STATE SENATE LEADER WANTS CHARTER EXPANSION TO BE PART OF TEACHER EVALUATION BILL

Senate Republican leader John Flanagan has a bill to slightly change teacher evaluation while adding all kinds of goodies for charter and private schools.

This is from the Times Union:

In addition to addressing teacher evaluations and testing, the bill expands the cap on charter schools from 460 to 560 and rolls back restrictions on private schools in New York City.

At least NYSUT has come out against this legislation. We should all along have been demanding repeal of the entire teacher evaluation system as our petition seeks. Instead, we are asking for a tweak and our enemies in return want a pound of flesh just to concede to us a crumb or two.

UFT EMPHASIZES PAPERWORK STANDARDS

If the principal is mandating extra paperwork for a Quality Review or for his/her evaluation, there is a process to do something about it quickly. This is from the weekly Chapter Leader Update.

Paperwork related to Quality Review and Principal Performance Observation: Paperwork created for the sole purpose of the Quality Review violates Paperwork Standard II in the paperwork standards negotiated by the UFT and the DOE in 2015. We have an agreement with the DOE that teachers should not be required to create paperwork for the sole purpose of the Principal Performance Observation. To address these paperwork issues, the DOE and the union have agreed to modify the existing paperwork process so that all paperwork complaints related to the Quality Review and Principal Performance Observation will be expedited directly to the DOE for immediate assistance. Chapter leaders should submit a paperwork reduction report as soon as possible. This information will be communicated to the DOE for immediate assistance. Send an email to Debbie Poulos, the director of the union’s Contract Empowerment Department, at dpoulos@uft.org, and your district representative with any questions concerning this process.

It might be a little late to make a difference for this school year but observations are done for the year so it won't be as easy to retaliate and maybe next year we can reign in some principals.

Contract is not worth the electrons used to post it (we don't get paper copies any longer) if we don't use it. Everyone should read those paperwork standards.They are copied below.

Paperwork Reduction Standards

I. General Standard
Educators and Related Service Providers shall not be required, whether on paper or electronically, to perform redundant, duplicative, unnecessary or unreasonable amounts of record keeping concerning the performance of, plans for or evaluation of students, unless necessary in order to comply with federal or state statutory or other legal requirements imposed on the DOE.

II. The Quality Review:
Schools are to present only existing curricular and existing school-level documents to contextualize the assessment of all Quality Indicators, especially, rather than create documents for the sole purpose of the Quality Review. Additionally, evidence can be verbal or observable in the classroom/school environment within existing school processes and will include a review of only those documents used in the normal course of teaching and learning. Reviewers and evaluators will consider the time of the year that the visit takes place and the work underway in each school when they review curricular and other school-level documents.

III. Special Education/D75
1. The DOE has discontinued the use of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and CAP to record the provision of related services to K-12 students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), and will use SESIS encounter attendance as the primary system of record for related service provision, and BESIS for ESL provision.

2. The DOE will continue to engage UFT to prioritize how to streamline and enhance SESIS functionality to increase usability. The system enhancements will commence on a rolling basis as identified.

3. Each school or program shall continue to engage with all users of SESIS to provide adequate time and computer access to complete SESIS-related tasks.

IV. Data Systems and Attendance

1. Schools may adopt only one school-based system for tracking student attendance (not including SESIS) in addition to the DOE source attendance system, except when expressly required by law or expressly required to receive federal, state or private grant funds schools may have additional attendance systems as required.

2. The DOE will explore and pursue options to integrate attendance-taking systems with as many other tasks as possible as part of our commitment to the UFT to reduce teacher paperwork.

3. Educators and related service providers are not required to print collections or binders of documents that are available in electronic databases. Teachers are responsible for complying with reasonable requests for printing any documents for the purposes of parent interactions/communications and professional conversations with supervisors.

4. School staff will continue to be responsible, based on student need, for providing reports related to student achievement, report cards, a student’s IEP, student behavior, and the social/emotional development of individual students. Such requests will not be routinized, school-wide or solely for the purpose of creating a binder for the storage of information.

5. Educators and Related Service Providers shall be required to keep grades and/or session notes in one manner, unless necessary in order to comply with federal or state statutory or other legal requirements imposed on DOE. Staff required to use online or electronic systems shall be provided adequate computer access during the workday. This is in addition to the DOE source system until such time as systems can be aligned.

V. Parent Engagement, Other Professional Work, and Professional Development Parent Engagement, Other Professional Work and Professional Development time shall not generate excessive or redundant paperwork or electronic work. This shall not preclude a principal from creating reasonable requirements requiring teachers to briefly track Parent Engagement time. (See appendix for sample).

Every spring, and at the request of either party, the Central Paperwork Committee shall review the standards to see if they need to be modified and/or updated.

FAQs 

Who sits on the District Paperwork Committee? What is its role?
These District Committees will be made up of an equal number of representatives from the UFT and the DOE. The committee will include the District/High School Superintendent or his/her designee, and it will be primarily responsible for ensuring that the standards are met.

What happens when the school-level consultation does not bring a paperwork issue to resolution? Paperwork concerns will be addressed at the school level first. If the school staff, principal, and superintendent cannot come to agreement, the issue will be raised at the district-level committee. Should the District Committee be unable to resolve the issue, as per the system-wide paperwork reduction standards, the central committee will hear the issue. The decision of the central committee will be enforced by the superintendent.

