NEA Approves Spending a Whopping $1,250 to Establish Labor Action Fund

In what can only described as a whimpering response to the hammering that public service unions just received from the Supreme Court, NEA delegates passed a resolution that allows the collection of $3 dollars from each member in a voluntary donation fund for future job actions by state affiliates.  The resolution

. . . directs the NEA to establish a voluntary membership donation of at least $3. The donation would establish a fund to support strikes or other statewide labor actions, such as a short-term work stoppage. This new business item, which will cost $1,250 to implement, asks for state and local affiliates to collect the donations and then transmit the funds to the NEA for disbursement when there is labor unrest. 

In 2016, NEA had $300,000,000 in the bank, and it collects over $400,000,000 each year in member dues.  

If NEA used a tenth of what it spends to prop up neoliberal politicians who support corporate ed reform, that would be a monumental.

The Education Spring and the Irrelevance of AFT/NEA

What do West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Arizona have in common?  If you answered that they are states where teacher-led walkouts have resulted in gains in funding for teachers and school resources, you would be right, of course.  They are also right-to-work states where AFT and NEA influences are negligible.

The NYTimes Sunday Review had a piece this week that argued that the gains that are accruing to the teachers in these states will be short-lived without "strong unions."  I would agree with this if there were any strong national unions to choose from, but since AFT and NEA offer unhealthy choices that are more like Burger King or McDonalds than providing any substantive difference, then we are left with false choices, both of which are bad for you.

The Times piece offers the union in Racine, WI as an example of a strong union that has been effective in limiting class size, gaining resources, and increasing salaries.  Note that Racine is a local effort and not one headed by a bloated union hierarchy that pays its presidents almost a half-million dollars a year for doing PR for outfits that are in cahoots with the corporate education deformers.

The historic six-day wildcat strike in Arizona was led by a grassroots organization, Arizona Educators United (AEU), not the dress-up-and-go-to-a-luncheon crowd who run Arizona's NEA affiliate, AEA.  The future of teacher activism in AZ or elsewhere will not be in the hands of NEA or AFT functionaries who take hard earned teacher dues for nothing in return except the promise of supporting state candidates who, either Democrat or Republican, don't care a whit about the lives of public school teachers or their students.

The sad truth is that teachers around Arizona and the U.S. have been sending NEA and AFT hundreds of millions of dollars every year for, essentially, for liability insurance and some discount coupons for car insurance.

If organizations like AEU kept their dues money at home, they could build a legal defense fund that could support their actions in the streets and in the courts and in parent/student coalition building, where the battle to save public education will be fought and won.

Yes, it is time for strong unions for sure, which is bad news for NEA, AFT, and all their affiliates who stand by talking tough as teachers and children are abused, neglected, and humiliated by corporate education reformers and efficiency zealots trained to run businesses, rather than schools.

In my class on Sunday in Boston, a teacher told me about losing all their librarians in their system and 67 other faculty and staff. Another told me about losing all their ELL teachers, even though their student population is almost half English language learners.  This is in MA, where union membership is almost universal and collective bargaining is a fact of life.  The Education Spring has to grow in places like MA, too, which have, thus far, seemed immune from teacher activism outside the NEA/AFT bureaucratic stranglehold.

Children are being harmed.  That's the only justification any teacher needs stand up and to do whatever needs to be done to stop it.  Your AFT and NEA are not helping.

AFT Apologists Defend the Indefensible

A couple of comments from readers about my take on CTU's betrayal of teachers are worth noting.  The first from edblisa:

Lois has a point. No, it's not ideal that the CTU is offering worker protection to unqualified teachers, but these are young people that were told a lie to get them to join into the TFA scheme. These are people who needed a job so that they could support themselves and family. They are people who have tried to do right by children even if they didn't go about it the right way. They still need some protection from abuse. There has got to be some kind of compromise to help these people.

The young privileged millennial resume builders who enlist in TFA for their two years of service to the corporate elimination of the teaching profession and bolster the staff of dehumanizing charter schools could have been, yes, duped when they signed up. However, if one joins the Nazi Party thinking it is an innocent patriotic enterprise, one does not continue as a Nazi when when one finds out what one has done out of naivete or stupidity.  Just following orders is not an excuse, just as needing a job to pay back school loans is not an excuse, just like resume building for law school is not an excuse.

There can be no protection for those engaged in morally reprehensible acts, which are socially unjust to the core, even if Weingarten would like to sign up charter "teachers" counteract the cratering of AFT membership that is resulting from real teachers who are appalled at AFT's self-serving compromises.

The other comment is from Michael Fiorillo:

I loathe charter schools and look forward to the day when the last one has a stake driven through its heart. However, workers deserve the right to unionize, period. And if enough charter schools unionize, they will then cease to be the teacher union-busting panacea the Overclass wishes them to be. At that point, should it arrive, there might be hope to integrate some of them into the public school system.

First, Michael assumes that workers, regardless of the the job, deserve to unionize.  And I suppose they do.  That fact, however, does not require AFT of NEA to offer affiliation to teachers working in sweat shop charters that are abusing children and exploiting female workers on a daily basis through draconian discipline systems and cultural sterilization practices and authoritarian management schemes. If charter workers were real teachers, rather than alt-cert know nothings, they could exercise the option to work in humane schools, either private or public.  Since they are not teachers, however, real schools don't want them.  Sorry about that.

Hoping to "integrate" some the charter reform schools into the public system will require the public systems to accept the unacceptable and to embrace the morally reprehensible.  School boards, I hope, will resist such an atrocity, even if AFT and NEA and NPE have no such reservations. 

