#KnowYourBillionaires ep. 1: LEN BLAVATNIK

I'm off work with a lot of spare time, so I'm gonna politics a little. You've been warned.

Harvard's president Dr. Claudine Gay was recently forced out of her position; supposedly over "plagiarism," (a couple/few very minor, purely technical errors on published work from decades ago); and her weak response to Hamas' attacks on Israel, which she later walked back mighty publicly. She was only in the job for 6 months.

#KnowYourBillionaires #LenBlavatnik

LEN BLAVATNIK is of Ukrainian heritage, but he's a UK and US citizen. Blavatnik is worth $30,000,000,000.00 ($30b) and He's one of the Harvard donor billionaires who helped force Dr. Gay out, by threatening to withhold money. Blavatnik was also backing Chris Rufo, a provocateur who used his right wing media platform to ruin Gay, and successfully drum her out of her position.

This is an important read IMO. Blavatnik is one of the many faces of institutional racism in America. He denies connections to Putin but there is no question he made his money cashing in on aluminum when the Soviet Union collapsed - he is awash in Russian money, yet here he is helping to call the shots at Harvard.

There should be Billioniare Collectors Cards or something, so people know who's who.

The Work

Friday at 5:00 P.M. officially and technically ended my first quarter as a CPS teacher at a fantastic high school on the west side. My first quarter there, as a teacher, has been the most challenging nine weeks of my 10+ years as an educator.

To be fair, my commute is way simpler, and way easier. But the classes are larger. A higher percentage of my students are in deep poverty, and affected by trauma. For the first time in my career I have a large room of freshmen - the "kindergarten of adulthood" - and they are a whole different type of animal . . . MORE of my prep taken is taken by my administrators. The hoops I have to jump through with regards to submitting unit plans and lesson plans, are higher. The administrative directives to routinely call parents, and log it, are more onerous, and more formalized. My (primary) grade level is planning a giant service learning project TOGETHER, one in which the whole sophomore class will participate. The planning for that unit has been painstaking.

Don't get me wrong . . . my last district in NW Indiana was and remains a great one, but in many ways I feel like I have "moved up to the big leagues." Coming to CPS has forced me to be a better teacher. It has also been an insane amount of work, and stress.

Now throw in the strike, and the financial worry, and standing around outside in the cold for four-seven hours most days, not knowing when things would "go back to normal."

Last week the word came down from CPS top brass that, despite our two weeks + a day strike, the quarter would formally end this past Friday, as if nothing had happened. That meant that grades were due Friday. The grading deadline is a stressful time, just by default. Now throw in the strike interruption (during which we could not enter grades into the system). I can't crawl around inside their shiny golden heads, but the decision to barge forward "all is normal" felt punitive. As a writing teacher, the deadline meant that I would have grade the notebooks of THREE classes this past work week, instead of one.

Grading notebooks for a writing teacher is a highly personalized, formalized, and usually time-intensive undertaking. Grading notebooks for three classes in one week - approximately 65 of them - plus doing it carefully, is probably an insane undertaking. Nevertheless, I was staring at notebooks past 9:30 P.M. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights. I am never doing that again - I don't care if the whole country goes on strike.

I have repeatedly asked myself if leaving my last district to come to work in this challenging-as-all-hell environment was the right decision. I have really wondered if was going to be able to hack it here. I have experienced pretty significant impostor syndrome. I have struggled and felt like a failure repeatedly, especially with my large group of freshmen, and my really challenging giant group of sophomores too. I have second-guessed myself: "Did I really go into all those interviews and claim that I was "a pretty advanced classroom manager?" I mean, am I, after all?" Shit like that. A lot of it. I feel like a rookie, which I definitely am not.

But the notebooks got dealt with. My grades were in on time. I absolutely LOVE my coworkers, and bosses. This staff is amazing. I have a free three-day weekend, free of papers to grade. We fired up the fire pit last night and grilled out. I am watching soccer this afternoon. When things have been really hard for me, I always find it reassuring to remind myself that "This is the life I've chosen." I chose to be where I am, which is at a fantastic school that is doing kick-ass things for the kids of Austin, East Garfield Park, Homan Square, and North Lawndale, with all that choice entails, the good, the bad, and in-between. No one said teaching high school with CPS was going to be a sparkle-pony picnic. I'll be back where I belong, in my classroom, on Tuesday; after a VERY hard-earned three-day weekend. I don't know if or when I will feel like "I got this" as a CPS teacher working on the west side. But in this profession, I also know that feelings of "I got this" tend to be fleeting and miragical, anyway, and sometimes even a little dangerous.

I'll proceed.

Long-time union guy, first-time striker . . .

From the picket line . . . .

#PutItInWriting

People always want to boil it down to teacher pay.

Yes, teacher pay is always at issue but that is far from the only one. Speaking personally, moving to Chicago Public Schools from a district in NW Indiana just this year, I have already gotten a pretty big raise, so I'm not really striking over teacher pay, per se. Let's be clear though, teachers DO deserve to paid more. I have seen good people, who were good teachers, leaving the classroom behind ENTIRELY because, for all the stress and headache involved, payday was just too marginal. Those among us who have been in education for 10+ years have seen this MANY times. Good folks decide to become principals or college professors, or they leave education entirely, and you can't even blame them. Yet we NEED good classroom teachers!