What are examples of tasks that may be performed during the Monday PD time and/or Tuesday parent engagement time?
As per the Memorandum of Agreement, when Parent Engagement and/or Professional Development activities are not taking place, teachers may participate in other professional activities: collaborative planning, Lesson Study, Inquiry and review of student work, work related to Measures of Student Learning (“MOSL”), IEP-related work, work related to computer systems/data entry; preparing and grading student assessments; mentoring; as well as responsibilities related to teacher leader duties for all individuals in Teacher Leadership Positions.

What is a unit plan?
The UFT and the DOE have agreed upon this format as the acceptable format for the unit plan.

What about the paperwork associated with Teacher Evaluation and Measures of Student Learning (MOSL)?
These tasks are required. There will be one or two periods of time during the school year, based upon a school’s MOSL selections, which will be designated as “MOSL windows” for the entire school district by the DOE. During these MOSL windows, teachers shall be permitted to devote as much time as necessary during the entire Parent Engagement periods of time to perform MOSL-related work. Should teachers not have a need to do MOSL-related work during the MOSL window, they shall engage in either Parent Engagement or Other Professional work.

WHAT DOES CHANCELLOR SHOWING UP AT CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS MEAN?

There is a picture in this week's Chapter Leader Update of Chancellor Richard Carranza shaking hands with UFT President at the initial contract negotiation bargaining session. Our contract ends at the end of November. The city will talk to us about financial terms but the Chancellor bargains education working condition issues with the UFT.

Joel Klein and Dennis Walcott were never there when I was on the Negotiating Committee. What does Chancellor's Carranza's presence mean?

Hard to say.

It could mean absolutely nothing. However, it could signify that the Chancellor is willing to discuss changing the anti-teacher culture at the Department of Education.

For anyone who wants to know how difficult it will be to really change the DOE culture, please read this comment from Harris Lirtzman on Arthur Goldstein's excellent piece on the end of the Leadership Academy. Change will not be easy and would require all of us to play a part in making sure the Union emphasizes that there are hundreds of abusive supervisors who need to be reigned in.

Harris Lirtzman • a day ago

I have often wondered why Tweed never got a sweep.

This will be hard to explain but here’s part of the dilemma for anyone who runs a very large, complex government agency like, say, the DOE.

So, you sweep it. Then what?

You have dozens—hundreds—of senior positions that you need to fill by, oh, tomorrow. You don’t have months to find the best folks for each gig. Plus, the folks who are already there are telling you that they are indispensable. And so are their political and reformista allies outside the DOE.

The sheer inertia that keeps things and people in place in sprawling organizations is inconceivable unless you’ve ever been a manager of one.

The reformistas were smart. They had the money and muscle to start organizations that ‘train’ or, at least, certify people to run school districts.

‘We’ don’t have large pools of people ready to step into these gigs. Hell, the only person who gets called by and quoted in the mainstream edu-press is Diane Ravitch.

So, big city mayors change the superintendents but the supers are afraid to, or can’t, bring out the broom. Most don’t even want to.

It would be a great good thing if a billionaire would join our ranks and start the ‘Arthur Goldstein School for Education Professionals.’

Until then don’t expect to see any brooms . Anywhere. Ever.

To be clear, I am NOT justifying any of this.

Just offering the perspective of someone who was a manager for 20 years in organizations like the DOE].

o     

o    •

oNYC Educator Mod Harris Lirtzman • 7 hours ago

I understand that, but they've had four years. By now they could have at least made a dent if they wanted to. It appears they don't.

I suspect that the people at Tweed are already running to our "friend" Mayor Bill de Blasio and his team to tell the administration how important they are and how putting the teachers back in the drivers' seat will kill the schools. They are wrong as the school system needs a large dose of integrity as an initial step toward a brighter future. The people who could idemand an end to the DOE's anti-teacher bias are the teachers working in the schools en masse allied with the parents. We could do it but we need to push our union to take action.

AMY ARUNDELL APOLOGIZES TO MEMBER PUT ON HOLD AND DISCONNECTED

We are happy to report that once in a blue moon the ICEUFT blog does make a tangible difference. When we complained yesterday about a UFT member calling the Queens UFT office about a grievance and being put on hold and then disconnected and then calling back right away and the office being closed, UFT Queens Borough Representative Amy Arundell either read our post or had someone tell her about it. Amy contacted Arthur Goldstein who texted me and I was able to provide the name and phone number of the member with the grievance.

Subsequently, we learned this afternoon that Amy called the member personally, apologized for what happened and intervened in her grievance. Great job Amy! We appreciate what you did.

As for the cynical comments that are about to come that say Amy only did this because it was me complaining on the internet, that might have some validity at first glance but it really misses the big picture. 

If all of the UFT members who read and comment here and at other teacher blogs were to step out of the shadows and become one very loud voice, we would collectively have enormous power to move the agenda of the UFT. A membership making a thunderous sound to the leadership will have much more impact than one that withholds dues after the Supreme Court makes the Janus decision. 

If one blogger can make a little difference today, all of us combined can have a world of say tomorrow within a union and not on the outside.

UFT PUTS MEMBER WHO CALLED DURING BUSINESS HOURS ON HOLD AND THEN HANGS UP!

UFT President Michael Mulgrew recently introduced UFT customer service along with their shiny new app. Well I have some advice for Mr. Mulgrew and UFT Queens Borough Representative Amy Arundell:

Please learn a little about customer service before you start throwing the term around.

