How You Should Cast Your Ballot and Why You Should Vote for the MORE and New Action slate

Here are images of how you should cast your ballot. First, here's the one page view, presenting how you should cast your ballot.

Here's how the process in a few practical steps. Find the envelope indicating that it contains the official UFT ballot. Check off the ballot box that is marked for the MORE/New Action slate. Put the ballot in the envelope, and then put that envelope into the final envelope.
Still needing guidance? Here are some FAQs from the MORE Caucus UFT website.

WHY YOU SHOULD VOTE FOR THE MORE/New Action SLATE
When you vote for Michael Mulgrew and the Unity slate you are voting for the evaluations based on high stakes and Value Added Modeling, or VAM (rebuked by a judge last week in the Shari Lederman case). Furthermore, remember that Mulgrew has consistently supported Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his ill-minded policies. (Mulgrew took his support so far that in 2014 he threatened to defund the Working Families Party if it endorsed Zephyr Teachout for governor over Cuomo).
A major negative development under Mulgrew's tenure has been the change to the new evaluation system used at the city level. The evaluations have increased in number and have followed the absurd Danielson model. Mulgrew endorsed every worsening step of the evaluation Advance Evaluation system. He even asked for the DOE to evaluate teachers along more areas than even the DOE first sought in the negotiations.

And remember that Cuomo has supported the regressive education reform forces that led New York State education: John King and Merryl Tisch. And remember that Cuomo failed to listen to parents and educators that Common Core was an inherently flawed set of standards. (See this analysis of how Mulgrew endorsed Cuomo's New York State-level evaluation dictates.) Yet, Mulgrew has aggressively supported the standards, at one union function, threatening violence to anyone who dared to take them away. Mulgrew perpetuated the fiction that teachers had a role in writing the standards, when the truth is that no K through 12 educator wrote them.

Locally, Mulgrew has continued the Unity tradition of liking for a friendly mayoral candidate, and then failing to criticize the mistakes of that politician's policies once they are in office. Witness his continued support for mayor Bill DeBlasio whose chancellor Carmen Farina has proven to be no better than Bloomberg's chancellors. He has not challenged the DOE administration to part from the Bloomberg ways, and he has ignored the continuing problem of charter school encroachment on community schools and other district schools. By contrast, Jia Lee and the MORE caucus have challenged the administration on this enduring problem.

What will real regime change look like at the DOE?

*Will de Blasio battle the toxic character of the NYC Department of Education or will he peddle old Bloomberg wine in a new "progressive" bottle?

New York City mayor-elect Bill de Blasio will face a teaching force that is the most demoralized and is eager for qualitative change. The NYC Department of Education under Bloomberg pursued a program of destruction of education and the teaching profession. Just look at the names of some of the blogs in this city, Assailed Teacher, Under Assault, Pissed Off Teacher, Exasperated teacher. The sheer volume of New York City oriented blogs alone (see the sidebar of this blog) suggests a definitely high degree of weariness.

For the good of education, and out of humanity to the people laboring in the schools, great changes are need to reverse and correct the damage. And the battle-scarred teachers will be extra-attentive to the quality of changes that the new mayor will make. There is a tall order of tasks for that he will have to attend to.

I would want to say that I am cautiously optimistic. I am not. I am guarded. The hints in the last couple of weeks have been discouraging. First was his identification to the business community that he is a fiscal conservative. Then this week we have his characterization of ruthlessly anti-labor Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel as a great mayor. Union activists are well aware of the latter's record. Such a characterization of Emanuel sound like fighting words targeted against the New York's municipal workers. De Blasio now has a negative reputation to undo. So far, it looks like we, the democratic left, have been thoroughly duped.

The Bloomberg record and the challenge of regime change
In schools, the break-up of large schools meant that students no longer enjoy the opportunities for English electives other than the test-prep treadmill. Schools no longer offer foreign language choices other than Spanish. (Actually, in the recent era, even Spanish has been scaled back as an option in the middle schools.) It meant the loss of arts choices. It meant the closure of school libraries. It meant the drastic reduction of guidance counselors, social workers, school psychologists. Envision the thousands of youths harmed by being deprived by these staff eliminations. On many points it has meant the city violating state law in pursuit of these policies.

It meant a racist and classist policy, as these changes were pursued first and more thoroughly in minority and low-income neighborhoods. Truth be told, the break-up of schools into different "learning communities" within one building was pioneered in the 1990s, before Bloomberg, such as with the closure of Julia Richman High School in 1993 during David Dinkins and Erasmus High School in 1994 during Rudy Giuliani, when the schools were run by the Board of Education.

It meant the loss of departmental chair assistant principals or department coordinators to guide curricula in the middle and high schools. Now, in the smaller schools, there are one or two assistant assistant principals. Good luck having an observation with someone that has taught or understands your subject.

Beyond the school-break-up trend, the Department of Education changes meant the replacement of the schools' leaders, professional, seasoned educators, with businesspeople, utterly unfamiliar and unconcerned with issues of pedagogy. Having businesspeople run schools has made as much sense as car manufacturers running farms. Their singular concern with metrics and the bottom line has often led to schools ill-serving authentic educational goals. Again, fat chance on getting an empathetic observation, as the private sector originating administrator weighs in on what good teaching looks like.

It meant replacing the traditional career trajectory of seasoned educator moving onto AP, moving onto principal, moving onto superintendent. These people knew what it was like to teach in the classroom, to get to know students as they watched students progress through the grades in the school. Now, you get people that stick around for two years at best in a position before getting kicked upstairs.

It meant replacing a public institution's leadership with private, unaccountable, non-public bid (or no-bid) "networks" that have questionable practicality, as non-educators or people with fleeting classroom experience (and little or no content familiarity) inform teachers about proper teaching. Regime change will involve terminating this privatization boondoggle staple of the Bloomberg years. This was just one example of how the NYC DOE has been following the Broad Virus program.

