Turning Back from the Abyss

VOTE FOR MORE
to give public education and the teaching profession in NYC a chance.

MOVEMENT OF RANK
and FILE EDUCATORS

         www.morecaucusnyc.org

The UFT elections are upon us.  

UFT members have a choice for new officers, and MORE believes that this choice can make a difference.  The Movement of Rank and File Educators believes the teachers union can and should be the fighting force to defend public education for all students.  In the classroom we will fight for small class sizes, rich curriculum, push back on the testing regime and an end of harassment and incessant paperwork.  Outside the classroom we will demand a fair contract and democratic governance of our schools instead of simply waiting for a new mayor.  We will partner with parents, communities and other unions because we understand that our teaching conditions are our students learning conditions, and together we can make a difference.

Ballots are out April 3 and are 

due back April 24 by mail.

We urge you and all UFT members you know to vote for a positive leadership for our UFT.  In past elections less than a quarter of the active UFT membership voted for their leadership.  Please spread the word to Get Out the Vote and vote in a positive alternative leadership.

Vote MORE!

Demand MORE from the UFT.  

No more waiting, no more concessions to billionaire mayors 

and his corporate reform agenda that ignores the needs of students, teachers and communities.  Together let's build a movement to fight for the quality public education that every students deserves!  

IMPORTANT:
VOTE ONLY THE MORE SLATE ON THE TOP PAGE BY MARKING THE  MORE BOX WITH AN X.

 TEAR IT OFF AND MAIL IT IN. 

DO NOT VOTE BOTH FOR A SLATE AND INDIVIDUAL CANDIDATES OR YOUR VOTE MAY BE INVALIDATED.

HELP US CHANGE OUR UNION

Vote MORE in the election and encourage all the UFT members you know to do the same.

Forward this email to friends, relatives, activists circles and ask them to do the same.  

Watch and share our video at: http://morecaucusnyc.org/2013/03/

For more ideas on how to help GET OUT THE VOTE for MORE, please visit http://morecaucusnyc.org/2013/02/19/get-out-the-vote/

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“In the last ten years, in a departure from the roots of our union’s founding, the leadership has failed to organize and mobilize the membership at the time we have needed their leadership the most. The tidal wave of unprecedented attacks on our profession, our schools and our children will not stop with a new mayor. It is time for change. It is time we demand MORE from our union.” -Julie Cavanagh, MORE’s candidate for UFT president

Professional Conscience and the Quest for Data Consistency

Dear Colleagues:

Recently the principal sent us the following things to be mindful of:

- What are you best at?

- What are you deeply passionate about?

- What can you do better than anyone else in your department / in the school?

Additionally, make sure that your students can answer the following questions:

- What am I learning in class today?

- Is this information important?

- How so?

Good things to think about anytime; even with no quality review forthcoming. 

We also got our class grade passing rates and Regents passing rates by department and individual teacher. A local version of teacher data reports; a first for our school. If you feel "outed", don't. Because you are granting too much to such raw data.

As we can see numbers are all over the place. It's what I would expect from teachers exercising professional judgement, teaching different subjects to a diverse student population and different times of the day. 

What kinds of conclusions can we reach from such raw data? Not much that I can see. If the administration wants to see more uniformity across the board in scholarship and consistency between class grades and Regents passing, then you can expect more teaching to the test. 

If you are like me, you teach what you do because it's worth knowing, whether it's about supply and demand or civil disobedience. Why is this information important? Like everything I teach, "It's worth knowing", Because "Knowledge is power." Because, "The un-examined life is not worth living." These are the things I am 'deeply passionate about'. 

The problem arises then if we teach to the test in the quest of data consistency the answers become:

- What am I learning in class today? (whatever)

- Is this information important? Yes,

- How so? Because it will be on the Regents.

This produces an impoverished intellectual culture in the school. It's why I could never be an administrator in this system. I cannot administer a system that runs counter to my sense of professional ethics and purpose. I will continue to resist, to mitigate the damage on our students who have already been severely disabled by this pseudo system of accountability based on standardized test scores, social promotion and, with the new teacher evaluation system- the junk science of value added modeling.

I look forward to your sharing of what you can interpret by this data shared with us by the principal. 

In solidarity,

John 

Appeal to the Mayor for Stranded Teachers

Mr. Mayor,

If ever there was a time for distance learning, now is it. Many of your city educators are currently coping with the aftermath of this catastrophe. Some have power, some have not.

