Adam Smith, Plutocrats and Teacher Unions: Keeping Silent Because You Are Not a Trade Unionist Can be Fatal

 

When the Nazis arrested the Communists,
I said nothing; after all, I was not a Communist.
When they locked up the Social Democrats,
I said nothing; after all, I was not a Social Democrat.
When they arrested the trade unionists,
I said nothing; after all, I was not a trade unionist.
When they arrested me, there was no longer anyone who could protest.

Martin Niemoller

 

Why aren’t schools doing better? What are the obstacles to school improvement? Is it the lack of funding to schools with the most disadvantaged kids? Is it the burden of poverty? the lack of adequate housing? healthcare? single parent households? crime ridden neighborhoods? new and/or poorly trained teachers? or, is it the “rigid work rules imposed by teacher unions”?

 

Jonathan Alter, a Newsweek columnist avers that the source of school failure is the “paleolithic teachers unions, ready to pounce on any challenge to the failed system they dominate.”

 

Mayor Bloomberg, in testimony to Congress blares,

 

 “Pay-for-performance leads us to the second key to closing the achievement gap: accountability….Based on the data we’re collecting, there are now rewards for success in our schools – and consequences for failure. If a school continuously fails its students, we will shut it down. And if a teacher continuously fails his or her students, we will work to give principals the tools to remove that teacher from the classroom.

“Unfortunately, this hasn’t been very easy to do in New York – or in many other cities – because of inflexible union work rules. and let me suggest one promising idea: Congress can use the power of the purse to withhold funds from districts that fail to take meaningful steps towards reform.

What inflexible union work rules?

The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), compiled a searchable database of the teacher contracts in the fifty largest cities in 2006. They have just released a new report entitled Invisible Ink in Collective Bargaining, lo and behold, teacher contracts throughout the country are largely silent on those odious, but invisible work rules. Those so-called union-favorable work rules, says the Report, are imbedded in State laws across the country, not in teacher contracts.

Teachers as individuals are powerless, teachers as members of democratic labor unions have power. The power to vote, the power to advocate for policies, the power to change, the power to create legislation.

The ideologues of the marketplace and their billionaire friends have the dollars to lobby, to fund “think tanks,” the power to influence, they abhor the power of the ballot box.

Bloomberg is appalled that teachers, that third grade teacher in the  Morrisiana, that kindergarten teacher in East New York, that high school teacher in Ozone Park, can, through their union, thwart the power of one of the wealthiest men in the nation. For Mike, the carrot is the answer to poverty.

The assault on teacher unions masks the source of educational stagnation. The gap in achievement reflects the gap in income … children of the poor are, in all too many instances, lacking early interventions, are condemned at birth.

 David Brooks, in his column in the NY Times points to current research,

 ….  high school graduation rates peaked in the U.S. in the late 1960s, at about 80 percent. Since then they have declined.

In “Schools, Skills and Synapses,” Heckman probes the sources of that decline. It’s not falling school quality, he argues. Nor is it primarily a shortage of funding or rising college tuition costs. Instead, Heckman directs attention at family environments, which have deteriorated over the past 40 years.

Heckman points out that big gaps in educational attainment are present at age 5. Some children are bathed in an atmosphere that promotes human capital development and, increasingly, more are not. By 5, it is possible to predict, with depressing accuracy, who will complete high school and college and who won’t.

The Obama education program emphasizes early childhood education, and rejects the imposition of market based solutions, i.e., imposed merit pay.

The invisible hand of Adam Smith, the cold, cruel world of the marketplace, with economic determinism as guiding force is the “answer” for the today’s neo-robber barons.

Journalists who blithely blame teacher unions for the ills of schools are hiding their heads in the sands of time. There will come a time when those same journalists will be the subject of the arrows of the economic plutocrats. 

Klein Inc., Spreading the Brand Across the Nation

 

You can’t go home, again

Thomas Wolfe

 

With outposts in New York, Washington DC and Baltimore and the Education Equality Project Joel Klein is poised to move his brand across the nation.