The system, from top to bottom is poisoned and corroded. The institutional damage needs a complete rapid turnover to past practices. Even by establishment metrics there is no quantitative or qualitative evidence that the changes of the Bloomberg mayoral control years have improved schools, the teaching or learning environment.

This system has been one of repression. Edward Stancik passed away, but his spirit has continued, with an alphabet soup of investigation agencies. Real regime change and an unoppressive teaching climate will require the end of a no due process system for teachers. And as blogger Chaz has said, administrators can do all sorts of unseemly things and remain in the system, barely punished. Read his blog, Chaz's School Daze, for dozens of illustrations of such scandalously double-standard treatment.

The next mayor would do well to study this pattern of destruction and undo each and everyone of these destructive policies.

Alas, merely a change at the top, in and of itself, will not create changes. The mayor shall be gone, but principals will remain. Outgoing New York City Michael Bloomberg made changes that will last long. Even if broken schools re-unite, there is the issue of his thorough stamp of appointment of Leadership Academy principals and assistant principals. These new style principals are too often not professional educators (or have a token two years exposure to teaching). Their orientation is often decisively anti-union, creating a hostile work environment, routinely violating contract provisions and even standard labor law. Even a temporary wage-earning employee in Macy's has a duty-free lunch, as it is state law. Not so in many New York City schools. Many of the new style principals flagrantly ignore that and insist that teachers attend meetings or work in "inquiry groups." Really, many teachers work during lunch on their own choice, but that should be the teacher's choice.

Finally, all of the above is really an indictment of the leadership the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), the New York City teachers union. The union's Unity leadership has not recognized the above transformation, it has not frontally challenged these violations. It has failed to recognize or challenge the not just the whole set of patterns violations but many of the individual violations.

Teachers in touch with the chapter leaders would have heard from president Michael Mulgrew and his statements at the Thursday, September 12 chapter leaders meeting at the Brooklyn UFT headquarters. (If your CL did not debrief you, read this report here. Added commentary is at Perdido St. School. Other commentary on the UFT leaders' defense of Advance APPR at NYC Educator, and this post has an important discussion of how Danielson will turn NYC teachers into factory workers: Assailed Teacher. Many teachers have not had a proper explanation of the new evaluation system, and would do well to read the thorough analyses from the MORE site, here and here, of what is involved. The uninformed veterans and new teachers are in for a shock.

President Mulgrew's mood and stance has been that the new Advance APPR teacher evaluation system is the greatest thing to have happened. The UFT, when speaking of observation patterns has often said if you see any violation issues, such as principal-imposed lesson plan formats let us know. This is outrageous. If they were really in touch with their chapters and were mobilizing their chapter leaders, they would know that these sorts of violations have been going on for a while. Witness many principals' declaration that the Danielson Framework was official and that they were implementing it, before Walcott made the official announcement. (A succinct overview of Danielson developments approaching late January 2013 can be read in this Ed Notes post.)

The naivete that Mulgrew evinces, most prominently in his emphasis that many properly behaving principals will follow the Advance program fairly. Many principals will, but hundreds will not. Mulgrew and the whole (Unity caucus) leadership's naive acceptance of this program, and their ignorance of rampant contract violations are expressions of a union leadership far removed from the classroom. Their naivete is predicted on naivete and ignorance of teaching conditions.

This lack of knowledge of how the Danielson Framework of observation will work in real world contemporary conditions is a case in point. For instance, Danielson, Mulgrew, and others are failing to consider factors that affect smooth teacher performance. In broken up schools in particular, space is at a premium. Whereby a teacher in pre-Bloomberg, pre-broken-up schools would have had their own classroom, that they designed and that they had arranged their materials in; the conditions are far worse in the split up school format. The teacher moves room to room, either keeping multiple sets of supplies or moving them. And teachers are to be judged on classroom environment in these conditions?

Their view of the classroom is from the halcyon pre-Bloomberg years, when the conditions, while imperfect, were far more often in keeping in keeping in with the contract. The more frequent condition these years are schools with no chapter leader or no teachers lounge which is generally off-limits to administrators. There has been such turnover in the schools in the last six years that the night and day contrast of teaching conditions between then and now is imperceptable to maybe half the city teaching corp today.

Teachers' roles in effecting change
If the NYC teachers reading this are disturbed by the issues above, they should come to the Movement of Rank and File Educators, MORE, caucus (democratic alternative UFT caucus) events. A prime campaign is a moratorium campaign against the evaluation system.

Finally, Bill de Blasio has spoken of two cities. In the United States there is tale of two standards: a standard against urban schools with a large percentage of impoverished residents and suburbs. The latter have democratic-republican-driven school policy, the former do not. From a democratic-republican perspective, real regime change will require the city and the state allowing New York City residents to have the right to democratically organize their school system, just as suburban schools do. In short, the city must have a popularly elected Board of Education. Right now, this is a separate but unequal standard for municipal democracy, biased against New York City. The legal myth of the Department of Education must end with the Bloomberg regime. Or will de Blasio perpetuate the bias against urban schools having popularly controlled school systems? Will we have real regime change? Or a Bloomberg fourth term, under a Democratic face? Many of us one-time partisans of Democrats are cynical because of the terrible betrayals and oppression coming from Democrats in recent years.

If de Blasio fails to make a 180 degree turn from Bloomberg's record and his own recent rhetoric and steer the school system away from the disastrous policies of the Bloomberg decade, he will put himself in the position of being challenged from the left in 2017. --Perhaps from Letitia James (incoming public advocate), the woman who ought to be mayor.

Perdido Street School put the matter most astutely yesterday:

Tish James, responding to questions of what happens if de Blasio governs as a corporatist like Andrew Cuomo:

 “I don't think he's going to have much wiggle room,” says New York City councilwoman Letitia James, who will replace de Blasio as public advocate come January. “I'm going to make sure that he stays focused on a progressive agenda.”

