Ariel has her truth (which I did not interpret as being an absolute one) based in part on her experiences in the classroom, her preparation as a teacher, and her intention to help create teaching as a profession where its members (not administrators or policymakers) establish and enforce standards in the field. If teaching will be become the profession students deserve — which will include the using of political power to serve them — then teachers like Ariel and others and will have to stand up, take charge, and ensure quality among their colleagues. This is why Dal Lawrence (Toledo AFT) and many others launched peer review programs.

I suspect others have their truths based on their experiences — which has included long-standing efforts to fight off administrative abuses of teachers and the marginalization of students. This is why many took offense at Ariel’s truth – recognizing that teachers must stand firm together in their struggle with the powers that be. Solidarity is the answer to their truth.

But there is not one truth. There are multiple ones here.

So how do we learn from each other, the powerful message which “Free Speech” writes here. But also we should think about how rapidly our society is changing and the role that a 21st century teaching profession must play if students will have access to the public education they need and teachers have the power and influence to act together on their behalf. I believe, based on my experiences (and my own interpretations) that the teaching profession and teacher solidarity must look very differently — and soon.

Life as a sub has gotten harder because of ATR’s providing coverages. Class sizes are also ridiculously huge. I have often heard teachers close to retirement dreaming of getting stuck in the rubber room for a year or two before they retire, so they can sit back and relax. The reasons why the interviews mentioned in the article were so bad was because of the above reason, ATR’s often do not want to work, if they can sit in the rubber room and get paid the same rate. It is a shame that UFT does not represent all of its membership, by shafting per-diems who want to work, unlike the ungrateful ATR’s.

These CEO’s may have read the books but they must have poor comprehension.

Teachers have never been consulted in any meaningful way and never will be. Give me those old dictators who made it to principal by climbing up the ropes. At least they were once in teachers’ shoes.

The only way that will ever work is true teacher power. I bet on them to pick the best principal over any other method.

I worked under both systems of principals- the authoritarian ones and the alleged ones from the Indoctrination …oops, I mean Leadership Academy. The ones from the Leadership Academy, like the one I had at my old middle school in the Rockaways right before my departure, were far worse than any one I ever had. Everyone knew he only got the job because the regional superintendent of region 5 was his wife’s aunt. He verbally abused the staff, gave out contradictory instructions, and drove staff morale of a phasing out school into the toilet.

He also used discriminatory staffing practices, saying “I know all about you” to me during my first pre-observation conference. I found out that meant he knew I had been out 30 days the previous school year due to my hospitalization and my father’s death where I had to travel to Virginia for the funeral, so he was out to punish me since the previous principal would not. The previous principal was an authoritarian type who understood that I had a medical condition. This Leadership Acacemy drone was also physically abusive to his staff, A few eeks before my departure from this tenth circle of hell, I was in the hallway to observe passing, as he required us to do even though it was unwise and stupid to turn your back on kids in yout room in a middle school. This was despite it beingmy prep period, so I had no kids in the room. I saw one of my colleagues two doors down step into her classroom for a second to calm them down because they got very noisy. I could hear some of them. Anyway, I then saw this Leadership Academy graduate go into the room, drag her out by the shoulders,and slam her into a wall in the hallway IN FULL VIEW of the students.
Kitchen Sink, you are naive if you believe that just because someone has read books about distributive leadership and learned about it means that they abide by its practices. I’d rather work for Atilla the Hun than ever work for a Leadership Academy graduate again.

But I think things are getting better, not worse. I’ve seen enough of the old practices to know that I’m not interested in the abusive principals of the past. I’ll take the leadership academy CEOs-in-training over the authoritarian “my way or the highway” prima donnas I’ve had to work for any day. At least the CEOs in training have read the Michael Fullan, Roland Barth, books, etc., about distributive leadership.

That’s part of the problem. They talk about all these things but the ed deformers don’t care squat about teacher quality or decent leadership or strong school culture. Jeez, you sound like a brochure for a degree from the Leadership academy.

The leadership in the NYC schools is at as low as point as it’s ever been. Do you really think teacher quality in NYC after 7 years of ed deform and in Chicago after 15 years is any better?

“The best teachers I have met in my life are resourceful, creative and hard working, and have a lot to contribute in terms of curriculum development and pedagogy. But unless they are part of a structured team, and have meaningful opportunities to contribute to a school-wide plan..”

Now you may claim that teachers in the school you run get to contribute to a school-wide plan, but I’d bet that in 90% of the schools in NYC they have little or no role at all. The so-called “structured plans” are almost all top down and there goes your creative, resourceful teachers off to better pastures outside the hard core urban areas and into the suburbs.

Sometimes we have to deal with reality, not textbook definitions of what an educational system should look like. If teachers are truly to be the central cog, until teachers play a truly meaningful role, including having a major share in deciding who will be principal and being able to hold that person accountable along with parents- call it bottom up accountability where there is real responsibility to the constituents instead of “vote me out every four years even though I can spend 100 million if schools are failing” – there will be no reform.

