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Classroom tales: A diary

January 19, 2011

Why I Joined Educators 4 Excellence

by Ruben Brosbe, at 10:52 am

This post is long overdue, and I want to apologize for that, or any appearance that I was hiding my involvement with Educators 4 Excellence. The truth is, I work with E4E because I believe in what the group is doing. And I don’t believe what I believe just because I work with E4E.

Until recently, I didn’t know anything about E4E. I had read GothamSchools’ profile last April and joined their Facebook group, but that was the extent of my “membership.” Right after my (heavily edited) column on teacher data reports appeared in the New York Post, several commenters mentioned E4E, assuming I had some deeper affiliation. I didn’t, but ironically, these comments stoked my curiosity in the organization.

A week or so later, I attended an education policy panel featuring Diane Ravitch, then-Deputy Chancellor Shael Polakow-Suransky and … Education 4 Excellence’s co-founder Evan Stone. When the panel was over, I introduced myself to Evan and E4E’s outreach coordinator, Ryan Black. Soon after I sat down with Ryan, Evan and E4E’s cofounder, Sydney Morris, to talk about how I could be a part of the group.

But I realize how I got involved with E4E is much less important than why I got involved. The truth is since I started teaching, I have looked for ways to connect with other teachers who were not only passionate about our work as educators, but viewed it as part of a broader fight for social justice.

My closest peers in teaching were those who shared my passion for education and my belief that our work was inextricable from the larger conversation developing on education reform. We constantly shared challenges in our classrooms and our school, and we often discussed how that work was affected by local and federal policies. We also talked about how we might do things differently, or what we might say if we ever had the chance to talk to Chancellor Klein or Mayor Bloomberg.

At its core, this is what E4E represents. It is a group of teachers who believe in the importance of their work, who believe that education can and must be better, and believe that they have an important voice to lend to the discussion of how to make this change occur. If you read E4E’s declaration of principles there are definitely points that would draw fire from some teachers. E4E is not meant to represent all teachers, but the principles are generally intended to invite as broad a spectrum of educators as possible.

There is a lot of room for discussion within those principles. How to create a “holistic and equitable system” for evaluating teachers is a debate I’m a part of as a member of E4E’s Teacher Evaluation Policy Team. Over the past month and a half that the team has worked on developing an evaluation system, there has been plenty of disagreement. This has only made our work stronger. However within this diverse group of 16 educators, there’s a unity of opinion that the current evaluation system is inadequate, and a better one must be created.

If you believe that the current satisfactory/unsatisfactory rating system is best for teachers and values their work, you will probably disagree with E4E’s platform. If you believe that “last in, first out” hiring rules make the best policy for teachers and students, that three years of service is a reasonable amount of time to earn tenure, or that the current pay structure is fair, you’ll disagree with E4E’s platform.

You’re free to disagree with these points, or any others included in the E4E declaration of principles. But to discount E4E’s members as puppets, or to base arguments on vitriol instead of facts, does a disservice to our profession. The more teachers that take an active role in the education debate, the better, because whatever our differences, we all share a common commitment to our students.

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  • Michael Fiorillo

    Schoolgal,

    While the UFT/AFT’s work with Gates is a terrible strategic blunder, and is harmful to teacher and students interests, it is not exactly the same as E$E’s.

    First, it is being done in a misguided attempt at playing defense (which explains Michael Mulrgrew’s meeting with E$E), rather than going on offense, which is what E$E is about. The union leadership is misguided because it should know and act on the fact that the union/teachers and people like Gates have an inherent divergence of interests. But that is precisely not the case with E$E, whose program is basically a transposition of the agenda Gates is pursuing, and which is similarly aligned with his aggressive ideological and economic interests.

    Second, the UFT’s work with Gates is being done in public (sort of), whereas, as anyone who’s looked at the E$E website can attest, they are cagey about who is behind them. 

    You and others may see this as a distinction without a difference, and in the end the results may be the same, but I think it does have some significance.

    ECE,

    Congratulations on your lifelong commitment to teaching, but you’ve got a lot of things wrong:

    - you challenge teachers as to how they know they are effective, and seem to imply that some sort of “objective” measure is required. And what would that be? The current tests? But they have been shown to be invalid and politically manipulated, and it cannot be otherwise, given the life-or-death weight placed on them. The “data” that is strangling the profession and children’s education, while often invalid, is a useful tool of control; the one who controls what information “counts” is the one who establishes the premises of the system. 

    Sorry, but I’ll stick with my old-fashioned metric: a foot-thick file of thankful and affectionate cards from students, visits from students years after they graduate to thank me, invitations to their weddings, visits to funerals of students and their family members.

