A Teacher Has Second Thoughts on Weingarten

by Robert C. Rendo
English Language Arts Teacher, Westchester County


In 2006, when I had written  an article in the NY Teacher Paper about Randi Weingarten, I extolled her leadership virtues by examining her role in actualizing parity to bring city teacher salaries in line with those of the gentrified suburbs. She also compromised tremendously in that “victory” by helping Michael Bloomberg secure mayoral control of the New York City public schools and then extending the working day for teachers, amounting to 15 more days a year. The “leveling” didn’t exactly produce a flat terrain, and pay for city teachers, while increased, still lagged behind about $7,000 on average for top capped salaries.

With regard to Ms. Weingarten, I’ve since then had a reversal of observatory fortune and am getting in touch with my inner Diane Ravitch. Like Ms. Ravitch’s “one-eighty” on NCLB, I’m now seeing Weingarten in a high wattage spotlight, as opposed to the rose colored light I once shed on her in my article. Ms. Weingarten was at the “We are One Rally” on April 9th in Times Square. I saw that the only transparency she exuded was the two way mirrored window pane plucked straight from a stage set. She was cheering us protestors with her shiny high pitched, fast talking, inflection filled speech. Yet, her rhetoric remained acutely incongruent to her past and present actions. Randi Weingarten is, within her own drama queen-to-centrist spectrum,  a substantial obstructionist to true educational reform.

I want to remind everyone at that rally that Weingarten, a teacher for 9 months in her whole 20 year career, paved the path for Bloomberg to control and damage the NYC public schools by demoralizing teachers with a test-obsessed, mostly data driven, and castigative professional culture. Not to mention, Bloomberg now runs an opaque process where no one gets to see too much of what goes on behind the scenes; whatever democratic components he has in place, like the Panel for Education, are little more than cosmetic democracy. His hiring of Cathy Black was a swift smack in the head to teachers, administrators, cognitive scientists, students, and parents. When I saw Weingarten up at that speaking post at the rally, I was reminded that this was the very same figurehead who was completely behind mayoral control and instrumental to getting Bloomberg this post.

 Bloomberg’s appointment as a education leader is a dot that can be directly connected to other dots of non-teaching occupations and unions. He’s a prominent powerbroker for the rich and an indifferent plutocrat whose policies weaken the middle and working classes.The contradiction of Ms. Weingarten, president of the AFT, and Mr. Bloomberg, president of the rich, stick out like a sore, open, liquidy infected blister.

I am also reminded of Weingarten’s successful move to feature Bill gates as a key note speaker at the AFT convention this year. How can that NOT send the wrong message to us teachers, yet also, reveal Weingarten’s true “reformer-deformer” orientation? Gates is among the most anti-teacher and anti-teacher union plutocrat in the United States; not to mention he is emotionally disconnected from the student-teacher bond and has no background in education. He has preached his cavalier and politicized acceptance of several self-dogmatized, bizzare precepts: 1) class size doesn’t matter; 2) the length of time it takes teachers to become adept and experienced is only 3 years); 3) there is a non-necessity of having a masters degree or higher to become a teacher; 4) there is a non-necessity of factoring in student poverty to teacher evaluation; 5) there is an innocuous need to replace, in part, real teachers and the human bond part with virtual learning. How much more counterproductive to children’s intellectual development can Mr. Gate’s Aspberger-ish and disconnected notions be?

Yet  again, we turn to Ms. Weingarten, who cherry picked at one of the most visible and symbolic forums this year at the AFT convention.

Finally, there is the UFT debacle wherein Weingarten, and then later on, Michael Mulgrew, suppressed information regarding Iris Blige, the Medusa-inspired principal who was found guilty and fined by the DOE of giving directives to her assistant principals to issue “U” ratings to teachers without actually having them observed. The UFT deliberately chose not to pursue this case when one of the affected teachers was sent to a rubber room. The virtual absence of coverage, press conferences, rhetoric, and plain truthful advocacy is key to revealing Ms. Weingarten’s corruption and incompetence. And now we all get to relish those same branded hallmark qualities in her at the national level.

It is my succinct hope that the more people are keenly aware of Weingarten’s “all-about-eve” style representation of teachers nationwide, the more there will be a movement to seriously and perhaps aggressively unseat her. It remains a critical goal to replace her with someone who will militantly stand for those who educate rather than for ideological, philosophical movements that are dressed up to imitate advocacy for teachers. But then again, Weingarten is a master at self-promotion. I can see her sparkling up her public image a little by dancing with the stars or showing up on a revival of “What’s My Line?” Yet, the real Randi Weingarten couldn’t possibly ever stand up due to her own self serving denial and paralysis. A strong but peaceful grass movement to form and mobilize a national teacher union where the president is directly elected by teachers - as opposed to being elected by a cronied tier of upper delegate management, is a start in the right direction to restoring health to a union that is diseased by its leadership.

The Green Dot/UFT 80% Solution - to the Destruction of Public Education - Leo Casey Defends Green Dot Charter at Left Forum

“Randi and I and Mike Mulgrew and I — we don’t agree on everything. … How do you find the 80% we all agree on?”- Green Dot's Steve Barr

Maybe you've been seeing stories in the last few days about UFT/AFT charter school partner Green Dot charter, now to be known as Future is Now Schools. The UFT/Green Dot - or the new name FINS? -or whatever-  is part of some deal to close down 2 Bronx schools and hand them over to Green Dot. There's so much meat in this story, my cholesterol is shooting up just writing about it.

Now you know I am way out there even from some of my colleagues in the movement because I consider the UFT leadership - and I mean the very top, not the rank and file Unity people - collaborators - not labor dupes or just bureaucrats looking to make a buck. I mean full scale ideological collaborators with so much of the ed deform program - and beyond. But they have Leo Casey out there trying to cover this up by giving the union a "leftish" face. Ho, ho, ho.

Before I do any parsing, here is a Gotham item with links to 2 stories:

Under pressure, Steve Barr is leaving Green Dot, the charter school chain he started. (GS, Times)

OK, so if you did your homework you see Randi buddy Barr is being barred from Green Dot and he and the UFT partnership have to change names. Something about financial irregularities. But, hey, Barr is in it for the kids.

Leo Casey on tape defending Green Dot contract

Now if you are up to date on the story, check out this video selection I put up from Leo Casey's panel at the Left Forum - sorry, I'm choking at the very thought of Leo and Left in the same sentence - I started throwing the rope over the lights to hang myself when Leo used the expression, "we on the left" shortly after red-baiting people who oppose UFT policy by comparing their ideology to Leon Trotsky and Rosa Luzemberg. But I have the entire video and will be putting it all up. There's just so much good stuff I don't know where to start.