Please inform as to how “There is just as much of a push to fix what’s going on outside the classrooms as there is inside the classrooms.” Maybe in the fantasy world produced by mayor’s PR machine there is, but not in the universe my colleague and I inhabit.

As for fixing the problem of school communities requiring leadership, perhaps so, but we differ on where that leadership is to come from. As a parent and teacher I can only say that it’s definitely not going to come from people who at most have had little than a cup of coffee in the classroom, which rules out a significant percentage of the people taking over the schools.

The problem is not in the teachers (or other teachers’ envy), but in an education system that doesn’t value education. This is the result of giving control of the school system to bankers and lawyers with no experience as education professionals. Principals are “empowered” to worry about budgets; schools are rewarded for empty statistics.

With class sizes upward of 32, there should not be teachers out of work. There should be more classes, more contact between teacher and student, more CTT classes, more music, art, science and (in this multi-lingual metropolis) MORE LANGUAGES!

The hiring freeze is damaging the schools – good teachers are out of work and grow discouraged with the profession, those with jobs are overworked, and while the so-called grownups call “crisis”, parents and students suffer the real crisis.

You’re dead wrong on one count: “the premise that the success of a child, as measured by high-stakes tests, is entirely on the shoulders of a teacher…is the party line here”

Get past the fog of your righteous indignation and look a little deeper at the full set of policies advocated by the “deformers.” They talk about teacher quality, and they talk about leadership, and strong school cultures. There is just as much of a push to fix what’s happening outside the classrooms as their is inside the classrooms.

I’d like to see more attention paid to the holistic needs of children and families, a clear factor in student and school success. But if the CSA were more vocal, I’d bet we’d hear the same howling about principals being blamed for all the school woes.

Teachers are the central cog of any school community. They have their share of the responsibility. But I would disagree with anyone, even Joel Klein for whom I am a mole after all, who says that student achievement rests entirely with teachers.

And Ariel, in the same vein, I would like to question what you mean by teacher autonomy. The best teachers I have met in my life are resourceful, creative and hard working, and have a lot to contribute in terms of curriculum development and pedagogy. But unless they are part of a structured team, and have meaningful opportunities to contribute to a school-wide plan, their ingenuity is wasted when that child leaves the classroom and June and goes to a (possibly equally high-quality) disconnected, incoherent experience in the next grade. That’s not how you build a strong school community and a strong school experience for a child.

And fixing that problem, Michael F., is not about the teacher, it’s about leadership.

Your sense of self-importance and entitlement is evident in the statement, “Are we not considered a priority?” Well, frankly, as a substitute, not yet hired as a full-time teacher, you’re not. And again, once you are a full time, tenured teacher, you will hopefully come to understand the value of seniority, which is the only thing that prevents people from being thrown on the garbage heap, after years of service, by venal or incompetent administrators.

As for those incompetent teachers whom you’re so superior to, who hired them? Who gave them tenure? Who can’t build an effective case – which can be done despite the editorial page propaganda – against them? Doesn’t management have some responsibility here, and if they do, are they the ones you want to entrust to make these professional life-or-death decisions?

As for union dues, while I have a lot of issues with the leadership, the union has nevertheless earned your dues money by negotiating the scales and working conditions under which you work. While those are far from perfect, they’re far better than anything your could hope to get on your own. Your remarkableness as a teacher counts for very little with the city’s labor relations lawyers.

As for the union discouraging new teachers, again, are they they only guilty party here? Or is the discouragement of new teachers – a very real thing, but, believe me, discouragement is pandemic right now – the fault of a school system leadership that is incompetent when it is not malicious, which is then worsened by a weak and co-opted union leadership?

I only just read your most recent comments.

Again, I commend you for your willingness to deal with these issues openly, using your real name. I hate using the cliche “learning experience,” but perhaps it fits.

Unions take a defensive position because the reality is that they have a very tenuous handhold on legitimacy in this country. Please keep in mind that until the passage of the Norris-LaGuardia and Wagner Acts of the 1930′s, they were legally seen as criminal conspiracies in restraint of trade. Many, many people still hold this view – I’m sure many of them in positions of power in the urban school systems of the country – although perhaps not for public attribution.

So, their defensiveness is well-earned. The comparative strength of public sector unions is an even more recent development, and one that is under broad attack on many fronts.

So, to go back to your point: why don’t the unions take up the issue of teacher quality? The problem as I see it is that the issue has been framed, and the terms of debate set, in such a way that we can only lose. Start off with the premise that the success of a child, as measured by high-stakes tests, is entirely on the shoulders of a teacher – which is the party line here – sets us up for failure. Acceptance of pseudo-scientific “research” only puts us deeper in the whole they are digging for us.

Every aspect of so-called education reform – changes in curriculum, school organization and governance, teaching methodology, etc. – has originated with teachers and parents, and was dutifully ignored by the powers that be, until they recognized their self-interest in dominating it, and proceeded to hijack it.

Having ignored the schools for decades while they amassed their billions, and lobbied against the income and capital gains taxes that would have adequately funded the public schools, I’m not willing to give them the benfit of the doubt on anything.