    - you confuse senior teachers (10+ years experience) with “old” teachers (an ageist statement in itself). You should know that seniority is a tried-and-true, if imperfect, means of eliminating favoritism and competition within the workforce, which is otherwise pitted against itself (precisely why E$E receives funding from the people it does).

    - You repeat the let’s-create-a-panic mantra of the US’s standing on international exams, without mentioning that, when subtracting out the poorest students (and failing to mention the US’s ever-increasing production of poor children; highest productivity in the developed world, as a matter of fact) we score at or near the top.

    - You attack the status quo, but Bloomberg has had dictatorial control of the schools for almost a decade. Bloomberg’s model, which is the template for ed deform nationally, is the status quo.

    - You seem to claim that a student survey, as proposed by Gates and occurring after a long series of actions from above that they had no involvement in, somehow makes up for the disenfranchisement of parents and other stakeholders in affecting policy decisions. Again, the disconnect and hypocrisy is mind-boggling, as people who have taken the vote away from minority parents claim to be promoting “the civil rights issue of our time.”

    - Your statement about  ”I” and “we” sounds nice, but it ignores the Social Darwinism that is at the heart of the corporate takeover of the schools, under the guise of “competition” and “choice.” Even granting the dubious claims of charter schools, why should students have to enter lotteries when the schools in their communities have been, and continue to be, systematically underfunded? Why are precious resources being diverted to privately-run schools that are executing hostile takeovers of public school space? I’ll again add that funders of E$E include Board members of Harlem Success Academy, probably the most aggressive expropriator of public school facilities.

    KS,

    Your constant repetition of the conspiracy-nut refrain is a laff riot. I’m glad if it helps you ignore the substance of the critique, which you studiously do. Readers should also be aware that I never speak of conspiracy, but of consensus. Gates, Broad, the Walton’s, et. al. aren’t hiding anything; they are openly privatizing educational policy, curricula, pedagogy, infrastructure and labor relations. Their wealth, arrogance and a weakened democracy allow them to do it in full public display. There’s no conspiracy here, and your harping on it is a red herring.

    As for my taking liberties with E4E’s (there, is that better?) shorthand version of their name, yes, there’s sarcasm there, but there’s also a reference to the fact that they are marketing themselves as a brand. Additionally, putting aside their superficial rhetoric about children (children that the group’s founders love so much that they stopped teaching them before even receiving the tenure they claim is too easy to get), they are about money: saving money by creating a constantly-churned, transient, insecure workforce, and making money for their funders, who worship the stuff.

  • Joe Schmo

    Ruben: I have respect for you explaining your history. (Even If I have been rude in the past) However, the big beef that I and most of the veteran teachers have with you is not your background. Rather it is your up front statements which you and E4E stand for. Your organization admits that you want to change LIFO/tenure laws. That is the one major item where you will face massive criticism from veteran teachers. As a veteran teacher, I really don’t have a beef with some the “ideas” of the reform movement. However, when those ideas impact my ability to support my family and pay for my home, you bet I have a beef with those ideas. Teachers in NYC are now the whipping boys of the civil service world. Where else does experience in your job become an weak link in the system? The thing that really makes me so angry is that when I started teaching in the early 1990′s the BOE (now DOE) could not find enough bodies to cover classes. Now, anybody who taught during the hard times has a target on their backs. What a great way to kill any potential teachers who may want to put in a lifetime of work for the people of NYC in the future.

  • Smith

    Well, Ruben, I guess the “social justice” crowd – Wall Street, Murdoch, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Andrew Breitbart, and the rest of the Tea Party – are thrilled to have you on their side.

  • Schoolgal

    Ruben,
    I was quoting from your own post as to why you joined this organization and it did imply that you found E4E teachers highly motivated and caring as if the rest of us are not. But you didn’t answer the question I posed–are you also a member of TRS and the UFT? And why are you and your organization opposed to pensions? I still can’t get that.

    Michael,
    Do we really know what is going on behind close doors? Nothing is public. Every new move Randi has made has been to benefit her relationship with Gates and was done w/o rank and file approval.

    Am I happy with movements like E4E? No, because someone found a way to make $$$$ off the reform movement the same way charters, TFA and others are making money with RTTT funding instead of it going directly to the classroom. Ruben is young and idealistic. We all were when we started. And maybe being “privileged” means he has a trust fund or some other means so a pension in his older years is not necessary. He would have to explain his reasoning for defending such a hideous action.

    I do not believe passing a one-time high stakes test measures the value of a teacher. Progress does. I cannot believe anyone wanting to stay in teaching for the long run will wind up staying with these organizations. There will be a time when union representation will be important. Let’s hope there’s a strong union when the time comes.

