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I think commenting by teachers (or DOE Central staff for that matter) during the school day, particularly when using school computers or the school’s network, is a questionable practice. Though I assure you that if the comments were pro-DOE policy, no action would be taken. It’s sad but that is the reality. However making assumptions isn’t fair. Teachers have an unassigned lunch period and blog posts during that time should not be an issue. In fact teachers are encouraged to use the internet and scouring blogs for good ideas is part of that practice. Additionally, with the cost of cellular modems down to reasonable levels and soon nearly inconsequential with the release of the iPad and it’s low cost 3G (such as it is on ATT in NYC) coverage and the simple fact that teachers often have their own laptops and nearly anyone can post from today’s messaging and Smart phones, it’s a practice that really cannot be properly and fairly monitored for good or evil.

My own personal policy is not to make anti-DOE remarks on school time and to minimize personal internet use during my non-lunch periods. And I do have both a cellular modem and a Smart phone ( a marvelous Motorola Droid Android based phone I might add) but I still tend to monitor what I do when I do it. I’m sure I’m broken that rule from time to time somewhere online but I believe I’m far more careful about it than anyone has a right to expect me to be.

A blog’s owner can manipulate the timing of comments too with the right know-how.

The more important issue is why do current DOE practices so enrage the professional staff in the trenches. Is it just that we’re all good for nothing lazy expletives who care nothing for the well being of the children in our charge OR could it be that we see first hand the positives and negatives and realize that the trade-offs are just not worth it for these children and that there are better ways to reform the system.

The DoE’s Internet Usage Policy specifically prohibits people from using Board equipment (whether at a board location or by remote to a board location) for “other than educational purposes.”

I think EVERYTHING Arthur writes is “educational,” so he’s in the clear.

But, seriously, it’s the honchos at the DoE I’m worried about — execs, administrators and public relations people with full access to Board equipment. These are the ones selling out the system to private entitities and playing chess games with student populations.

Read the Klein/Moskowitz emails, which certainly look like DoE email. They’re signed “Klein Joel I.” – which is the way the DoE’s internal Outlook program configures his name. Those emails fit right into the abuse category listed on the DoE’s own policy, see for yourself:

• Sending or receiving personal messages
• Using the Internet for commercial purposes advertising or similar objectives

not to mention that many of these email that the Daily News FOILed were written during school hours.

SOrry, this should say: Who thinks he has the right to decide which form of communication is acceptable and which isn’t?

This entire issue of “improper” posting during company time is a red herring, and we should not allow the discussion of the central issue of school closings and privatizations to be sidetracked by scabs.

One of the reasons the UFT membership has found itself prostrate before the Bloomberg/Klein assault is precisely its abidance with laws and regulations imposed to institutionalize an already unequal playing field for teachers viz our bosses. This ranges from said regulations barring teachers from expressing views at variance with the DoE’s during the school day, to the Taylor Law. All of these should be challenged at the right moment. The UFT leadership has wielded scare tactics with respect to this false legality for years in order to keep the membership in line. It fears a mobilized membership even more than it fears or opposes the bosses. After all, an empowered membership threatens their bureaucratic privileges, their cozy relationship with the political machinery and their revolving door into Tweed.

The neoliberal agenda that Obama/Duncan/Paterson/Bloomberg/Klein are imposing in NYC schools — just one variant of what Naomi Klein calls “disaster capitalism”, which in this case means the disaster that successive waves of corporate shills (i.e., presidents, governors, mayors) have brought to public education — has NOTHING to do with “looking out for the children,” as one writer disingenuously stated. It has EVERYTHING to do with making public schools abide by another set of laws — the laws of the market. And, make no mistake about it, that is where the fragmentation of public school systems into independent charters leads. In a market economy, charters will be run as businesses, and eventually controlled by for-profit corporations, much as has happened in health care. And as a teacher and a parent, I can’t think of anything more destructive of children’s education than the profit motive. Both for children and teachers, ‘Obloomba-cation’ means the maquiladorization of schools, at least for most folks in our city (and country). Low-wage labor and cheap products.

Very revealing discussion. Thanks. I had predicted, over fifteen years ago, many of the current developments, such as the assault on the urban public schools and the wooing of understandably upset minority parents by those who have always wanted to dispose of these schools. But no one was listening, least of all the union leaders.

I had wanted teachers, collectively, to have a voice in educational policy, both in its formulation and in its implementation — providing the input and feedback needed to adjust both to the realities of the classroom and the social environment the students come from.