Emily Giles, a chapter leader from the Bronx whom I've worked with in GEM, made a very strong statement about the UFT support for charter schools (she does agree charter school teachers should be organized) and also raised the UFT role in mayoral control. Leo responds, followed by a comment by  Stanley Aronowitz on mayoral control. Watch the 6 minute segment first before continuing below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uLMBIAl0r4




Had fun? There's lots more to come in future videos - wait till you see how Leo defines public education to fit UFT policy.

Gotham exclusive interview with Green Dot leaders

Now let me get to the Maura Walz (who is leaving to move to Atlanta - we'll miss you Maura) piece at Gotham with some delicious quotes from Barr and partner Gideon Stein, an anti-union guy "won" over by Weingarten and Mulgrew. “Randi and I and Mike Mulgrew and I — we don’t agree on everything. … How do you find the 80% we all agree on?”

What's there to win over when they agree on 80%? What's left to not disagree on? Now, read the following carefully:

[Stein] asked Barr how he could help Green Dot’s mission of re-making schools in partnership with labor. Now Stein is the president of Barr’s national organization, which changed its name today from Green Dot America to Future Is Now Schools. And he’s rejiggered his social calendar. “I’ve now had dinner and drinks with Randi 10 times in the last eight months,” he said, referring to Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.


Future is Now, whose name is a play on President Barack Obama’s charge to “win the future,” aims to spread the principles that have governed Barr’s schools in California and New York around the country. Those principles include a simplified teachers contract that trades higher pay for tenure and sets only class size, the length of the school day and year, salary and benefits. Barr said that he also aims to transform the learning experience through technology.

Stein and Barr want to start by expanding in New York City, where they are working with the United Federation of Teachers and the Department of Education on a plan to take over two struggling Bronx schools starting next year. The plan would test a model that has not yet been tried here: removing the schools’ principals and half their teaching staffs.

You mean the model used at Locke HS in LA where Barr fired 70% of the staff and then got these results, which of course he is given a pass on, as I reported:

Union Role is Mediator, Not Advocate

Mar 09, 2011

The state test results released Tuesday for Locke High School weren't the sort of thing its new operator, Green Dot Public Schools, is accustomed to seeing: Not a single student scored as proficient in geometry, for example, ..

And again in Aug. 2009 based on work done by Leonie:

Diane Ravitch on charters in the LA Times
And another fine piece from last week along similar lines:
http://www.dailynews.com/opinions/ci_12985055?source=rss
And here's the June Graduation section from the Time's "journal"-type series about Green Dot's takeover of Locke HS in LAUSD. Clearly, throughout the series, the writer is spinning for Locke the whole time, but has enough honesty (or carelessness) in this section to let some tellingly truthful details of actual student behavior slip out:

http://www.latimes.com/la-ed-locke25-2009jun25-test,0,2545367.story

Lackluster test results for Mayor Villaraigosa's high-profile schools and Locke High
The two highest-profile school-reform efforts in Los Angeles — the mayor’s schools and the conversion of Locke High into six charter schools — achieved lackluster results in state test scores released this morning.

Oh, you mean that model. Maura continues:

Organizing parents to support his efforts is also central to the expansion, Barr said. For the two turnaround projects in the Bronx, Barr has promised to knock on every door in the communities where he is taking over schools in an effort to build parent support. He’ll lean on a veteran community organizer he and Stein have hired away from the SEIU for the effort, Mike Dolan.

But it’s far from clear that Barr’s attempt to replace the principal and half the staff of two schools won’t provoke an outcry similar to that sparked when the city has closed schools. Questions linger about the sustainability of Barr’s model, which has proven to be expensive in California. And already critics have grumbled that Barr, the city, and the union are proceeding with their negotiations without identifying the schools they are targeting to their staffs and parents.

(In our interview, Barr and Stein indicated that they had a high school in mind but wouldn’t name it.)

Hey, are you surprised that the UFT and Barr are working together to replace 50% of the teachers in these unnamed chools? How much do you want to bet the average teachers salaries are on the high end - closing schools decisions are based on the economics, not education -compare the schools chosen with similar performing schools not being closed - or turned around - or reconstituted - or regurgitated. That grumbler - critics have grumbled - is Ed Notes, by the way. Maura continues:

Working Together

The city’s teachers union, however, says it is committed to working with the organization. The two groups, along with the DOE, are already working to find common ground in an area where the city and the union have been stalled for months — a new evaluation system for the schools’ teachers.

Formal negotiations on the evaluations began just this week, but the Barr and UFT Secretary Michael Mendel said that there has been progress, although a new evaluation plan has not yet been vetted by lawyers to ensure it conforms to state education law.

“There is absolutely a willingness on our part and on Green Dot’s part to do this,” Mendel said.

Barr and Stein described a close friendship that has formed between Barr and UFT President Michael Mulgrew — and also between Stein, Mendel, and Leo Casey, the union’s resident big thinker and vice president.

“We met for breakfast and we ended up almost going to lunch,” Barr said of his first meeting with Mulgrew three months ago. He said that he found Mulgrew to be extremely thoughtful about the future of the teaching profession. The two spoke about how to reconfigure schools for a changing workforce, he said.

“I think a lot of this is just the lost art of trust,” Barr said. “Randi and I and Mike Mulgrew and I — we don’t agree on everything. … How do you find the 80% we all agree on?”

OK - close schools, get rid of teachers and use technology to get rid of more teachers.
Looks like a plan.

After Burn
Leonie had this comment about the technology component of Barr's plan (read - replace teachers with on-line learning).

In the NYT, he says he wants to take over schools in middle class neighborhoods as well as poor ones, and both pieces highlight how Barr intends to focus on “hybrid” learning, which means a combination of online learning mixed in w/ actual teachers --- the newest craze with little research backing to support it.

And San Francisco activist parent Caroline Grannan said:

Luckily not everything Barr touches turns to gold (or his preference, green). He has been viewed as invincible since the New Yorker devoted a lot of space to a puff piece on him, but his efforts to win a foothold in D.C. didn't get far:

http://www.examiner.com/education-in-san-francisco/breaking-news-from-afar-ed-reform-darlings-rhee-barr-turn-on-each-other

And finally, Michael Fiorillo comments:

I'm so happy that Michael Mulgrew has found a pal who can give him (im)moral support while he goes about the hard work of selling out his members by teaming up to privatize schools, gut the contract (the Green Dot/UFT contract has no tenure or seniority provisions) and destroy the professional lives of the teachers who will be displaced at these schools.


And it's also heartwarming that Mulgrew could earn the affection of real estate developer and charter school funder Gideon Stein. Think of the effort involved in getting him to jilt Eva! But it's a leader's job to go the extra mile and make the tough decisions, and what could possibly be more important than keeping the dues machine going while public education is dismantled? Yes, like his mentor Weingarten, Mulgrew is striving to earn those pats on the head from the education privateers.