What the unions need to do is re-establish their power, and tilt the hideously lopsided balance of power away from capital and towards labor. Perhaps then we can pick up this conversation on a fairer basis.

I suggest you get a little more experience teaching in the public schools before you spout your narrow and ill-informed comments. If you decide to actually stay with it, you’ll find out that administrators are not always the best judge of teaching talent or the interests of students, and that seniority is there to protect even people like you.

I actually wrote this comment last night before you had posted the above comment, but never submitted it:

The fact that the unions provide a voice for working people who otherwise would be powerless is progressive. But I wonder what is the position of the union regarding the state of the teaching profession. I agree there is very ugly maneuvering going on by the “Money Power” players. One of the weaknesses I see in the union is that it seems to
take a defensive position most of the time–and in many ways defending a profession that was set up for 20th century schools. The union ends up compromising with the money powers, and since the situation for teachers and schools was never that great to begin with, we are losing (and so are students). Speaking very broadly here, how can we take a more offensive position, fighting publicly for a new, teacher-led vision for schools and our profession? And as a part of that, how can we be the ones to take up the issue of quality teachers in every classroom instead of letting those far removed from classrooms preach about it?

(For the record, if I were in a position to make a decision that could improve teacher quality, then, despite the content of my original post here, “counseling poor teachers out” of the profession would not be it, or even in the running. Improved working conditions, including autonomy in the classroom and incentives for teachers to stay in the profession would be front and center. Unfortunately, at GS you’ve “met” me at the one moment when I have ever come down on teachers in my writing. Clearly I did not do that in a way that accurately represented my broader perspective of what’s happening and what needs to happen in our schools. I hope to do a better job of that in subsequent posts.)

There is a lot of truth in what Shanker said. The problem is that the unions are being snared into “…counsel(ing) poor teachers out of the profession” – see the PIP+ program in NYC and the new contract in New Haven – without having gained the political power to have a say in “budget, hiring, curriculum, student placement, assessment, and instructional strategies.” It’s not a good place to be.

This forum may not be the place to get into a debate about Shanker’s role in public education and national – and for that matter, international – politics. I would only suggest that the path he chose is partially responsible for the plight we face.

The UFT, with its $125 or more million annual dues income, has the potential to be a powerful force for the interests of teachers, students, public education and the public sector in general. Instead, it has chosen to use its resources in a parochial and narrow way, often sabotaging its own long term interests and those of the communities it serves. That must change, and then a new strategy of comprehensive engagement and struggle must follow, and soon.

It’s not just a struggle for the continuance of public education, but in many ways a struggle for representative democracy.

I wonder, though, how teachers’ unions can trump the powers that be and the long-standing efforts to de-professionalize teaching. It won’t be by relying on a revolving door of teachers — which many school “reformers” seek. What will it take to ensure more young teachers stay in the profession long enough to bolster their collective voice around the interests of students and their families.

How can the teachers unions “right the pathological imbalance between capital and labor? Can they do so by reframing the debate over teaching effectiveness and saying “no” to the power elites by saying “yes” to focusing more of their efforts on students and their learning – the ultimate beneficiaries of public education? In some ways it seems to me this is how this extraordinary discussion and debate (and sometimes diatribe) started on GS back on October 22.

A number of years ago Al Shanker wrote: “If teaching is to become a true profession, we must establish high standards for entry into teacher training programs and deliver high-quality preservice education to prospective practitioners. We must set and maintain high and rigorous standards for entry into the profession and evaluate practitioners according to those standards. We must provide support for weak teachers and, when necessary, counsel poor teachers out of the profession. We must become a major participant in the decisions that affect the working and learning environment of the school — for example, decisions regarding budget, hiring, curriculum, student placement, assessment, and instructional strategies.”

So how do we get from there from here? I suspect there must be some mix of Alinsky-esque organizing as well as members themselves, as Shanker posited, “evaluat(ing) the performance of practitioners and remov(ing) from the profession those whose performance falls below standards.”

Unions, whatever their many shortcomings, are still the progressives, and that’s why they are perpetual targets. They are self-financed working class organizations that maintain wages on the high end, while bringing up wages on the low end. Union scale wages set the standard even in non-union shops. This is as true in education as in the auto, mining or any other industry.

Unions provide protection and a voice to people who would otherwise be powerless. They have historically provided political counterweight to the Money Power in this country. Their having won the right to picket has been an unacknowledged victory for civil liberties. Those are all progressive qualities, and they continue.

Teacher unions are an institutional defense for public schools and their students (thus the well-financed attacks against them): they fight against short-sighted budget cutbacks, and for programs to support vulnerable populations. They maintain class size levels and allow veteran teachers to be parts of the communities they serve without fear of removal. Progressive qualities, all.

As for for gaining the upper hand in reforming the schools, the teacher unions must do what all unions in the country must do: right the pathological imbalance between capital and labor, which is the source of many of the economic and social problems the country faces.

To put it in crude terms – which are the terms that govern and drive the ed deformers, despite their PR – it’s about power and control. Working people need more of it in and outside of work, and the overclass needs to hear the word “no” more often.