There were desperately urgent matters having to do with the breakdown of classroom order — the peace and quiet needed for learning and teaching — and with curriculum issues — those of relevance, sequence, focus, correlation, pace and time — along with the special needs of immigrants and others. These matters needed attention. Who had more stake in this, other than students and parents, than the teachers — and who was more qualified? But none of this voicing took place, with some sort of consensus on the very basic minimal needs of teachers and students, in a public, well-formulated fashion.

This was a failure on the part of the teaching community, many of whose members were working exceedingly hard at the individual level, but could not seem to find a collective voice on basic issues. And this was a failure, in particular, on the part of our union leadership, who were best positioned to do the needful.

Unfortunately, it appeared that, both on the part of working teachers and even more so on the part of the union, there was fear that any public airing of the problems in the schools would be perceived as an admission of incompetence.

I disagreed — the problems were real, and mostly not of our doing. An almost impossible situation had been created. The problems would not go away of themselves, nor could they be hidden. We did not have the working conditions needed to produce reasonable educational outcomes for too many of our students. I knew that, in time, teachers would be the scapegoats in this, as usual — and would have to cede whatever little control and autonomy we still retained in our own profession if we did not educate parents about the problems in the schools and recruit their assistance.

Unfortunately, both the BOE and the union pathways were closed to input from the classrooms.

The educational establishment — both the DOE and the union leadership, seemed to have accepted, or ceded in practice to, an unchallenged hypothesis — namely, that teacher incompetence lay behind poor educational outcomes. Having been in many different schools, including some of the best and worst, both as a regular and as a sub, and having seen the outcomes in one school change over thirteen years from well above average to well below, I knew that this hypothesis was highly questionable if not patently false.

However, all the past attempts at “school reform” appeared to proceed from this assumption, that was never challenged openly by our union leaders. Indeed, it seems that they may have either believed it themselves, or not thought it expedient to mount a challenge.

This left the field open for educational pundits of various stripes whose ideas, almost always centering on methodology, were periodically crammed down the throats of working teachers and their wards. As the unidirectional flow of information and directives in the schools left no room for course corrections based on actual impact in the classrooms, these “reforms” almost invariably added to problems in the schools, creating chaos.

Teachers who attempted to challenge methodoloical diktats, or question or fix curricular issues, were advised by their more experienced peers not to rock the boat and draw unwelcome attention from administrators — but rather to “give the administrators what they want”, when observed, so they “would go away and let you do your job”. In the circumstances, this was not bad advice for individual survival. But it was a prescription for the termination of our profession.

I had said that either we could take charge of our profession, or someone else would. If we were in charge, we might be able to do things right — to strike the appropriate balances, informed by our years of experience — both with teaching kids and with dealing with curricular snafus.

Now, we see the expected swing towards testing and data — to the point of obsession, with teachers completely out of the loop. That false hypothesis remains unchallenged, and now cannot be just ignored as we go about business as usual — schools are being closed, the ATR’s have become a political liability, with the media having been used to prime the public for their firing, and all our jobs, and the public school system itself, is in jeopardy. Will the kids be better off? I sincerely doubt it. There is no substitute for experience, dedication and knowledge. And it takes years to build a teacher and a school.

And the emphasis on methodology (often overgeneralized, inappropriate and even puerile in the extreme) has not gone away — it has only become more acute — to the point of insanity.

Arjun Janah

Perhaps JW should re-read the thread. Because that is EXACTLY how the issue of “inappropriate postings” was used. A red herring. Arthur posted an excellent piece on school privatization, and some sought to delegitimize Goldstein and sidetrack the discussion into whether or not he appropriately used DoE time to post! I stand by my characterization. Of course such censorship or UFT leadership abuses is subject to discussion. But, the intent, here, was clear.

Really Peter. It’s amazing how you would use this post to try to hurt a fellow teacher who pays dues so you can keep your cushy job. There was also an incident not too long ago where a DR went to talk to a principal about a union rep he didn’t like. Is this the UFT we can expect? Were the givebacks only the beginning. If you thought there would be a problem, you could have directly emailed or phoned Mr. Goldstein. That would have been the professional thing to do.

For those of you who really want to know who puts kids first, I’ll tell you how to find out: Go into the homes of the children to see who is caring for them day and night. Then go into the schools and find out who is in the classroom each day, every day, year after year. Yes, parents and teachers put children first.