When Bloomberg wrote an editorial in the NY Times in February, saying that unions were important in helping him manage the workforce, it was the Weingartens, Mulgrews and Caseys of the world he had in mind. With the union functioning as an arm of the DOE's HR department, it's enough to make the people who've defended it ashamed.

Why Won't Unity/UFT/AFT Leaders Fight Back? See Puerto Rico and Wisconsin

A union can't mount a rigorous battle unless it is a democratic union.

NOTE: Come and meet Puerto Rico Teacher union (FMPR) President Rafael Feliciano when he will be in NYC in about a week to 10 days - look for more info at ed notes

ACLU-PR Director Ramirez anti-police-UPR-terror event in NYC

I am constantly asked why Randi Weingarten and Michael Mulgrew - or MulGarten - won't put up a fierce battle to stop closing schools and the invasion of the charters in order to defend teachers and public education. Recent events give us some insight into the power of government over unions and how they treat "good (cooperative)" and "bad" (fightback) unions.

In Wisconsin we are seeing an attempt to totally scuttle unions whether good or bad by removing collective bargaining rights, forcing a union election every year and taking away dues checkoff. Less drastic but certainly moving in that direction is what we see here in NYC with a massive attack on the basic protections teachers have with tenure and last in first out.

As we've been reporing, instead of a rigorous defense of LIFO (Why Won't Mulgrew Defend LIFO?), MulGarten has punted, talking about how we should tax Wall Street. Now this is certainly a move in an interesting direction for the union, which has always avoided attacking the bastions of the rich because, as staunch supporters of capitalism, they wanted to keep class warfare off the table. I remember writing about it the spring of 2008 (months before the big crash) when on the day the UFT held a rally at City Hall begging for a few hundred million in the restoration of ed funds, Bear Sterns - just a few blocks away - was being bailed out with billions.

Not one mention was made of the connection between the funneling of massive monies into private hands and the ed deform movement that purposely talks about "teacehr quality" as the key while disparaging solutions like class size reduction that might actually make a difference. (From the first time I heard Randi Weingarten sign on to this TQ idea I told her she was leading us down a slippery slope that has turned into a free fall.)

In order to fightback a union requires an informed membership and a democratic structure that makes everyone feel they have a real stake and say in union policy. But opening up to other voices is dangerous for a union leadership like Unity Caucus because it could ultimately threaten their control. So they make the choice to cooperate with the powers that be - to be known as a "good" union - rather than stand and fight.

A union can't mount a rigorous battle unless it is a democratic union.

Now, as you will read below, the governor of Puerto Rico, fed up with a union that has fought him - successfully - at every turn, has taken the drastic step of firing every leader of the FMPR which would  make them ineligible to run the union. This act is even worse than what is happening in Wisconsin, disenfranchising 40,000 teachers in PR.

This after failing to undermine them by removing dues checkoff, running a bogus group from SEIU against them and other tactics. I should report that the FMPR removed itself from the AFT in 2003 (just search this blog for FMPR or Puerto Rico to get a weatlh of articles) because they were paying enormous dues to a national union that wouldn't fight for the workers.

Here's the gory story:

Entire Leadership of Puerto Rican Teachers Federation (FMPR) Fired from their Teaching Positions

Puerto Rican Education Secretary Jesús Rivera Sánchez dismissed the 11 members of the executive committee of the Puerto Rican Teachers Federation (FMPR)  [unaffiliated with US teaching federations] from their teaching posts and blocking them from exercising their profession in public and private systems. 

The teaching licenses of the FMPR leadership were permanently revoked.

The union's president, Rafael Feliciano, together with the ten other dismissed leaders, characterized the measure as repressive and unprecedented, with the goal of destroying the union leadership and intimidating the teachers from struggling against the current administration's plans to privatize the schools and liquidate the teachers' retirement fund.

The struggle against privatization, against labor rights violations, the right to union, the right to strike, freedom of speech and assembly in Puerto Rico needs your solidarity.   The FMPR is an independent democratic social justice justice union that has defied their version of the repressive Taylor Law (Law 45) and have had successful strikes and continuously organizes walk-outs with parents, students and communities against the horrible school conditions. We can not allow colonial Governor Fortuño to destroy the FMPR with fascistic repressive & union-busting measures that serve to escalate the privatization of  public education (Kindergarten to University) and all public services.

Spread the word.  Angel Gonzalez
-----------

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Live Blogging from Teach for America 20th Anniversary Summit, Part 1

A GEM TFA alum is in the house.

NOTE: Some people have been confused thinking I wrote this - note I'm a bit old to be a TFA alum.


Diary of the Summit by Summit blogger

On Saturday, Feb. 12, a Real Reformer member of the Grassroots Education Movement went down to DC for the TFA 20th Anniversary Summit. The blogs came through all day with extensive coverage from the perspective of someone who is not a true believer. Let me say that Summit Blogger is still teaching a self-contained elementary school class years after most TFA's have gone on to other things. Here are links to each segment.

Part 1: Live Blogging from Teach for America 20th Anniversary Summit
Part 2: Live Blogging from Teach for America 20th Anniversary Summit - Randi Weingarten

Part 3: Live Blogging from Teach for America 20th Anniversary Summit, - Afternoon Session

Part 4: Live Blogging from Teach for America 20th Anniversary Summit, With Closing Plenary

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Teach for America 20^th Anniversary Alumni Summit

8:00 AM

Arrived at the convention center to register. This is a seriously huge event—11,000 alumni (and some current corps members). At check-in we received a bunch of literature along with our name badges and tote bags—drink tickets for the evening reception (!), a Village Academies water bottle and brochure, as well as two flyers about LEE (an organization that claims to foster public sector leadership for TFA alumni.)  Village Academies is a charter school operator with two schools open in Harlem. Interesting (but not surprising) that TFA is promoting this school—they donated serious cash to TFA for this event (as is stated in the program brochure). I recently looked up Harlem Village Academies on the DOE website and found some interesting information about their enrollment. Their schools enroll students in grades 5 to 10 but not in equal numbers. As their students get older, the enrollment numbers drop drastically. What accounts for this attrition? Are they counseling out their students? Or are they simply leaving of their own volition? Either way, its clear they are not keeping their students.  Their brochure conveniently doesn’t mention any of this, and talks only about how great it is to work at their schools.

Village Academies, as well as many other charter school operators have booths set up here. Perhaps later, I’ll have to go and ask them myself. There are over 100 organizations tabling here at the summit, including: PAVE Academy, KIPP, Achievement First, Noble Network Charter Schools (whose teachers are all here in full uniform—their t-shirts are emblazoned with “BE NOBLE”), Success Charter Network, and the list goes on.  There are a few public school districts (D.C., L.A., Boston) here with tables too, but not nearly as many as are here to promote charters.