    As for Ruben, I never read his columns. But if he indeed defended VAM and didn’t mention his association with E4E, than that was misleading. I have however read E4E’s page and found it highly disrespectful to public school teachers. I do not consider the founders by any means educators. We have lawyers, magazine editors, Oprahs, and business tycoons telling us how to do our jobs. The only people who should be the major players in this conversation, the teachers, are not allowed in.

  • http://None. Michael

    I know Ruben and am impressed by his passion for children, their potential, and the role education plays in shaping their lives and improving our nation. I know him to speak his mind and to say things that, at times, don’t align with E4E’s leadership. And this is why he is welcomed as a member of E4E and why he views himself as an active member. Debate is part of what makes us the greatest country in the world, after all.

    The fact of the matter is that amid the politics and talk about “elitism,” “hedge-funds,” and “social justice,” this entire conversation (not on this Web site, but across the country) is about kids. That’s where the conversation needs to start and end – but it currently doesn’t.

    Full disclosure: I am a Teach For America alum. This is my third year of teaching middle school students with special needs in the Bronx. I have taught ELA, math, science, social studies, and government. And, I am sure, like all others commenting on this site I am proud of my service to my kids. We do this for a living – of course we are all passionate. If we weren’t we wouldn’t be paying attention.

    I value everyone’s opinion who was spent time in the classroom – if you have, you have dedicated a portion of your life to students. It just so happens that a great deal of teachers happen to share the same opinion as E4E: we want the very best for students. I have spoken to 10 teachers at my school about E4E and it has been very positively received. Alternatively, those who disagree with E4E’s tenents are fully intitled to. Democracy is about disagreement so this is healthy. All the while I am excited and confident that American education is changing as we speak. I believe it is changing in a direction that is better for our kids – that means less poverty and more opportunity. It means fewer uniformed consumers and more vigilient voters.

    This may be my third year, but I know that I have done everything possible in my short time in my classroom to support my students. I currently write this post as I sit in my classroom grading papers. It’s 9 pm. Each year I have written a dozen IEPs. I have led multiple-work shops and lead our special education department. I have brought a national study to our school to aid our teachers and students in psycholgoical type. I have gone to every book drive I can find to bring new books to my kids.

    But here’s the honest truth of it – I know I am not an awesome teacher. And I need to be. My students, on average, are four grade levels behind in reading. They need an awesome teacher to help them meet their potential. And I think awesome should be the new expectation. Awesome needs to be the norm – our kids need it. And if I am not awesome, which I am not right now, then I need to improve as fast as I can. My kids deserve it. And the fact that every E4E member that I have met holds a similar view inspires me.

    So let the debate rage. It should … as long as kids are the first and last thing we think about when talk about the issue that affects them more than it affects us – education.

  • Schoolgal

    Every teacher should be awesome. I totally agree. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they will always succeed. And success right now is measured by a passing test score. I am sure your students made wonderful progress. And our goal just shouldn’t be about them passing tests. It should also be about making them citizens of the world–able to think out problems and be self-sufficient. Right now it’s all about the tests and academic growth, That’s not what “awesome” teaching is about. Social growth should also be part of the equation to measure success.

    btw, Diane Ravitch is the only person out there speaking about the social inequalities.

  • KAT

    The level of hatred that is displayed of those who are teaching our youth…is frankly appalling. Those of you who aren’t in favor of E4E seemed to think you’re informed about their agenda, but on the contrary a lot of your information is flawed. I applaud Ruben for his candor throughout this conversation and it definitely supports the fact that E4E members are truly seeking an intellectual conversation about educational improvement. Whether you’re an Ivy League person or not, our system of public education has been broken and someone needs to fix it. I saw some tenured teachers speak to the fact that Evan and Sydney don’t have the understanding in teaching to be suggesting policy changes, its actually disappointing that some of you haven’t done much of anything to improve the status quot.

  • Mustafa

    E4E is not bankrolled by an external entity sans an agenda. They are not benevolent. Their benefactor’s goal is to privatize education and to make money off of it. They’re not looking out for children’s interests, that a facade.

    In order to further their goals they are trying to union bust. One of the primary beliefs of trade unionism is to remove the employers ability to be subjective and whimsical, and SENIORITY is at the core of that.

    E4E’s primary function is to end seniority. That’s done several ways: under the guise of a grassroots organization, by appealling to the novice educator’s want to socialize with others new to the profession, and through the manipulation of organization members who aren’t aware of the agenda.