#SmallerClasses

I'm striking for smaller classes. My two most difficult classes contain 34 and 36 early high school students. They are my largest. It is NOT a coincidence that my two largest classes are my two most challenging, as any teacher will tell you. There are simply more behaviors to help guide, and to manage . . . in my largest class, there are more students than desks. Yesterday one of those classes had a TON of students absent, possibly because everyone knew the strike was looming, and human nature dictates that when a break is due, we tend to want to extend that break.

At any rate, with a large number of my west side students missing, my usually-extremely-challenging group of 34 was pared down to around 20-22. Well guess what? With a much smaller group, the class ran as smooth as butter melting on a warm griddle; like . . . waaaaay better than it usually does.

Any educator will tell you, and plus it's common sense: SMALLER CLASSES MATTER. That's why I'm striking today. I have a daughter who will attend CPS schools. I demand that she have smaller classes, rather than larger ones. That's what it's about for me

#PayTheParas

Another heartbreaking reality of living in this expensive-ass town, is that many of our support staff are BARELY making it right now. Full time teacher aides, school clerks and secretaries, and other paraprofessionals who spend their entire work lives in schools, shouldn't have to eke by on public assistance because they can't make ends meet. And we need MORE of them. Too many schools (like mine) have no librarians, or no nurses, or social workers. Our students need WRAP AROUND service.

Everyone in this district, including the mayor and CPS' CEO SAYS they want do the right thing on these issues. That's why the hash tag #PutItInWriting was adopted. A couple years ago, the state of Illinois FINALLY changed the funding formula to make school funding for the city more equitable to what downstate gets. CPS is FLUSH WITH CASH that was earmarked EXACTLY for the issues listed above. Now they are trying to slow-walk spending the money on what it's intended for. They can't be allowed to get away with it. CPS has a $1 billion that IT DIDN'T HAVE LAST YEAR. (They'll have a $1 billion more next year too.) The district cannot credibly claim poverty. We want smaller classes, more and better-paid paraprofessionals, librarians, nurses in every building, and we want it IN WRITING, not in the form of "lip service," and slow walk towards: "Well eventually we'll do something about all this." CPS HAS THE MONEY. DO IT NOW.

REALITY: this strike is going to cause financial hardship to every single one of the tens of thousands of us who isn't going to work. Whether we strike for one day, or twenty, we won't be getting paid for strike days. We are putting it on the line for our students, our own kids, and our city. They MIGHT agree to add school days at the end of the year, but I can't tell my mortgage company: "Hey, I got you in July 2020."

This strike is special because we are joined in solidarity by SEIU 73 — which services many of the security guards, secretaries, paraprofessionals, custodial staff, and teachers’ aides in our district. That did NOT happen last time. (The second picture above was from a solidarity strike with nurses trying to organize with SEIU at Mt. Sinai Hospital.)

WE ARE POWERFUL TOGETHER. AND WE ARE GOING TO WIN.

That’s all I got.

Solidarity.

Indiana GOP prepares to strip elected Superintendent of Education of her Powers

Don't like who those pesky voters elected (or whatever)? It's a simple solution if you control all the levers of power . . .

The evil bastards in Indianapolis are at it again. This isn't really going to be a terrifically long blog-post, but I thought people should know. Indiana's Governor, Mike Pence, and his allies in Indiana's overwhelmingly RepubliCon legislature, are putting into place a law that would, in direct contravention to the expressed wishes of Indiana voters, remove Glenda Ritz, a former award-winning educator, and current Superintendent of Public Instruction, as head of the State Board of Education. Indiana hadn't elected a Democrat to a "downballot race," since 1996, and Glenda Ritz's huge upset win over since-disgraced Dr. Tony Bennett, was a shock to most of the political class in Indiana, back in 2012.

From Diana Ravitch:

Ritz won with a bipartisan coalition and beat incumbent Tony Bennett, whose campaign outspent Ritz’s by 10-1. Ritz won more votes than Pence in the general election. Under Tony Bennett, Indiana education policy favored for-profit charter schools, vouchers, high-stakes testing, and attacks on the teaching profession (he was chair of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change and adopted all of Bush’s favored policies). After he resigned, he was immediately hired to be State Superintendent in Florida, but then quickly resigned when AP reporter Tom LoBianco revealed that Bennett had altered the A-F grading system to protect the charter school of one of his major campaign donors.

Since taking office, Ritz has sought to improve public education in Indiana from a teacher's perspective, in the face of massive pressure from Indiana's overwhelmingly GOP power structure.