9:15 AM

The Summit has opened with a rousing performance by a high school marching band. Got to get the troops inspired and energized.

Opening remarks by Kaya Henderson, interim DC Chancellor and’92 TFA corps member. She’s well-received and calls DC the “hottest city for education reform.” Then she goes on to explain how DC’s education department is filled with TFA alumni, and that DC’s highest performing charters are run by TFA alumni. She claims that soon the person in the White House will be a TFA alum.

“DC’s school are tearing it up. We went through a bloody battle to get here.” Is she referring to Michelle Rhee’s tenure and inappropriate firing of teachers? I wasn’t aware that DC schools were now suddenly so successful? Did I miss something? I think the bloody battle is still going on and it sounds like she is planning to continue it. But the only people being hurt are those she is claiming to help.

She’s really going for it here. She closes with a “Let’s do this” mantra, followed immediately by the marching band again.

9:35 AM

Wendy Kopp takes the stage to a standing ovation, minus myself and my two friends.  51 people are here from the very first corps of TFA, 1,000 from the 2008 corps. And 3,000 from the current corps. 1500 of the alumni here are teachers. ONLY 1500?! That doesn’t include the 3,000 current members, but that is still 1500 out of 8000. 18%? Is that really success? Our education system needs people who stay and work in the classrooms.  

Her comments are quite generic. Sounds pretty much like what I heard here say when I was a corps member in training. She’s talking about how people “used” to think that ones socio-economic background determined ones possible educational outcomes. She is now telling a story about a Bronx teacher who got her 117 9^th graders to pass the Biology Regents test.  She then explains how there are not that many teachers like this one. “We can foster the impact of successful teachers by creating transformational schools.” She calls out three charter school leaders as playing a crucial role in education in our country. She is now talking about North Star Academy Charter School in Newark. Is this what the whole weekend is going to be like?! I expected some charter plugging, but this seems like a charter school summit completely.

“North Star’s leader has embraced a different mandate….she is working to put students on a different socio-economic path. She obsesses over hiring great teachers…and does whatever it takes to meet the end goal.”

Does that include firing teachers and/or students? What does it mean to do “whatever it takes”?

“We can provide children facing poverty with an education that is transformational….We don’t need to wait to eliminate poverty. We can provide them with a way out…”

She then claims that DC and New Orleans are home to the fastest improving school systems. Wow! I guess creating a two-tier educational system is what TFA is all about? There is such great inequity in education in these two cities. But almost everyone here is just nodding along with Kopp. I heard from another alum that last night at the New Orleans regional reception, people were talking about how TFA had single handedly helped the New Orleans schools recover after Hurricane Katrina.

She claims to know what we need to fix education in this country. She is talking about “transformational leadership” as the key in schools and school systems. What does transformational leadership mean? Is it such a vague statement, but it sounds powerful, so everyone is clapping.  

“Incremental change is not enough, we need transformational change.” She is now explaining how she wants to expand the program, but mentions only pushing people into leadership roles. No mention of the role of the classroom teacher.

10:00 AM

FROM TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE TO RADICAL CHANGE!

Next up, Walter Issacson, CEO of the Aspen Institute, a leadership/social entrepreneurship organization. He is up here to welcome the panelists to the stage. Rock music welcomes them:

1. Jon Schnur, Chairman of the Board, New Leaders for New Schools (moderator)

2. Michelle Rhee, former DC Chancellor

3. Joel Klein, former NYC Chancellor

4. Geoffery Canada, Harlem Children’s Zone

5. John Deasey, superintendent, LA Unified School District

6. Dave Levin, KIPP co-founder and superintendent of NY KIPP

*Klein is speaking now. “Is this our Egypt moment? Will we seize the moment? We will talk to each other and go home. I challenge this group to seize the moment. We no longer believe that poverty is permanent…Education…this is America’s issue. What will change it? Each one of you must insist that each school out there is one that you would send your kids too.” He takes it to a new level. He says “transformational change” isn’t enough—we need “radical change.” More empty statements from the former chancellor.

*Dave Levin is now speaking, with a KIPP shirt on (many KIPP teachers here are in full uniform as well). At KIPP, he claims to have quadrupled the graduation rate of kids from high poverty neighborhoods. But, just like Harlem Village Academies, KIPP has a history of high attrition. If you achieve 100% graduation but your class is only 30 kids when it should have been 100, are you really doing the true work of educating our children?!  I think not.

Michelle Rhee is up, and she seemed to have forgotten her masking tape. She is giving a speech pretty much on par with her usual--We need to be aggressive, some people might not like us, controversy will arise, opposition will arise, but we have to push past it. Meaning, we must squash it and cover it with masking tape.

Canada’s turn. He talks about this “revolution” and claims, “We can really win!” Everyone cheers. “As a nation we have become soft in terms of fighting for what we believe in.” He forgot to mention how our educational leaders, especially those in NYC, are working so hard to silence the voices of public school parents, teachers and students. He closes with “we need to ratchet it up.” So many vague statements from all of those on stage.

John Deasey. “This is an issue around courage. We have the skill. How courageous are we going to be? What if 11,000 people descended on LA to demand change.” Hmmm, didn’t LA teachers recently take to the streets to demand what they wanted? Maybe their message isn’t what he wants to hear.

He is now talking about how he needs people to come to LA and work?

Klein is speaking again. He is so well received by this audience. Every time he speaks the crowd responds. Where am I?!

Moderator: “How important is it to drive success in this country, to change parents, educators conception of this fact?” His questions are just plain confusing.

Canada: He is talking about how some people in our country simply accept that some children don’t learn because of poverty. He says he rejects this notion. All from a man who kicked out an entire class of students! The pure arrogance on the stage is hard to stomach. My palms are sweating. How do we counter this? “When any kid comes to me they are going to get an education.” I refer back to my previous statement—his schools also have serious issues with attrition. But this crowd doesn’t see it. How do we bridge these gaps?!

And why don’t his schools fill the empty seats in their schools?

Rhee: “The only issue isn’t parents lack of involvement.”

Moderator: “We see reasons for hope…Joel, what is is going to take to go from the KIPP schools and district school successes to system wide success?”

Klein: “It’s is going to take teachers who understand it isn’t just about good teaching. We cannot have the unions be the monopoly for teachers voice… Teachers need to have their own voice. “ Is he serious? Teachers need to use their voice? Clearly, he means if their voice is the same as his. We in NYC know how little he cared about teacher voice. How many PEP meetings did he preside over where he blatantly ignored the voices of teachers? He silences people who do not agree with him. He does thank the teachers from his new teacher group for speaking up. People are clapping for him again.