UFT's Casey, Moment of VAM Realization Before Duncanism's Onset

 *Leo Casey, pre-the education Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of our time
Truly, the education field is stuffed with blind loyalty to one program of action or one line of thought, then with no acknowledgement of previously professed commitment, a lurch in another direction.
Witness in New York City, the developmental lesson was, king, then it was the workshop model. (And never mind that God Lucy Calkins said it was for elementary grades in English, it was transposed with dogmatic force to the secondary level in other disciplines.) And now, have you noticed that the mini-lesson is entirely discarded? It is supposed to be subsumed within the body of the motivation.
No matter, administrators told us that blue is now fuschia, and we followed in line; and this cycle repeats with nary an instance of critical thinking.

Leo Casey, vintage 2008, fights the good fight versus VAM Let us take a step back to the heady days of 2008. The United Federation of Teachers was for Hilary Clinton, who then openly professed criticism of No Child Left Behind and promised to take action. Alas, this was all before Barack Obama nudged her out of the way, beat I-can-see-Russia and her partner, Russert's Meet the Press BFF; Obama, who less than a half-year into the presidency, launched Race to the Top and the rest is history.

Just as the CPUSA had wild switches and swings in its line, especially in the mid-20th Century, the brook-no-public-dissent Unity caucus of the UFT (see for example here and here) has had its wild swings in its line on data and its use.
In 2008, before activists and terrified teachers had nightmares about VAM, APPR and IPCs --before we knew or even cared, then [Unity] UFT VP, Leo Casey had the right line on VAM. (See here and here if you still need some clarification on these terms and their significance for your career.) Could you imagine, that the Bush II years would be the golden years by comparison? The person that knew or talked about that sort of wonky stuff back in the mid-2000s was the dull nudge at school; now everyone with any concern for their careers knows. Why, I'd bet that many teachers' own children would realize that such terms are enough to make their parents grind their teeth.

Note the UFT's Casey's admittedly wise words on January 21, 2008, "Tweed's 'Value-Added' Project: Ideology Trumps Education." Back then this Unity chieftain of the UFT was on the right track with his words on VAM, not yet erased from the record, on the UFT's EdWize blog, bolded emphasis, mine:

The DoE’s “value added” project is a fundamentally flawed exercise which can not possibly deliver what it promises. It is being pursued, with the full knowledge of its flaws, because technocratic ideology trumps sound educational practice at Tweed. Moving forward with such a flawed project is extraordinarily irresponsible because “value added” — the idea that one should measure how much academic progress students have made, rather than just their absolute academic standing — holds promise as an useful tool in the repertoire of schools and educators. But the way in which it is being recklessly pursued by Tweed will cast discredit on the entire enterprise.

The DoE has no contractual or legal authority to use test score data in the evaluation of teachers, and the UFT will oppose it with all the means at our disposal. This is a line in the sand for the UFT.

Furthermore, note that Casey terms this reasoning as intellectually dishonest.

To understand just how intellectually dishonest this exercise is, consider the following. This pilot project is based on student scores on the annual New York State ELA and Math standardized exams, grades 4 through 8. [The initial year of testing, grade 3, provides a baseline, leaving only grades 4 through 8 -- the years in which the exam is given on an annual basis -- for the measurement of progress.] This means that the pilot can only be applied to the teachers of grades 4 and 5 in an elementary school, and to ELA and Math teachers of grades 6 through 8 in a middle school, a small fraction of all teachers. More importantly, since the ELA and Math exams are given in January, the students will have had at least two different teachers in the interval between exams — one in the spring term of one school year and the other in the fall term of the next school year. Even assuming that the exams are an accurate and complete measure of student learning — and there is ample evidence that they are not — a student’s progress from one exam to the next is thus dependent upon at least two teachers. In some instances, a student would have another two teachers for Academic Intervention Services in the 37.5 minute tutoring, and a fifth teacher if he attended a summer program. How could one possibly isolate an individual teacher’s contribution to a student’s progress using this method?

2013 UFT, about-face, applauding the same VAM principles
So now, we have the UFT reversing itself from Casey's 2008 line in the sand declarations.  A la the 1939-1941 CP period that included the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, we have the UFT making a grand about-face, now claiming that metrics are fair, a just reform over past practices. Akin to intellectually dishonest, can we say that the UFT is politically disingenous? The UFT in 2013 is repeatedly praising the new Advance (APPR) teacher evaluation system in principle, only adding the comment that the system has a few issues that need tweaking. President Barack Obama's and ED Secretary Arne Duncan's 2009 Race to the Top with its emphasis on test-linked evaluations paved the way for the changes New York is enduring. The UFT under Michael Mulgrew, in 2010 enthusiastically endorsed New York State's RTTT application, establishing these evaluation requirements in New York State, which provided the legal authority which Casey challenged, read here and here. 2013's Mulgrew deems the evaluation system, "clear in its intent to support the work teachers do inside the classroom." Where's Casey today? --safely insulated from NYC, assisting president Randi Weingarten in the American Federation of Teachers.

Come to MORE's next general meeting, 10/10/13

Nevertheless, the overall Unity line is that the state-imposed evaluation system is a wonderful improvement, including its reliance on the Danielson Frameworks (which assume that all kids will be attentive, intellectually precocious and cooperative), its central incorporation of value added modeling use of standardized test scores (the very kind of quantitative analysis that Casey faulted as the objectionable line in the sand that the UFT would fight with every means at its disposal), which mean that even the stellar teacher acing the qualitative Danielson sections could fail overall if the high-stakes test scores were inadequate, "40%=100%"-- along with the Student Learning Objectives, or SLOs, (in New York City, Measures of Student Learning, MOSL). The last point takes test-score ranking one step further on the absurdity scale, for example, in some schools, measuring physical education teachers on students' performance on tests in the science department. Such farcical, non-sequitor accountability measures stoked teacher outrage and a federal lawsuit in purple state Florida. Read, "Teachers in Florida sue state claiming job evaluation system is unfair." This Washington Post article begins, "Teachers in Florida filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday, claiming the state’s new teacher evaluation system is unfair because it partly rates their job performance on test scores of students they don’t know and subjects they don’t teach." 