Ravitch Embraces TURN Agenda, Openly This Time

The Union Reform Network (TURN) was established as a joint venture among Eli Broad, Bill Gates, and the leadership of NEA and AFT.  TURN was created with millions of dollars from Gates and Broad, and the new "reform network" they created aimed to co-opt and use the teachers' unions as essential levers to advance corporate education reform agendas and the corporate political agenda of dismantling the hard-earned rights and benefits of teachers.

Those goals have not changed over the past 20 years, even if the rhetoric has been fine-tuned to appeal to unsuspecting teachers enticed by phrases like "teacher-led visions."

Earlier this month, TURN issued its most explicit version yet of its long-standing goals, this time with objectives included, along with some of the strategies that TURN intends to use.  Within a few days of TURN's publication of its new document, Diane Ravitch posted her support of the TURN agenda, as spelled out in the latest proclamation, Our TURN: Revitalizing Public Education . . .:

It is a good report. It refutes the common refrain from corporate reformers that there is no alternative to their cramped and toxic practice of high-stakes testing and school choice. It is a public school response to the Betsy DeVos’ belief in the free market of charter schools and vouchers for religious schools.

This is a worthy presentation of a well-resourced public school system, staffed by experienced teachers whose collective voices are represented in the policymaking process, and whose voices carry more weight than those of the politicians who write unreasonable and impossible mandates. 

Along with her glowing assessment, Ravitch posted a most saccharine "Rationale" from the TURN document, along with even more syrupy "Vision" from Our TURN . . . 

Here's the "Vision:"

As teachers and teacher unionists, we believe that teaching and learning can be transformed if we embrace a new vision of education that rests on four pillars, each of which bears equal weight:

1. If we want schools to prepare student to be career and college ready, thoughtful citizens, and reflective human beings, then schools should be safe, learner-centered and well-resourced to serve the needs of each individual student.

2. If teachers are the most important in-school determinant of student learning, then teaching must be recognized as a true profession.

3. If America needs to tap into the talents of all students, irrespective of their background, then educational excellence must be inclusive and education redesign must be accompanied by changes in other aspects of students’ lives.

4. If all education policy must ultimately be about enhancing opportunities for students to learn, then collective bargaining (and other forms of collaborative decision-making) between teachers and management should always aim to advance student learning.

The Teacher Union Reform Network (TURN), a coalition of teachers and teacher union leaders from AFT and NEA union locals, was founded 20 years ago “to promote progressive reforms in education and in teacher unions.” To all who are engaged in the debate about the future of public education – whether practitioners or policymakers — this document lays out precisely what we aspire to.

We begin with our idea of what education, schools and classrooms could and should look like, then turn to the policies needed to bring about that vision.

What's not to love, right?  Sounds like something we can all get in bed on board with.

What Ravitch does not post or even mention are the "Policy and Practice" objectives that TURN provides in the document, all of which reflect long-standing priorities of corporate reformers:

1) linking collective bargaining to accountability testing gains,

2) weakening seniority rights (particularly related to administrative transfers),

3) eliminating of teacher salary schedules in favor of merit pay schemes, and

4) dismantling system-wide collective bargaining agreements for the kinds of school-based preferences that made Green Dot's hostile takeover of Locke High School possible.

These are the policies, then, that TURN will continue to pursue, now with the added support from Diane Ravitch's NPE:

We back “quality bargaining” that puts student learning at the center of collective bargaining (and other collaborative) agreements and requires that all proposals be buttressed by evidence of how they contribute to the advancement of student learning.

➤➤We support the highest standards for teachers and reject the allegation that due process rights provide a lifetime job guarantee. Accordingly, we support the widespread adoption of peer assistance and review procedures that support struggling teachers and in some instances remove teachers from the profession.

➤➤We call for the possibility of flexible, site-specific negotiated agreements, where a super­majority of teachers in a school can override the corresponding district-wide contract to allow for tailoring terms and conditions to improve teaching and learning.

➤➤We propose modifying consideration of seniority in school transfer decisions in cases where fair teacher-led hiring practices are put in place.

➤➤We call for modifying the traditional single salary schedule and instead adopting differ­entiated pay that recognizes that teaching is broad in its scope of responsibilities. . . .

➤➤We advocate meaningful consultation with parents and community members as part of the process of collective bargaining (or other agreements) with management.

Oh yes, and if you are wondering if TURN has forgotten the latest corporate tech fixation on de-personalized learning and the elimination of brick and mortar schools, TURN has not forgotten.  Here's the way TURN couches the new "competency-based" screen-based learning as "learner-centered schools:"

In learner-centered schools, students are rarely lectured to. Instead, learning is collaborative, and students do most of the work themselves. The paradigm of students who sit still and absorb material is replaced by well-crafted, active learning opportunities that promote cooperation, analysis, and synthesis. 

And in learner-centered schools, learning is connected to the real world. Lessons often take place in real life settings, not just in classrooms. 

In the past, Diane Ravitch struggled to downplay her connections to TURN by attacking and disparaging motives of anyone who noticed as much.  In 2013, for instance, when lawyer and whistle blower, Kathleen Carroll, pointed to Ravitch's speech at one of TURN's meetings (and another speech to psychologists funded by Pearson), Ravitch lashed out, as did Diane's venomous protege, Mercedes Schneider.

Now quite suddenly, Diane Ravitch has openly endorsed TURN's latest statement of its agenda.  And she has done so with the typically deceptive and dissembling techniques that Ravitch perfected during her many years as a loyal lieutenant to Chester Finn and Lamar Alexander.

Some more links to TURN's activities:

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2013/12/is-turn-trying-to-take-over-your-union.html

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2012/06/attention-all-teachers-your-union.html

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2012/06/organize-to-oust-toner-neville.html

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2012/07/paul-toner-and-turncoats.html

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2012/12/paul-toner-from-turncoat-to-collaborator.html

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NPE and CTA Converge Behind Eli Broad Agenda

CTA [California Teachers Association] knows charter school teachers, like traditional public school teachers, care deeply about their students and work hard to help them succeed. Many charter schools are locally driven, provide an excellent education and deserve our support. For example, Green Dot Public Schools California is a Los Angeles charter operator that strives to be open, equitable and inclusive. –California Educator, May-June 2017, p. 19

Steve Barr (left) and Eli Broad (center) in 2007 with $10 million for Green Dot, Inc.