I think I have an ulcer.

Deasey: “I am tired of going to schools and hearing people say this is what I need and I am not being heard.” Wow, in just 10 minutes he has completely contradicted himself. He previously said he wanted teachers to have a voice.

Rhee: “ I have not demonized the teachers union. I have been trying to show people that the teachers unions are doing exactly what they are supposed to do.” What planet does she live on? Maybe it’s not really her? Nope, it is. We’ve just moved into the part of the session in which all the speakers are going to contradict themselves

She is plugging Students First, her new organization now, as the solution to the teachers union.

Candada: “ The union’s job is to stop innovation….”

Klein is offering his solutions. Here is what he says:

“First, We have to professionalize teaching and make it respected. We treat teachers like widgets and that isn’t going to work. Last in, first out is a huge problem. Excellence in teaching is the hallmark not senority in education…Second, we must stop monopoly providers. We must insist on choice…Third, we need innovation.”

Respect teachers? When has Klein ever done that? Widgets? He wants teachers and students to be cogs in a machine.

Moderator:  “KIPP schools don’t have the constraints of public schools. How scalable is your approach?”

Dave Levin” “This is the hardest work on the planet…the unit of change for an individual kids life…starts and ends with school…we need as many committed teachers and school leaders as we can get…”

He didn’t answer the question. Perhaps because even he knows that his isn’t a sustainable approach to education.

Moderator: He is closing with a “Ra! Ra! Let’s praise the people on stage. Join their schools and organizations.” These people are creating more educational INEQUITY in the name of equity. I need to redeem my drink tickets stat. 

NEXT SESSION: Randi Weingarten - my ulcer is pulsing in anticipation

Jim Callaghan Comments on Principal Iris Blige Outrage: Charges UFT Protected Blige

"Mulgrew should save his outrage about the Blige case for the UFT comic pages"- 
"Weingarten told me that most teachers in the rubber rooms were guilty and crazy"
-----Former NY Teacher reporter Jim Callaghan

We always knew the UFT leaders took the side of administrators but now we have it from the horse's mouth. A must read below is Callaghan's exposure of how the UFT leaders abandoned a teacher at Blige's school who had trumped up charges filed against her and was fired.

The UFT allows attack on chapter leaders to go unanswered - I could go into a bunch of stuff - but when the very lifeblood of the union is under assault it calls for drastic action. I even put up a reso at the DA calling for special protections and cover for chapter leaders over 10 years ago that was overwhelmingly turned down by Unity Caucus.

Blige is the poster girl for why we need tenure and LIFO. She went after teachers for no reason, was found guilty but instead of dumping her she was fined $7000. Chump change.

Here are some background stories:

Bronx principal keeps her job after imperiling the jobs of others ...
Ruining careers for $475/month (18 month term) « JD2718

And Ed Notes covered it a bunch of times:

Education Notes Online: Teachers Protest Principal Iris Blige at ..

Mar 13, 2009 ... The principal at this school, Iris Blige, is abusive, arrogant, and disrespectful of teachers. She has framed several teachers that for some ...

ednotesonline.blogspot.com/.../teachers-protest-principal-iris-blige.html - Cached - Similar

Education Notes Online: UPDATE: Highlights of the protest at ..

Mar 14, 2009 ... Winderbaum slammed into Iris Blige and her wayward approach to educators, kids, and schools and said the union is “fed up” with the DoE's ...

ednotesonline.blogspot.com/.../highlights-of-protest-at-fordham-hs-for.html - Cached

As long as they support principals who engage in vendettas against teachers, they will have to drag teachers kicking and screaming out of fighting for protections.Jim Callaghan was the NY Teacher reporter who did the most intensive work exposing the Bliges of this world - until he was fired in July 2010 for attempting to organize a union of reporters at the UFT. Here is a report on what went on behind the scenes in a comment he left at Gotham Schools story on Blige:

What the UFT Did and Didn't Do in the Blige Case
by Jim Callaghan, former reported for the NY Teacher

Klein knew all about Blige and the recantation of an Assistant Principal because I wrote about it in the Spring of 2009 for the New York Teacher. It didn’t take a special Condon “investigation” to uncover the Blige horror show, supported by Mulgrew and Weingarten.

I quoted members who said Blige specifically went after chapter leaders and sent them to the rubber rooms on trumped up charges-they were never charged with anything and were all sent back to the classroom.

That was the last article I was allowed to write about Blige.

When the union had a rally on March 13, 2009, Weingarten sent out a press advisory (I have a copy) knocking the total number of protesters down to 50 after she was told that 500 would attend. So even then the union was protecting Blige.

The worst case of the Weingarten- Mulgrew Vichy collaboration involves the teacher accused of leaving a letter in Blige’s mailbox threatening to murder her! The letter said there was a “gang” led by the teacher who would kill the principal and her son.

Fifteen cops came to the school, interviewed no one except the teacher, lied to her and said they had her on video leaving the letter in the principal’s mailbox and had her fingerprints on the letter.

Then they changed the story to say it was her handwriting on the letter, which was announced by an Assistant Principal- tape recorded by a member- one week later- that was in February, 2009.

Now: think Tucson and the attempted murder of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords: What happened to the teacher after one “expert” detective said it was the teacher’s handwriting?

NOTHING! It is a New York State felony to threaten the murder of a public official. Nothing happened to the teacher until eight weeks later, in April, 2009, after I called Blige for a comment on my story.
The next day, the teacher was arrested and charged with a misdeameanor. (Even if she is found guilty, she will serve 15 days of community service picking up garbage on the Grand Concourse).

The Bronx D.A.- elected with help from the UFT- did not ask for bail, didn’t ask for the teacher’s passport to be lifted and the principal never asked for extra police protection for Blige, parents, students and the staff.

Despite my urging, Weingarten refused to call the D.A. and ask that he personally look at the case. There was no police probe of the gang. The teacher -this horrible accused murderer beloved by her students and colleagues-- was sent back to the rubber room.

Nearly two years later, after the D.A. Robert Johnson asked for 15 postponements, there has been no trial and the case is still open.

What would have happened if a teacher wrote a letter like that to Bloomberg of Klein?

The teacher ultimately lost her job because neither Mulgrew nor Weingarten nor NYSUT lawyer Claude Hirsch lifted a finger to help her. She never had a 3020A hearing. Klein used a loophole in the law saying he could refuse to approve her application for a work visa if she was merely “accused” of misconduct.

Incredibly, Weingarten and Mulgrew allowed this shanda, like so many others they were complicit in, to stand unchallenged. So the only question still open is: what did they get out of it for themselves and
their UFT cronies?

My editor Deidre McFadyen and staff director LeRoy Barr denied me a vacation day-for the first time since I worked at the union- so I could attend the teacher’s court hearing on my own time--to give her moral support (I have the Barr email).