This is the institutional madness that has hijacked the city's educational policies. This is what the UFT's MORE caucus will be protesting this Wednesday, October 9 at the union's headquarters at 52 Broadway, Manhattan, on the occasion of the Delegates Assembly ("DA"). (Rector, 1, R; Wall, 4, 5; Broad, J, Z trains)

Video: Tisch on Common Core and Thompson for Mayor

"The reason to test to the Common Core is because the Common Core is being rolled out."

The NYS Regents Chancellor that was a key player in creating NYS's APPR, appointing Commissioner John King, and quite possibly the Advance evaluation system in New York City.

Toxic endorsement alert and circular argument alert: New York State Board of Regents Chancellor and Chairwoman of Thompson for Mayor Merryl Tisch in video interview discusses why she thinks Bill Thompson has the best temperament to lead New York City.

In this weird 15 minute video from the City & State site she mainly fixates on the purported imperative of the Common Core State Standards.

She makes it clear through much of the interview that implementation of "roll-out" of the Common Core is the paramount objective of teachers and schools. "The reason to test to the Common Core is because the Common Core is being rolled out." What circulatory logic!

Her endorsement of Thompson can be narrowed down to this: his temperament, "his ability to reach across aisles." Translation: bi-partisan collaboration. Ah, collaboration, like presidents Obama and Weingarten.

Otherwise, a mysterious zero commentary on any Thompson policy positions.

[More of her nuggets of wisdom on the Common Core and New York state's Common Core-based tests read this interview on WNYC where she identified adults as the source of students' test stress: "If adults are going to pass their stress along to students, I would urge them not to." And for more on Tisch, and her protege, John King, the author of the New York city Advance teacher evaluation click here.]

Parents, educators, if you are uncomfortable with Common Core or making teacher evaluations based largely around high-stakes standardized tests based around the Common Core, then re-think any affinity you have for Bill Thompson.

Ready for Evaluation on CCSS When Supervisors' Groups Cite Declining Support?

*Supervisors question the rush into CCSS *Update: Congressional discussion of attack on Syria, but not CCSS?
The Common Core tests are coming. But the mantra from the federal government and many state leaders is have faith and trust in them. But it is highly significant when superintendents and principles associations express strong reservations. If they express some reservations, particularly over the proper preparation for the tests, should not teachers and parents ask serious questions? (But recall that the Common Core is not a matter for public discussion. It was produced by private associations and there is no venue for public revision of the standards.)

From a letter and its report, as reported by Diane Ravitch: She cited a public statement, "School Leadership Groups Urge “Adequate Time” to Implement Common Core Standards" by major associations of school leaders, expressing trepidation about the implementation of the Bill Gates and David Coleman's Common Core State Standards. The statement is to be admired for its honesty.
The superintendents, principals and school boards associations, AASA, NAESP, NASSP, and NSBA wrote a public statement that expressed support for the Common Core, but argued for more careful implementation, particularly regarding the associated tests: AASA, The School Superintendents Association, the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP), The National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) and The National School Boards Association (NSBA). (Interestingly they do not appear as beneficiaries of Gates Foundation largesse in deutsch29's audit of Gates' Common Core spending.) In contrast, as you hear union leaders, from the American Federation of Teachers' (AFT) Randi Weingarten and the National Education Association's (NEA) Dennis Van Roekel, on down to local leaders, talking about "getting on-board" with the Common Core, repeating the same talking points, keep this in mind: the two federations were paid off quite handsomely for the cooperation with the Common Core, over $9 million collectively.

It is interesting that the authors of the statement express concern that the confusion ensuing in the course of Common Core and its tests will weaken public support for public education. This mirrors the suspicion that many leftist critics have had with the Common Core: that it is a cynical attempt to destroy public faith in public education and pave the way for broader scale privatization.

Getting this transition right can mean the difference between getting and keeping public and educator support for the Common Core or a loss in confidence in the standards and even the public schools, especially if as expected the first-year scores will disappoint.

The letter reported news that is devastating to the Common Core boosters and the associated test boosters:

These philosophical considerations are compounded by real-world obstacles to implementing both the Common Core Standards and the related online assessment. AASA’s latest economic impact survey included items related to the standards and assessments, and the respondents delivered a clear message: State support for the Common Core Standards is holding steady at best, if not declining, and states and districts are woefully lacking as it relates to infrastructure and connectivity capacity to support the online assessments:

• 74% of respondents indicate that the level of funding/fiscal support provided by the state for implementing the Common Core Learning standards is “inadequate.”
• 57% of respondents indicate that the level of professional development provided by the state for implementing the Common Core Learning standards is ”inadequate.”
• With many states more than a year in to the work of implementing Common Core, school-based practitioners reported a very clear trend in DECLINING state support for Common Core implementation:


o 33% indicated State funding support has decreased.
o 23% indicated State professional development support has decreased.
o 31% indicated State leadership support has decreased.
o 23% indicated My state has considered legislative proposals that would decrease state policy/funding support for Common Core learning standards.