Case in point:
A friend of mine was in contact with me yesterday about filing a very important grievance. The member (sorry leadership, we are not customers; we are UFT members) calls the UFT Queens Office at 5:36 P.M. I was texted the time of the call. After being told by the person answering the phone that the member would have to wait on hold because the entire staff was involved in a very important meeting, the member waited patiently for the meeting to end. At approximately 6:10 P.M. the member was abruptly disconnected after waiting on hold for over half an hour. Subsequently, the member called back and was told by a machine that the office was now closed and please call back tomorrow.

Are you kidding me?

Is that a way any business would treat its customers? I don't think so.

This is just an example of how the UFT has not changed at all even with the Janus Supreme Court case looming where dues could become optional  very soon. It's business as usual at least in Queens.

Would you give your money to any business that treats its "customers" in this manner? A union should not treat its members in this way either.

UUP FIRST NYS GOVERNMENT UNION TO GET PAID FAMILY LEAVE; DE BLASIO ESTIMATES PAID FAMILY LEAVE WILL COST NYC $1 BILLION

Chaz reported earlier on United University Professions (SUNY professors) being the first public sector union in New York State to get paid family leave in contract negotiations. The Chief Leader has an extensive article on the agreement reached in late May. It is a six year contract with 2% annual raises.

New progressive friend of working man and woman Governor Andrew Cuomo was involved in this deal. 2% a year is no great monetary settlement but an extensive paid family leave benefit is significant.

From the Chief Leader article:
UUP members will receive 10 weeks of paid leave at 55-percent of their average weekly salary when the plan's next increase takes place in 2019. The benefit will increase to 67 percent of an employee’s average weekly salary for 12 weeks by 2021.

The cost to members for this benefit according to Fred Kowal, the UUP President, quoted in the Chief Leader:
The union, whose membership is 53 percent female, did not have to make any concessions to obtain the benefit, according to Mr. Kowal. He praised Mr. Cuomo for the state’s willingness to work with the union on the issue.

‘A Firm Commitment’

“The Governor had made a firm commitment that he wanted this for municipal employees,” he said.

What about the ramifications for NYC municipal employees?

This is what the Chief Leader said:

The state (private sector) plan is fully funded through payroll deductions equal to .126 percent of employees’ weekly wage. The maximum annual contribution for this year is capped at $85.56.

Though no city employees have benefitted from the state plan yet, the de Blasio administration granted 20,000 city managers, who do not have collective bargaining rights, six weeks of family leave at full pay. The benefit was paid for by managers giving up a planned 0.47-percent raise. Employees with at least 15 years’ service also gave up two annual vacation days.

City Plan More Costly

The city’s budget would not be directly affected if unions representing city employees adopted the state’s plan, while a citywide expansion of the plan offered to managers would cost taxpayers an estimated $1 billion, a spokeswoman for the de Blasio administration noted.

The state has not made any estimates regarding how many public employees it expects to use the benefit.

Paid family leave will more than likely be in the city fairly soon after the precedent was set by a state union.

UFT EXECUTIVE BOARD PASSES RESOLUTION SUPPORTING WHAT DIANE RAVITCH TERMS "SHAM" EVALUATION BILL

The UFT often acts in ways that leave me scratching my head and saying, "What the f***?" Last night was one of those occasions as the Executive Board, with only one abstention, passed a resolution to support pushing a bill through the State Senate that barely tweaks the highly faulty teacher evaluation system.

It is not surprising that the resolution passed as Michael Mulgrew's Unity Caucus has a huge majority at the Executive Board. Members of the Unity Caucus agree they will support positions of the caucus in union and public forums.

What is shocking is that only one of the seven New Action-MORE-independent high school representatives abstained. Two were absent but the other four went right along with Unity supporting a resolution to promote a bill that changes very little in teacher evaluation. One of our seven reps wrote as recently as February these words about student test score based teacher evaluation: "It's funny because when junk science opponents (like me and Diane Ravitch) object to said junk science..." Here is a link to this piece which I agree with. Unfortunately, the bill the UFT and NYSUT are pushing continues the use of junk science in teacher evaluation. It just changes the options of the tests that can be used to evaluate us. Diane Ravitch correctly termed the bill a "sham" in her excellent analysis.

From Diane's blog:
Recently, gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon issued a press release calling for the repeal of the state teacher evaluation system, which links teacher evaluation to state test scores of their students.

Almost immediately, the State Assembly (in Democratic control) announced that it was writing a bill to revise test-based teacher evaluation. The Assembly bill passed overwhelmingly, but it was a sham. Instead of repealing test-based teacher evaluation, it said that districts could use the test of their own choosing to evaluate teachers, so long as the test was approved by the State Commissioner. That does not repeal test-based evaluation, and critics warned that there might be “double-testing,” once for the state tests, another time for local tests.

In addition, the bill does absolutely nothing to stop or reduce the anti-teacher Danielson observations that teachers in NYC are forced to endure.

New York State Allies for Public Education, Leonie Haimson's New York City Parents blog, Democratic candidate for Governor Cynthia Nixon and now MORE's Jia Lee (who is also the Green Party candidate for Lieutenant Governor) want the entire evaluation system repealed. Jia correctly calls the bill going through the Legislature "smoke and mirrors."

The ICEUFT blog goes out of our way be fair to our union leaders to try to understand their point of view.

