GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

hot potato

July 31, 2012

City dissolves fleet of “master” and “turnaround” teachers

by Rachel Cromidas, at 8:20 am

The teachers union’s victory in a legal fight over the city’s “turnaround” plans kept thousands of teachers at 24 struggling schools from losing their positions. But it has also put another group of teachers at risk.

They are the “master” and “turnaround” teachers, a cohort of experienced educators selected to put in extra hours helping their colleagues in exchange for extra pay.

The positions were funded through federal School Improvement Grants, but without turnaround or another overhaul process in place at the schools, those funds will not flow to the city. Last week, just after the city’s final bid to reinstate turnaround failed, the 71 master and turnaround teachers got a letter from the Department of Education telling them to look for other positions.

The demise of the elite positions has given rise to yet another city-union dispute centered around the schools formerly slated for turnaround.

The special positions, created in 2010 when a handful of city schools first received SIG funding to undergo a school reform model called “transformation,” offered exemplary teachers large annual bonuses to work in struggling schools. Last year, the teachers were distributed across 33 schools undergoing transformation and another overhaul process, known as “restart,” including schools the city ultimately did not propose for the turnaround model. Some of the schools funded part of the teachers’ salaries with their discretionary budgets, but others used the federal funds to cover the full cost of the extra teacher.

The positions were always something of “a gamble” because the teachers’ job security depended on the federal funds and the schools’ continued success. The funds were yanked from the schools in late December after the city and teachers union failed to reach an agrement on a teacher evaluation system by the state’s deadline.

The city asked the UFT in June to agree to keep the master and turnaround teacher positions alive for another year, union officials said. The officials said the union would sign off on extending the program — but only if the schools returned to the restart and transformation models, which do not require any teachers to be removed. The proposition would have required to the city to agree with the union on an evaluation system for the schools at a time when the city was fighting to preserve the turnaround plan instead.

“We told them that we would complete the things necessary to put those schools in compliance if they wanted to it,” a union official involved in negotiations said. “We already have a lead teacher program in our contract. If they want to put a lead teacher into these schools, let them fund it and do it.”

The lead teacher program, in place since 2006, lets experienced teachers spend half their day coaching other teachers. Now, the city is letting educators who had been hired as master or turnaround teachers enter the central lead teacher pool, according to a letter sent to the teachers last week. But those jobs could send them to schools around the city.

The master and turnaround teachers will be added to their current school’s faculty roster as a regular teacher unless they tell the city by Wednesday that they are choosing another path. Other options outlined in the letter include filling vacancies at their previous schools, finding a new school altogether, or entering the Absent Teacher Reserve, the pool of position-less teachers who rotate through schools on a temporary basis.

Some teachers might also choose to leave the system. Lori Wheal, who was a master teacher at M.S. 391 in the Bronx last year after working as a classroom teacher for a decade, said on NY1′s Inside City Hall last week that said she is leaving teaching now that her position no longer exists.

“It was the master teacher program that kept me in the system,” Wheal said. “Now that program has been ripped away because we’ve lost our funding, I am looking to go into education policy.”

The city’s full letter to the 71 master and turnaround teachers is below.

Dear Master Teacher,

We are writing to update you on the status of the Master and Turnaround Teacher program for the next school year. As you may know,these positions will not continue for the 2012- 2013 school year and we wanted to ensure that you have clear information on your next steps for the coming year.

The UFT and DOE have agreed that Master and Turnaround Teachers will take their rightful place in seniority order on the school’s Table of Organization as a regular teacher unless one of the following options apply and you choose to exercise it:

If there is a vacancy in your license area at your prior school, you will have a right to return to that the vacancy until school opening only; it is the teacher’s choice whether or not to take this option.

If you and your current principal agree, then you may go into excess rather than staying at the school. Master and Turnaround Teachers going into excess may choose to go into excess in the current districtor the district of their prior school. Decisions must be made by August 7, 2012.