    Those here speaking out against E4E are not expressing hatred or outrage, you’re witnessing resistance. Maybe someday, with learned wisdom of the system, the pro E4E people here will understand why.

  • Schoolgal

    And again, another attack on public school teachers. What do you think happens to teachers who do speak up Kat? While you might not know our names or the fact that we didn’t start an organization does not mean we haven’t fought on the front lines. When we do disagree with policy, we are harassed. We fight for our kids every day. But if an administrator thinks test prep is better than actual teaching, we have no recourse. If a student is denied support services because he passed a test that was proved to be flawed, we have no recourse. When someone who shouldn’t be in the classroom is teaching, we have no recourse. When a teacher is given 35 students, but not enough desks or chairs, we have no recourse. When students are forced to take classes in trailers, we have no recourse. Public school students for decades have been placed on the bottom of every priority list. Reformers refuse to look at the social injustices. They want to increase class size. And Cathie Black jokes about birth control and Sophie’s Choice. We have to depend onDiane Ravitch, Leonie Haimson, Patrick Sullivan just to name a few to champion the cause of our students.

    TEACHERS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO BE PART OF THE SOLUTION. Even the founders of E4E had to give up full-time teaching. When you don’t have a family to support and have the means to leave a job, I suppose it’s viable.

  • Michael Fiorillo

    KAT,

    Please give a specific example of my flawed information. And please don’t try to confuse the discussion by mixing up hatred with criticism. 

    I could care less where Ruben and the founders of E$E went to school, and have never referred to it. That’s a distraction from the real issues, which this group has become a fulcrum of. I address their proposals, the premises behind them, the interests I believe they serve, and the means by which they are propagated. Lacking any specific rebuttals, I can only conclude that the truth hurts.

    But not as much as students and teachers will be hurt if E$E’s agenda is enacted. Their program would have profound consequences inside and outside the classroom. It would intensify the stifling and regimentation of children’s educations by institutionalizing high stakes testing as the critical measure of what a student gets from school, and it it will without a doubt eliminate the (socially beneficial) tradition of teaching as a stable career. 

    I give this group the respect of taking them seriously, even if it’s to the extent that I believe they are the cat’s paw of some very powerful interests that seek to claim an ever-growing piece of the “educational marketplace.” 

    In that marketplace, where “educational entrepreneurs” dictate a “business model” that “drives” people with “data” (junk data, but who cares, since it keeps everyone in line), children become a commodity. Listen to the debased langauge that even concerned, compassionate and hardworking teachers use: kids are “1′s” or “2′s, and disproportionate resources are directed towards turning kids from “2′s” to “3′s so that principals and schools can “make their numbers.”

    To claim that reducing and commodifying children, especially poor children, is serving them well, is perverse.

  • Michael Fiorillo

    Michael,

    If “kids are the first and the last thing,” then why is E4E silent about the budget cuts that threaten to increase class size and limit resources for students? One would think that this could be a point of unity between members of the group and union supporters. Yet the budget cuts, when mentioned at all, are spoken of as being part of the natural order of things.

    Or would that be impolite and unacceptable discourse, especially where funding is concerned?

  • Mustafa

    BTW Ruben, I don’t see it in your piece, when did you join E4E?

  • ASTRAKA

    Michael Fiorillo,
    why is your post at 1:51pm missing?

  • GC

    KAT – Ruben’s candor = dissembling about his membership in E4E, how he got the article published in the POST, claiming it was heavily edited in one venue and not in another, etc.
    What info. is flawed? You say things without proof, and when Fiorillo and others ask for specifics you and the others of like mind here ignore him. Re: knowing E4E’s positions – how could we if we have to take a loyalty oath before attending a meeting? That promotes democratic virtues? Secrecy promotes an “intellectual conversation about educational improvement”? Who are you kidding? How much can be done to change the status quo when teachers who have experienced what works and what doesn’t do not have a seat at the table, yet billionaires, neophytes, hedge fund managers, multi -national corporations, and magazine editors do? When the same folks have reorganized the status quo 4 times in the last decade and performance is declining (racial achievment gap, siemens/westinghouse finalists, phony test scores, phony ending social promotion, not-existant parent voice, creating incentives for principals and teachers to game test scores for $ or just to keep their jobs). The great charter school reform movement has not achieved any more than traditional public schools, despite low class sizes, more resources, lower student teacher ratios.