In an increasingly escalated response, Pence's allies in the Indiana legislature have authored a trio of bills that would simply remove the elected Superintendent of Education as the head of the state's Board of Education, and allow one of several RepubliCon-dominated entities to choose the her replacement, usually the GOP-dominated Board of Education itself:

From The Indianapolis Star

The legislation would allow the board to choose its own chair instead of falling under the de facto leadership of the state superintendent, a four-year post filled by Indiana voters. This marks the latest attempt by Republicans to wrest control of education in Indiana away from Ritz, a Democrat.

State Sen. Travis Holdman (R-Markle) filed Senate Bill 1, which would seek to have the leader of the State Board of Education appointed by other members. Holdman is the assistant majority whip. . . .

The clause allowing the board to choose its own chair would sunset in January 2016, the same year Ritz's term expires.*

* BOLD MINE Get it? They're only stripping the Superintendent of Education of her powers so long as "SHE'S" the one getting elected by those damned pesky voters. No doubt if Glenda Ritz were to be elected again in 2016, (with more votes statewide than Governor Pence, or Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly, by the way) they would just pass another "temporary fix" to the whole "Democratic-former-educators-getting-elected-to-Superintendent-of-Education" problem the GOP is currently has.

Make no mistake, this is a NAKED POWER GRAB, by an already way-too-powerful Indiana GOP that can't stand the idea of an actual former educator (and union President) actually winning elections, and supporting pro-public school policies down in Indianapolis.

If you live in Indiana, please CALL AND EMAIL your legislators and tell them to vote NO on Senate Bills 1, 452, and 453. These abominations almost certainly have to votes to pass Indiana's rock-ribbed RepubliCon legislature, but occasionally, in the last couple of years, the GOoPers have slithered back into their holes when the light of day is shown on their nefarious activities, of which this naked power grab is only the latest and most pestilent example.

PS: I live in Chicago, but am a proud union teacher in Northwest Indiana, although I am not acting in any official capacity with this blog-post.

My Excellent Traditional Public School District vs. A Proposed New Charter

I'm one lucky teacher. I work in an excellent public school district, Merrillville Community School District, in Lake County, Indiana, located on the outskirts of the greater Chicagoland area.

Why do I say I'm so lucky? Merrillville has some OUTSTANDING things happening for our large, very diverse school district. In many ways, we are the flagship traditional public school district in northwest Indiana. Why do we say this in Pirate Country? From the website:

We are the recipient of several State and National awards:

* Merrillville High School: International Center for Leadership in Education Model School, Coalition of Schools Educating Boys of Color (COSBOC) Model School, and US News and World Reports Bronze Medalist

* Fieler Elementary and Pierce Middle Schools: PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports) Indiana pilot and Model Schools

* Salk Elementary: 2013 US Department of Education Blue Ribbon School, Title 1 Distinguished School, and COSBOC model school

* Merrillville High School is the only diverse high school [read: majority African American/Latino high school] of its size in Indiana which has been graded an "A" continuously for the last three years.

Furthermore, Merrillville High School is home to 2013's High School Principal of the Year in Indiana (the Horace Mann Award) Michael Krutz.

We could go on on and. Our high school's graduation rate of 93% is very good, especially for a district in which more than 50% of its students are on free or reduced lunch(1). We are well ahead of other districts in our area on statewide testing scores on both the ISTEP, (elementary/middle school level) and ECA tests(2). And those Coalition of Schools Educating Boys of Color (COSBOC) Awards are absolutely nothing to sneeze at; COSBOC is a very eminent organization.

We are big, multi-ethnic, traditional public school district that is doing some wonderful things for a group of kids who REALLY NEED a great education. Again, more than 50% of students, putting aside ethnicity entirely, are on free or reduced lunch. A large percentage of our kids were born in Gary, or at one point went to Gary schools, as Gary is just north 53rd Street. We are a REAL SUCCESS STORY for a large, diverse, traditional public education, here in Merrillville.

None of that seems to matter much to the educational quote "reformers" unquote who are backing the prospective and cleverly-acronymed Northwest Indiana Science and Engineering (NISE) Charter School, which hopes to open in Merrillville in the Fall of 2016, and build toward 6-12 grade classes totalling 700 students by 2020. These backers are mostly a group of COLLEGE-LEVEL educators, backed by Ball State University, in Muncie, Indiana, which is located across the state of Indiana, about 200 miles from the good people of Merrillville/Gary. According to their own highly reasonable-sounding proposal, the NISE-guys just want to bring renewed focus upon Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) to the good folks of northwest Indiana. As anyone in the education field will tell you, "STEM" is a pretty big buzz-acronym in educational circles these days. To be sure, no one is going to argue AGAINST trying to develop more Scientists, Technorati, Engineers, and Mathematicians.

The NISE-guys, backed by Ball State, will then hire out the fine minds at American Quality Schools Corporation, to run the school. If you want to see what neo-liberal, corporatized education looks like, you can follow the link above.

In case you're not familiar with the jist of how these things run, it's as follows. In Indiana, like most states, state funding is doled out on a per-pupil basis, and different districts get varying amounts from the state of Indiana, to run their programs. In Merrillville's large district, this amounts to roughly $5,500 per student. When they open a new charter, "cuz choice," the money for the students enrolling there follows the students, to their new charter. You can do the math with regards to $5,500 per 700 students, it works out to $3.85 million a YEAR. The traditional public school loses funding, "cuz competition," although I'd challenge you to find any other so-called "competition" where you cut off the fingers of the old champion, so that the new kid on the block can compete.