Here is what we learn from Arthur Goldstein's report from last night's Executive Board meeting on this issue:

Evelyn de Jesus—Bill sitting in Senate. Bill says should be local control over teacher eval. We know teachers want to get rid of mandate. Locals should have other options. If doesn’t pass, moratorium will expire. We want to control our own destiny. Please vote for resolution.

Mike Schirtzer—Why are we not calling for repeal of 3012d and c? Agree it should be local. Trusts UFT to work out system for us.

Schoor—Lot of moving parts, some state law, some local negotiations. Some will be on table, some not. We try to do things that can actually get passed. That’s why it’s part of law. Other part would not get past State Senate. Trying to get what we can passed. We feel it can get passed now, other things not.

Schirtzer—Would bring back some local control?

Schoor—control over tests. Will no longer mandate Regents.

Passes 


Oh my word, the UFT is giving the "It's the best we can do" argument in support of their sham bill. Could  they at least come up with something better? It's the same thing they do in contract negotiations. How does the UFT know that they can't get the evaluation law fully repealed if they don't even try? 

It is obvious that tweaking a terrible law is not sufficient. If we go from using the Regents exams to rate teachers to an equally or more unreliable state approved city MOSL exam, this is still junk science. I would not support trading one version of junk science for another as it won't help our constituents in NYC.

If this bill does pass, the UFT and NYSUT will once again declare a major victory but teachers will return to school in the fall and realize virtually nothing has changed and they will become even more cynical about their union during their four Danielson drive-by observations.

It would be much better to ask now for a full repeal and make it a big issue in the campaign for governor, particularly with Cynthia Nixon running to the left of Cuomo in the Democratic primary.

The UFT and NYSUT are also opining that the moratorium on using the dreaded grade 3-8 state tests to rate teachers ends after the 2018-19 school year so if we don't have this bill, teachers will be judged on those tests in the 2019-20 school year.  That timeframe is all the more reason to make full repeal the goal now and if we have to, then settle for something next year when even if Cuomo wins reelection, he still needs to show his progressive credentials if he wants to be the Democratic candidate for President of the United States in 2020. We might have maximum leverage when Cuomo tries to move left to win the nomination. Instead, if we get this bill passed now, we will look very pushy to be going to the Legislature a year after they gave us something on evaluation and trying for more. 

Sadly, I don't believe the UFT will go for repeal regardless of what happens in Albany now because the Union favors as Mulgrew says "the use of multiple measures..." to rate us. Translation, student assessments should be part of our ratings according to our President. We fundamentally disagree on this issue. 

Today, I am just a little heartbroken as we have worked so hard, particularly in the last few months, to put out and spread a petition to repeal of the evaluation law and hoped to get full support from the seven people we helped to get elected to the Executive Board. At least Mike Schirtzer abstained which I can respect. Two were not present but our other four high school representatives in my opinion made a mistake voting in favor of a resolution that calls for the UFT to push a bill the Union says will "fix the state's broken teacher evaluation system." That bill will do no such thing. We are stuck with test based teacher evaluation for a long time unless Nixon upsets Cuomo in the primary or something else drastically changes after Janus.

FOREST HILLS HIGH SCHOOL ISSUES MOCK DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE FROM PRINCIPAL

Someone from Forest Hills High School has been in touch with us to document abuses by Principal Ben Sherman. We have known of Sherman's poor human relations skills from his prior school East West School of International Studies where he harassed one of my good friends who was lucky enough to get out of there. I went with three teachers from East-West to support them as they complained to the Queens UFT about this principal. I don't recall much being done to reign Sherman in back in 2011.

In the infamous Department of Education tradition of fully supporting and promoting administrators who don't work collegially with teachers, Sherman was moved to Forest Hills High School, a prestigious neighborhood school. It appears his human relations skills have not improved much since 2011 as is documented below and also at Ed Notes.

We issue our own mock Declaration of Independence to highlight our grievances.

The brief history of the present PRINCIPAL OF FOREST HILLS HIGH SCHOOL is a history of repeated injuries, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over the School. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has taken a school with multiple A ratings and attempted to humiliate in the following, numerous ways its hard-working staff.

He has deprived Deans, math teachers and E.L.L. teachers of their much-needed workspace, attempting to cram them into already over-utilized rooms in a most crass and uncaring manner, proclaiming, “it is not a democratic process.”

He has threatened to “flip” teachers’ schedules without any understanding about the necessity of having the staff matched to best meet the needs of the students.

He has mishandled a lockdown on March 15, 2018, dubbed a “limited passing,” which had students crying in their classrooms, teachers trying to comfort them, and parents terribly worried, all while he was holed up in his conference room.

He has let the hallways of the building go to ruin, turning his back on disturbances, while attempting to micromanage teachers in their classrooms.

He has made it known he will put teachers in hallways, disciplining students with little-to-no power and/or backup.

He has left student bathrooms unlocked and unsupervised, creating unsafe conditions in which lewd acts, vaping and intimidation can occur.

He has reduced Circular 6 choices to only seven, with the seeming intent to force more teachers to take on a sixth-class, gratis (“small group instruction”) and peddle substandard pathways to graduation (“eight to one credit recovery”).

He has needlessly, through the reduction of C6 choices, deprived students of the opportunity to expand their social and intellectual horizons by participating in a wider array of clubs during school hours.

He has, similarly, through the reduction of C6 choices, deprived students of the ability to receive beneficial tutoring during their free periods.