What cannot be accomplished online that you are going to make us take risks to come in for on Friday?

Professional Development you say? That can be accomplished easily online. You have the tools. Just have the materials uploaded and contact us with the necessary links via our DoE email you expect us to check anyway. You can have online discussions via Aris or any number of quickly configurable online spaces.

For those teachers without power; do they really have any business coming in on Friday? Odds are they have enough to deal with.

So, cancel the call in to work on Friday and send us the PD materials via email with online discussions.

It's time to think on our feet. This is the 21st Century. Let's leverage the new assets we have at our disposal like blended learning online.

Sincerely,

John Elfrank-Dana
UFT Chapter Leader
Murry Bergtraum High School
jelfrank4@gmail.com

Wanted: New Standards That Embrace Technology

I had used the Internet as an instructional tool long before there was a World Wide Web, in the late ’80s using Gopher and list servers. To me the logic was compelling and inevitable: the power of the Internet would change the way we teach and learn.

However, with the so-called accountability movement, we have seen a premium placed on test scores, as the careers of administrators rise and fall based on the spreadsheet. Likewise, with the new Common Core standards, I don’t see the fundamental shift in education that I had hoped for and expected from the impact of new media...

Read full article:

http://www.schoolbook.org/2012/09/07/wanted-new-standards-that-embrace-technology/

The Parable of the Frog and the Fate of the Teacher Unions

All of this pondering of the demise of public education and teacher unions at the Save our Schools Convention (SOS) reminds me of the parable of the frog in a pot of water. It goes that if you put a frog in boiling water it will jump out to save itself. However, take that same frog and put it in room temperature water, but put the flame on low and it will be dead before it realizes the gradual change in temperature. More on this down below.

At the SOS Convention this weekend a stark warning from an recent former United Federation  of Teachers (UFT) executive now working at the American Federation of Teachers national office came to the delegates in the Teacher Unions committee- "If you draw a line in the sand you'd better be prepared to defend that ground to avoid a routing that could destroy you." In other words, a union had better be prepared to strike as a last resort and win that strike. That message is a prudent one; common sense taken at face value. But, to take it as sufficient reason to accept more concessions by the AFT in teacher evaluations based on test scores and giving back tenure is mistaken in my estimation.

Since, in my opinion, the UFT is nowhere close to being prepared to strike, the message my members (I am a chapter leader of one of the last large high schools in New York City), accept these concessions or face doom. A more cynical view has been that the UFT uses the threat of a strike and certain doom to scare members into accepting contract givebacks. I have seen this myself, when union brass visited our high school around the last two contracts- saying you'd better accept this or else! Since the leadership does nothing to prepare us for a strike, the threat works, "give up grieving a letter in the file, no seniority transfer? or else strike? Where do I sign?" That was the 2005 UFT contract, and along with UFT President Randi Weingarten support for Mayoral Control, that may have sealed our fate as a union.

Back to the frog parable: Our teacher union members in NYC are like frogs in the pot on the stove with the flame on low. Union concessions on core rights constitute the rising water temperature in our frog pot. As we become aware of the situation (we do have some capacity to be aware, unlike frogs) some of us stir that maybe we should consider jumping out (strike?) to save our selves (at least begin to prepare for one). Ah, but the union executive says, "If you jump out of this pot how do you know you won't fall all the way to the kitchen floor and go splat!? Or, perhaps land in the flame of the burner next to this one?" He continues, "Hang in there! Our union president just negotiated a great victory. The DoE wants to turn the flame up another 10 degrees, but we got them down to an increase in only 5 degrees! (ironically working in the DoE's favor- for god forbid the other frogs wake up to what is happening). We will celebrate at the next Delegate Assembly."

Without a credible threat of a strike, you have no union. All you have is a dues collection agency, a member benefits management office, an ombudsman's office of the DoE, a teacher public relations firm. (To be clear it's a policy issue; most the staffers I find at the UFT offices are dedicated and serve the membership well- yet they are constrained by the contracts that define the services they can provide. It bothers me that some staffers take criticism of the union policy like treason. Staffers should be neutral.) But, you don't have a union without a strike. We can't rely only on court cases, or getting "our guy" in office to protect our rights. The ultimate weapon must be in the arsenal.

I don't take strikes lightly. I am aware of the Taylor Law penalties. I was a Teamster in college when I went out on strike the first time. I have been involved in two strikes and a lockout. I have seen people get their heads split open. Preparing for a strike requires digging in, years of building relations with the parents, polticos, press and most importantly your members. It's a capacity you have to have ready at all times.

