather, it's the ever-widening scope of what teachers are asked to do, multiplied exponentially as classes grow larger and therefore ever more demanding on the time of teachers. It's also the wide range of students that can be found in the now-typical heterogeneous classroom.