He has targeted teachers who have raised valid objections to current policies with gratuitous observations immediately following their comments.

He has attempted to intimidate teachers in a vindictive manner based on non-evaluative Student Perception Surveys given to a single class.

He has encouraged teachers who raise concerns to retire from the profession.

He has attempted to win his way with threat of punitive measures, including a non-SBO day ending at 4:51 p.m.

He has put letters in file for trivial matters, including the entering of his office without an appointment.

He has attempted to force teachers to adopt teaching styles more fit for elementary school than for college readiness, namely “Word Walls” and “Turn and Talk.”

He has forced his propaganda, “Happenings in the Hills,” upon teachers, informing them of his “expectations,” some of which are non-contractual in nature, while depriving teachers of any voice in their school.

He has encouraged teachers to dispense with paper records in the name of using programs with data that can suddenly disappear or even be manipulated.

He has forced teachers to rely on Skedula, a system known to have many glitches, as the last legal word for attendance for New York State.

He has made it known that teachers will be forced to adopt a grading policy through which students can come as late as they want to class and turn in late work with little to no penalty.

He has targeted the school’s Chapter Leader and attempted to impair the functioning of the Union.

He has applied questionable measures in the collection of lunch forms on a relentless pursuit of Title-One Funding.

He has and continues to place false and misleading data numbers above the well-being of the school and the college readiness of students.

He has forced teachers to stay beyond their workday (and, next year, arrive earlier) to move their time card on the premise that he is concerned with their health.

He has created conditions of stress in the building which are detrimental to the functioning of a healthy school community.

He had forbidden teachers to leave the building on Conference days for professional development opportunities, claiming that only his meetings (practically the same offerings as last time) are “relevant.”

He has made it impossible for the Consultative Council to meet between the November and March meetings and now encourages it, with the intent to readily dismiss the viewpoints of its constituents.

He has blocked traditionally held UFT meetings following Faculty meetings on the premise that “I have one contract, you have another.”

He has made the workplace no longer a welcoming environment.

He has charged the staff with Anti-Semitism based on a picture used by a Jewish blogger in an article which named him as one of the most untrustworthy City Principals, as rated by the teachers at the school he founded, East-West.

He has threatened the peace and concord of the home of two-hundred teachers and their young charges.

Given this long list of abuses, We, the teachers of Forest Hills High School, mutually pledge to each other our fortunes and our Sacred Honor. We pledge to stand together in defense of the interests of our students, the traditions of Forest Hills High School and the careers and dignity of our colleagues.

UFT EXECUTIVE BOARD RESOLUTION TO PUSH INADEQUATE TEACHER EVALUATION BILL TO BE CONSIDERED MONDAY

This resolution was passed by the UFT officers and it will be on the agenda for Monday's Executive Board meeting.

The bill the UFT is pushing will substitute one test for another to rate us and it keeps the multiple useless Danielson observations. It will still be as flawed a system as ever if it passes. Our high school people either need to vote no and tell the leadership why or amend it to repeal the entire evaluation system.

Another question that has to be asked is what will the UFT and NYSUT trade up in Albany in what is called the "Big Ugly" to get this tweak of the evaluation system passed? The "big ugly is when loads of horse trading goes on up in Albany to pass various pieces of legislation at the end of the legislative session in June. Senator Flanagan and the Republicans will probably want some piece of pro charter school legislation1 passed in return for us getting this bill that does not do much at all to improve the evaluation system.

The only answer is to climb on board with us and get the entire evaluation system repealed and start over again. Please continue to spread our petition to repeal the entire mess.

Resolution in support of state Senate bill S.8301 to fix the state's broken teacher evaluation system

WHEREAS, in 2002, President George W. Bush signed the "no Child Left Behind Act" that expanded the federal role in public education by putting more emphasis on annual testing and teacher qualifications; and

WHEREAS, state tests played an increased role in our schools and ultimately New York State mandated that state standardized test scores e part of teacher evaluation; and

WHEREAS, parents bitterly complained about a school curriculum that taught to the test and teachers lamented the lockstep and exam-oriented classroom lessons; and

WHEREAS, d teacher's goals have always been to provide a sound education that is differentiated to accommodate all students; and

WHEREAS, the misuse of standardized tests and the state's over-reliance on testing continue to plague the learning climate in our classrooms; and

WHEREAS, the state Assembly passed A. 10475 on May 2, which would allow local school districts to establish their own teacher evaluation rules and would eliminate the mandated use of state exams on teacher evaluations; and

WHEREAS, Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan has refused to bring S. 8301, a similar bill, to the floor for  vote, and Flanagan is supported in his refusal by eight other Republican senators, including Sen. Marty Golden of Brooklyn; therefore be it

RESOLVED, that the UFT work with NYSUT on multiple actions in support of Senate Bill s.8301, including pickets at the offices of those state senators who are not supporting it, to persuade them and Sen. Flanagan to allow the full Senate to vote on the bill and allow the democratic process to proceed.

MY RESPONSE TO MULGREW'S NY TEACHER COLUMN ON EVALUATIONS

I read my NY Teacher today where President Michael Mulgrew said in his President's Perspective column the following:

Right now in New York City, teacher evaluation and observation are toxic in too many schools. Principals are not using observations to give productive feedback, and it's getting worse.

What does our esteemed President propose we do to change this situation?