The preponderance of evidence is that charter schools, en masse, are doing no better, Capital-W Whatsoever, at educating our nation's youth, in this country. What they are EXCELLENT at doing though, is siphoning off dollars from traditional public schools, paying teachers less, demanding less accountability, and lining the pockets of a corporate-style CEO's of highly-profitable neo-liberal "non-profits." Traditional public schools are far from perfect, but in Merrillville, we have an extremely good thing going. Students going elsewhere represent a SIGNIFICANT threat to our continued excellence. And guess what, in spite of the NISE-guys laughable claim that they will take those students who "fall through the cracks," and specifically MCSC's expulsions, charters typically have much lower thresholds for removal of problem students, and that's academically, AND behaviorally. The traditional school district, of course, HAS to take everyone - that's democracy in education, folks.

In this particular case, there is cause for major concerns with regards to Ball State's ABILITY to even run a decent charter school. In January of 2013, not two years ago, Ball State suddenly pulled the charters of seven schools, in one day. And fully 20 of its 43 statewide charters were notified that their status was in question at one point in that same winter.

As for Merrillville's performance doing STEM-education, specifically . . . we AGAIN have an excellent record. In fact, Merrillville Community School Corporation will share a major STEM grant with other Northwest Indiana Schools.

It is INSULTING, when our traditional public school are doing so very well in Merrillville, to be told "we can do it better," by a group of people whose entire educational experience isn't even at the K-12 level, for the most part. There is zero reason to think the NISE-guys are going to do STEM-education any better than Merrillville's outstanding traditional school district, which has an long and excellent record of doing the same.

SO WHAT CAN WE DO?

Good news folks, today is the FINAL DAY for public comment on the proposed new charter school! You can take a little time and let them know your concerns by emailing ramarra AT bsu DOT edu. Here's my letter to the Executive Director of the Office of Charter Schools, if you'd like to let 'em know TODAY!

Dear Mr. Marra:

As a long time public educator in Merrillville, I'm writing to express my firm opposition to the Northwest Indiana Science and Engineering Charter School.

With all due respect, I have major concerns with regards to Ball State's ABILITY to even run a good charter school. In January of 2013, not two years ago, your office suddenly pulled the charters of seven schools, in one day. And as you surely know, 20 of Ball State's 43 statewide charters were notified that their status was in question at one point in that same winter.

Merrillville's outstanding traditional public school district is one of the marquee public school districts in northwest Indiana. It is the recipient of several State and National awards:

* Merrillville High School: International Center for Leadership in Education Model School, Coalition of Schools Educating Boys of Color (COSBOC) Model School, and US News and World Reports Bronze Medalist

* Fieler Elementary and Pierce Middle Schools: PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports) Indiana pilot and Model Schools

* Salk Elementary: 2013 US Department of Education Blue Ribbon School, Title 1 Distinguished School, and COSBOC model school. These Coalition of Schools Educating Boys of Color (COSBOC) Awards are absolutely nothing to scoff at; COSBOC is a very eminent organization.

* Merrillville High School is the only diverse high school of its size in Indiana which has been graded an "A" continuously for the last three years.

* Merrillville High School is home to 2013's High School Principal of the Year in Indiana (the Horace Mann Award), Michael Krutz.

* Merrillville High School's graduation rate of 93% is very good, especially for a district in which more than 50% of its students are on free or reduced lunch.

* Merrillville is well ahead of other districts in our area on statewide testing scores on both the ISTEP, (elementary/middle school level) and ECA tests.

* As for Merrillville's performance doing STEM-education, specifically . . . we AGAIN have an excellent record. In fact, Merrillville Community School Corporation will share a major STEM grant with other Northwest Indiana Schools.

It is INSULTING, when our traditional public school are doing so very well in Merrillville, to be told "we can do it better," by a group of people whose entire educational experience isn't even at the K-12 level, for the most part. There is zero reason to think the NISE folks are going to do STEM-education any better than Merrillville's outstanding traditional school district, which has an long and excellent record of doing the same.

Please do the right thing, and let Merrillville outstanding traditional public school system work its excellent programs, unhampered by funding cuts emerging from an unproven charter school.

Sincerely,

___________

_______________

Keep it civil, but let the folks at Ball State know that this is a place where we don't need an unproven new charter school!

Thank you for continuing the struggle.

On Teach For America, Anti-Unionization, and Corporatization of Education

A very happy Labor Day to all.

This day is about recognizing the daily, unglamorous hard work and sacrifice made by millions of ordinary Americans, on behalf of each other, and posterity. We tend to take an eight-hour workday and the weekend for granted, but people literally DIED fighting for a decent wage, and a better quality of life for everyone. If anyone has any doubts about the importance of the union movement, of workers having a say in the conditions and the wages that define their own livelihood, just take a quick look at this graph, and then read this article by the indispensable Laura Clawson.