The program is set, the CTA's welcome mat is rolled out, and NPE is trying fill seats for Diane Ravitch's 4th NPE talkathon on October 14-15 in Oakland, CA. 

If you don’t have the $1000 to attend, you should check with your corporate NEA or AFT affiliates for available "scholarships."  CTA is behind this year’s conference, and with their growing charter teacher membership in California, there should be plenty of cash on hand to fill the 500 seats for this withering cause.

Looking at this year's NPE program presentations related to charter schools, there is clear evidence that NPE's policy schizophrenia has become even more pronounced and ingrained.  We find there are scheduled presentations and discussions by those who promote charter schools, by those who would limit charter schools, and by those who vow to end charter schools.  

With so many clamoring and disparate voices to hear at once, it becomes harder and harder to discern a clear message from NPE/AFT/NEA other than, of course, the clarion call new AFT and NEA and NPE members.

This year's NPE meet-up continues a self-contradictory effort to expand a shrinking coalition that, essentially, stands for nothing and will fall for anything. It is a dysfunctional group that is run by Clinton charter supporters, AFT and NEA chiefs, and fronted by Diane Ravitch and her bloggers at Basecamp.  This motley crew can be counted on to advocate for and/or against charter schools, depending upon whose wallet that AFT/NEA/NPE is trying to pry open at the moment.


When Ravitch's host, the California Teachers Association, joins Diane this week to talk about the evils of charter schools, the focus will be on the handful of for-profit charter schools in California. This year, however, it is harder than ever for the AFT/NEA/NPE to make a convincing case that their qualified opposition to “for-profit” charters carries any remaining weight at all, especially given the fact that California has just 34 of these “for-profit” charters for CTA to oppose.  

In California as elsewhere, for-profit charter schools make up a small percentage of the total number of the resource-draining corporate charter schools that are bleeding out public systems wherever they operate.

In fact, California has over 1,200 of the “non-profit” charter schools for CTA to mine for members, and CTA has shown its support for these charter schools, as it eagerly tries to sign up more and more of these charter teachers. The "non-profit" charters are the ones that CTA, Ravitch, and their faux resistance movement continue to embrace.  CTA has signed up almost a third of the 7,500 charter teachers in California, thanks to the promotion by NEA/AFT of Green Dot Schools, which is the creation of Eli Broad and his corporate school enforcer, Steve Barr.

The same year that Eli Broad handed Barr $10 million for Green Dot, Barr said this about then-UFT President, Randi Weingarten: "Randi Weingarten is one of the most progressive labor leaders in the country."


In the May/June issue of California Educator, CTA had this glowing assessment of Green Dot:
 

         CTA knows charter school teachers, like traditional public school teachers, care deeply about their students and work hard to help them succeed. Many charter schools are locally driven, provide an excellent education and deserve our support. For example, Green Dot Public Schools California is a Los Angeles charter operator that strives to be open, equitable and inclusive.

Despite CTA's exuberance, we know that Green Dot's charters are the same kind of selective, non-inclusive, segregated, and test-based public money sinks that threaten the continued financial viability of public schools in California and elsewhere. They are privately-managed without public oversight and without elected boards.  Most importantly, they drain away billions of public dollars meant for education in order to create investment opportunities for Eli Broad's buddies.

We know, too, from state data in California that Green Dot serves fewer African-American children, as well as fewer special needs and ELL students than the community public schools from which they draw students. And through slick marketing ploys and administrative winnowing tactics to get rid of problem students, Green Dot's populations do not represent the communities that must face Green Dot's insistent, corporate-funded hostile takeover attempts.  

And even though public systems like Inglewood Unified continue to resist Green Dot's hostile takeover (to no avail), CTA is willing to look the other way as long as they can sign up more members and collect more union dues from Green Dot's teachers.  Where is CTA's support for the public systems that are trying to survive the corporate onslaught designed by the charter industry?
 
The sickening Vichy-style collaboration between the charter industry and corporate puppets from AFT/NEA/NPE serves to further the Eli Broad plan that started over twenty years ago, when part of Broad's first $10 million education handout funded the creation of The Union Reform Network (TURN), which continues as a growing and deadly cancer inside both NEA and AFT.  

TURN was intended to make the corporate administrative agenda and the union agenda indistinguishable, and it was embraced by leaders of both AFT and NEA.  Thanks to Diane Ravitch and the union bosses’ deal-making, Eli Broad is well on his way to realizing his goal that includes eventual destruction of the teaching profession and public schooling as we have known them for over a hundred years.  

A thorough repudiation of AFT and NEA corporate unionism and their deceptive promoters remains the only course of action to stop the corporate advance of privatization via charter school.  For outfits like NPE, the pretense of pragmatic problem-solving has functioned as a thin cover for unprincipled maneuvering to fit the needs of corporate reformers into organizations that were created to oppose them.  

The result has been the ostracism and marginalization of those whose principled stances Ravitch has labeled as policy purism.  What was, not so long ago, the beginning of a real resistance movement against corporate education reform, has been coopted by an aristocracy of the arrogant and cynical self-serving power brokers who continue to make the teachers and parents that they use and abuse complicit in their own subjugation. 

 . . .we recognize that many families have come to depend on charter schools and that many charter school teachers are dedicated professionals who serve their students well. It is also true that some charter schools are successful. We do not, therefore, call for the immediate closure of all charter schools, but rather we advocate for their eventual absorption into the public school system. --from NPE Position Statement on Charter Schools, 2017

NEA: "We're not opposed to charter schools."