The answer is he is supporting a change to the teacher evaluation law that will do absolutely nothing to lighten the Danielson observation burden that teachers in NYC now face. 

 New York State Allies for Public Education, Leonie Haimson's NYC Public School Parents Blog, Democratic Party candidate for Governor Cynthia Nixon, Professor Diane Ravitch and of course the ICEUFT blog are united in saying we need to repeal the entire evaluation system. That would return to a satisfactory/unsatisfactory system with its mandated one formal observation per year for tenured teachers on maximum or an alternative to observations. The bill that passed the Assembly and is now in the Senate merely tweaks the awful teacher evaluation law in place since 2015. It leaves test based evaluation in place and does nothing about Danielson observations.

Please join 1,280 of your closest friends in signing our petition and just as importantly tell everyone you know to sign on to tell the Legislature and Mulgrew that the time is right to repeal the entire evaluation law.

The misguided, inadequate bill to slightly alter the evaluation system is on the UFT Executive Board agenda for Monday evening. We will have more to say as this moves along.

NORM SCOTT TO BE HONORED WITH AWARD FROM LEONIE HAIMSON

Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters, is a powerful advocate for public education. She presents the Skinny Awards annually. They are the opposite of the billionaire Eli Broad Awards.

I was honored to receive a Skinny in 2011. For 2018, Leonie is giving a Skinny to our own Norm Scott along with Councilman Danny Dromm and testing expert Fred Smith. There is also a mystery fourth winner.

Here is a link to attend:

Invitation to our Annual Class Size Matters

"Skinny Award" Dinner

honoring four individuals who have given us the

"real skinny" on NYC schools:

Council Member Danny Dromm, Chair of the Finance Committee & former Education Chair

Norm Scott, retired teacher and blogger/videographer extraordinaire

Fred Smith, testing expert and critic

And a surprise honoree who will we announce at the event!

Dinner to be held on Tuesday June 19, 2018  at 6 PM

Casa La Femme, 140 Charles St.

Join us for a delicious three course meal with a glass of wine and great company!

Together we will celebrate our victories and gain strength for the challenges to come.

Norm and Fred react: Congratulations to all three winners.

Hey folks -- here is your chance to see me be Skinny - and to contribute to the amazing work Leonie Haimson does for all of us.

And I can't think of better people to be honored with than Danny Dromm and Fred Smith. And the anticipation of the mystery honoree. Past award winners have been James Eterno, Arthur Goldstein, Julie Cavanagh, Diane Ravitch, Patrick Sullivan and so many others.

I've attended every one of Leonie's Skinny (Not (Eli) BROAD) Awards. It is always the most fun events of the year where the major people battling ed deform gather -- sshhhhhhh - don't tell or they will drop a bunker bomb on us.

Even my wife, who should be sick of ed talk after almost 50 years of it, wants to go.

If any of you Ed Notes readers are going let me know at normsco@gmail.com. 

Last year our pals from CPE1 were honored. It was a wonderful evening and I'm thrilled to be included this year.

Former teacher Danny Dromm has been a force for change on the city council. And Fred Smith -- who has done so much work for the opt-out movement. I remember hearing from Fred about 10 years ago, asking to come to an ICEUFT meeting to talk about the tests and trying to enlist people. Fred was there when GEM took positions on testing and was one of the founders of Change the Stakes. His research has been crucial. And let's not forget his other job as a statistician for the NY Jets, which and turn out to be more frustrating than dealing with the DOE.

Ten years of skinny awards and a way for Leonie to continue her amazing work. So even if you can't come, consider contributing to class size matters.

Norm

I can only echo what Norm said.  The truth is I have long coveted a Skinny.  The annual dinners have been a highlight of the year for me and spending a few hours with the terrific people who attend is always invigorating.   Thank you Leonie for, as Yogi would say, making this occasion necessary.

 

[And I want us to draft Leonie to be the next NYC Public Advocate--which is a job she doesn't seek, thereby making her eminently qualified for the position.  Think of the round-the-clock time and energy she has spent doing impeccable research in search of truth and equity--all pro bono.  An astounding combination of intellect, never-quit courage and idealism.]

 

But I digress...  It's great to be in this celebration with Danny Dromm and Norm, who comes closest to Leonie in the struggle for the sound public education of all children and concern for their teachers.  I was lucky to stumble upon him a few years back, which brought me out of mothballs into the light of so many wonderful, unsung people fighting for the greater good.  (Norm: You had to mention the Jets?!)

 

I urge my friends in Change the Stakes / NYC Opt Out to reserve a seat at this event if they can and make a contribution to Class Size Matters.  It will add years to your life.

 

~Fred

NYC PUBLIC SCHOOL PARENTS BLOG POSTS OUR PIECE ON EDUCATIONAL FADS (UPDATED WITH MULGREW OPED)

Parent activist Leonie Haimson asked me to write something for the New York City Parents Blog on Common Core. I responded by writing about a number of educational fads, including Common Core, that we teachers have had to endure since I started in the mid eighties.

Please go over there and read it and add your own stories on what you have been asked to do as a teacher.

UPDATE: I posted the above piece yesterday and then did not go back to the blog but a firestorm ensued when someone posted a comment that was critical of Michael Mulgrew's oped in yesterday's Daily News  on the high school admissions process.  The comment had a racial remark that was offensive but also copied Mulgrew's oped. I thought Mulgrew's piece was pretty much on target.