• In detailing their state, district and school capacity to implement the online assessments, respondents indicated:
Schools in my state are, on average, not ready to implement the online assessment.
58.4%
Schools in my state, on average, lack the infrastructure to support the online assessments.
50.5%
My school requires additional infrastructure to fully support the online assessments.
46.5%
Schools in my state, on average, lack the bandwidth/connectivity to support the online assessments.
44.3%
My school requires additional bandwidth/connectivity to fully support the online assessments.
35.0%
My school is fully prepared, in terms of funding and bandwidth capacity, to implement the online assessments.
17.7%
My state has adequate bandwidth capacity/the ability to support adequate school connectivity but lacks the funding to fully implement the online tests.
13.7%
My state is fiscally prepared to implement the assessments, but lacks adequate bandwidth capacity/the ability to support adequate school connectivity.
9.1%
Schools in my state are, on average, fully ready to implement the online assessments.
9.1%
My state is fully prepared, in terms of funding and bandwidth capacity, to implement the fully-online assessment.
3.6%

* This analysis reflects 497 responses from 46 states.

Now, here's the surprise: Diane Ravitch posted this notice on May 31, before much blow-back has occurred: before several states pulled out of the PARCC tests, before other state-level maneuvers really took off this summer. These developments, plus the large growth of blog, YouTube activity and increased populist fury among progressives that spiked during the summer. These things will likely decrease the level of public or legislative support for the Common Core State Standards.

As school returns to session, as non-full year legislatures re-convene, parents and teachers, people that are not forced to indoctrinate their subordinates with myths and doublethink delusions, should stand up and challenge the lies and doublethink of the Common Core. Let me be clear, children deserve consistency, within a city and state to state; careful, highly reflective reading should be pursued in the classroom. Yet, the Common Core is the Emperor's New Clothes myth. It did not come from the states, it is not internationally benchmarked, it is not the only path forward for helping the nation's education system towards "college and career readiness." These things all sound very acceptable. But they are simply not true. In repeating falsehoods, in having media and armies of school supervisors stay narrowly on-script and repeat the mistruths, the Common Core engineers are using classic propaganda techniques straight out of Orwell's 1984. They keep referring to their research or what the research tells us when promoting their agenda. But they have never shared that. (The proceedings were under conditions whereby participants signed confidentiality agreements, so we have none of the CCSS's internal documentation.) Real maturity is asking questions and recognizing a falsehood when you see it, not obediently mouthing a party line. Parents and teachers should challenge the system that has non-education experts dictating to teachers how to teach. David Coleman and Susan Pimentel, the English standards authors, never worked as teachers. Coleman's Oxford friend and lead math author, Jason Zimba, and the two other math authors, professors, yes, but never teachers. Yet, they are dictating national teaching practice.

We must stand up once and for all, and collectively question what authority do these individuals have to dictate best practices? And politically more offensive, how outrageous that they have been allowed to create the Standards in a process completely parallel to, and outside of legislative or bureaucratic channels. What we see in the process of how Gates hatched and propelled this program (detailed in the link for the last sentence) is a private government, bought by paymaster Bill Gates.
[POSTSCRIPT: Washington is, rightly, in a debate over whether president Barack Obama should have American forces commit a missile strike against Syria. The contention is that Congress must have a voice, that as a democracy, there should be discussion and debate over the matter. Yet, note that there has been no discussion contending that America should have a open democratic discussion authorizing national authority to strong arm states into committing to the Common Core and Race to the Top. It is a sorry state of affairs that we recall the need to have multiple institutions authorize military force, but we do not likewise expect multiple institutions have authority over educational policy. No, we have merely ceded authority to David Coleman and his secretive author committee of the Common Core.]

One New York district superintendent, Ken Mitchell, has issued a report, "Federal Mandates on Local Education: Costs and Consequences – Yes, it’s a Race, but is it in the Right Direction?," laying out in scrupulous detail how compliance with Common Core and other Race to the Top mandates will seriously strain districts' revenues, as well as force districts to reopen union contracts. He cited Christopher Tienken: “the standards have not been validated empirically and no metric has been set to monitor the intended or unintended consequences they will have on the education system and children.” And he also cited Lucy Calkins, Mary Ehrenworth, and Christopher Lehman: “On the whole, the image of the curriculum implicit in CCSS (and explicit especially in the new documents attempting to spell out implications for instruction) is not visibly research based; it is not based on large-scale reforms that have demonstrated a method for bringing highneeds students to the levels of the Common Core. If that were the case, then the nation would be invited to observe otherwise typical high-needs schools where most of the graduates are flourishing at their colleges." In compliance with the Common Core, we are called to accept, wholesale, Gates' and Coleman's program, while suspending conventional expectations that proper research and trials be conducted.

Fortunately, some New York superintendents, for example, Joseph Rella and William Johnson are not following the official story script. The people can, and must, rebel against the Common Core script.

Who Is Destroying Public Education in New York State?

From Diane Ravitch's blog, August 7, 2013

Carol Burris, principal of the year in New York state, has written a devastating critique of the leadership of New York state.

Let’s name names.

State Commissioner of Education John King (who taught for 2 or 3 years and founded a “no-excuses” charter chain that has a high suspension rate) chose to set the passing mark on the new tests so high that the failure rate was certain to soar.

NY Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, with her appointee, NYSED Commissioner John King, at the historic 8/7/13 NYS Common Core-based test score announcement. Note her straight face, despite the context of being close to people ensconced in the Education Commercialization Complex.
Merryl Tisch, chair of the New York Board of Regents, selected John King (he was in her cohort in a quickie doctorate program at Teachers College) and has supported his every step in setting the bar so high that large numbers of students would not reach it. Tisch is a billionaire who has a hard time imagining what the lives of other people are like. She once, many years ago, taught kindergarten in a religious school. When she was recently honored by Teachers College at its commencement ceremonies, many of the students and faculty protested and wore signs that said “Not a test score.” [Note: the College's President, Susan Fuhrman, is a non-executive director at Pearson PLC, earning about $100,000, and owns $240,000 in the company's stock.]

