Too little and years late for the UFT on Testing

Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2010,

I commented earlier this morning - or late last night post Jets win - J-E-T-S, JETS, JETS, JETS -  on Monday's NY Times "too little, too late article" on the testing crisis in NY, reposting Leonie Haimson's marvelous take down - with samples of interchanges with the Times and examples of how other newspapers did more to expose the issue over the last 3 years, with a little clip from Casablanca on the Louis Renault Award. See

NY Times Shocked, Shocked Over BloomKlein Claims on Reading Scores

One issue I didn't deal with was the role of the UFT on testing.

If I had time I would go back into the Ed Notes archives and show you how from the very beginning of Ed Notes in 1996 I was putting the high stakes testing issue on the table at Delegate Assemblies. I had a high stakes testing principal from 1978 and saw all the evils - in fact, though I loved teaching elementary self-contained classes, her policies ultimately led me to leave the infantry of teaching and become a computer cluster after 18 years. She as happy to get me out because I wasn't doing enough test prep to her satisfaction. But the more TP I had to do the less satisfied as a teacher I was. So I was bringing my experience to the DA. At one point I made a reso and in my speech talked about how high stakes testing had wiped out social studies and science in the elementary schools - and I was surprised to see the place erupt in applause. This must have been around 1999.

The Times piece only had these comments about the role of the UFT:

Teachers pushed back, saying they could gauge their students’ performance better than any mass-produced tests could......Each new policy was met with denunciations from the teachers’ union or from education experts like Diane Ravitch. Ms. Ravitch, a supporter of standardized testing when she was an adviser to the Clinton and Bush administrations, became one of the biggest critics, arguing that schools were devoting too much time to the pursuit of high scores. “If they are not learning social studies but their reading scores are going up, they are not getting an education,” Ms. Ravitch said in 2005, as the mayor coasted to re-election.

 The union only pushed back for internal political reasons - to make the teachers - and the naive NY Times - think they were pushing back. Yes, classroom teachers and Diane pushed back. But the union only did so rhetorically. They supported mayoral control, refused to push back on the social promotion issue when it was clearly done for political reasons, did very little about the onslaught of micro management and the increasing focus on testing and test prep.

Randi took a full page ad in the NY Times to celebrate the great increases – that everyone knew were due to test score inflation – when they were released. Trying to eat from the gravy boat while trying to claim she hates the taste - even though it's dripping down her face.

I put this up on the nyceducation news listserve yesterday:

Also left out of the story is how Randi and the UFT jumped in to grab a share of the credit for the high scores, joining BloomKlein in front of the cameras here and in Washington when they won the Broad prize, grabbing bonus money for the scores and agreeing to have teachers rated on the basis of the tests scores.

The UFT tried to claim teachers deserved a raise due to the results.

I wrote at the time "Does that mean a pay cut if scores go down?" What a slippery slope.

Now some people think with MulGarten in charge there is a new deal at the UFT because he has made noises about the tests. Randi did too. So did Obama. Watch what they do not what they say.

The UFT/AFT was the only truly organized force that could have blown this scam out of the water from Day 1 but instead has chosen to play footsie with the ed deformers. It is now too little too late. History has passed them by.

But history has not passed Real Reformers by - though MulGarten is trying to steal this idea to claim the union are RR's when in fact they are closer to ed deformers in terms of their support for so much of ed deform.