Jeff Bryant, who remains a primary enabler of the corporate unions, NEA and AFT, recently interviewed NEA VP Becky Pringle at NetRoots.

JB: Does that mean NEA is anti-charter?

BP: We're not opposed to charter schools. We have started charter schools, and we have members in charter schools. But charters need to have specific criteria. They need to be accountable, controlled by democratically elected boards, and have transparency. And –an important condition often overlooked – they need to be part of the system, not separate. They should be part of a system of education that makes sure every student gets what they need to thrive. We have examples of that.

Bryant does not ask about and Pringle does not volunteer info on specific examples.  Why?  Because if they exist, they are so rare as to be meaningless. 

NOT among the criteria that Pringle says "charters need to have" are humane learning environments, non-penal instructional strategies, rich curriculums, professionally certified teachers and principals, librarians, counselors, or desegregated classrooms.  Nor does she define in this interview or elsewhere what "accountability" or "transparency" mean. 

The truth is that NEA only cares about expanding membership and collecting the dues that members pay each year, with the false hope of slowing the bleeding out of public schools and professional teaching.  As long as NEA and AFT remain loyalists to the DNC's Clintonian contingent of paternalistic corporate reformers, every teacher should boycott these core agencies of corporate enabling.

NAACP Dumps Charter Moratorium And Wins Ravitch "Honor Roll" Status

Last October the NAACP adopted a resolution calling for a moratorium on the authorization of new charter schools.  Even though the new position did nothing to help the millions of children already trapped and abused in thousands of apartheid "no excuses" charter schools in 45 states, the resolution was viewed as the beginning of a societal shift away from the paternalistic "broken windows" school model that billionaires, hedge funders, and corporate foundations have supported for two decades as the final solution for urban pre-K-12 education.

In adopting the new resolution against charter expansion, however, the NAACP found itself outside the political mainstream and, thus, upstream from the primary flow of cash that sustains the organization's top-heavy hierarchy.  Then, as the AFT and NEA moved "all in" with their bet on a charter-embracing DNC that was/is owned by the Clintonians, the NAACP found itself further isolated and cut off from political influence and union generosity.

The result has been a quiet death of the moratorium accompanied by a new charter-friendly policy by the NAACP.  Not surprisingly, it is policy that mirrors the positions of AFT and NEA and NPE, which will be front and center in the 2018 midterm election year.

How does the NAACP explain its reversal?  Easy.  As Diane Ravitch explains, the NAACP has simply, though "boldly," asserted that charter schools now are public schools and, therefore, incapable of draining public money away:

The NAACP report boldly acknowledges that charters are part of a public-funded system. It says that it makes no sense to strip funding from the public schools that enroll the great majority of students in order to fund a parallel system that is usually no better than the public system and often worse.

Got that?  If charters are now "public," how can charters be stripping money away to a "parallel system?!"  Charters, then, are no longer part of the problem--they are part of the solution!  Bingo.

A month ago before the new NAACP report was released, Ravitch was thoroughly convinced by reading Rebecca Klein' dissembling at HuffPo that the moratorium would remain intact. She had this say then:

I am very impressed that the NAACP did not succumb to the big-money behind the privatization movement. That shows their genuine commitment to the children and families for whom they fight.

And what about now, after it has become clear that the NAACP capitulated and has, in fact, become the parrots of the AFT/NEA/NPE position for embracing charters. As you might imagine, now Ravitch is even more impressed by her new allies:

Like every national organization, the NAACP relies on major donors to survive. By standing strong against privatization of public schools, the NAACP has demonstrated courage and integrity. I add the NAACP to the honor roll of this blog, with admiration and respect.

 Remember, now, boys and girls: charter schools are public schools, so they can no longer be accused of privatizing.

NEA Continues Support for Charter Schools

NEA Continues Support for Charter Schools

by Jim Horn

Every year American public school educators send approximately a billion and a half dollars to the National Education Association and over half that amount to the American Federation of Teachers.  The NEA’s latest policy statement on charter schools should make every teacher wonder why she is sending in those hundreds of hard-earned dollars every year to help NEA and AFT misleaders to put a stake in the heart of public schools. 

The corporate lawyers who write NEA policy have been dissembling, dodging, and weaving for a long time on the subject of charter schools. With this new policy statement, it is clear that that has not changed.  

What has changed is the mass of qualifiers that NEA has added, ostensibly to earn the organization’s continued blessing for charter schools.  If, however, the corporate governing bodies do not abide by NEA’s list of wishes, then that could trigger an NEA response that must have the charter industry quaking at the thought:

Unless both the basic safeguards and process detailed above are met, no charter school should be authorized and NEA will support state and local moratoriums on further charter authorizations in the school district.

Now mind you, this does not mean that NEA headquarters will do anything or even threaten anything on its on if the charter industry ignores NEA’s latest dissembling.  What NEA will do, however, is to not stand in the way of any NEA affiliate that wants to tie its membership onto the tracks for the billionaires’ corporate charter locomotive to flatten.  Where is the NEA and AFT leadership?  They are, of course, at the corporate education table, even if they have to sit underneath it and beg for bones to be thrown to educators.

Based on past experience, we may expect the multi-billion dollar charter industry to summarily ignore NEA’s pathetic statement on charters, which is delivered without demand, without promised repercussions, and with zero fanfare.  NEA’s new statement signals a policy that continues down the dead-end Democratic Party’s Third Way, which has surely earned the label of Third Rail by now—following the 2016 election.  NEA’s policy on charter, in fact, is one that would never cause a Clinton to cluck. 

And what happens if, by some miracle, NEA’s entire fanciful list of conditions is met, thus making meaningless calls for moratoriums unnecessary and any further pretense of charter outrage irrelevant?  Not much.