 

Based upon the writings of Sir Michael Barber and Bill Ouchi he rejects the traditional view of school improvement. He sees schools of education, curricula, the range of math and reading programs as distractions.

 

His is a market-based approach.

 

* The principal is the key player and should be invested with as much power and authority as possible – with clearly enunciated carrots and sticks, and a vigorous recruitment/training program to plug in new principals as others are discarded.

 

* Recruit the best and the brightest teaching candidates, Teacher for America, Teaching Fellows, etc., and accept a rapid turnover rate.

 

* School success/failure measured by test scores, the heart and core of a school, with both teachers and principals futures at stake. Salary and further employment solely based on student achievement measured by test scores, not seniority or longevity.

 

* A firm stick: teachers who do not succeed, in the opinion of the principal, or, in any way challenge the authority of the principals can be removed and dismissed. The function of tenure is to defend incompetence and insubordination, and impedes the effectiveness of the principal.

 

* Weighted Student Funding, Pay for Student Performance, rigorous evaluation of teacher, principal and school performance are all the bedrock of the project.

 

* The traditional District Office bureaucracy is generally useless and must be as small as possible, the use of technology can replace bureaucrats.

 

Washington DC is in the midst of contract negotiations with the teacher union. Michelle Rhee, the superintendent and Klein accolyte, according to the Washington Post,  is offering a dual system: large raises for teachers who chose to forgo tenure, and, smaller for those who chose not to opt in.

 

Watch the Merrow Report: features interviews with Rhee and Washington Teacher Union president George Parker, as both sides warily joust. 

 

In an op-ed piece Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut supports the Rhee/Klein agenda.

 

Many New York City teachers see the Klein brand fading as mayoral control sunsets. Unfortunately they delude themselves.

 

In Congressional testimony last week Bloomberg couldn’t resist.

 

In his testimony before a U.S. Congressional committee on Education and Labor on July 17, Mayor Michael Bloomberg praised UFT President Randi Weingarten for working with his administration to negotiate school-wide bonuses and other financial incentives for educators. However, he criticized “inflexible union work rules” as obstacles that keep the school system from getting rid of “ineffective teachers.”

 

In Los Angeles the worst high school in the city, Locke High School, opted by a vote of the staff, to become a charter school under the direction of Green Dot.

 

We are tip toeing into an uncertain future … we are not returning to the past …

 

Memories can be illusory: the size of the “fish,” the “comfort” with the centralized school system of Koch and Guiliani grows.

 

Unless teachers and their union seize the agenda of reform/change, the Kleins and Bloombergs and Rhees will mold the future.

Firing Novice Teachers: Weeding Out Incompetents? Playing to the Anti Union Crowd? Gloating? How Does Firing Newer Teachers Impact Teaching/Learning?

 

 

The Department gleefully announces the firing of a record number of probationary teachers .

 

Is it a “plus” or a “minus”?

 

How many of the “fired” teachers were hired by the principals that fired them? How many were Teach for America? Teaching Fellows? By Race? Ethnicity?  As usual the Department simply spins out press releases and withholds the source data.

 

One would hope that the Department values teachers as they gain experience, and, isn’t trying to establish a “fast food” model … a revolving door of employees … valuing the cost of the teacher over the experience of the teacher.

 

Some background: Teachers serve a three year probationary period and are rated at the end of each school year. The rating officer, usually the principal may rate  the teacher “S,” “D” or “U” in the first year and “S” or “U” in the following years. If a probationary teacher receives a “U” rating the rating officer can opt to “discontinue” the probationary teacher, in effect, “firing” the teacher. The teacher may appeal the “discontinuance,”  however, the hearing panel is an in-house administrative hearing that makes a recommendation to the chancellor. Virtually every discontinuance is sustained. At the end of the probationary period a teacher can chose to continue their probationary period, usually the option is the threat of  “discontinuance.”

 

The Department lauds itself and points to their Teacher Evaluation Unit that electronically informs principals of the probationary status of teachers.