Go here to learn more about the extremely interesting origins of Labor Day, and a strike that killed 30 and wounded 57.

This post isn't intended as any kind of attack or depreciation of the thousands of hard-working Teach For America participants, many of whom are well-meaning folks who understandably want a quicker way into the profession, and see TFA as a viable option for them to fast-track their journey towards teaching.

Yesterday, I was perusing the interwebs, and came across not one, but two separate articles that focused on Teach For America, the well-known 'alternative path to teaching,' whose stated mission is to: "eliminate educational inequity by enlisting high-achieving recent college graduates and professionals to teach" for at least two years in low-income communities throughout the United States. As opposed to the two years of classes in instruction, Literature and Reading Comprehension, Educational Psychology and pedagogical theory that I received while I was training to become a teacher (in addition to a fourteen-week stint as a student teacher), Teach For America tries to cut through all the supposed "extras" of a traditional teacher-education model in five weeks, without student teaching or standard certification and licensure, landing TFA corps participants in full-time teaching jobs at an accelerated pace.

Corps-members commit to two years of teaching.

While the goals of TFA certainly seem laudable, one immediately has to wonder about an organization whose own program requires participants to commit to two years in a profession which, according to MOST of the seasoned veterans already so-involved, takes at least three to five years to achieve basic competency. (For full disclosure, I'm a fifth-year veteran classroom teacher and proud union member, although I am not acting under and union-backed program in writing this; and I FULLY endorse the notion that it takes at least three-to-five years in the classroom to gain competency.) It's from this angle that Steve Singiser, a veteran teacher himself, launches his article on the front page of DailyKos.

The renewed war on the veteran teacher

. . . The "reform" crowd has long addressed the issue of veteran teachers as a battle between "youth and optimism" and "calcification and resentment." Not only is the argument offensive, it is also wrong. There have been multiple studies that confirm that teacher effectiveness is enhanced through experience. What's more, a 2012 study showed that teacher turnover (a built-in feature of charter schools, as we read earlier) does appear to have a negative impact on student performance.

But there are other, more obvious reasons for the "reform" crowd to diminish the value of experienced teachers. The most obvious one is money. Experienced teachers simply cost more than their less experienced colleagues. But of equal importance is that experienced teachers are often the most vocal and impassioned voices for the rights of professional teachers.

Do not underestimate how much the "reform" community loathes the role veteran teachers play in acting as the guardians of the professional rights of teachers. Much of the intellectual heft, and virtually all of the money, in the "reform" crowd comes from the financial and business elite. For example, when Wendy Kopp founded TFA, she did so by pitching her plan to Fortune 500 execs. That netted her the seed money needed ($2.5 million) to get her plan off the ground. So the "reform" movement (and the charter school movement) is fueled by corporate cash and wealthy donors. This is a shock to precisely no one. Now, ponder for a moment how that crowd typically conceives of its workforce, and then see the obvious translation to "education reform."

One undeniable component of that corporate mindset in education "reform" (and the charter school movement) is an ingrained hatred of workers' rights in the classroom. Even in their own propaganda, the charter school lobby admits that less than one-in-eight charter schools are unionized. There is no chance of that being an accident.

This article REALLY needs to be processed in full in order to get whole story, but I won't break copyright by posting it all. Go and read the whole thing. The basic jist is that corporate-backed educational quote "reform" unquote entities like Teach For America are hurting the quality of students' education by implicitly devaluing the importance of EXPERIENCE in the classroom. Furthermore, Teach for America is placing huge quantities of its participants in charter schools, which are unionized at much lower rates than other public schools. As Singiser tells us:

Charter schools need a weakened workforce, dependent upon the goodwill of the bosses, in order to insist on things like demanding that employees offer up to 30 additional hours a week of uncompensated labor. In short, they need a bunch of temp workers, who would never dare challenge the authority structure, because they are more interested in getting a decent recommendation letter to the MBA program in their future than they are to upholding some minimal rights for the profession, since it is a profession that is viewed merely as an attractive line on their bio for whatever is next in their future.

In contrast, veteran teachers are confident enough in their convictions, and have a broad enough depth of experiences, to question the inherent value of "reforms," especially when said reforms are coming from people with scant, if any, classroom experience. What's more, they are fiercely protective of the profession, because they know that they are in it for the long haul. The part-timers will not fight, because either (a) they don't care because they're looking at the next rung of the ladder or (b) they're afraid. Neither of those things apply to veteran teachers, which is why they will fight.

Thus are Teach For America participants the advance guard for a de-professionalized, short-timers' teaching field, where experience isn't needed, and may in fact be an impediment to the agenda of corporate-backed educators.

But that was just the start of my education about Teach for America, as I stumbled across this important article from Max Blumenthal at Alternet.org, just an hour or so later.

Wealthy Widow Is Pouring Millions into Teach for America, Promoting a Pro-Israel Agenda to Needy and Impressionable Children

Lynn Schusterman, the wealthy widow of the oil and gas tycoon and major Israel booster, has begun injecting millions into TFA, the advance guard of the education privatization movement.