All Master Teachers and Turnaround Teachers will be invited to join the central Lead Teacher pool. Teachers in the central Lead Teacher pool may apply for and be selected into available Lead Teacher positions citywide through August 7, 2012.

Consistent with the rights of all teachers, Master Teachers and Turnaround Teachers may seek a position at a new school via the Open Market through August 7, 2012. To facilitate your transition, we ask that you indicate your preferences for next year by completing this short survey by August 1,2012. Should you not respond to the survey, you will assume a position in your current school’s Table of Organization.

 

Print Print
  • Jd876

    Come on Ms. Wheal, don’t play yourself. The reason you are leaving is because you have not actually taught a class in ten years. And everyone knows that this administration, with your collaboration, has made teaching in the classroom a gosh darn nightmare. Good riddens to you. You are abandoning the system because you are no longer able to float through and leach from it. The real work for kids happens by actual teachers in the classroom. Not pretenders. If you truly cared about the kids in these schools, you would roll up your sleeves and get back into the classroom.

  • Tiredofyou

    great stuff those who teach teach and those who don’t join e4e and students first and then take a job in administration and tell teachers how to teach. The truth is starting to hurt reformers.

  • Sdsf

    Wow.  This is a presumptuous assertion that assigns motive: How do you have access to such , 
    information?
     
    Listen, fighting the good fight is certainly the honorable thing to do, but from an economic standpoint, what is the incentive to be a good teacher?  Good vibes?  Year after year of bureaucratic nightmares and the system simply wears us down and so while feeling good about one’s self is a perk of a job, many believe that skill and effort should be rewarded with compensation.  The master teacher program offered a 30 percent salary increase to those who worked an additional 30 hours a week coaching and assisting younger teachers.  How refreshing to have a program that offers teachers a fast track to higher pay in the highest needs schools.  How refreshing to have a program that rewards teachers for working harder.  But no, the union only believes that the best teachers are the oldest ones, they are the most deserving of the most pay and everyone else has to wait decades to earn a competitive salary (but we do get to feel good about ourselves in the meantime).
    How do you plan on attracting talent to some of the toughest schools in the city?  It’s those schools that burnout the most teachers.  And those teachers need more than feeling good about themselves considering the battles they encounter on a daily basis.

  • Sussy

    Better to have a handful of master teachers displaced throughout the system, transfered, or go into the ATR pool than 3,000 regular classroom teachers. These folks still have jobs and are not going into the poor house. As the article stated, these master teachers always knew that their job security was a “gamble” based on having federal funds keep their jobs in place. 

  • Michael Fiorillo

    Are we really supposed to feel sorry for these opportunists and quislings, who were happy to advance their careers by stepping on the throats of their colleagues?

    Yes, go into “policy” (aka high stakes testing, school closings, teacher firings and privatization), Ms. Wheal: I imagine you’ll feel right at home swallowing, regurgitating and spewing policies pre-digested by Bill Gates, Eli Broad and Wendy Kopp.

  • guest

    I can only discuss the high schools.  As a retiredf biology teacher, when I started we had a master teacher who was in charge of our department.  She was called the department chair and then the position in the early 70′s was re-named Assistant Principal (Supervision).  I once read the job description of master teacher and it was almost verbatim identical to that of an Assistant Principal (Supervision).  In my later years, our department was devoid of an AP who knew Science and we were obse3rved by the Math AP who really had no idea of specific pedagogis and even subject matter of biology.  If there is one crime being perpetratged on kids and teachers in the small high schools, it is the fact that this position is really no longer a priority being replaced by such things as mastrer teacher and turnaround teacher who have no supervisory rights (they cdannot legally file an observaqtion report on a teacher although in some schools, they do).  I don’t get it.  How can a high school exist without specific subjecvt area P’s?

  • Pogue

    Most likely a reformer-invented title. Who the heck declares someone a master teacher, anyway?  Real teachers need no “super” titles.  Even the most experienced learn new things everyday.

    Back when high schools were large the teaching population was filled with experienced teachers helping the newer ones acclimate themselves to their classrooms.

    It was natural, it was collaborative, and it was positive.