    Linn Lanesboro –
    “You were stereotyping Ruben as running with Ivy League TFAers” more candor? And nothing to refute it? Evan, Sydney, and Kitchen Sink ran from the classroom when they saw a chance to make a quick buck, that’s how committed to social justice they are. They are allied with a (now former) Chancellor who rails against public pensions and yet is receiving one. Kitchen Sink: snarkiness is ok, but if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks, Elmer Fudd shoots at it…. Unions Serve No Purpose: “smear them for receiving funding from educational think collectives and hedge funds, neither of which has a slanted interest in the conversation regarding education reform.” Really? You might want to attend one of Whitney Tilson’s soirees, or drop by Eva Moskowitz’. “Wouldn’t it be better if the union worked with the education reformers before the general populace got even more tired of their old song and dance and simply did away with the union entirely?” Perhaps you have never heard of Randi Weingarten, Rod Paige’s favorite unionist, who invited Bill Gates to a dialogue at the AFT convention in Seattle, where he was welcomed and treated with respect. How about Michael Mulgrew, coming to an agreement to use teacher data and other new refomer approved methods to rate teachers in NYS?
    As for the title you chose to post under, maybe we should all go back to working 80 day work weeks, bring back child labor, disband the EPA and OSHA, bring back firing workers who get hurt on the job, or getting pregnant, or being the wrong religion, race, or creed? Do they not have courses in the history of the labor movement or history at Ivy League schools? Every time you wake up on a Sat. or a Sunday, thank a trade unionist – people sacrificed an awful lot to get you something that you clearly don’t appreciate or understand.

  • Michael Fiorillo

    Astraka,

    I don’t know, but it was an earlier version of my response to Kitchen Sink.

  • ASTRAKA

    Michael Fiorillo,
    I want to thank you for your passionate posts. The “Young Turks” can not respond to your arguments. They zig and zag , but their inexperience, in life, in teaching, in unionism is apparent.
    As for KC and others like him, they could not stand the heat and they got out of the kitchen.

  • GC

    Astraka: I don’t think they ever planned to stay in the kitchen very long from day one.

  • Michael Fiorillo

    Astraka,

    Thanks for the kind words.

    I’d only say that this is not a young/new vs senior teacher issue (which E$E and its patrons would have us believe), but rather an effort to disguise the struggle of the public interest vs carefully disguised private interests.

    It’s not coincidental that the people who would privatize Social Security try to foment antagonism between the generations, just as these folks are doing in education, rather than public vs private interests, and capital vs labor. 

    In spite of their derivative – these people all sound the same and make the same talking points; does it all come out of the same PR mill? – rhetoric, it all comes down to financial interests trying to impose their market fundamentalism on the schools, despite its catastrophic results everywhere else.

  • Michael Fiorillo

    Ruben Brosbe,

    Some points /requests:

    - Nice of you to admit that E$E’s agenda on firing/tenure/hiring and teacher evaluations is identical to that of Bloomberg, Klein and the rest. But you then state without evidence that there are other differences. Please point those differences out to Gotham Schools readers, because as of now you are all high on assertions and low on facts.

    - Like the founders of E$E, you seem tone deaf to the arrogance that comes ringing off the page, that somehow you have a passion and a commitment to “excellence”  (which under this regime means test scores )  and “social justice” (which translates to undermining the union) that the rest of us lack. The reality is that the agenda you support (junk data, manipulated tests, favored treatment for privately-managed charter schools at the expense of public schools, and communities pitted against each other over diminishing resources) has nothing to do with either, and in fact is detrimental.

    - As part of the vanity and sense of superiority that exudes from your (belated and apparently involuntary) admission of membership in E$E, you refer to “demanding excellence from our students and ourselves.” Yet you and your defenders continue to avoid your silence on the issue of budget cuts to the schools. Why are you and your group silent on this, and why don’t you insist on the same “excellence” from the public officials who decide the fate (budgetary and otherwise) of schools? Is it because the ed deform agenda never fails to point out that its all about “great teachers,” to the exclusion of everything else?

    Or would that make for some uncomfortable discussions during fund raising appeals?

  • KitchenSink

    Michael F,

    We agree about more points than you probably realize. I’m rejecting your dualistic view of our current education reform. You seem to want to believe that anyone who questions the status quo wants to take away workers’ rights and protections and that anyone with money to throw around is insensitive to the needs of the poor. Those in the trenches are saints. Can you accept the idea that some people have a complex worldview that includes a belief in the role of unions and protections for workers but a serious problem with the priorities of the current system? Would you be surprised to learn that in my travels in the extensive NYC charter school world, I can’t name a single Sarah Palin supporter among my colleagues? That most of us consider ourselves liberals? That these E4E people and for that matter, many TFAers, many charter school people and Bill Gates himself are earnest in their hope for a better system rather than a destruction of what we have? Can you accept a difference of opinion?