Now the NEA statement supports “prohibitions against for-profit [charter] operation.” It is reasonable to ask, then, if for-profit charters are prohibited, will the billions of public dollars that are now going to the charter industry stop flowing into privatizers’ pockets.

Not at all.  In fact, the majority of charters have always been of the “non-profit” variety, with only 13 percent of the nation’s 7,500 charters run by for-profit companies.  Insisting that all charters become “non-profit” will only guarantee that that state and local education dollars will continue to fill the coffers of the charter industry, which thrives by claiming “non-profit” status for their segregated cultural sterilization schools based on the KIPP Model. 

It matters not to a school system that must fire its librarians to make payroll if, in fact, monies now being diverted to charters go to a charter operator’s bank account that is designated as “non-profit.”  In fact, the “non-profit” status guarantees many tax advantages for the big donors and operators who view the paternalistic “no excuses” charters as the urban education final solution.

Which brings us to the greatest weakness of the NEA policy on charter schools.  If all the items of NEA’s wish list were realized, and that is a huge “if,” the charter industry’s corporate colonization of urban schools by the 6,500 non-profit charters now in operation would continue unabated.  If all of NEA’s fanciful wishes were met, hundreds thousands of children and thousands of their missionary teachers would continue to suffer daily indignities and ongoing dehumanization from white corporate school managers who pretend that callous brutality is justified as a means to an end that always boils down to performance on standardized tests and behavioral grade cards.

We have to wonder when the remaining members of AFT and NEA will join those hundreds of thousands of educators who have already stopped their enabling of NEA’s corporate education habit.

"Don't take any pictures and don't tweet this out. . ."

NEA VP, Becky Pringle, helped wrap things up and put a sweet bow on them at the 2015 International Association of K-12 Online Learning conference that outlined Silicon Valley's dystopian future for school kids. 

In an era when young adults are tethered to their IPhones and exhibit all the symptoms of what might be called a debilitating technological autism, Gates and his young protege, Zuckerberg, see a profitable vista opening up before them, as children become more and more dependent on technological tools that replace teaching and learning among humans.

We now know that NEA and AFT are signed on this nightmare plan, too, that views knowledge as a commodity that requires only Google to unlock.  What about teachers?  They will be necessary insofar as children must be goaded to be enthused by their own subjugation to an education future ruled by algorithms.

NEA and AFT among Leaders of Blended/Personalized Learning

If you have been wondering why NPE, FairTest, BATs, Diane Ravitch's Basecamp, etc. have had almost nothing negative to say about the brave new world of competency-based, personalized blended learning, then you might want to sit down for a moment and follow the links below.  

It seems the corporate unions that all the anti-reformy groups serve became signatories in 2015 to a wide-ranging blueprint for the future of schools.  It is a future based on heavy doses of computer technology for instruction, curriculum, and assessment, with less teaching by real teachers in fewer school buildings, with great wads of money going to Silicon Valley billionaires. 

In a 2016 blog post from Gisele Huff, Executive Director of the Jacquelin Hume Foundation, we find this paragraph:

Personalized learning is an idea whose time has come. The Foundation was an early supporter of Education Reimagined and I participated as one of 28 strange bedfellows in the production of its vision document (http://ow.ly/ZmPpn). That document has become the North Star for the transformation of a 100-year old educational system which no longer serves America’s children. Among the other signatories of document are the two leaders of the NEA and AFT, evidence that there is a consensus for an entirely different approach to the learning experience.

Here's the Advisory Board for Education Reimagined.  And here are the principal corporate donors:

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,  Chan Zuckerberg Initiative,  Jaquelin Hume Foundation,  Nellie Mae Education Foundation,  Oak Foundation.

Breathe deeply.  Now if you are a K-12 educator still sending money to any of the organizations named in the first paragraph of this post, you are contributing to your own burial fund each time you do it.

Trump’s Victory: What American Federation of Teachers President Weingarten should say

Professor Lois Weiner dismantles Randi Weingarten’s calamitous and undemocratic decisions to back a severely flawed candidate. Decisions that, in turn, led to Trump’s victory. This brilliant essay is a must read.

Trump’s Victory: What American Federation of Teachers President Weingarten should say

Wikileaks Email Dump Shows NEA Rigged Hillary Endorsement

Source here.

WRITTEN BY: MIKE ANTONUCCI - Oct• 11•16

The release by Wikileaks of the e-mails of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, revealed that the leaders of the National Education Association were determined to win an endorsement for Clinton well before determining the wishes of the union’s representative bodies .

Despite constant pressure from NEA’s leaders, and a positive recommendation from the union’s PAC Council ( although I suspected some manipulation there as well ), there was still serious doubt whether the proposed Clinton endorsement would meet the 58% threshold needed from the union’s board of directors.

NEA’s executive officers acted quickly, urging Clinton to appear in person before the board on October 3, 2015 to answer any questions and alleviate any concerns. This she did, and the board ultimately voted to endorse her .

But NEA was prepared to call off the vote and whitewash the setback if things had gone awry. A Podesta e-mail dated September 29, 2015 described the situation and NEA’s plan to Clinton:

here’s the status of things, which you may already have been briefed on. Executive Committee of 7 (3 officers and 4 others)) voted unanimously to endorse. Next step is the PAC Committee, which is weighted by PAC participation and the votes are there to endorse. Final step is a vote of the full 120 member Board where the threshold for endorsement is 58%.

Sanders forces are working furiously to put off an endorsement. We do not have certainty on hitting the 58% threshold despite the intense work of Lilly and John Stocks. You are scheduled to see the full Board on Saturday morning. John’s assessment is that your appearance is critical if they are going to get the endorsement this weekend. There is some risk though that you show up and they remain uncertain of a successful vote so that they put it off for further work by the leadership.