    This system now, has been broken down, separated, instilled with confusion, and lacks direction. 

    Good job, Mayor Bloomberg.

  • Mr. Flerporillo

    Nazi references are always appropriate. 

  • Tim

    I didn’t really sorry for them, but I do now, just a little bit, because someone on the internet equated them with Nazi sympathizers. Context and perspective, etc. 

  • Leonie Haimson

    Unfortunately, the churn, continual reorganizations and changes in policies of this administration have put all people who work in our schools at risk.  Not longer ago, I heard from a teacher who had been selected to be a “mentor” teacher in some new DOE program because of her experience and skill; then the DOE cut the program and she was put into the ATR pool.
    Probably this has happened to hundreds if not thousands of educators over the course of this administration, as they continually add and cut programs and positions.Weren’t the turnaround schools themselves re-start schools just a few months ago?

  • Seethruyou

    It so easy to see thru you. “The union believes the best teachers are the oldest ones.” No the union sees older teachers as being effective as they have put in the most time in their profession and they have moved to the top of the salary scale thru handwork

    . Administration sees them as a liability and they cost way too much. So they bring in the TFA 40 day wonders and tell them that they are so much better then the older teachers and that the senior teachers are standing in the way of the new generation.After a few years these new teachers  give it up and go into Daddy’s business. Keep playing with peoples lives and see where it get’s you. Ill tell you what you have accomplished the last few years, you have killed an honorable profession as everyone I know has either retired or is moving strongly in that direction. You will not be able to fill the jobs available as anyone with any sense will do anything else.Look closely at these reform groups not one of them has stayed in the classroom. Reform from within and not from the outside looking in.

  • Kook

    You are 100% correct. It is happening in the large HS as well. Why is no one talking about the cutting of content specfic Assistant Principals in the city. In these high stake observations-teachers should be rated by APs who are experts in the content area. Where is the UFT?

  • BK

    As someone in one of the 24 schools i can honestly tell you that these positions are a waste of money. It is not about getting peoples pockets fat off of taxpayers dime. This is why SIG money is meanningless. It goes to crap programs anyway.

  • Nycdoenuts

    Fun fact: the union OK’d this program. It very clearly said so on the over 1/2 dozen letters and emails that many of us received from the DOE asking us to apply for the position last year.

    Had you been sent one, and bothered to read it, you would have known this to be the case.

  • Vote NO!

     If  “compensation”  is  your  main  concern,  then  you’ve  chosen  the  wrong  profession.

  • Michael Fiorillo

    Quisling is commonly used and now-generic term to refer to those who collaborate with hostile occupiers, which is what corporate ed deformers are.

    My guess is that you know that, but simply wanted to use the no-one-can-ever-make-fascist/corporatist- analogies-prohibition as a straw man, much the way the ADL tried to do with Diane Ravitch the other day.

  • Guest

    I wish they got rid of more AP’s.  They should FIRE all non teaching AP’s.  That would save lots of money.

  • Seethruyou

    Funny when I got into teaching and we were making $8000 a year no one seemed to care. It took me years to work my way up the scale and then one day it all seemed to work. Now its all about the money with these 40 day wonders. I lost the extra money so its time to leave teaching and become an ed reformer. Hey people did you ever wonder where all the money is going? Duh
    Eva Moskowitz knows, Michell Rhee knows, Joel Klein KNOWS and so do countless other reformers.
     REAL TEACHERS TEACH the others become ed experts and make a lot of money.

  • http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/ Norm

    I echo JD876′s points.
    “It was the master teacher program that kept me in the system,” Wheal
    said. “Now that program has been ripped away because we’ve lost our
    funding, I am looking to go into education policy.”
    Don’t they all want to go into educational policy instead of actually teaching a full-time program? Or doing any teaching at all?