Weingarten pulled my story the day after the teacher got arrested; Weingarten, Barr, Mulgrew and others all said she was guilty- because she had been arrested. Weingarten told me the teacher was “guilty” because she had “heard” ---from another UFT Staff Director Garry Sprung- that the cops had the teacher’s fingerprints on the letter. I asked Weingarten when the grand jury met, when the teacher was indicted, when she was convicted and when she had exhausted all her appeals.

I had to shame Weingarten the Lawyer/ part-time “teacher” into finally running the story-two weeks after the arrest- after I reminded her about the 6th Amendment (Weingarten told me that most teachers in the rubber rooms were guilty and crazy, which is why I was allowed to run only one rubber room story-in October 2007).

When an Assistant Principal wanted to tell me the story about how she helped frame the teacher, Mulgrew, Barr and McFadyen refeused to let me run the story and Mulgrew wouldn’t even call the D.A. to say he was sending over an important witness to help clear the teacher.

So it is clear- I have lots more on this story and other Weingarten-Mulgrew cover ups of corruption outside and within the union- that the UFT leaders were protecting Klein and the members could
go to hell in a hand basket.


Weingarten $200,000 vacation days myth - or theft of service from the union
The Blige case is one of many that will stand out as the defining Weingarten-Mulgrew legacy of cowardice, double-dealing and abusing the rights of members whose dues they collect for their fat $400,000 salaries, unlimited expenses, a car and driver and “I never took a day off in 24 years” benefits but then refuse to represent them. (The Cal Ripken award for never missing a day’s work goes to Weingarten, except for this inconvenient truth: she took plenty of vacation days, some disguised as AFT “fact-finding” missions and others at her Amagansett country home where she instructed her press office and NY Teacher editors to send her faxes so she could claim she was “working from
home.” Uh- huh- just like every teacher working from home on the beach.

I blame Klein and Blige but Weingarten, Mulgrew, Barr and McFadyen could have exposed this horrible principal two years ago and chose instead to be part of the cover up, as they were at so many other schools which you will be reading about shortly.

When Mulgrew fired me in August 2010 for organizing a union-after 13 years of praise from him, Weingarten and hundreds of UFT officials and the members, he told the press I was unprofessional!
And what other word can we use to describe his perfidy and Weingarten’s abandonment of an accused teacher who came to America from Jamaica to fulfill the immigrant’s dream yet was crushed by the DOE-UFT steamroller?

If there was ever a PERB case for non-representation, this was it- although I lived through so many others when I had to argue with my editor McFadyen and the Weingarten-Mulgrew apparatchiks like Barr, Ellie Engler and McFadyen to get the stories in the union newspaper.

Mulgrew is so paranoid and vicious that he had McFadyen -at $150,000 a year---sit for days on end and go through the New York Teacher archives on line and take stories like Blige off the web site- she has disappeared into the dark hole of corruption that exists at the union. Mulgrew even ordered my name off the obit of Jack Newfield, who once wrote for the union!

How low can a such a self-styled tough guy get? Stay tuned- lots more to come.

Baltimore Redo is New York Contract circa 1995, Take Three

We know that the Baltimore teachers rejected the contract a few weeks ago. A contract in which Randi Weingarten played a major role as part of her national strategy of selling teachers onto elements of the ed deform movement.

Stephen Sawchuk at Ed Beat terms it Baltimore Tentative Contract, Take Two.

....teachers were to receive raises by collecting "achievement units" for getting good performance evaluations and participating in professional development. Hailed in some quarters as a landmark proposal, the contract also earned some snarky reaction—teachers could earn some achievement units for serving as a building rep [chapter leader in NYC]. 

But it didn't go over well with the teaching corps, who voted down the contract by a 3-to-2 margin. The vote sent the district and union scrambling back to the bargaining table and resulted in a bunch of news stories about a perceived lack of communication between senior union folks and the rank-and-file teachers.

Sawchuk could have very well titled his story New York Contract circa 1995, Take Three.

In 1995 Sandy Feldman still ran the union and Randi was the clear heir apparent. She was given the job of negotiating a contract. I won't go into the details, but they so miscalculated and the contract was rejected for the first time in history. They were so confident that people would accept a 5 year deal with double zero raises in the first 2 years, a penalty for new teachers, along with extending the time it took to reach top salary from 20 to 25 years (female teachers who gave up years for child care made pointed remarks about how Feldman and Weingarten had no children) that they neglected to send out the Unity hordes to sell it.

So they made a few modifications - 22 years for top salary instead of 25- and removed the new teacher penalty - and this time took no chances as they sent out the entire union Unity Caucus machinery to invade the schools. I was the chapter leader and wouldn't just let the District Rep filibuster the union line and forced him into debating me.

 Now Randi full well knows from here in NYC that the building reps have enormous power - which is the core of Unity strategy in controlling the union - all new reps are pulled away for weekend training sessions in which they are bound, gagged and locked into rooms and not allowed to communicate with outside forces. Actually, they are just plied with food and liquor and access to top union officials who then recruit them into Unity.

So in Baltimore they decided to encode perks for building reps right into the contract as way of selling it. Sawchuk continues:

Now, the word on the street from sources is that the district and union have essentially finalized a second (tentative) pact—and that the BTU was essentially shopping it to its unions' building representatives today during a four-hour meeting. "They had us all over, had us released from school, they fed us an entire meal, chicken, all this stuff, and gave us a gift at the end and sent us off with the 'newly revised' contract," a source told me this afternoon...... There appear not to be many substantial changes to the contract, merely the addition of some clarifying language, the source told me.

Randi's henchwoman Marietta English had all sorts of excuses for the defeat. What is Randi to do with her current and former loser allies? See Chicago, Detroit, Washington DC - where Nathan and Candi got the most votes and are now in a runoff with George Parker, one of the biggest jokes of a union leader.

Mike Antonucci at Intercepts asks Is the Baltimore Teachers Union Underestimating Its Own Members?

After having its much-lauded contract voted down by the rank-and-file, the Baltimore Teachers Union has responded by… presenting virtually the same contract again. This isn’t sitting too well with some of the people who opposed it the first time:

“The major reason we wanted a delay in the vote was for the democratic process and to have these details,” said Robin Bingham, a teacher who started an electronic petition against the contract until the evaluation system is complete. “I feel it’s really disrespectful to dress up the same contract and present it again.”

The BTU campaign to get the thing approved this time seems to consist of “regional information sessions for its members with the American Federation of Teachers” and schmoozing sessions with building reps (who already have a plum in the new contract).

 Even Mike throws up his hands at this one:

I’ve sworn off predicting the outcome of contract ratification votes, but I’ll be waiting to see if these tactics work.