    And I didn’t run from the system; I ran from dysfunction. I only have one life/career to live and I’m not wasting it feeding the bureaucracy while watching children’s lives fall apart on my watch, alone, with my hands tied. The fact is, in my high-poverty charter school I’m serving many of the same exact families I worked with as a teacher in high-poverty district schools – the children, nephews, nieces and cousins of myself and my founding team’s former students. And of course a whole wave of immigrant families that weren’t around when I was teaching in the 90s.

    I didn’t run away from the heat of the kitchen. I jumped out of the frying pan (where I worked hard but was lavishly praised by my principal despite the fact that I and only I knew how truly ineffective I was; where it was very easy to skate by and tuck my failures away year after year if I so chose behind the many protections and anonymities offered by a dysfunctional system that lacked a long-term vision and outlook; where in comparison to many of my peers I was not worthy of receiving attention from the principal because I could actually keep my class in line, so I could do whatever the hell I wanted once I closed that door) into the FIRE. As a charter school leader, everything I do is scrutinized by a demanding board, a ruthless authorizer, a parent body that has been told by us over and over again to expect the best, visit whenever they please and hold us accountable for meeting our mission.

    It’s a hell of a lot hotter where I’m sitting than in the DOE. And that’s the way I like it, because unlike under my old employer, it’s working.

  • Michael Fiorillo

    Kitchen Sink,

    Whatever agreement we might have about education and the direction it is taking is probably so general as to be meaningless, and I reject the “we all want the same thing” dodge, as it masks conflicts over material issues and behavior, while allowing the powerful to continue on their merry way. So I’m not going to let you take me there; I think we agree on virtually nothing.

    You continue to repeat the falsehood that so-called reformers are fighting a sclerotic status quo. On the contrary, with dictatorial control of many urban school systems for the better part of a decade in NYC, and over 15 years in Chicago, with billions of so-called philanthopic contributions leveraging their ideology and efforts, with billion-dollar companies lobbying for contracts resulting from the corporate ed regime, and with a complicit media acting as a ventiloquists dummy, corporate ed deform is the status quo.

    As for wealthy donors, where were they in the years when the urban public schools were systematically underfunded (as consistently reaffirmed in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit)? They only appeared when a politically acceptable model (charter schools, as opposed to vouchers) and critical mass for privatization appeared. Only then did they become concerned about “our kids.” For example, take a look at Bloomberg’s biography, written before he ran for mayor: not a single word about public education. So, yes, it is valid to question the altruism of all the Big Money people who suddenly have developed a concern for the urban poor. Perhaps if they had not been successfully lobbying for decades to have their taxes reduced – and disinvesting in the very same communities until they were judged ready to be gentrified – the schools might have received the funding they needed, and all this subterfuge about “choice” and “competition” would have never come out from under its gilded rock. As for your comment about Sarah Palin, that’s a red herring: neither I nor any of the critics have made that charge. Ed deform is a bi-partisan project; that’s precisely why it’s so dangerous. And as for you and your peers being “liberals,” so what? I look and judge them by their actions, not by their self-identification, and what I see is class interest masquerading as altruism. As for your implication that I am intolerant, and won’t accept a “difference of opinion,” that’s also bogus: we’re talking about actions in the public sphere, and not just opinions. Bill Gates is of course free to have any opinion he likes, but when he uses his billions to anti-democratically buy policy, that’s a different thing and should be recognized as such. Gates and the hedge funders are entitled to their opinions, but they are not entitled to steal my pension, even if they “sincerely” believe it should be used to fund their bailouts. As for their earnestness, you are the one who seems incapable to distinguishing between their sincerity and its purpose, its predictable results, and the interests that are served by them. I don’t question the fact that Bill Gates, Bloomberg and other oligarchs sincerely believe that they have the right – earned by the billions that in their eyes confirm their “merit” and superiority – to determine the educational future of public school students. Whether that is “merited” in a democracy is another question.

    As for your personal choices, you are free to make them, but that’s not the issue here. We are talking public policy, and whether wholesale privatization and destabilization of a public good is worthwhile. On the other hand, rather than fight for an effective and equitable public school system, you have chosen, a la Eli Broad, who made his intial fortune as a real estate developer building white flight suburbs, to likewise build a gated community. That’s what charters are, with their mulit-million dollar, PR-driven lotteries, their cherrypicked students, and their “counseled-out” students. Your school may be different (although, since you refuse to identify yourself or your school, there’s no way to know), but that too is of little difference, since in public policy it’s aggregates and broad structures that matter. Sorry, but when people threaten my livelihood, my retirement and the future of my students, no amount of dissembling and bullshit rhetoric will cover that up, and I take it personally, as should my colleagues. You and I agree on nothing.