  • http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/ Norm

    As usual, Mr. F contributing something churlish. Read as much as you can on Germany in the 20-40s and you will see so many analogies that get at the root of human behavior it is scary. I’m reading “Hitlerland” right now. Especially look at the NAZI PR operation and you see the techniques they pioneered. So when we see that today, making a Nazi reference in terms of scary precedents is not inappropriate. I have accused the UFT of having a Vichy mentality of an occupied nation run by “locals”. That is not calling anyone Nazi sympathizers but using a well-known and classic reference to a certain type of behavior. That the ed deformers were clearly signaling their intentions for so many years the comparison to the people who put their heads in the sands in the early 1930s is an apt comparison to those who made excuses and capitulated — and still do. When the day comes when there is a shell of a public school system with few unions involved and a privatized school system serving only certain students while people make millions off the public trough someone might write books called Bloombergland or Gatesland or Broadland. Is that an appropriate enough Nazi ref for you Mr. F?

  • Guest

    As always, I wonder what purpose these articles and comments serve. The majority of its readers and contributors are teachers saying what is common knowledge.

    Parents are the key, folks. Make the parents angry, if possible, and you’ll get a reaction from the administration.

  • Anonymous

    This wasn’t merely a union win! That’s simply not the story, nor is it acceptable to pin repercussions on the union.
    The City keeps breaking the law, education law, contracts, etc., and sadly it requires lawsuits to get them to follow the rule of law. That is the ongoing story here and the cause of much strife and chaos. To cover this up is to be in collusion with it. Make your choice, your integrity hangs in the balance.

  • A.S.Neill

    I cannot entirely agree that all “Master” teachers are quisling opportunists, though it is apparent that many teachers accepting any adjunct administrative positions (e.g. Attendance Teacher,etc) are looking for a way out of front line teaching as confirmed by Ms. Wheal. Concerning the Nazi period analogies, I think the unrelenting one-sided distortions printed as “news” in the New York Post certainly qualifies as propaganda in the Joseph Goering tradition, and in fact, I have never witnessed such a propaganda campaign in my lifetime with such public extent and virulence. I am only sorry that many schools accept this propaganda rag in their schools on a daily basis because it is free and call on the UFT to boycott this distribution to schools. Dump it in the trash where it belongs!

  • ElChinodr1

    There’s plenty of “teachers” who don’t “teach” and collect 100K per year.  Special Ed teachers with classloads of less than 20 kids a day have gotten away with murder for decades.  I know plenty of teachers” who have less kids all day than I have in just one class.  Hysterical!  What about glorified paras (team teachers).  This system is a wreck!  What about comp time teachers who work in the cafeteria as a .8 and teach one  class a day?  Oh wait, that’s me, sorry.  Hey, everyone needs a gig!

  • Mr. Flerporillo

    Goebbels.

  • Mr. Flerporillo

    This is the magic touch of Fiorillo at work.  Most normal people not inclined toward cultism – even those who are critical of aspects of education reform – instinctively recoil from someone who incessantly describes his enemies as fascists, “corporatists,” “privateers,” sociopaths, and Nazis.  It’s like removing your hand from a flame or giving a mental patient a wide berth on the sidewalk.  Overcoming that instinct requires an immense amount of self-discipline and training, and possibly attendance at a Tony Robbins retreat.

  • http://twitter.com/nycdoenuts nycdoenuts

    These teaching positions weren’t dissolved because of the union victory. They were dissolved because the DOE can’t seem to keep the Federal SIG money that funded the positions. Had the DOE stuck with the first model (‘restart’ and ‘transformation’ depending on the school) and avoided doing everything in its power to not agree to the eval system, or had the DOE gone back to the old model after the court victory (or the arbitration victory), then they would have the SIG money and the Master teachers would still be around. The loss of the Master Teacher positions is just a reflection of current DOE leadership. How anyone of the commenters can draw a line between that and blaming the union for this is beyond me.

    And those Master Teachers were a pretty good idea. I’m not sure how folks can disagree with that. Regardless of the label or title, an instructional coach who was keyed into the latest practices and research and who worked with teachers on a daily basis could have helped -a lot. That’s exactly what Department Chairs did before the DOE let the positions die and it’s why the Aussies are so popular in schools throughout the city today (because instructional coaches help build instructional capacity). Honestly, if the DOE really didn’t want to ‘abandon those kids’, then they’d find the money to give principals an opportunity to keep the Master Teachers in place and give the the idea enough time to work  It would be money well spent.