[Note that Tisch is Chairwoman of Thompson for Mayor; she is Chancellor of the New York State Regents, the body which appointed John King who imposed the draconian teacher evaluation system on New York City, probably the toughest in the state; she has been an endorser of the inBloom online database of student information; she has family connections to the online education system, K12, for homeschoolers and a charter school.]

King and Tisch seem determined to destroy public confidence in public education, to demoralize teachers and principals, and to crush students’ love of learning by making testing the only consequential aspect of their schooling.

Long before the new tests were given to students, state officials predicted that the passing rates would drop dramatically.

Why? Because they want it to.

Merryl Tisch said it was time to jump into the deep end of the pool (meaning that students, whether or not they know how to swim, should jump into the deep end and drown if they can’t swim); Dennis Walcott, New York City’s chancellor (with no educational experience, although he allegedly taught briefly in a daycare program 30 years ago) said it was “time to rip the band-aid off.” Meaning, it is time for students to suffer. Remember, folks, these are the people who are in charge of education in the state and the city. Merryl Tisch has been a member of the Board of Regents since 1996. For 17 years, she has been in a decision-making role in the state. Yet, they shrug off all accountability for themselves.

They made the tests so “hard” that many students who were previously proficient will now qualify for remedial services; the students and their parents will be devastated.

Parents, teachers, principals, and school boards should understand one simple fact: The passing mark on the state tests was politically determined. It has no scientific validity. None whatever.

The best response to the new Gradgrind regime is to opt out of testing next year.

Join other parents. Join organizations like United Opt-Out. Join the Network for Public Education to stay informed.
Say no. Say it loud. Say it often.

Postscript: We can add Governor Andrew Cuomo and his bipartisan crowd in his Education Reform Commission, from Geoff Decker, Gotham Schools: "[CUNY chancellor Matthew] Goldstein, who along with [AFT president Randi] Weingarten sits on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Education Reform Commission, gave the maximum $4,950 to Republican candidate Joe Lhota [former MTA head, and deputy mayor to previous mayor Rudolph Giuliani], a member of CUNY’s Board of Trustees."

How Mulgrew's Responsible for Disastrous NYC Teachers' Evaluation; Gender & the Weingarten Comparisons

In all of New York City teachers' complaints and analyses of New York State Education Commissioner John King's imposed evaluation scheme we must remember these core points on how UFT president Michael Mulgrew was fundamentally responsible for the terrible tragedy that the evaluation system is to New York City teachers and the profession.

I) The fact is that the components of all this (especially the Common Core test-based evaluations and APPR mandates) come from President Obama and Secretary Duncan's Race to the Top, whose architect, similar to Duncan, Joanne Weiss has no actual educator experience. Weiss was commissioned to direct the create the program on May 19, 2009 and the program's form and terms were announced two months later, on July 24, 2009. The Race to the Top mandates: *Compliance with the Common Core States Standards, *CCSS-anchored tests, *Test score-heavy assessment of teachers, *Maintenance of student databases, *Strengthened annual rating of teachers and principals, *"Turning around failing schools". Qualification for a high Race to the Top score means replacing more public schools with charter schools. A district superintendent in one New York State community wrote that the compliance with the RTTT would require every district to reopen union contracts.
Mulgrew supported Race to the Top as he endorsed New York State's RTTT application, the occasion for the August 24, 2010 photo below. Pictured are David Steiner, an unknown official, Joel Klein, Michael Bloomberg, Michael Mulgrew, Merryl Tisch, Christine Quinn and another unknown official. The standards were issued June 2, 2010.


II) The UFT and NYSUT did not have to go along with NYS on their RTTT application:
(a) the California Teachers Association opposed Race to the Top;
(b) it was not worth the money, many states and districts have decided that the attendant costs associated with implementing RTTT mandates exceed whatever money that states or districts would get from RTTT money-- 13 states did not submit applications to the final RTTT competition round; nearly 80 Ohio districts and charter schools have rejected RTTT funds, citing the costs;

III) Mulgrew did not have to cheer on Governor Andrew Cuomo's state imposition, he could have petitioned the Public Employee Relations Board for real labor-management arbitration. His letting New York State Education Department Commissioner John King write the evaluation system essentially is closer to having only management make the decisions. Predictably, right on the day of the actual release of King's imposed evaluation system, he said it was a well-needed reform.

* * *
Look at what John King's state-imposed evaluation system has wrought:
UNIQUE FOR NEW YORK CITY
*A termination tie-in after two consecutive year-end unsatisfactory ("U") ratings; by contrast, Buffalo is now suing its school district for violating their side agreement that evaluations not be used punitively.
*Student surveys, starting in fall, 2013 as a pilot program; with formal five percent weight in 2014-2015. Only Syracuse also uses student surveys for the evaluation algorithm.
*Sunset clauses; numerous municipalities across the state have one or two-year sunsets.

Do we wonder why people are saying that Mulgrew is part of a Trojan Horse scheme?


LOOK AT WHAT APPR-RELATED COSTS POSE JUST TO MODEST SIZED SUBURBAN DISTRICTS:

Note the cost of testing to comply with APPR requirements and how Pearson is the most expensive option. South Orangetown District Superintendent Ken Mitchell's detailed report for the State University of New York-New Paltz wrote and illustrated how Race to the Top expenses far exceed gains from Race to the Top awards. In his Fall, 2012 paper, "Federal Mandates on Local Education: Costs and Consequences – Yes, it’s a Race, but is it in the Right Direction?" he showed how total APPR mandated costs (accounting Common Core, 3012C training, assessments, technology and professional development) for 18 lower Hudson Valley school districts would amount to $5,472,166. RTTT funding would provide $520,415. The districts would still have to pay $5,951,751 in unfunded costs. (Table 2. Estimated 2012-2013 Costs Associated with APPR Mandates for Eighteen Lower Hudson Valley School Districts)

WILL RTTT-COMPLIANCE SPENDING DRIVE DEFICITS AND THEN LAYOFFS?
Mitchell pointed out that budget deficits will arise.