 

Not so long ago Superintendents, remember them, personally observed every teacher before recommending them for tenure …  but, the Department has no memory since it has purged all documents/policies that preceded them …

 

In addition to the 600 teachers who were fired thousands of teachers leave voluntarily each year. To the best of my knowledge the Department does not conduct exit interviews or conduct an exit survey.

 

Wouldn’t it be helpful to know why teachers leave? or, switch schools?

 

The NYC Research Partnership is a little known effort to conduct creditable research, based upon the highly regarded Consortium on Chicago School Research .

 

Among the first studies released in October, 2007 was Who Leaves: Teacher Attrition and Student Achievement that found

Teacher attrition for novice teachers in New York City is marked by two dominant themes. First, teachers of low-performing students are more likely to leave their current schools during their first two years of teaching than are teachers of high-performing students. And, second, across both low and high-performing schools, teachers who are less effective in raising student achievement are more likely to leave their current school than are more effective teachers.

 

Why are more effective teachers leaving low performing schools? Isn’t this the opposite of the goals of Fair Student Funding?  What is the Department doing to retain more effective teachers in low performing schools? 

 

Should principals be the sole evaluators of teachers? Should teachers “reflect” on colleagues’ practice? How many schools utilize Critical Friends Groups?

 

Firing more probationary teachers may mean we purging the system of the incompetent? It may mean that principals are firing teachers hired by their predecessors? What is the impact on the rest of the staff? Will it improve the practice of the remainder of the staff? or encourage them to leave the school? What interventions did the principal utilize prior to the decision to terminate the teacher?

 

Gloating about firing more teachers may gain creds among the anti-union crowd, but we have no idea how it impacts teaching and learning.

A Naive Proposal: National Standards and National Exams for All Kids.

 

A naive proposal: why don’t we establish national standards and national exams?

 

No Child Left Behind had bi-partisan support in 2003 and was widely hailed. The law requires every school system that receives federal dollars to establish a system in which each school would have to reach preset goals, (Adequate Yearly Progress) measured by test scores each year until the entire school is “proficient” by 2014 … sort of the Lake Wobegon Effect.

 

Some States began with “little steps” that increase sharply as they approach 2014 while others had the same steps every year. The measuring tool, the test, had to meet “recognized” standards.

 

If schools fail to meet AYP the school comes under continuing scrutiny, and, if progress if is not made the State is required to intervene, and, can close the school.

 

The national teacher unions both oppose the law, the NEA wants it abolished  and the AFT  has a more nuanced approach.

 

The New York State Education Department finally released the results of the ELA and Math grades 3-8 exams with fanfare, and, we see sharp increases across the State. Hurrah!

 

Is it the result of the infusion of new monies into the schools, an emphasis on test prep, the fear of NCLB penalties and sanctions, the setting of the scale scores, or, maybe the secret addition of omega-3 into the State reservoirs?

 

The answer, however, is simple: the Commissioner set the scores so that the scores jumped in comparison with last year … nothing fancy. This is nothing new. Each year the State reviews the results of Regents exams, and arbitrarily sets scale scores, the number of correct answers necessary for a passing grade. The 9th grade Math Regents, an “easy” exam to begin with, only requires 30 points out of a possible 84 for a passing score of 65, so reports Andrew Wolf in the New York Sun.

 

In the morally bankrupt Department of Education the gnomes claim credit for the rising and the setting of the sun. Cheating is treated with a “wink and a nod” and numbers spin dross into gold. The model for increasing scores is Enron.

 

The recent “back and forth” between Deputy Chancellor for Spin, Chris Cerf and Sol Stern on Eduwonk was down right embarrassing for Cerf/Klein, but, nothing embarrasses these guys.

 

If States can set “baby steps” to meet AYP, if States can manipulate test scores to make themselves look better, if school systems can prevaricate, don’t we need a national system?

 

Shouldn’t all kids, whether in North Dakota or North Carolina have to meet the same standards? Isn’t mathematics, and reading and chemistry, and physics the same in every State?