  • Michael Fiorillo

    My comments were intentionally harsh, but I believe were merited. At this stage of the game, any teacher who seeks their professional advancement at the expense of their colleagues -which is clearly the case here — should be called out on their opportunism. To deny it is to deceive yourself and/ or others.

    This is not a matter of Comp Time or other sweetheart positions that exist in the schools – a discussion for another time – but rather of providing the illusion of support for schools and teachers that Bloomberg/Tweed are systematically trying to destroy, and using naive/uninformed/opportunistic teachers to provide a fig leaf for it.

    And, as per NYCDOEnuts mention that the UFT leadership was recruiting its members to participate in this vicious process, then all the more shame on it. But then again, it was Randi Weingarten who gave us mayoral control of the schools, twice. And it was also Randi Weingarten who did nothing as Bloomberg bribed his way to overriding term limits, and provided a de facto endorsement for his 2009 re-election.

  • Mr. Flerporillo

    I’ll accept ill-tempered or ornery, but not churlish.

    The books I’ve read about the rise of Nazism and fascism in that time period are probably the source of my distaste for Nazi analogies.  They almost never accomplish what analogies are designed to accomplish, i.e. revealing useful and interesting similarities between seemingly unique subjects.   They’re designed to incite (assuming your audience doesn’t like Nazis, in which case, what a gaffe!), and will offend anyone not in the mood to be incited.  They’re also overused and annoying.  It’s like being forced to listen to Achy Breaky Heart, or a subway preacher, or a “George Bush is stoopid” joke.  And reducing one of the most fascinating and terrifying chapters in human history to an annoyance is probably the most distasteful thing of all.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002397245457 Mary Conway-Spiegel

    The whole point of all this was, from the beginning, to de-stabilize everyone all the time.  ”Look over here, we are distracting you while we change everything and call it ‘better.’”  It worked once a long time ago – parents, guardians, advocates, students, even the goldfish got wise, yet ed policy experts keep doing the same magic trick – even though we’re not fooled.
    I truly wish parents yelling and screaming were enough…but in the areas where NYCDOE has eviscerated Traditional Public Education – like most of the Bronx – “Parents” don’t exist.  School is home.  School is parents.  School is stability.  School is community.  School is a healthy meal.  SCHOOL IS HOME.
    None of the money was meant for the thousands of children who call school home.  ARIS, Re-Start, Turnaround, Progress Reports, Test Prep, High Stakes Testing…the money paid for the distractions.

  • TRUTH HURTS +

    Mary, how does it feel, as a parent and “advocate”, to know that you’ve been writing on here for years and there has been no progress?  I’ve read your comments and others for so long and it’s the same ol’ song and dance.  Nothing is changing nor ever will.  Time to get over it.  You and so many others on here need to delete this site from your computer as it’s unhealthy.  This system is a total farse with make believe characters.  Nothing you or anyone else does can effect the predetermined outcome on any of a variety of topics that come up, which are all fake and for show.  The city top guns are animals who have no class and disregard parents.  The truth is Mary, the city brass at the DOE all know that about 95% of NYC parents are either Non English speaking, Drug Addicts, Collecting Welfare Services, Jailed, or any other low class terms you’d like to consider.  Sad, but true!  Due to this, the city can get away with anything they like and THEY KNOW IT.  I specifically hear things in certain offices.
    Do you think this nonsense would happen for a moment just north of the city?  In Westchester County, pick a school district.  The parents would be going bezerk and the school officials in those towns KNOW IT.  Those parents are for the most part, on the ball.  Let’s go lower.  Do you think in Long Island the parents would tolerate such nonsense?  NO WAY!!!  The parents are just to active, to involved.  The systems in the neighboring areas of NYC are well aware that they can’t mess with the parents.  How about over the bridge in Rockland County?  Top districts in Clarkstown, Nyack, etc?  What do you think?  Same situation!
    Only in NYC can you have new plans every day, let’s see what happens mentality, union vs. tweed.  Only here can you have models for “turnaround” and “closures” and all types of other twisted creations.  Do you know why?
    Yes, that’s correct.  The parents are SUBPAR.  That’s the truth, like it or not.  You better all believe it’s the damn truth!