. . . Since TFA requires only a two-year commitment from its teachers, more than half of TFA members leave their positions after a brief stint in the classroom. Some take advantage of a TFA partnership with Goldman Sachs to seek jobs at the investment firm, which recently paid much of a $247 million settlement with homeowners victimized by foreclosure abuse.

As a revolving cast of inexperienced, culturally uninitiated teachers drift in and out of inner city classrooms, many schools have been thrown into chaos. Dissent is building within the ranks of TFA, with some veterans openly conceding that they were used as foot soldiers in a concerted assault on unions and public schooling.

But the organization’s recruitment efforts remain strong; over 10,000 members hold TFA jobs across the country, taking advantage of opportunities for personal advancement not available to their certified colleagues. Among the most coveted perks available to TFA members is Reality Israel, an all-expenses-paid, ten-day tour of the Holy Land. Unfortunately, not every teacher has what it takes to qualify. Though a few gentiles have been accepted to Reality Israel, its application process clearly offers preferential consideration to Jews. According to Reality Israel’s website, participants are required to “have affiliations with or interests in Jewish life.” Such language is likely to deter non-Jews, especially Muslim and Arab TFA members.

This is another must-read article, that shows us how, in times of tough budget crunches, school districts can cuts costs and eliminate those troublesome, empowered, experienced, and more-likely unionized teachers, and replace them with cheaper, less empowered, less experienced teachers from programs like Teach For America; which, in a back-door way, encourage idealistic young people to "get in and get out" of the teaching profession before they become the type of veteran teachers that do a better job for our students, and stand up for our profession.

Further on, this article gives important details as to how this whole thing works . . .

the destructive impact of Hurricane Katrina prompted the firing of 7,500 education workers in New Orleans, the conversion of most of the city’s schools to charters, and a nearly 20 percent decline in the share of black teachers working in the district. Meanwhile, TFA expanded its operations in the city, moving about 300 new members into teaching positions.

“I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina,” US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan remarked.

In Chicago, where Mayor Rahm Emanuel has shuttered nearly fifty public schools, mostly in predominately African-American neighborhoods, approximately 850 teachers and staffers have lost their jobs. The man-made disaster has been a boon to TFA, which is pouring into Chicago with hundreds of non-union replacement teachers. “The added influx of TFA corps in the city means they now compete head-to-head for jobs with traditional teachers,” noted journalist Emily Brosious.

This style of de-professionalization is troubling even BEFORE you get the major thrust of Blumenthal's article, concerning the Pro-Israel ideology promoted by one of TFA's largest individual donors, Lynn Shusterman; whose right-leaning "Pro-Israel-can-do-no-wrong-and-all-who-question-this-are-to-be-smeared-as-anti-Semitic" agenda is problematic to itself.

Again, this is not to say that many TFA folks aren't sincere people, who want to become excellent life-long teachers . . . but the pro-corporate, anti-professional agenda of TFA's philosophical background is enough to give any educator pause.

Blech! There's pee in my coffee.

Well, cue the right wing glee machine, because I have lost most of my collective bargaining rights.

Today, the Indiana Senate concurred with the House version of Senate Bill 575.

It now goes to Governor Mitch "Big Jerk" Daniels for his swift signature, and rests as law of the land.

This is a huge loss for teachers here in Indiana. As I've been saying for some time the victory parties regarding union labor and public education in the Hoosier state were quite premature. In concurring with the House Version of this bill, the Indiana Senate approved measures that would:

* allow annual evaluations to be conducted by other teachers or contracted outside agencies

* eliminate the ability of a local associations to bargain or discuss the evaluation tool

* restrict collective bargaining agreements to wages and wage related benefits

* ban the bargaining of contractual hours or number of days worked.

* eliminate current contractual reduction-in-force processes

* eliminate contractual grievance procedures except in cases related to wages and wage related benefits.

I added the bold for the two worst elements of this bill. Do the parts in bold sound familiar?

They should, if you've been following the labor struggles in Wisconsin and Ohio.

I'm lucky in that my own local union was able to negotiate a two-year extension on my contract, and in that our union has a pretty good working relationship with the administration and the school board. Other locals were not so lucky, and will now see huge chunks of their contract left entirely to the mercy of the local administration and school boards.

But, after our contract expires in two years, if our school board decided to extend my work day for forty-five minutes with no extra pay, guess what they can do?

Why, extend my work day for forty-five minutes with no extra pay, of course!!

And if the locals don't like that? They can get bent, as far as the state GOP is concerned.

This is a sad day for teachers in Indiana.

Indiana: They're going for the jugular of the teachers' unions

TEACHERS: GOV. DANIELS SPEECH WAS A "SLAP IN THE FACE"

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Indiana's NewsCenter) - Indiana's NewsCenter met with area teachers after they watched Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels' State of the State Address.

More than half of the Daniels' 30 minute speech centered on education.

. . . One teacher's initial reaction was the speech was "slap in the face" to her decades of hard work.