Here is a link to the oped and it is posted below so the comments that follow make sense.I deleted the comments that I thought were outright racist but here is my issue with pulling everything from the one or two people who are way to the right on the political spectrum and have racial views that most readers including me find abhorrent.

I am an ACLU type when it comes to free speech. I might hate what you are saying but you have a right to say it. I only step in when people write things that are outright offensive to a race or some group. Kids read this blog so it should stay on somewhat of a professional level as we are teachers. Also, you guys can be anonymous but I am not. My name or Jeff's name go on every posting.

Finally, much of this would not be an issue at all if people would just stay on topic which I will ask people to do once again.

Diversify N.Y. high schools now

By MICHAEL MULGREW

| NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |

MAY 31, 2018 | 5:00 AM

 

If New York City is going to have the first-class public education system it deserves, then the new chancellor and the city's Panel for Educational Policy need to tackle the widespread academic segregation in the city's high schools — a problem within their power to solve.

As repeated studies have pointed out, New York City public high schools are highly segregated by academic achievement, a situation that the current high school admissions process has not only permitted, but actually encouraged.

The Education Department's own study — the Parthenon report of 2008 — conclusively demonstrated that when high proportions of high-need students were concentrated in certain city high schools, it became much more difficult for their students to succeed and graduate.

For example, that study found that a black or Hispanic ninth-grade girl with median test scores and attendance had a significantly higher probability of graduating from high school as the proportion of academically challenged students in her school declined.

The problem identified in 2008 remains true today.

According to a new analysis by the United Federation of Teachers, students who scored 2.50 or below on eighth-grade state reading tests are clustered in about 100 of the city's roughly 400 high schools. Their average graduation rate is below 70%, ranging to as low as 40%. The roughly 300 remaining high schools show incoming average reading scores of 2.63 or better; their graduation rates range from 70% to 100%.

This segregation by academic achievement exists despite the student choice system instituted by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein. In theory, that system was supposed to open up enrollment in schools across the city, with the exception of the schools that use the Specialized High School Admissions Test. But the reality is far different.

The application process itself — from the 600-page explanation booklet prepared annually by the Education Department to the hundreds of existing screens by attendance, interviews or neighborhood residence — serves to deter struggling students and families and to favor those who can figure out how to navigate its complexities.

There are specific steps the city can and should take:

• The system knows the achievement scores of every high school applicant and can compute how these would affect the achievement average of each school; the complex algorithm used to assign students should be tweaked to ensure that no schools develop an undue concentration of struggling students.

• The hundreds of high schools that use some kind of screening criteria must adapt those criteria to an "ed-option" formula — one that ensures that they will admit a proportion of students from across the achievement spectrum. At the same time, the Education Department must ensure that effective information about school options is provided to all low-income eighth-graders and their families.

• While admission to three exam-admission schools can only be changed by state legislation, the city has used the Specialized High School Admissions Test for five other schools not explicitly mentioned in the law. The city should immediately adopt a "Texas model" — upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court — that would open up enrollment in these five schools to a percentage of the high-ranking graduates of all middle schools throughout the city.

But even these steps are insufficient.

Given the penalties the system imposes based on test scores and similar measures, few schools actively seek to enroll academically struggling students. Only a small minority of schools make a specific effort to bring in students at all achievement levels. The chancellor should mandate that serving an academically diverse population is a significant measure of a principal's success.

The central office also needs to provide aggressive oversight — rather than the system's current laissez-faire management style — to ensure that advanced classes are available to the maximum number of students, and that all high schools offer high-quality facilities and a diverse choice of programs. The de Blasio administration's AP for All push is a good start, but it's not enough.

Properly managed, academic integration can have a dramatic effect on student success rates. A recent study in Stamford, Conn., showed student achievement increased across all groups in academically integrated schools, even as the racial achievement gap shrank.

City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza was recently quoted as asking: "Why are we segregating kids based on test scores?" It's a telling question, but not as important as this one: "What can we do to solve this problem?"

Luckily for our students, the answer is that we can do a great deal, and we can do it now.

Mulgrew is president of the United Federation of Teachers.

ASSEMBLYWOMAN JO ANNE SIMON RESPONDS TO OUR EVAL PETITION

Assembywoman JoAnne Simon from Brooklyn has responded to our petition on Moveon.org. She touts the Assembly Bill as a fix for what is wrong with teacher evaluations. Her response is copied in full below.

This is her email address if you want to set her straight about Danielson observations, HEDI and student test scores still being part of teacher evaluation even if their bill becomes law.

Simonj@nyassembly.gov

I write in response to your correspondence regarding NYS Teacher Evaluations.

There is legislation A.10475 that seeks to improve the evaluation system. This bill will allow school districts and teachers to negotiate an effective and fair evaluation system to meet the diverse needs of students and communities throughout the state. The legislation removes the mandate that state created or administered assessments be used to evaluate a teacher’s or principal’s performance. The Commissioner of Education would be required to promulgate regulations providing alternative assessments for districts that choose not to use state assessments. The bill eliminates the use of the state-provided growth model in a teacher or principal’s evaluation. All teachers would be required to have a student learning objective (SLO) consistent with a goal-setting processdetermined or developed by the Commissioner. The legislation also eliminates the use of certain rules to determine a teacher or a principal’s overall rating, and makes permanent provisions that prohibit ELA or math state assessments recorded in grades three through eight from being included in a student’s permanent record. By removing the assessment mandate, local school districts and teachers would be able to negotiate an evaluation system that better serves the needs of their students and community.