  • T5yuir

    Take my word on this. These are people who are looking to get out of the classroom.
    They realize they can make more money and not have to put up with the nonsense that many teachers have to go through.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002397245457 Mary Conway-Spiegel

    The TRUTH?  The ga-zillions of dollars spent on improving “parent involvement” is also a distraction.  Even in Westchester, someone somewhere right now is complaining about lack of parent involvement…it is and always will be a mysterious distraction…

    …that no one talks about truthfully.  I could be in the poorest, Non English Speaking Drug Addicted Ex-Con Welfare Accepting most Politically Dis-Enfranchised Community School in the city and STILL well meaning intelligent people everywhere will say in complete earnestness with all the right motivations, “…if we could just get parents involved…”

    It feels viscerally awful, but I’m compelled to advocate anyway because I’m not over it yet.

  • Hamelvanessa

    Hey now this was fun to read.  I teach in Queens but live in one of the three “other” regions you mention.  You’re 100% right on!  I, along with my neighbors in my community are to powerful and intellegent to be jerked around as these city parents are.  This would never ever happen in my school district.  Administrators would lose their jobs.  Period!!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002397245457 Mary Conway-Spiegel

    BTW, thank you for asking…best question/observation of the year.  Really.  Haven’t stopped thinking about your response/challenge.

  • Sdsf

    Master/turnaround teachers spend no less time outside of the classroom than the average teacher.  It is a position that compensates additional time.  Your comments are false.

  • TRUTH HURTS +

    Mary, I applaud your efforts sincerely.  I wasn’t directing my words specifically in your direction, however, I have read plenty of your views and others on this site as well.  This can easily be made into a heart-warming movie featuring Jennifer Aniston, playing yourself, where she tries to save the world and the little ghetto kids.  It aint Hollywood, it’s the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and Staten Island. 
    When you get a chance, watch the movie Dangerous Minds.  This movie was one of the worst movies made about schools with a fairy tale ending that could never happen. 
    Your posts were the same 3 years ago and will be the same 3 years from now.  Sad to say, however true.  We need “advocates” and we need “vocal people” like yourself for a moment of light, a shining glimse of make believe theatrics.  The reality is you and any other “advocate” failed and will always fail because it’s not a fair fight. 
    The city will play its game, maybe even meet with you and others to “discuss” possibilities on a particular subject.  It’s all for show!  All outcomes are predetermined before you even meet.  The city does not take parents, advocates, community groups, etc into consideration because they don’t have to.  This is not a fairy tale, this is reality.  It’s more important for a principal to get a letter grade of A or B than to save a child from flunking out of school and dropping out.  That’s the reality!  Principals turn away kids because they cannot give the principal the grade, they are a liability so they are turned away.  This is the TRUTH!  Trust me, I see it every single day!!!!  The grade is more important than the child.  Are you understanding me?
    I will respond to your next comment 3 years from now when I see you writing the same crap, again and again and again.  The good news is that you’re not the only one.  There’s plenty of DREAMERS on here.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002397245457 Mary Conway-Spiegel

    Not Jennifer Anniston please!  You’re right on each and every count and I love your brutal honesty – love it!
    I’m under not one single illusion or fantasy at all ever – I can assure you of that.  I know exactly where I stand, I know the last decade has been the worst bad Opera ever produced.  
    I’ve seen Dangerous Minds, didn’t like that movie either.  The Wire…can’t remember which season (perhaps the last), in a Baltimore public school, that’s worth watching.
    Three years from now?  Hope I make it…