Unless you've been living in a Gulf of Mexico oil slick for the last six months, you're probably aware that in the GOP's ongoing struggle to destroy what was once quaintly known as the middle class, the latest gambit has been to blame any and all of everything that goes wrong on public sector unions, regardless of evidence.

Well New York City isn't the only place where this is going on. Here in the Midwest, we find Governor Mitch Daniels and the state's GOP-controlled legislature going rather bananas all over the Indiana State Teachers' Association. And unlike the trumped up "work stoppage" charges that look like they'll never go anywhere in New York, and have only made the jagbag who came up with the story look stupid, Governor Mitch and his buddies down in the Hoosier State appear quite likely to succeed in their attempts to deal a death-blow to a union. Here's what the GOP has dreamed up in a their fevered brains for the good teachers in my old home state.

House Bill 1337 contains provisions that would . . .

* allow annual evaluations to be conducted by other teachers or contracted outside agencies
* eliminate the ability of a local associations to bargain or discuss the evaluation tool
* restrict collective bargaining agreements to wages and wage related benefits
* ban the bargaining of contractual hours or number of days worked.

Wow. That's pretty draconian, considering that all of these are things that unions here have been bargaining over for years. This guy sure seems to hate him some union teachers.

The Senate Version of this bill, SB 575, is similar. . . a long list of things that are stricken from bargaining. Both of these bills have passed out of committee. Quite simply, what they're trying to do is put strict limits over what the union can actually negotiate, and it's wages and wage-related benefits, and THAT'S IT. Everything else has been pulled unilaterally "off the table." That's not negotiating, that's dictating. Under these new laws, members of the teachers unions would have no recourse regarding termination, no say in the length of their work week, no say at all in ANYTHING outside of wages. But wait, it gets better . . . meaning worse.

Governor Mitch, whose administration, by the way, slashed education by $300,000,000.00 last year (that's $300 million if you don't like counting zeroes) has also been going around promoting charter schools like they're the new cure for our supposedly "failing" schools. There IS precious little evidence that your average charter school does any better than standard public education. Charter schools are far more likely to be non-union than public school, though. As an added bonus, charter schools, because they are generally selective, get to exclude lower-performing students.

The Governor believes, quite whole-heartedly, in fact, that public school systems should GIVE AWAY unused buildings to charter schools. From SchoolsMatter.org

"If any school district in this state is sitting on perfectly useful school buildings that it isn't using and doesn't have any prospect of needing, people say, 'Well, they should have to sell them. They refuse to sell them; they should have to sell them'," Daniels said. "Sell them? Hell, they should give them away. The public already paid for them once."

How's that for a smart business maneuver from this supposedly business-minded Governor?-giving a way public property for free!?

So to go over the checklist:

1) Gut the teachers unions right to bargain? Check.
2) Strengthen non-union schools that have proven to do better than public schools approximately 17% of the time? Check.
3) Funnel public money to private entities that are actually less accountable to the general public? Check.
4) Further starve public schools and dump them with students who struggle? Check.

Yep, this angry wind continues to roar across the prairie toward union teachers and public education in Indiana, generally. But you guessed it, there's more.

In his State of the State speech recently, Mitch Daniels proposed vouchers that would take public tax money and give it to private schools in the name of "school choice." In many cases that money would go to his fundamentalist friends, who run the burgeoning number of "Christian academies" that are springing up all over the country. This proposal brought a glowing review from the fine minds at the Heritage Foundation, who claimed that Daniels had "put the Hoosier State on the school choice map."

What happens to public school districts and public school teachers all across Indiana, which are already on hard times financially, and which will inevitably be tasked with educating those who don't want to attend John Q. Associate's Degree's Fundamentalist School of Christian Light and Dismissing Evolution; or those just don't get lucky enough to have a voucher? Well they'll just have to make due with less . . .

In Indiana, Contact Your Reps

It can't just be the unions fighting these attacks on public schools and public school unions. Everyone has got to fight back against this. We simply cannot let this stand unchallenged, or the Mitch Model for destroying public education swill be repeated in many other locations.

And this guy's thinking about being President?

Secretary of "Education" Arne Duncan: Dumbfuck

*

Duncan to call for change in teachers' education

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is expected to push for reforms in how teachers are taught when he speaks at Teachers College at Columbia University in New York on Thursday.

According to advanced quotes released by the U.S. Department of Education, he will say that "schools, colleges and departments of education are doing a mediocre job of preparing teachers for the realities of the 21st-century classroom." He will call for a "revolutionary" change in teacher preparation programs.

Duncan estimates that about 200,000 new teachers will enter U.S. school systems annually."

Hey Dumbfuck:

You, with the ever-so-serious look on your face and your respectable quaff of neatly greyed hair. Yeah . . . you . . . dumbfuck.

The problem with our school systems isn't that the universities are doing a poor job preparing teachers. The problem is that teachers and administrators don't run schools on the state or national level in any way shape or form. When we run the army, we call a general. When we run the Justice Department, we call a lawyer. When we run the educational system, we call a politician . . . like you . . . dumbfuck.