Not me. I know for a fact those tactics do work. I'm betting they sell this baby- a short term victory for Randi and crew. Give the contract a year or two in operation and then watch what happens in Baltimore.

Can someone photoshop "Baltimore" and "2010 - and beyond" on the Randi sell-out photo?


Ed Notes recent articles on Baltimore contract:

Education Notes Online: More Baltimore from a Teacher Who Said "No"!

Oct 16, 2010

It seems, in a modest way, that teachers in Baltimore have essentially just handed a defeat to the education direction of the national government, our national union leadership, our local union leadership, the public schools CEO here in ...

Education Notes Online: Baltimore Teachers: STAND UP AND TAKE A BOW!

Oct 16, 2010

Chicago, Baltimore, perhaps detroit, LA, who knows maybe there can be some movment if AFT locals fire back. What happened in D.C. did the opposition to AFT win that local? The movement must come from the trenches up the leaders at UFT ...

Education Notes Online: A Day Off - But still gotta duck from the ...

Oct 07, 2010

American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten called me last week full of excitement over her Baltimore local's new teachers contract. Education leaders often exaggerate when talking to journalists, but Weingarten has taken ...

Education Notes Online: Andres Alonso Alienates Baltimore Teachers

Oct 02, 2007

BALTIMORE -- Baltimore city school teachers concerned about their contracts are planning to set up what they call informational pickets. They said the goal of the picketing is to put pressure on the administration to sign on the dotted ...

Leo Casey to NYC Public School Teachers: My Word Is Not Worth Much Either

Not a day goes by that the actions of the UFT/AFT/Unity Caucus leadership doesn't remind me of the joke about the guy who murders his parents and pleads mercy on the grounds he was an orphan.

I rarely read Edwize, the UFT useless propaganda forum for Leo Casey, who almost never fails to reveal his intellectual dishonesty. I certainly don't read Casey with a full stomach. But I was tipped to this priceless piece titled "Joel Klein To NYC Public School Teachers: My Word Is Worthless"where Casey castigates Joel Klein for lying about the publication of teacher data scores. Casey opens with his first misdirection, taking out the crying towel.

 As part of an agreement between the NYC DoE and the UFT on the then new Teacher Data Initiative [TDI], a “Dear Colleague” letter was sent by Chancellor Klein to all New York City public school teachers in October 2008.

Who co-signed the letter with Klein? Someone named Randi Weingarten.

I'll let Casey go on so I can get this over with and eat. Try not to injure yourself as you roll on the floor with laughter.

 According to the letter, the TDI was to be:

…a new tool to help teachers learn about their own strengths and opportunities for development …The teacher Data Reports are not to be used for evaluation purposes. That is, they won’t be used in tenure determinations or the annual rating process.

Now we all knew that the TDI was a crock and that the assurances Casey and the gang gave the members meant nothing. And they knew it. Klein had so often lied and manipulated every agreement with the UFT people were left thinking: How stupid could people like Casey and Weingarten be? But you know I don't think they are stupid. I think they are Vichyite collaborators. Leo continues to whine:

Klein chose the venues of an letter and an op-ed [to defend his position on releasing the names] because it meant he would not have to answer reporters’ embarrassing questions about his broken promise to NYC public school teachers.

Oh, those broken promises. Is that why Casey is writing on Edwize - so he won't have to answer to his own broken promises? Now comes the best part:

It doesn’t matter that the NYC DoE Teacher Data Reports have been discredited as meaningful measures of student learning: based entirely on state exams found to be invalid by national testing expert and Harvard University Professor Dan Koretz, using an underdeveloped methodology that has as many as 1 in 4 teachers fluctuating from the highest to lowest percentiles year to year, and filled with dirty data that misidentifies the students a teacher has taught, the TDRs are just the latest example of deliberate misinformation from Tweed promulgated solely for political purposes.

&^%%$%##

OK. I just finished smacking my head against the wall. Leo - we always knew this stuff was invalid. BUT YOU SIGNED ON TO TDI ANYWAY. Watch Casey wiggle away by saying the studies came out after they gave the teachers away on a platter.

Try telling me the UFT leadership is not Vichy.

AFTER BURN
Read the Klein/Weingarten letter:

Run, don't walk, to reread my Aug. 24, 2010 post:

Education Notes Online: UFT/AFT: Think Like Vichy

My favorite Vichy moment happened at last October's Delegates Assembly when Mulgrew opposed a resolution in favor of endorsing Bill Thompson for mayor. In a shocking surrender of conscience, he winked that the delegates could vote for ....

AFTER BURN 2
This just came in on the NYCED News Listserve

Marcus Winters of the Manhattan Institute, usually a supporter of any right-wing, hair-brained education idea of the mayor or Klein, says only 41% of the Teacher data reports have at least three years worth of data and are semi-reliable. 

He also recommends only releasing the top 5% and bottom 5% of scorers because of the remaining margin of error.

Already the no. of teachers represented—only 4-8^th grade teachers in English or math – receive these reports.  So now we are talking about far less than 4% of teachers who should be targeted? 

Also, the Mathematica report said that there was a 25-35% chance the worst teachers would be misidentified as the best and vice versa based on these scores; which means that of the 1% or less of teachers whose scores would be released, there would still be up to a 25% chance of getting their ranking wrong. 

Altogether a useless proposition that should be quickly rejected.

Leonie Haimson
____________
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/

Gorbachev Says Weingarten Obstructs Democracy

MOSCOW — Mikhail S. Gorbachev is voicing growing frustration with AFT President Randi Weingarten’s leadership, saying that she has undermined democracy by crippling the opposition forces. He cited the buying off of New Action, the former opposition party, as a key sign of the deterioration of democracy and growth of authoritarianism in the AFT/UFT.

"Just watch what happens in the election in Washington DC where Weingarten favors the undemocratic current union leader over progressive forces led by Nathan Saunders, said Gorbachev.

“She thinks that democracy stands in her way,” Mr. Gorbachev said.

“I am afraid that they have been saddled with this idea that teacher union needs authoritarianism,” Mr. Gorbachev said, referring to Ms. Weingarten and her close ally and replacement, UFT President Michael Mulgrew. “They think they cannot do without it.”

In an interview, Mr. Gorbachev even described Ms. Weingarten’s governing party, Unity Caucus, as a “a bad copy of the Soviet Communist Party.” Mr. Gorbachev said party officials were concerned entirely with clinging to power and did not want teachers to take part in the civic life of the union.

Mr. Gorbachev was especially disparaging of Ms. Weingarten’s decision in 2003 and again in 2007, when she was UFT president, to attempt to eliminate elections by offering New Action a deal for not running a candidate against her.  All positions are now filled by 52 Broadway appointees. The impact of this change was illustrated in Mr. Mulgrew’s dismissal in July NY Teacher longtime investigative reporter Jim Callaghan, who was replaced with a Weingarten loyalist.