They will not call the vote unless they are certain that they will hit the threshold. Downside is that the Sanders people will spin that notwithstanding the PAC Committee recommendation, the Board delayed action. All here assess that it’s worth the risk and that you should show up and try to get the endorsement now. If the vote is delayed, Lily and John will say this is a multi-layered process and good progress was made by securing the PAC Committee recommendation. I wanted you to have a good sense of the state of play, because they have to let people know that you will be there no later than tomorrow early am. I and the rest of the team think you should confirm participation, but wanted to give you a chance to discuss if you have a different view.

DFER Is Thrilled with DNC Platform, and So Is NEA Prez

Michael Reynolds/European Pressphoto Agency)

And why wouldn't DFER be thrilled?  Democrats for Education Reform is the poisonous tip of the corporate education reform spear inside the DNC.  It is run directed by the hedge fund water carriers at the corporate think tank, Education Sector, in DC, even though the advisory board is studded with modern-day Booker Ts.  

Shaver Jeffries is one of those DFER black faces chosen to transmit the white philanthropists' message for black consumption:

We are thrilled that our Party has reaffirmed its unwavering commitment to progressive education policies that help ensure every student, regardless of their zip code or their background, receives the world-class public education they deserve.

Why is Mr. Jeffries thrilled?  Hillary and the Dems have approved a platform that doubles down on more testing accountability and a massive new commitment to segregated corporate charter schools:

• On Raising Standards & Strengthening Accountability: “Democrats believe that all students should be taught to high academic standards. Schools should receive adequate resources and support. We will hold schools, districts, communities, and states accountable for raising achievement levels for all students—particularly low-income students, students of color, English Language Learners, and students with disabilities.”
  

• On Ensuring Public School Choice & Supporting High-Quality Public Charters: “Democrats are also committed to providing parents with high-quality public school options and expanding these options for low-income youth. We support great neighborhood public schools and high-quality public charter schools, and we will help them disseminate best practices to other school leaders and educators.”

Yesterday DFER got a booster shot for their enthused contagion when Hillary spoke at the NEA convention.  From Mr. Jeffries, quoted in the Washington Post: 

“We were happy to see her specifically affirm her support for high-quality public charter schools,” said Shavar Jeffries, president of the pro-charter group Democrats for Education Reform. “Her statements today reiterate her commitment to reform.”

Also enthusing on Hillary's remarks was DFER's mouthpiece inside NEA, President Lily Eskelsen:

“There are some successful charter schools,” she said. “Let’s look at what makes them work.”

To find out, President Eskelsen, what "makes them work, may I suggest you may start with my modest contribution to the subject.

Who is subsidizing the Save Our Schools March in Washington D.C. on July 8th and 9th?

by Jim Horn and Ken Derstine

June 11, 2016

This article is also posted at Defend Public Education!

Scholarships for 100 people are being offered for the Save Our Schools March in Washington DC on July 8th and 9th.

The scholarships include transportation costs; hotel rooms starting at $129 in a high cost area of DC; and breakfast/lunch on Saturday. All for a $25 registration per person.

Who is paying for these costs? At $200 per person that is $20,000. Is this an independent march as it portrays itself or is this an AFT/NEA event (and, therefore, a backdoor get out the vote for Hillary Clinton event).

Bob George is the national director.

Only in the last line of his SOS biography does it say: "Senior Vice President Education Company committed to equal access quality education.”

Shouldn’t it be known to participants that the National Director of SOS is a former Senior Vice President of a software company involved in CBE? Will there be any discussion of the danger to public education of Competency-Based Education (CBE) at this march?

George's previous company, Catapult Learning,  is heavily into software for student assessment.

On the Facebook page of his current company, Empathy Educates, it says the company is a (bold face added):

Cyber-community for Educators; Moms, Dads, Grandparents, Pupils, Principals, Professors, people who care in all professions. Each is a teacher, today and tomorrow. We invite you to ponder, peruse, participate…EmpathyAndEducation.org

Collectively, we, at EmpathyEducates.org join in a more expansive forum. EmpathyEducates is yours, my, our cyberspace classroom. Here, whether we think ourselves a teacher or a student, we learn so that we might grow and glow.

EmpathyEducates.org is a world of cooperation experienced through cyberspace collaborations. The net neighborhood is a place where Parents, pupils, Principals, Administrators, Corporate Presidents, Professors, Producers, people, from every walk of life come together to discuss concerns that they think vital. Empathy and Education are evident and explored in every aspect of life.
  

If you look at the program, where in the March is space provided to discuss strategies to push back against the post-ESSA education reform where online digital education and non-profit community partners (via credit bearing Extended Learning Opportunities (ELO's) will render neighborhood schools obsolete?

Except for opposition to standardized testing, a look at the Washington March program indicates a program that any corporate education reformer would be comfortable with. (See "The Limits of Social Justice Unionism" at Ms. Katie's Ramblings.) Where is the fight against the Pearson, Common Core, charter schools, the agandas of Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and the Walton Foundation? Where is the organizing for a fight against corporate education reform?  Against segregated schools and classrooms? Against the testing mandates, charter giveaways, and CBE incentivizing of ESSA?  Is anyone there talking about even commenting on the proposed 192 pages of ESSA implementation guidelines??

Yoga, anyone? How about martial arts as social justice?  Or a session on developing some "social justice unionism" with the head of an AFT affiliate and member of The Union Reform Network (TURN)?

But here is our favorite, with ESSA apologists from FairTest (click below to enlarge):

To Answer Dr. Miller's Question

Yesterday as I was listening and on hold during the second hour of The War Report, James Miller asked the rhetorical question that many have asked over the past 15 years regarding the blindness of educators to the realities of the school privatization agenda.  One school administrator in Buffalo, I think, had Dr. Miller particularly puzzled.