  • I noticed that…

    To my colleague, Michael Fiorillo,

    Kudos to you and your ability to word it perfectly the disdain that we have for those pretentious, media-grabbing, union-busting, status quo ed deforming, privatizing, charter school-promoting, Rhee brown-nosing scabs who joined E$E!

  • KitchenSink

    Michael F,

    I’m sorry we don’t agree on anything. I thought we might get along one day but I guess not.

    Sticking to facts and not opinions (I think that’s what you were suggesting), I will start with one quibble. Gates et alia cannot steal your pension. We the people of New York State made a decision about your pension, and the mayor and governor are having the difficult conversation with us the people about how sustainable this current arrangement is. It is not looking good.

    If we the people through our elected legislators don’t think we are getting bang for our buck then we have every right to amend the state constitution, pass new laws etc.

    It’s not just Bloomberg and Cuomo. Of course every municipality is dealing with this issue. Do you think Gates made the mayor of Atlanta go forward with the concessions he got?

    And don’t give me the line about the oligarchs, theore$ and their media mouthpieces. Where do you think all the money for CFE came from? Not from redistribution of resources from wealthier districts to the city but from the skyrocketing income taxes collected from the fraudulent ponzi scheme financial services that brought us this meltdown. You can’t have your largesse in good times then bite the hand in bad. It is all interconnected and if you really cared about the root of the problem you would be more critical of the way CFE was doled out and be complaining about the lavish facilities kids in the suburbs enjoy while our buildings crumble instead of whining about the unsustainable pension problem.

    As for the media, I know you are foaming at the mouth reading this. I don’t like it any more than you do but in the end, in a participatory democracy individuals have to make good and informed choices and we can’t hold the conniving mouthpieces responsible for those individual choices. It’s the best democracy we’ve got, imperfect as it is, and it sure ain’t stealing.

    Freezing charter funding when the law says it should go up lockstep with district spending? (like in Albany right now) Sounds more like stealing to me.

  • Michael Fiorillo

    Kitchen Sink,

    Gates attacked teacher pensions days after he addressed the UFT convention last summer, and has done so on other occasions. The current attacks on them are being opportunistically justified by local and state tax shortfalls resulting from the economic crisis, which was itself caused by an unchecked financial industry. 

    As for “things not looking good,” pension-wise, that too is ideological distortion posing as “fiscal responsibility.” When the stock market was doing well, it was thought that (fictitional) high returns could cover the underfunding of the system, so contributions were reduced. Now, after that blew up, they’re blaming teachers and other public workers for the state’s crisis. It’s a lie, and an attempt to use the crisis to eliminate defined benefit pensions for public workers.

    In my book, reducing/ eliminating pensions for public servants and replacing them with 401ks (the ultimate goal, which has been sought for years) as a result of the infinite greed of Wall Street  is equivalent to theft.

    And by the way, you should try to be more consistent: in two comments you’ve gone from bemoaning my distrust of the motives of so-called philanthropists (most of whose money is finance-derived) to talking about the “fraudulent ponzi scheme financial services that brought us this meltdown.” Which is it, because it can’t be both? Geez, these are the wonderful people funding your gated boutique schools, aren’t they? They’re sensitive people, and you wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings.

    As for your claiming that I should be critical of how CFE money was doled out, that’s a non sequitur on two counts: opponents of ed deform such as Leonie Haimson and others have been vocal in criticizing that, as I have been critical of Tweed’s and City Hall’s duplicity. And what does it have to do with my initial point, anyway?

  • Vinny Eno

    I’d like to hear Ruben’s reply to Mr. Talk’s … of the Accountable Talk blog….Ruben Brosbe, Asshats4Educators

  • bronxactivist

    So leave it all in the principals hands? Have you noticed report after report of principals from hell? Ruben are you encouraging corruption,cronyism,nepotism, discrimination,harrassment?Answer the question and do not give me a politcians answer.

  • Floyd99

    E4E on Huffingtonpost.   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/grace-snodgrass/teachers-want-evaluations_b_812045.html
    Did you hear the good news, Value Added is now ACCURATE!  News to me….

  • I noticed that…

    Taken from the Huffington Post webpage:

    Grace Snodgrass is currently in her fifth year of teaching middle school special education in the Bronx, NY. After graduating from the University of Maryland, Grace began her teaching career as a Teach For America corps member. Grace has been an active member of Educators 4 Excellence, an organization that works to provide teachers with an independent voice in education policy. She serves on E4E’s Teacher Evaluation Policy Team and as one of the organization’s School Captains. Grace was also a recipient of a Policy and Advocacy Leadership Fellowship at The Mind Trust.