“Democracy begins with elections,” Mr. Gorbachev said. “Elections, accountability and turnover.”

“For those who want to change the country in order to advance these processes faster, advance democratic processes, the participation of people is needed,” he said. “It is necessary to have opposition groups. But go and try to find a viable opposition group!”


“The AFT and UFT have a long way to go to usher in a new system of values, to create and provide for the proper functioning of the institutions and mechanisms of democracy — the institutions of civil society,” Mr. Gorbachev said. “All this is done through a major transformation in people’s brains. And this, clearly, is changing very slowly.”

Putin and Medvedev, Russia's equivalent of the Weingarten/Mulgrew tandem "only wish they had the power and control over the Russian people that the AFT/UFT leadership hold," said Gorbachev.

"The KGB has used their manuals for 40 years but to no avail. If we had followed the model set up by Al Shanker more carefully, the Soviet Union would still be alive and well and I would still be ruling the roost. Boy, that Weingarten and Mulgrew. Rulers for life. Every dictator in the world bows down to them. Saddam was a particular admirer but look how it ended for him. He never had the Unity Caucus manual into Iraqi. Bad error trying to interpret it on his non-native language. I blame that for his downfall."

Original NY Times article

Katie Couric Assistant Comes Calling- Be at Lincoln Square Today at 6PM to See Real Reformers

I watched holding my sides laughing as Katie Couric interviewed WFS' Davis Guggenheim, who seems more pathetic every time I see him. (He loves unions by the way. Only not teachers unions.) If you read the review in today's Times they make the point that Randi Weingarten comes off as the villain in the film. What a joke when the Real Reformers also see her as a villain, but for entirely different reasons - like her abandonment of the fight for education equality - no matter what she says - remember the mantra - watch what she does - like appease the deformers on just about every single issue - and she was part of the deal with Rhee in DC. And Detroit - Oh, My! And Gates in Seattle.

So presenting Randi as our rep is beyond a joke.

Then there was that awful teacher who wants to give up tenure for money. Doubly pathetic. And they didn't exactly have a lot of screen time even if they had more to say.

So when I got this email from Erica Anderson who works at CBS with Katie urging me to promote her interviews with Guggenheim, I resisted the urge to delete.

Norm,

I read your post (http://bit.ly/9l9rjb) on Waiting for Superman in Education News Online. You brought up some very thoughtful points which is why I want to share with you the just-released interview on @KatieCouric today. Today Katie interviewed Davis Guggenheim and brought on a panel of educators from Columbia University’s Teacher’s College to pose questions to him.

I hope you will consider watching the videos and sharing with the readers of Education News Online. The only request I have is that you provide a credit to @KatieCouric on CBSNews.com.

Kind Regards,

Erica Anderson
DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS | @KATIECOURIC

Hi Erica,
Thanks for getting in touch. I would be interested in promoting Katie's interview with Davis Guggenheim but am ambivalent when there are so few voices in those videos. The people you had up there representing "our side" were fairly pathetic. It is not about salary to many teachers like the one you talked to.

For an educator like me who spent 35 years working in a high risk neighborhood in Brooklyn, mostly teaching elementary school, the things Davis Guggenheim has to say are almost laughable. Notice how he uses the term "status quo" for the old guard when in fact the new status quo has been the very "reforms", or deforms as we are referring to them, that have been in effect in places like Chicago for 16 years and in NYC for 7 years and have proven to be a failure. He talks about the 20% of charter schools that are doing great things. You don't think that 20% of the public schools are also doing great things? With unionized teachers with tenure yet.

It is no accident that Michelle Rhee has gone down in flames in DC. To call her a hero when the very community that she was supposed to be "saving" undermines Guggenheim's film.

We have a group of young dynamic teachers here in NYC who call themselves Real Reformers. I am working on a film with them called "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman" and you can see the trailer at http://www.waitingforsupermantruth.org/. I urge you and Katie to watch it.

Today at the opening of Waiting for Superman" at the Loews 68th st theater, these teachers will be there to perform their rap version of Eminem's "Will the Real Slim Shady Please Stand Up?". We are calling it "Will the Real Reformers Please Stand Up?"

Many will be wearing homemade Superman capes and other logos. They include former Teach for America teachers who are staying in the classroom. Twenty and Thirty year old teachers who are committed to their students and also to saving the public school system from the charter school onslaught and market bases solutions (like merit pay - believe me these teachers would get merit pay because many of them are so good - ask them why they are against it)  that have brought the US economy down in flames. Many have had their students negatively affected by the charter school invasion of their schools.

Read a fabulous review of Waiting for Superman by one of these teachers I posted on my blog:
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2010/09/reviewing-waiting-for-superman-real.html

So if you want to talk to Real Reformers, send a crew over to the theater today or we can arrange for them to be available to talk at Katie's convenience. I'm betting she will walk away with a whole new point of view and see Davis Guggenheim's film for what it is.

Here is the press advisory.


Press Advisory                         

Date:  Thursday, September 23, 2010   

Contact:

Norm Scott: 917-992-3734

Parents and Teachers, the Real Reformers, Organize Response to “Waiting for Superman”

When:  Friday, September 24^th, 6:00 P.M.

Where: Lincoln Square 13 Movie Theater, NY, NY

On Friday, September 24^th, parents and teachers will participate in a demonstration outside of the premier of “Waiting for Superman”.  The film, which has garnered significant publicity in recent days, has taken the lead in framing the conversation about education reform.  The Real Reformers reject this framework and intend to offer an alternative voice to the conversation.

Parents and teachers will be located outside of the Loews Lincoln Square movie theater at 6:00 P.M. The Real Reformers will stand up and present their demands and vision for real education reform.  The Grassroots Education Movement will provide literature, a special feature, and will be releasing the trailer for their upcoming documentary, “The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman”, which will be shown in New York City neighborhoods, and across the country, beginning in late October. 

Together, parents and teachers are united in calling for Real Reform Right Now:  Smaller Class Size, Excellent Community Schools for ALL, More Teaching- Less Testing, Parent Empowerment and Leadership, Equitable Funding for ALL Schools, Anti-Racist Education Policies, Culturally Relevant Curriculum, Expanded Pre Kindergarten and Early Intervention Programs.

View the Trailer for GEM’s upcoming documentary at:  www.waitingforsupermantruth.org or www.grassrootseducationmovement.blogspot.com

Additional Contacts:

Lisa Donlan, Parent: 917-848-5873

Mona Davids, Parent: 917-340-8987

Sam Coleman, Teacher:  646-354-9362

Julie Cavanagh, Teacher: 917-836-6465