Be assured that I share your concerns regarding how our state evaluates the performance of our students and teachers. There is no one size fits all when it comes to teaching and we need to celebrate our diverse student body as the asset it is. It is past time to stop putting so much of our teachers’ energies into testing and let them teach our students.

Please do not hesitate to contact me again on matters of mutual concern.

Very truly yours, 

Jo Anne Simon 

Member of Assembly

UNION EXPERTS DISCUSS UNIONS AFTER JANUS

Unless you have been hibernating in a cave the last year, you know that the Supreme Court is about to make their decision in the Janus v AFSCME case so that union dues will soon more than likely be optional in the public sector throughout the country. In 23 states unions collect fair share (or agency) fees from non-members because those non-members benefit from the wages and benefits that the unions negotiate. How should unions and union activists respond to a very different world after Janus when the fair share fees become optional and right wing media machine tells workers to give themselves a raise by opting out of their unions? The right hopes this can weaken the labor movement considerably.

I think there is a consensus that the unions will try to maintain as much of the status quo as they can by convincing members to stay with the union. However, what if the workers for whatever reason choose a different course in large numbers?

Michael Fiorillo sent me this long discussion from In These Times with three labor experts. Some thought provoking ideas for me came from Shaun Richman, a former AFT organizer. 

Here is an excerpt:

Shaun Richman: I had an article published in The Washington Post and I admit it was too cute by half partly because I was trying to amplify what I think was actually the strongest argument that AFSCME is making in the case itself, which is that the agency fee has historically been traded for the no strike clause and if you strike that there is the potential for quite a bit of chaos. So I wanted to put a little bit of fear to whoever might potentially have the ear of Chief Justice Roberts, as crazy as that may sound. But I also wanted to plant the seed of thinking for a few union rebels out there. If the Janus decision comes down as many of us fear then the proper response is to create chaos.

If the entire public sector goes right to work, unions will never look the same. So, then, the project of the left should be “what do we want them to look like?” and “what will drive the bosses craziest?” I've written about this before and Chris (Brooks from Labor Notes) has responded at In These Times. There are three things that I am suggesting will happen—two of which, and I think Chris agrees, are sort of inevitable and not particularly desirable. The third part is not inevitable and depends a lot on what we do as activists.

If we lose the agency fee, some unions will seek to go members-only in order to avoid the free rider problem, and that's a lousy motivation. I'm not encouraging that, but I think it's also inevitable. Once you have unions representing these workers over here but not those workers over there, it's also inevitable that you wind up with competitor unions vying for the unrepresented. And the first competitor unions are going to be conservative. These already exist. They're all over the South and they compete against the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and National Education Association (NEA) in many districts and they offer bare bones benefits and they promote themselves on “we're not going to support candidates who are in favor of abortions and we'll represent you if you have tenure issues.” That's also bad but also inevitable.

The third step, which is not inevitable but we need to consider in this moment, is at what point do new opposition groups break away from the existing formal union?  When do we just break the exclusive model and compete for members and workplace leadership? Can we get to a point where on the shop floor level you've got organizations vying for workers' dues money and loyalty based on who can take on the boss in a better fight or who can win a better deal on the basis of we're going to be less confrontational (which, I think, there are a lot of workers whom that appeals to as much as I don't like that idea)? But the chaos of the employer not being able to make one deal with one union that settles everything for three or five years—that's just the sort of chaos that the boss class deserves for having pursued this whole Friedrichs and now Janus strategy.

I very much doubt the competing unions arrangement is coming soon to NYC but what about the schools? Let's look a little closer at our situation.

We have a membership that has a fairly decent salary along with good benefits but in many schools those members have virtually no rights at work and not much union recourse either from the United Federation of Teachers. Too many teachers feel frustrated and completely powerless.

The conversation from the three experts moves on to a bit of a history lesson from Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University, that I think is kind of relevant to our situation in NYC. Read what she says about why people vote to dump their union:

...there is a long history in the public sector of independent unions, of company unions, acting as if exclusive representation didn't exist, where there would only be one member and employers would recognize the “union” establishing a contract bar so no other union could come in.

In the 1980s and 1990s, public sector unions assumed that they were winning decertification elections rather than the independent unions and discovered that they weren't. Soon enough they realized that the problem was that they weren't doing a good enough job of representing their members. Workers were not voting for the company unions, which were little more than law firms or insurance companies. They were voting against the poor representation.

Hey UFT Leadership:  I believe this is a big part of the message members are trying to get out to the world in the comments on this blog and elsewhere. People here respect the idea of a union but want one that has their back and represents them with everything they have. You have to do more than say that people are lucky they have a job. 

Richman again:

Humpty Dumpty is sitting on the wall and if Neil Gorsuch and John Roberts kick him off I am not particularly interested in being one of the king's horses and men trying to put him together again. At that point the system is fundamentally broken and we need new demands about what kind of system we want and new strategies about how we exploit the brokenness of the system to make them regret what they have done.

Exclusive representation—combined with agency fee and DFR (Duty to Fair Representation) —worked for a long time. But if you knock one piece out, it all falls apart. We shouldn't be pining for bygone days. We need to be thinking forward about what opportunities this creates. 

I still say to teachers and other educators in NYC that I would rather repair the UFT from within than start a all over but one never knows what the post Janus union world will bring.