    Wow another E4E who has only 5 years of teaching experience and have made a decision for all teachers that value-added system is accurate. Wow, all those researchers with years of experience, experts in the field of education, can now be easily dismissed because Grace’s findings on value-added system. Shame on those experienced research scientists who informed the public that the value-added system is unreliable because there are too many factors that affect a child. Shame on those professors who protested in writing that using this method to evaluate teachers would be unfair. In October 2010, the following professors created a sign-in protest to the VAM.

    http://www.epi-data.org/education/?sms_ss=twitter&at_xt=4cc1f7d1221b9498%2C0

    They state: Legislatures should not mandate and districts should not pursue a test-based approach to teacher evaluation that is unproven and likely to harm not only teachers but the children they instruct.

    Eva L. Baker

    Paul E. Barton

    Linda Darling-Hammond

    Edward Haertel

    Helen F. Ladd

    Robert L. Linn

    Diane Ravitch

    Richard Rothstein

    Richard J. Shavelson

    Lorrie A. Shepard

    Don’t the above professors understand that Grace is an E4E and she comes with a wealth of knowledge and experience. We can now dismiss all those accurate reports and important research findings from those in the education field. Out of the mouth of babe, Grace has spoken.

  • Michael Fiorillo

    I noticed that…

    Thanks for posting another clue as to what E$E is really about.

    A quick look at Ms. Snodgrass’, a E$E “school captain” (what is this, the military or the police?),benefactors indicates what she’s really working for. As a Fellow at The Mind Trust – gee, reminders of The Oil Trust and The Beef Trust from the good old 19th century that these folks are working so hard to return us to – she received a pat on the head from Eli Lilly and Company, Indianapolis Power and Light, Cummins engine and (to keep the incestuous ed deform chain linked) The Education Sector, The New Teacher Project, and others who seek to “expand the reach of education entrepreneurs to even more students…by making Indianapolis one of the most attractive places in the country for talented entrepreneurs to start new educational ventures…”

    There it is, in a nutshell: these people are not educators, they are a front and point of the spear for monetizing the schools.

    As with the entire message of those implementing the hostile takeover of the public schools, everything they say is a lie (or at best self-deception), including the words “and” and “the.”

  • Mama Bear

    I have to admit, I’ve been seeing what BronxActivist is saying in my kids’ school. Already, about 5 new teachers who’ve been hired are family members of staff/teachers and a principal’s friend’s sister. 

  • I noticed that…

    To Michael F., you are very welcome about the post.

    After reading the comments, the only conclusion I can come up with E$E’s agenda why they are pushing to end seniority rule, tenure, and the reduction/elimination of teachers’ pension. I really thought they were fighting to keep their jobs and stay in the teaching professional for many years to come. It’s because they cannot become administrators, policy makers, future deputy chancellors (such as White), or enter the Broad Superintendent Academy within the 5-7 year time-frame of their goals. Please look at all these administrators (principals) who started up schools (public and charter), such as the KIPP boys, Shael Polakow-Suransky (principal to Deputy Chancellors), John White (Deputy Chancellor), Marc Sternberg (info:Sternberg taught in the South Bronx for three years as a member of Teach for America. He then earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and a master’s in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education before returning to New York City as vice president of Victory Schools, an organization that launches and manages charter schools). And the list keeps going, and going and going! There’s an exception; White never taught. But he sure does make a good puppet for the chancellor and the mayor at these PEP meetings.

    So the fear of losing their jobs through layoffs is not because of economic reasons, but a goal-driven pursuit to be out of the classroom, not teaching, but setting policies and demanding that teachers follow those insane policies that make absolutely no sense and only harm children. These E$E cult teachers are looking at the monetary prospectus of their earnings as educrats getting a piece of the charter school/privatization of the national’s public schools. This is the new bubble! Watch it burst eventually.

  • I noticed that…

    Ruben, I feel that it’s important that you read this blog regarding the public school system’s situation and heed the advice fromt his administrator.

    http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2011/01/principal-responds-to-bloomberg-attack.html

  • nk

    So tell me what will happen if there are two teachers and you need to lay-off/fire one of them. If they both have equal evaluations….which one do you suggest E$E to layoff?

    I would also like to say, that most of us have worked our way into a seniority system. We didn’t whine because we were at the bottom of the totem pole. We just kept working and eventually you make your way up. I don’t even understand why you are bothered since 50% of the teachers quit within the first two years. TFA especially. You start firing the career teachers and you will end up with perpetual turn over. Is that the best for children?

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