 

On Monday Randi Weingarten gave her inaugural address to the American Federation of Teachers Convention.

 

“Let’s proudly present our vision of an America that offers all our children a fair start, a healthy start and a hopeful start in their journeys in life — the vision that inspires our ideals for community schools, healthcare for every family, college opportunity and career training for every American, and a strong and growing labor movement that empowers every worker and dignifies all work.”

Weingarten also argued that the No Child Left Behind Act is, in fact, leaving behind the very children it was intended to help, and has outlived its usefulness.

“These are the children who have the least opportunity outside the schoolhouse walls to be exposed to all the elements of a well-rounded education: the arts and physical fitness, the ability to think critically and to argue logically, the value of active citizenship, and a knowledge of different people and places. NCLB slams the schoolhouse door on what makes up modern civilization and replaces it with multiple choice questions,” she said.

“We need to prepare students for 21st century jobs. Employers say that they are looking for workers who can devise new solutions. But how will kids who have spent 12 years learning to keep their pencil marks inside the bubbles ever be able to think outside the box?”

A key aspect of Weingarten’s proposed solution is the expansion of the community school model — schools that serve the neediest children by bringing together all the services and activities they and their families need under one roof.

“Imagine schools that are open all day, and offer after-school and evening recreational activities and homework assistance; high schools that allow students to sign up for morning, afternoon or evening classes. And suppose the schools included child care and dental, medical and other services the community needs.”

 

A modest proposal, that was immediately attacked by the guys on the right.

 

Of course we require standards, but NCLB hasn’t achieved that, it has created the opposite, a school system based on test prep and scheme after scheme to lower standards and “game the test.”

 

In spite of relatively low standards in Math and Science education, according to a 2006 Reality Check survey,  parents don’t grasp the importance of raising the bar and this year, education has declined as a national issue.

 

It would be fascinating if Obama, swimming against the tide, supports a set of rigorous national standards that would raise the bar for all kids.

Is Joel McCain’s Consigliere? Has Klein Dumped Barack? Is He Dating McCain?

Who will be whispering in the ear of the monarch? Who will be Barack or John’s educational consigliere?

 

In New York City the clock on the “Kleindom” is ticking with a June 30, 2009 sunset date. Joel has spent his chancellorship treating everyone who may disagree with him with disdain. He failed to listen to Buddy Cianci, the former Mayor of Providence, who advises, “Beware, the hand you bite today may be attached to the ass you have to kiss tomorrow.”

 

Throughout the spring a range of elected officials and organizations have been discussing what the next educational administration will look like. Virtually everyone praises mayoral control, and follows with a but …

 

The critics range from the City Council, the Public Advocate, a range of elected officials both on the Council and in Albany, the Teacher Union and many parent and advocacy groups, in fact, there is no public support for continuing the current governance system without substantial changes.

 

Will Joel try to fight to reauthorize the current governance plan? or, move on to the national stage?

 

Joel and his alter ego, Chris Cerf vamped off to Chicago to meet with a Barack advisor. Chris jousted with Sol Stern on Eduwonk, a national education blog. And, Joel and his new homeboy Al Sharpton are shopping their Education Equality Project, that blames teachers and unions for the ills of schools.

 

A Gates Foundation head praises Mike and Joel in a “Where is Gates Going” speech in early July.

 

McCain speaks at the NAACP Convention, and he sounds suspiciously like, you guessed it, Joel Klein and his Education Equality Project.

 

Is the meeting with Obama advisors a beard? Is Joel really whispering in the ear of McCain?

 

It looks increasingly like Obama is cozying up to the teacher unions and Joel, looking for a place to land after New York, is diddling with the McCain camp.

 

A McCain Secretary of Education Joel Klein?

Parsing Obama: Barack Defines His Education Policies, and, the Right Moans

 

 

Is Obama a closet educational conservative who supports vouchers, or, in the thrall of Bill Ayers, the left wing, former Weatherman, college professor? or,

 

Is Obama in the “pocket” of the teacher unions, or, has he distanced himself from the unions?