See, the funny thing about you Arne, is that you've never been a teacher, or a building supervisor in your life.

Not even once.

So even though I am pretty new to being a teacher . . . I feel that I have just a little more real-world experience in education than you do . . . you dumbfuck. The other problem with you, Arne, is that you built your whole career in Chicago on corporatizing schools, warping education into a for-profit process with lots and lots of non-union shops. Oh and closing schools . . . glad to see that you're proud enough of that to go ahead and list it as one of your accomplishments. So sure we've got some technically new schools . . but the exact benefits of our shiny new corporate charter schools here in Chicago are murky to say the least. And the benefits of closing down all those other schools are completely unknown. We've got bizarre new scenarios where two or three separate "schools" all share one building that used to be just one school . . . the whole thing makes no sense whatsoever.

But hey! Millions upon millions of tax dollars were spent, union jobs were eliminated and then replaced with non-union jobs,

Thanks for that, you dumbfuck.

Hey speaking of dumbfucks, Arne. Here's one of your colleagues, and probably close friends, Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennet. If the two of you aren't acquainted, then you should be introduce. Why I'll bet the two of you would get along famously . . . after all, you're both dumbfucks.

Now Bennett is one-up on you, Arne. He spent all of 17 months as a building supervisor. Apparently that was enough for him, so now he's got some grand ideas on how to fix Indiana's schools. Like you, Arne, this jagbag has decided that what's really ailing our schools is that the universities aren't really giving teachers what they need, and that teacher education requirements should be different. But he's willing to take an even further step into jagoffishness . . . he's going to tell us that our licensing requirements should be less "burdensome."

This moron's plan is to:

"Eliminate burdensome requirements for new teachers and replace them with a better program. Under current regulations, beginning teachers are required to create teaching portfolios and participate in a teacher-mentor program to move from the initial practitioner license to a proficient practitioner license."

As if anyone in an actual school setting believes that what's ailing our schools is that "the licensing requirements are too burdensome." Yes! Finally we have it pure gold that is capital-E Education capital-R Reform! Oh sweet Jesus! Thank you lord in heaven! It was the teacher's portfolio requirement that was really tanking the whole system!

YES! Let's just shuffle the way we fill out our paperwork!!!! See if something statistically relevant pops out! This has never been tried before!

Perhaps you, Arne Duncan Dumbfuck and your ol' pal from next door, Tony "Big Jagoff" Bennett, can find more ways for us to shuffle the deck chairs the paperwork on this titanic ship of education! Maybe one day we'll stumble upon something that might have worked if we hadn't cancelled the program after six months! It'll be grand!

But whatever we do . . . let's not put teachers and building administrators in charge of our schools.

Because that will never work.




*Thank you Getty Images!

Can Arne Duncan fix American schools?

Just thought I'd use this article to kick to start a new emphasis around here on America's educational system. As I move in to the teaching profession, I look forward to many more conversations on this issue.

This is a balanced, close look at Obama's Secretary of Education designee, Chicago's schools CEO Arne Duncan; from the always reliable Alternet.org.

Is Obama's Education Pick the Sarah Palin of the School System?

By Annette Fuentes, New America Media via Alternet. Posted December 24, 2008.

Education advocates say Arne Duncan's qualifications are slim.

"SAN FRANCISCO -- When President-elect Barack Obama recently named Chicago Schools Superintendent Arne Duncan as his choice for secretary of education, the reaction was a chorus of praise in the national media for a man they hailed as a true reformer and passionate educator. The consensus was that Duncan was great at building consensus, tough on the teachers' union, and committed to the kids. And, incidentally, he was pretty good on the basketball court.

Among community, parent and youth organizers in Chicago, however, the response to Obama naming his good friend and sometime basketball partner as education secretary was not unanimously positive.

'I was on black talk radio last night and people who called in were almost heartsick about it. Their candidate making a pick like this is an enormous disappointment," said Julie Woestehoff , director of Parents United for Responsible Education. "People are concerned he doesn't have the educational background and that he's not even qualified for the position he's in. It's really a slap in face.'"

I don't really feel 'expert' enough to comment upon Arne Duncan's qualifications to be the Secretary of Education. However, I will say this, the title of this article is somewhat misleading. While most of the first page or so focuses on some of the problems associated with the Duncan choice, much of the blame is laid on Chicago's quote "strong mayor politics" unquote i.e. His Royal Majesticalness of Bridgeport, Mayor Dick Daley the Pure.

Most of the second half of the article is more positive on Duncan - so the comparison to Sarah Palin is fairly inaccurate. Quotes like these:

"Jay Travis, director of the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization [said]: 'We pushed for better engagement with the community on some of these issues. Our recent experiences with Arne have been more positive'"

and

"Duncan also has his boosters in Chicago, and education consultant John Ayers, is among them. 'I'm a big fan of Arne Duncan,' Ayers said. 'The guy is a mensch. He loves working with kids. This is a guy trying to help low-income kids get a good education'" . . .

do not exactly paint a picture of a guy with Palinesque incompetence and venality.

Draw your own conclusions.