I had the audacity to suggest this weekend at the SOS convention that SOS exists mainly because of the failure of our teacher unions to protect the profession and quality public education. It was dismissed forthwith by the union committee there without any exploration. My work there was finished because it was an essential premise, in my mind, to drive SOS's recommendations to unions. They would have included the imperatives to democratize how they operate (UFT has adopted a corporate structure by appointing reps instead of electing them) and to make mission critical strike preparedness; two critical ingredients to help revive their relevance.

So, let's get behind our courageous brothers and sisters of the Chicago Teachers Union! They have built the credible threat of a strike. They can serve a model of courage and character for all of us. Those frogs have jumping legs! Take a close look at MORE and ICE in NYC for ideas about moving forward.

*image adapted from: http://blogsensebybarb.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/whos-turning-up-the-heat/

It's How Well You Serve...

As the teacher's union rep (UFT) in one of Manhattan's largest high schools, it's important for me to assess the learning and teaching environment from those I serve- the professionals in the building, minus the principal and assistant principals.

I periodically give an online survey and usually get about 50 percent participation. Certainly large enough to produce significant comment on the state of our school as seen through the eyes of its staff. It's also a way to hold the principal accountable for the safety and support for learning that takes place in the school.

The New York Times' School Book published the results of this year's survey. It's interesting, but no surprise, to note also that the school Learning Environment Survey, conducted by the New York City Department of Education, mirrored the sentiment of our survey. The students and parents gave the teachers overwhelming satisfied or better marks. While the principal, Dr. Andrea Lewis, got failing marks from the staff - those whom she is charged to lead. You can view the LE Survey here (see pp. 14-15).

The survey, or a version of their own, is something every UFT rep should conduct in their school. With the corporate reform agenda turning schools into mini corporations it's incumbent upon any democracy loving public servant to hold the line on secrecy and promote transparency.

Here's the piece from the New York Times:

"Every year for the last three, John Elfrank-Dana, a social studies teacher and union chapter leader at Murry Bergtraum High School for Business Careers, has conducted a survey of the staff in his building. A State of the School, of sorts, the survey asks teachers and others about safety, job satisfaction and whether the struggling school has improved." Click here to read on...

LE Survey - Click on it to open for full view.

Hope for My School

Recent events at Murry Bergtraum, where I have taught since 1986 (with a few leaves of absence), compelled me to speak out about how we can best save the school.

I published this opinion piece in the New York Times' School Book. Overall, I got sympathetic comments, except one person who argued that I was racist because I wanted Bergtraum to be a neighborhood school. This person assumed that it would mean only Chinese students would attend. I assured him that the school would be quite diverse with Chinese, Hispanic and Black students in close to equal proportion, like the school used to be. It's my belief that it's counterproductive to send academically and socially needy students half way across town to go to school, far from the families that are the missing link in their school success. These kids, which have come to make up an ever larger portion of our school population deserve quality schools close to home that provide their families with the necessary supports to reinforce their education. Anyway, the article goes into more detail.

Here's the piece:

When I came to Murry Bergtraum High School for Business Careers in Lower Manhattan as a teacher in 1986, I was amazed at the orderliness and serious focus on academics compared to the school in Brooklyn from which I had come.  Click here to read on...

The Worst Teacher in the City - SHAME ON EVERYONE

The NY Post, predictably, identified whom it crowned "The Worst Teacher in the City" based on these dubious teacher data reports released on Friday 2/24/12 in the NY Times and NY Post. I don't want to cite the article, so as to not spread the vile any farther than necessary. They chose a woman who scored at the bottom of the "value added" data spectrum. They printed her name and school and even put her picture on top of the story.

This reflects the fundamental mean spirit that drives some of this so-called education "reform". My point is simply: Assume for a minute she is the worst teacher in the city. Assume even further that these data reports were accurate.

What business is it to her dry cleaner? What business is it to her fellow parishioners at her church? What business is it to her bus driver? What business is it to her own children's classmates that she has failed as a teacher?!!! Only her supervisors and parents of her students need to know her professional performance. They can replace her without the unnecessary public humiliation. Let her quietly go try another profession or a different educational setting where she may be successful. Her prospective employers can know about the falling out without it being in the newspapers.

I hope this woman has retained an attorney. The UFT should provide one.