 

The blogosphere has been abuzz with chatter. (here, and here and here).

 

This year the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) conventions were held back to back in Washington DC and Chicago.

 

The NEA convention, with 9,000 attendees is always “bread and circuses,” themed t-shirts, silly hats, and little discussion of issues. The AFT, with 3,000 participants, has vigorous floor debate. Both organizations underwent changes in leadership as their presidents retired.

 

Obama spoke to both conventions, via satellite.

 

Obama’s comments at the NEA were carefully parsed with every nuance interpreted word by word.

 

At the AFT Obama disappointed the free marketeers and the anti-union folk as evidenced by the editorial in the New York Sun.

 

The AFT convention was ecstatic as he rolled out his education policies to the AFTers from around the country.

 

I am running for the president to guarantee that all of our children have the best possible chance in life … that begins with providing children, especially the most vulnerable children, with the support they need: quality, affordable early childhood education; expanded afterschool and summer learning opportunities, fully funded special education; and early intervention strategies that recognize the forces that lead to a high school student dropping out start well before the ninth grade … it also means ending the days of labeling a school and then abandoning them the next … I am tired of hearing you, the teachers who work so hard, blamed for our problems.

 

(Citing AFT locals in Chicago and Cincinnati) …You’ve shown that it is possible to find new ways to increase teacher pay that are developed with teachers, not imposed on them.

 

As his speech concluded you almost hear the air deflate the anti-union folks balloon.

 

The many millions of teachers, and others represented by teacher unions (school support staff, nurses and hospital support staff, colleges and universities) are scattered in every nook and cranny of the nation, and, they vote.

 

They not only vote, but, they work in elections, and they use their teaching skills to influence others. Whatever doubts, whatever allegiances to Hillary have been assuaged.

 

At a recent pro voucher conference a voucher supporter bemoaned the strategy employed by teachers: they forced the voucher issue onto the ballot, and it was soundly defeated. Democracy can be a bitch.

Taylorism and the New Cult of Efficiency: Treating Students and Teachers as a Commodity

 

As the school year limped to an end the teacher union released a membership survey, assessing the performance of the Chancellor, mirroring the Department Environment Survey, and, a few days later the Department issued their own Surveys  reflecting the views of teachers, parents and students.

 

Education in the 21st century has become a commodity. The new Nielsen Ratings  are test scores and surveys.

 

The history of the business approach to school management has a long pedigree. More than forty years ago Raymond Callahan (“Education and the Cult of Efficiency”) described the impact of Frederick W. Taylor, an “efficiency” expert in the 20s whose influence was still evident in the schools in the 60s.

 

 What is wrong with today’s schools, he argues, is not that they are dominated by the ideals of progressivism, but rather that they have fallen into the hands of narrowly trained administrators who preach the gos­pel of economy under the guise of science.

 

In 1994 Peter Senge wrote The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, and has had an enormous impact on the world of business management. Senge’s theories of businesses as changing learning organizations were applied to schools in his widely regarded Schools That Learn, and he continues to work with school leaders.

 

The application of business management to schools has relevance, but, does the end product, children, differ from the business end product: profit?

 

Increasingly leaders of school systems have come from outside the world of education. A retired admiral followed the retired Governor of Colorado in Los Angeles. Paul Vallas, a businessman lead schools in Chicago, Philadelphia and now in New Orleans, and, of course, in New York City, a lawyer.

 

Joel Klein has been strongly influenced by William Ouchi, a management professor at UCLA and the author of the Theory Z: How American Business Can Meet the Japanese Challenge (1981).

 

Ouchi applies his theories to schools which have become the philosophical core of the Klein administration,

 

 Researchers discovered that the schools that consistently performed best also had the most decentralized management systems — individual principals, not administrators in a central office, controlled school budgets and personnel. They were fully responsible and fully accountable for the performance of their schools. With greater freedom and flexibility to shape their educational programs, hire specialists as needed, and generally determine the direction of their school, the best principals will act as entrepreneurs, says Ouchi. Those who fail are placed under the supervision of successful principals, who assume responsibility for the failing schools.