In six Rockland County districts, leaders projected a total four-year cost of almost $11 million, this compares with an aggregate revenue of about $400K in Race to the Top funding - a $10 million deficit. this represents an increase in average per pupil spending for this single initiative of nearly $400 per student.

(Bolding, my emphasis) Why did not Mulgrew ask any questions about compliance? This of course not only strikes taxpayers, but consider the ramifications. In many government deficit instances layoffs ensue. The literature on testing and learning are increasingly shedding doubt that the test-emphasis path is productive for educational goals. Furthermore, we need to consider that school spending and teacher jobs will fall victim if APPR and RTTT compliance related deficits develop.
* * *
THE GENDER POLITICS OF MIKE, CONTRASTED WITH RANDI
People say "at least he's better than [Randi] Weingarten," his predecessor that installed him via the executive board, a half-year before a popular vote. For all of Weingarten's pioneering the collaboration stratagem, from her sitting on the Broad Foundation, to her countless other mistakes, accounted here and in the comments here, she let us vote on the 2005 and 2007 contracts.
Mulgrew, caved in repeatedly to side agreements that have amounted to a de facto contract, the data binders, the portfolios, the ratched up tenure requirements, the VAM evaluations, APPR changes, Danielson, the decision to defer his evaluation dispute with Bloomberg to King Cuomo and his henchman Reformy John King, and the evaluation system as the 2007 contract 3.0. What the heck is there left for us to negotiate over and vote on?
I think that his gender and physical stature give him the pass with the members. His loud tone, his sneering jokes. Alas, none of this has helped us. He makes an appearance at the NYSUT rally,* but he blacks out any publicity to UFT members, lest they get exposed to "Corporate Core" signs. He is a Trojan Horse cancer or zombie/body snatcher, destroying our union and profession from within. I'll take arguments citing Mike's great accomplishments that part from Randi's ways. The suggestion box is open.
*The UFT was also absent from a Jan. 9, 2012 (a Monday) protest in Albany about frozen funds, Gotham Schools reported then.

NY Regents' Imposed Evaluation for NYC; Buffalo's Eval MOU; How Mulgrew Needs to Stand Up to Cuomo

So, Andrew Cuomo's John King and his New York State Education Department have issued New York City specific teacher evaluations. Already Perdido Street, NYC Educator, Accountable Talk, NYCDoENuts, ICEUFT blog, and EdNotes have highlighted parts and opined on them. I won't play a ranking game; look at all of them. This is an important change on our working conditions.

MULGREW ASKED FOR THIS DISASTER
Shame on United Federation of Teachers (UFT) president Michael Mulgrew. For he cheered governor Andrew Cuomo's pledge to impose an evaluation system.
And don't forget- the resolution between the UFT and the New York City Department of Education was by state fiat. This is outside of contract collective bargaining procedure. The Unity/UFT should have sought arbitration.
And he penned onto the disastrous evaluation system at its genesis, with the APPR factor, when three years ago he joined on with New York's Race to the Top application. See here and here.

Why did they rush to agree to an imposed system? That implies that Mulgrew and the UFT are OK with any idea that New York State Education (NYSED) Commissioner John King and the Board of Regents concoct. In some ways, the system that King and the Regents have imposed is the toughest in New York State.
Mulgrew will spend today with his staff, as he said in his letter 3 days ago. Of course, we can anticipate that he will be prepping staff to put a positive spin on this monstrous disaster.
BUFFALO PLAN: NO TO TERMINATION USE, RECOGNIZES STUDENT ABSENTEEISM
Hundreds of cities --not merely Buffalo-- across the state have side agreements to their evaluation schemes, including stipulations that the evaluations will not be used punitively, that is, in line for teachers to lose their licenses. Back to Buffalo whose evaluation I discussed on Thursday. The memorandum of Understanding (MOU; see here, here and here) the Buffalo school district and the Buffalo Teachers Federation stands in stark contrast to what Mulgrew has conceded to. It guarantees against its punitive use for termination, it factors in student student absenteeism, by degrees of absenteeism.

(On the other hand the Buffalo plan has some flaws --see above links. It makes principals and teachers develop a schedule of student growth goals, akin to the SLO targets that NYC DoENuts refers to, with graduated indexing by factors of students with disabilities (SWDs), English Language Learners (ELLs) and the proportion of students living in poverty. It is unrealistic for teachers to perform as metricians to gauge how students in these categories can change their performance.)
For a fun Buffalo blogger writing in a wildly irreverent Gonzo style, see these posts by B-Lo Ed Scene, writing on Cuomo going nuts over Buffalo's MOU here and here. His most serious one is a fine send-up of how the Republicans on are a crazed Benghazi non-corruption, non-crisis frenzy against president Obama, and how their and the media's non-crisis obsession is a direct parallel to Obama's (and of course Cuomo/King, by extension) endless manufactured emergency war of terror against teachers, see Public School Teachers Feel Your Pain Mr POTUS, which leads with a poster graphic: "Is your child a libertarian?."

Look to what Mulgrew and Unity/UFT have conceded to, the Regents-imposed evaluation system for New York City, released last night.

DANIELSON CHECKLISTS, CRITICIZED BY DANIELSON AND UFT IN 2011, ENDORSED THIS SPRING BY THE UFT Note how the UFT protested in November 2011, but keep in mind that this spring it asked for 22 checklist elements from Danielson's Framework:

When the UFT obtained a copy of one of the checklists, it shared it with Danielson herself to get her thoughts.
Danielson was troubled by the checklists and disapproved of them, union officials said. With that endorsement, UFT Secretary Michael Mendel wrote a letter to the DOE and demanded an immediate end to the practice. He even threatened to cut off negotiations toward a larger evaluation deal that is required by the end of the school year.
. . .
The checklist she saw, Danielson said, was inappropriate because of the way it was filled out. It indicated that the observer had already begun evaluating a teacher while in the classroom observation. She said that’s a fundamental no-no.