  • TRUTH HURTS +++

    OK, really, this is my last post, hahaaa.  Mary, thanks for being a sport.  I mean no disrespect to you or anyone else on here.  I am so sick of the efforts going for nothing.  You should hold a position down at Tweed.  People like you should be in control, yet day after day we see the failures with no experience who are just puppets making 6 figures.  It really stinks!
    The president needs to step in and see the state of emergency that this mayor has put us in.  It’s a disaster and few people speak the truth.  Too bad I cannot give you my name since I’m a 6 figure individual myself watching this nightmare on a constant basis. 
    I salute you but I have to hide also, sorry.  I am outnumbered significantly.  Keep up the great work!

    BTW, how do you like how I switched it up?  I hope I have empowered you today.  This is my job!  I will not respond further so take care and keep the dreams alive, if you wish.

  • Nycdoenuts

    ASDF; Master teachers spent less time in the classroom and were paid more.

  • NYC Educator

    Well, I too have taught for many years – really trying to push the envelope to improve teaching. Back when nobody was really watching, we made a lot of progress with our students, working extraordinarily hard. I love teaching and I’ve loved much of the work over the years, but things have become more and more difficult, and I’ve found less and less support over the years. Being in the Master Teacher program made me feel like there was hope – that I would be supported in doing the difficult work of improving teaching and learning, that I would be able to shape things for the better. Now, after the program has been yanked with little information form anyone, I feel like my work and expertise in not valued. Over and over I’ve committed myself to initiatives to improve teaching and learning – but the support always gets dropped. I just don’t have faith anymore that I will be allowed to do what it takes for my students to be successful. I’m tired of being on the front lines while those back at headquarters keep changing the plan, don’t support the plans that they ask us to commit to, and seem more interested in making themselves look good, maintaining their power by scapegoating me, than truly improving teaching and learning.

  • http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/ Norm

    I want to jump in one more time on the Germany in the 20′s/30′s references. I’ve read more of Andrew Nagorski’s “Hitlerland” which chronicles what Americans on the scene were writing and saying. What is especially relevant to us is how the psychology of an entire nation was turned around so relatively quickly and turned into something so frightening as to be almost incomprehensible. There are so many lessons in how this happened in the extreme to what was a highly cultured people. And the group psychothought when effectively manipulated can take place in a relative instant. the tactics used from the big lie to targeting scapegoats have become classic. And if people don’t see how the ed deform movement have used these same tactics they are missing something. What many of us in the union object to about our own leadership is how long they have ignored or obfuscated or been ineffective in countering this to such an extent that I often think they are on the other side though I waffle back and forth on that. I guess given the history of so many people who were targets of Hitler and made excuses or tried to appease the Nazis is part of the psychology of warfare. What we in the union have seen is appeasement and pleas to collaborate. Witness the past weekend AFT convention greeting of Joe Biden in Detroit where the union has been mangled and the Chicago Teacher union resistance to Biden as I’ve chronicled on ed notes was something to behold.

  • Mr. Flerporillo

    I sometimes get caught up in whatever I’m reading.  But seriously, Norm — are you saying that you believe the education reform movement is in the early stages of turning “the psychology of an entire nation. . . into something so frightening as to be almost incomprehensible”?  That seems a bit overstated, don’t you think?  Maybe next we’ll see Gideon Stein or Ken Hirsch point out Nazi overtones in the anti-reformers’ assertions that the reform movement is backed by evil bankers who represent interests of “the 1%” over the common man.  Maybe it reminds them of Goebbels’s attacks on the Rothschilds and the Jewish bankers who bent markets and politics to their will “though they make up only 1% of the population of the Earth.”  

    Or are you just saying that modern mass-market advertising is something that exists?  I do agree with that point.    

  • Vote NO!