This young man was able to identify a number of the corporate reforms going around around him such as charters, corporate curriculum, and corporate professional development, but he could not seem to wrap his head around the prospect that public school privatization is a well-funded and deliberate strategy being carried out by hostile ideologues, business interests, and corporate welfare experts of the charter school industry.

I did not get a chance to respond to Dr. Miller's question on air, so here is my take, just in case he or his listeners are interested.

Part of the reason has to do with a studied silence on the privatization of schools by the teachers' unions, which are now steered by corporate interests.  New York in an AFT state, and when AFT misleaders don't acknowledge the threat of privatization and, in fact, engage in acts of privatization themselves, how are its affiliates and rank and file members to realize the depth of the problem.  

If you go to the AFT website, Dr. Miller, I hope you will enter "privatization" in the search box.  You will find that it is not even part of the AFT vocabulary.  Nothing, nada.  

Recently, Randi Weingarten and Lily Eskelsen signed  a letter to Pearson urging a reconsideration of Pearson's efforts to privatise education on the African continent.  Have Weingarten or Eskelsen ever demanded that Pearson stop its efforts to privatize education in the U. S.?  

The answer, of course, is no, because the unions' U. S. presidential picks over the past 25 years depend upon Pearson and McGraw-Hill, Gates, and Broad to fund their campaigns.  When privatization in not part of the national union discussion or even part of its vocabulary, educating members about the threat takes on monumental proportions.

Last week for the first time, Lily Eskelsen acknowledged that state and local affiliate members had raised the red flag on the threat posed by charter schools.  What kind of union leadership would depend upon members to warn the national union about the threat posed to the profession by privatization?  

There are 7,000 charter schools in the U. S. today and more promised, thanks to the vast federal grants linked to ESSA.  That's the same ESSA that the union affiliate, NPE, energetically supported, and that the teacher union misleadership is so excited about now that it has arrived.

Anyone sending money to NEA or AFT under this rigged and morally-corrupt system is doing nothing more than paying for his own professional funeral in advance.

Reactions to NPR's Interview with NEA Prez

by Jim Horn

From my reading NPR's interview with NEA president, Lily Eskelsen, in the wake of the ESSA passage, some of NEA’s positions and priorities are made disturbingly clear.   

First and foremost, it is clear that NEA’s aggressive marketing of ESSA continues with the same bubbly and unrelenting intensity, entirely unaltered by either factual reading or studied interpretation of the ESSA testing and privatization plan.

It is clear, too, that NEA wants more data, rather than less, in a dashboard of information that it hopes will replace the testing thermometer.  Eskelsen boasts that NEA “got language in there” that even our best friends said, ‘You’re never getting in.’” That magic new language that NEA’s intrepid negotiators insisted upon for the ESSA: “multiple indicators of success.” 

Does Eskelsen not know, or does she think that teachers don’t know, that the old NCLB had the same empty rhetoric, except that it was called “multiple measures:”

NCLB calls for multiple measures that assess higher order thinking and are diagnostically useful. However, these provisions are not enforced by the U.S. Department of Education and are not embedded in most state practices. The push for standardization and the requirements for quickly imposing "in need of improvement" judgments and sanctions make it nearly impossible for states to implement an assessment system that fosters high-quality learning.

Perhaps someone should tell Eskelsen this, since she seems to count the inclusion of this same empty promise about mulitiple indicators as a major victory for teachers and children.  We should know, too, that with ESSA’s weakening of ED, any chance to enforce “multiple indicators” will be even weaker than during the bad old days of NCLB.

And speaking of “in need of improvement,” it is clear that NEA has chosen to ignore this continued school crushing element of ESSA, even as NEA celebrates the end of AYP in a manner that would be fitting if the bubonic plague had ended overnight.  Yes, AYP is gone, but what remains is just as odious if you are trying to keep your public school doors open in a poor neighborhood. 

You see, Eskelsen’s pretensions and posturing about the end of test and punish are based on the purest of fictions.   ESSA maintains the federal requirement that states test at least 95 percent of students, and it includes no opt out provisions for parents.  Additionally, ESSA requires that states continue to take corrective action for the bottom five percent of schools each year, as measured by annual tests. 

What kind of corrective action will be left up to the states, even though ESSA provides for unprecedented levels of federal grants for “no excuses” charter start-ups and expansions.

Oh yes, Eskelsen does mention charters in her interview.  Seems someone out there beyond Washington offered her some news:

The other thing that we're really looking at, and this is coming from our state and local school district affiliates, as people have now started to see charter schools as: Wow, there are studies that say they are really no better, depending on which charter schools and how selective they are, and they're not really improving the public schools the way the original concept had hoped.

Twenty years after charters began draining school budgets and 6 years after a national study showed the majority of charters as worse or no better than the public schools in the same neighborhoods, the NEA has been given this news by its affiliates.  Since the ESSA could have been more accurately named the Charter School Protection and Expansion Act, it is hard to fathom the level of duplicity and bone-headedness that NEA represents.  If they were as stupid as they pretend, that would not be forgivable, but we know they are not, and that is reason for demolition of the entire corporate union structure.

Finally, what is most clear from Eskelsen's interview is that NEA will continue to do nothing with its billions 1) to challenge standardized testing, 2) to confront and demand the end of segregation in schools, 3) to use its lobbying prowess to end policies that continue systemic poverty in urban America (besides handing out used clothing), or 4) to fight for ending corporate control of public education. 

It is clear that NEA will continue to stand on the sidelines and wait for unfunded parents and teachers and students to stand up against the corporate education reformists.   No responsibility, no accountability, no guts—but lots of unearned glory and vacuous celebration.  