 

Ouchi and the free marketeers see the marketplace, the conflicting forces of supply and demand, as totally applicable to the world of education. They are the modern day Frederick W. Taylors’.

 

When a business fails, when an industry disappears or moves overseas the worker is the victim. S/he may have to take a significant decrease in salary, or, move to another part of the country, or retire, or fall into the cycle of unemployment and poverty. Can we equate the displaced worker with the student in the failing school?  Can we simply cast aside the “failing” school, and, their widgets: the students and teachers.

 

Should we concentrate on leadership and leave it up to the principal to create an effective, achieving school? Displaced teachers, just as displaced workers are simply a side product to be discarded.

 

How many parents/caregivers have marginal employment? How many of our kids have a primary care physician? How many suffer from childhood obesity? asthma? abuse? poor diet? How many are in foster care? single caregiver households?  What is the impact of surrogate parenting? As the Center for NYC Affairs Report  shows children in the foster care system face enormous obstacles.

 

To ignore the world of our students and simply apply the mechanisms of the management is foolhardy, and cruel.

Abetting Cheating: Is Tweed a Co-Conspirator? Is Klein Protecting the Cheaters?

abet a verb (used with object), abetted, abetting. to encourage, support, or countenance by aid or approval, usually in wrongdoing: to abet a swindler; to abet a crime.   co-conspirator noun a fellow conspirator; associate or collaborator in a conspiracy     Students, schools and school systems are measured by test results. number of kids passing New York State Regents exams, with grades over 55 and 65, scale scores on NYS English/Language Arts (ELA) and Math exams that translate into levels 1 through 4 (below standard, approaching standard, at standard, above standard). Schools with poor scores face the possibility of closing, and principals face losing their jobs. Under the new principal union contract evaluations are keyed to school scores. At the other end of the spectrum both teachers and principals can earn “bonus” dollars if schools exceed pre-set goals.   In the pre-Klein years Central Headquarters closely monitored testing. On the day of the tests Central sent it’s minions out to all schools, they arrived at the crack of dawn and monitored the testing throughout the day.   The  Central testing folk ran computer software and identified schools with “questionable” results. Principals, teachers and kids were interviewed by the Office of Special Investigation.   In the early 2000’s the Board brought charges against scores of school employees – accusing them of improper practices in regard to standardized testing.   Elizabeth Green in a New York Sun investigative article exposes blatant cheating by a principal in two schools, PS 48, his former school, and, MS 201, his current school (http://www.nysun.com/new-york/high-test-scores-and-criticism-follow-a-south/80944/).   The principal, John Hughes, is a favorite of the Chancellor, who has lauded him on a number of occasions.   At Susan Wagner High School in Staten Island the Office of Special Investigation supported accusations of complicity in cheating on Regent exams, and recommended the firing of one of the supervisors (http://www.uft.org/news/teacher/top/vindicated/), the Klein imposed penalty: a slap on the knuckles.   Under the Klein regency no one monitors exams … each school is totally on their own. The Department no longer uses software to examine spikes in scores … the message is clear.   Why aren’t cheaters punished? Why doesn’t Tweed closely monitor the testing process? Is Tweed/Klein abetting cheating on exams? Are they co-conspirators?   Teachers work extremely hard, they desperately want their kids to succeed … how can you get your kids “involved” in their work? how can you get them to want to read? Principals sacrifice the Arts, very little music and art … school plays … chorus … gone in too many schools. Many kids can sense the tension in their teachers as the fateful testing days loom …   Teachers and kids have to know that there is an even playing field. That test scores reflect the work of students and their teachers, not the manipulation of the fearful and the arrogant, and, it is the job of the Chancellor to assure that even playing field.   Cheating, unfortunately may be endemic, and, it is not limited to New York, scandals are becoming increasingly commonplace (http://www.uft.org/news/teacher/speak/teachers_dilema/) across the country.   The “wink and a nod” from Tweed cheapens us all.