NYC AND SYRACUSE, TOUGHEST EVALUATION SYSTEMS IN STATE -- AND THE STUDENT SURVEY FACTOR
The Regents imposed system is one of the toughest in New York State. Again, evaluation systems across the state have side agreements that are more sensitive towards the myriad factors impacting on educational performance. Alone among the hundreds of New York state municipalities only New York City and Syracuse are the only systems that will use student surveys. As one teacher that posted at the Movement of Rank and File Educators UFT caucus Facebook page, "'The new system also includes a pilot of student surveys.' Fantastic. This encourages grade-inflation and a lack of discipline in the classroom." What is behind the Regents' drive for this stipulation? Will the UFT be intellectually honest about how mistaken it was to include student surveys? (Remember, all the Democratic candidates for New York City mayor will lift the cellphone ban.)

The student survey element is a curve-ball that has only recently come up under public discussion, which previously has focused on VAM/high-stakes tests and qualitative (Danielson Frameworks) evaluations. Back in February Gotham said such surveys were unlikely. UFT Secretary Michael Mendel, to his credit, has been on record criticizing student surveys. The Gotham article quoted him:

UFT Secretary Michael Mendel said the union’s position is that it is inappropriate to ask students to make high-stakes decisions about their teachers, because it puts the students under pressure and also could encourage teachers to put student approval ahead of student learning.
“Could you imagine if you were a teacher and you were ineffective by a point or two because you were rated ineffective by the children?” Mendel asked.

Jersey Jazzman, with tongue in cheek, shows how farcical it will look when youths will write evaluations of teachers.
But my favorite is when he shows what a student wrote in response to Merryl Tisch's saying that a Long Island student that threw up during the state tests was healthy. See this post for the full story on Tisch's non-chalance during this episode. (Remember, she's the major campaign aide to Bill Thompson, the NYC mayoral candidate that the UFT is grooming to endorse on June 19.)

ACTION MULGREW SHOULD TAKE -- GO TO COURT -- CUT THE UFT-CUOMO PURSE-STRINGS
Of course, this would reverse numerous pro Regents-imposed evaluation statements by Mulgrew and long-standing UFT policy of blind obeisance to whomever's in power or viewed as costing to power (e.g., Thompson), especially if they are a Democrat, but this is what Mulgrew and the UFT should do: *Challenge this evaluation system in court. No to evasion of collective bargaining.
[UPDATE: ICEUFT Blog reports that there are legal grounds for the UFT to appeal this:

THE PARTIES MAY MAKE AN APPLICATION TO THE NEW YORK STATE SUPREME COURT TO VACATE OR MODIFY THE DETERMINATION OF THE COMMISSIONER PURSUANT TO SECTION SEVENTY-FIVE HUNDRED ELEVEN OF THE CIVIL PRACTICE LAW AND RULES. THE COURT'S REVIEW SHALL BE LIMITED TO THE GROUNDS SET FORTH IN SUCH SECTION.
The UFT would have to argue that King exceeded his constitutional authority, which would be a tough standard to meet but otherwise expect a new universe when we return in the fall.

*While Cuomo did not write this evaluation system, he was the one that decided that the evaluation system would be deferred to the Regents. On what legal authority did he take it upon him self to do this? True, King wrote this, with the Regents, but Cuomo is 100% aligned with King. It is time for teachers to pull their support for him.

A century ago, labor movement pioneer Samuel Gompers advocated that unions should reward their friends and punish their enemies. The UFT wants us to support Andrew Cuomo? He has the greatest contempt for New York City teachers in particular. No Committee on Political Education (COPE) dollars to education deformer in chief governor Cuomo!

UPDATE: One blogpost commenter's statement on how the struggle needs to reach beyond the big cities, and reach to the parents:

I was hoping that the URBAN teachers were not going to have to fight this battle alone. I was hoping that when the silent majority of SUBURBAN teachers realized that the APPR was going to unfairly affect their jobs, as well as ours,
we would then achieve some solidarity and strength in numbers. THEN it would be "game on". Two of our local suburban districts, admins and board members, have publicly and in writing complained about testing and tying the tests to evaluation of teachers. THOSE are the districts where the parents are also complaining about the
effect of the insane testing on their students. They GET IT. And as soon as they would begin to see their beloved teachers mysteriously disappearing from the profession due to high stakes test data, they would call a halt to the Commissioner Boy's silly games.
But no. Once again, the urban teachers will have to fight this battle and suffer the legal consequences. Don't forget, we will have a new Board made up to teacher bashers and haters. They, and Albany are hoping (salivating, actually) that Buffalo will strike, so they can swoop in and waterboard us. Maybe make us sit in a hot summer school cafeteria and listen to Bob Bennett and his Commissioner Puppet do their ventiloquist act via skype? (Because we all know that the Little Commissar, er Commissioner, is afraid to travel to Buffalo without his Daddy Bob.)
Urban parents have had their leadership, DPCC, hijacked by Buffalo REform Ed and the like. The leader of Buffalo ReformEd, James Sampson, will possibly be on our School Board. The Chameleons Polowitz and Friedman are highlighted in is fundraiser photos on his facebook page. Here is a blurb form one of Sampson's supporters:
"We will never change public schools from a gulag of sub par education until we make the purpose of public schools education rather than a secure jobs program for people not qualified to teach."
We urban teachers now need strength and solidarity. We need to ally with our other urban districts so as to not make this just about BUFFALO. We need to make this a STATE issue. We need allies and support. We need informed teachers.
I'll end now. In the eyes of our new Board members, I am just another Sub Par Gulag worker who is not qualified to teach.