NPE Offers Platform (Again) for NEA and AFT

This year when Anthony Cody "interviewed" AFT and NEA vice-presidents at the latest NPE talkfest in Raleigh, he only appeared to be the imperious judge looming far above the witnesses.  Cody's job was a tough one, in fact: he had to appear skeptical of the official stories being spun by the corporate unions' TURN-supporting officers, while offering opportunities for AFT and NEA to say anything they wanted without being challenged.

As you listen to the "interview," you will come to understand why The Union Reform Network loves both of these individuals and why they have been sent into the NPE tent to offer the Broad message that unions can only work when they are run by management.

Both Pringle and Ricker have earned their stripes as #2 in NEA and AFT respectively.  Pringle served as the former NEA chief's brain in 2011 when NEA signed on to support the use of value-added test scores for teacher evaluations.  Pringle has also been active in supporting the new TURN chapters, wherever teachers can duped in thinking that supporting the Broad and Gates agenda is a good thing for teachers or children.  

At the founding of a new TURN chapter in Florida in 2013, Pringle served on a panel moderated by TURN kingpin, Adam Urbanski, whose leadership of TURN goes all way back to the days when Eli Broad publicly acknowledged the millions of dollars he was sending to create a new kind of corporate-friendly union. 

The panel theme of "The Political Landscape Impacting Educational Reform" included: 

Becky Pringle, NEA Secretary-Treasurer
Karen Castor-Dentel, FL State Representative
Melissa Erickson, Hillsborough Alliance for Public Schools
Vince Verges, FL Dept of Education
Dr. Adam Urbanski, TURN Director, as moderator.

The event was focused on ways to push Common Core to teachers in Florida.

Mary Cathryn Ricker's role in TURN has been even more visible.  During the Cody "interview," she refers repeatedly to when she was President of the St. Paul AFT affiliate.  In St. Paul, Ricker served as "primary liaison & spokesperson" for TURN.  Information regarding Ricker's association with TURN is now behind a TURN firewall.

Both Ricker and Pringle have been tapped to replace Randi and Lily when they float away on their golden parachutes.  Have a "listen" to the interview.  Fascinating theatre.

States Rights and ESSA

by Ken Derstine
March 3, 2016
Also blogged at Defend Public Education!

President Obama signing the Every Child Succeeds Act

There is an aspect of ESSA that I fear is being overlooked by those examining this complex bill, but is the thief in the night that will advance the corporate reform agenda. That is the aggressive promotion of states rights in ESSA. This is a special project of Senator Lamar Alexander as the article linked below details.
 
States rights has historically been the most reactionary aspect of the U.S. Constitution. The authors of the Constitution needed the slaveocracy to support the new Constitution, so they instituted the "Three-Fifths Compromise" which gave the slave states the power to continue slavery and count slaves as part of their state representation. This gave the slave states a third more seats in Congress and dominance of the Supreme Court for a century.

Though the Civil War and the 13th and 14th Amendments ended the slavocracy, states rights was the main method of continuing slavery under another name through the maintaining of Jim Crow segregation and opposition to the federal government enforcing civil rights.

So it is disturbing to see states rights being a central plank of ESSA. Thirty years of neo-liberal federal education policy, especially promoted by Bill Clinton, has made people think that, most recently, the legacy of Arne Duncan, to be continued by John King, means we must return to state control of education. The corporate reform agenda promoted by the federal Department of Education will now be promoted in each states' Department of Education.

Look at this article in Ed Week last week:

NGA Organizes Coalition of Education Groups to Monitor ESSA Implementation | State EdWatch - Ed Week

The Coalition listed in the article includes:

In addition to the NGA, the network is made up of the National Association of State Boards of Education, the National School Boards Association, AASA, the School Superintendents Association, the National Association of Elementary School Principals, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, and the National PTA. 

President Obama shaking Randi Weingarten's hand at the signing of ESSA.

Lamar Alexander is behind Obama.

Why are the AFT and NEA joining with the National Governors Association and the anti-Opt Out National PTA among others in promoting this reactionary policy? This gives the corporate privatizers unregulated powers within states to privatize public education through such organizations as ALEC. This can be seen in Chicago where the Chicago Public Schools Board is being blocked by the Illinois State Charter School Commission from closing three charter schools.

CPS, CTU unlikely allies against state charter commission | Chicago Sun Times

The abolition of the Department of Education has long been the goal of the extreme right in America precisely over the issue of states rights. What needs to be changed is the political leadership at all levels of government. The neo-liberal agenda has been the wolf in sheep's clothing which has taken us backward.

We need a federal Department of Education free of all corporate interests and headed by experienced educators and academics with knowledge in child psychology and pedagogy which will advance the development of a democratic society.


Also see:

Lamar Alexander's ESSA: Room for John King, but not Opting Out
duetch29 - March 2, 2016

WARNING Connecticut–They are coming for your schools and your democratic rights!
Wait What? | March 6, 2016
If you think states rights means more local control, read this!

My Chief Concerns about ESSA
deutsch29 - March 7, 2016

Cashing in on Kids: 172  ALEC Education Bills Push Privatization in 2015
Truthout - March 9, 2016

This is where right-wing radicalism is festering: While the nation watches the presidential race, there are scary things happening at state legislatures
Salon - March 13, 2016

On Line...All the Time?
Educationalalchemy - March 15, 2016
Morna McDermott on how ALEC is promoting CBE in state legislatures.

Non-Transparent Delaware
Exceptional Delaware - March 17, 2016
Delaware is another example that the states rights provisions of ESSA are a reactionary attack on education.

ESSA is Designed to Quell Opting Out. It Won't Work.
deutsch29 - March 18, 2016

Pearson: ESSA Won't Hurt Us a Bit (But Karma Might): AFT, Pearson, and Karma
Curmudgation - March 21, 2016 



With Friends Like These... | Defend Public Education! - July 20, 2015

With Friends Like These... redux | Defend Public Education! - August 3, 2015