    The  education “reform”  movement  is  just  part  of  the  privatization  movement  over  the  past  30  years.  Ever  since  Ronald  Reagan  stated  that   “government  is  the  problem.”  There  has  been  a  non-stop onslaught  by  the  private  sector to  malign  everything  “government.”  Public  sector  employment  provides   alternative  opportunities  for  the  increasingly  mistreated  private  sector  workforce.    The  oligarchs   are  ” fiending”  to  destroy  the  public  sector  workforce.  If  they  can   erode  the  wages  and  benefits  of  the  public  sector  workers  then  they  can  continue  to  erode  wages,  and  benefits  of  the  private  sector.  In  about  a  decade  or  two  they  should  have  the  entire  country  down  to  minimum  wage,  with  no  benefits.  Then  they  can  attack  minimum  wage  laws,  and  other  century  old  worker  protections.   Am  I  being  hyperbolic?  What  part  of  the  current  economic  and  political  state  of  this  country  would  make  someone  think  otherwise?

  • Mr. Flerporillo

    Reagan, phew, at least I can stop worrying about the Nazis now.

    In all seriousness, people who malign everything “government” are silly, just as are people who malign everything “corporate.”  Like it or not, we need government and we need corporations.  And like it or not, we need to be critical of both.  I don’t think “the private sector” is a monolith with one set of motivations, I don’t think “the private sector” always has an interest in driving down worker compensation as much as possible, and I don’t think “the private sector” needs to drive down public sector compensation to drive down the compensation of its own workforces.  It’s tempting to pin all the recent bad developments for public employees on Koch Industries, mass media, and bad faith, but Koch Industries isn’t the reason why new teachers won’t get to enjoy retirement on a 75K annual allowance like Norm does.

    So, yes, you’re being a bit hyperbolic, but that’s fine, because the growing and often astonishing gap in wealth between the hyper-rich and the rest of us slobs is concerning, and it drives most of us to hyperbole once and again.  

  • Vote NO!

    ” I don’t think “the private sector” is a monolith with one set of
    motivations, I don’t think “the private sector” always has an interest
    in driving down worker compensation as much as possible, and I don’t
    think “the private sector” needs to drive down public sector
    compensation to drive down the compensation of its own workforces.”

    To  respond
    First  sentence…Yes  it  is!   PROFITS  are  the  motivation. Cost  conatinment  is  as  important  as  revenue  growth  to  any  corporate  board
    Second  sentence..It  should  see  that  driving  down  wages  in  an  aggregate  sense  isn’t  in  its  long  term  interest..But  it’s  evident  that  it  doesn’t! ..Long  term  in  American  corporate  culture  is “next  quarter’s  earnings  report.”..see answer  to ” first  sentence.”
    Last sentence…Yes  it  does  need  to  drive  down  public  sector  wages  and  benefits…The  public  sector  competes  for workers  with  the  private  sector..It  keeps  upward  pressure  on  wages  when  you  have  public  sector  labor  demand.  It  also  requires  taxation  to  pay  for  it ..Think  of  WW2  ending  the  Great  Depression. The  massive  number  of  men  called  up  for  military  service along  with  massive  government  expenditures  for   the  military  to  fight  the  war  “dried  up”  the  ranks  of  the  unemployed,  and  ended  the  Depression.

     It’s  not  hyperbole..It’s  the  current  economic  state  of  affairs. 
    Until  it  changes,  things  will only  get  worse  in  this country.

    I  don’t  know  what  Norm’s  pension  allowance  is.  I  do  know  he  earned  it  under  the  rules  which  were  established  at  the  time  of  his  employment.  But  I  do  know…  he ,  and  every  other  pensioner  in  this  country   doesn’t  spend  a  dime  of  it  in  a “government  run  store.”  Pension  allowances,  like  Social  Security  checks” are  used  for  private  sector  consumption  which  benefits  the  economy.

  • Nyc

    Awesome! At my school, the turnaround teacher didn’t do nothing except collect extra money. PEACE!

  • Sdoyle1

    I think Norm is saying classic propaganda techniques are being effectively used by the education reform crowd. Remember! Modern propaganda was essentially an American experiment perfected by Edward Bernayes to sell WW1 to a reluctant populace. The term “propaganda” was routinely used until it got a bad rap due to the rise of the Nazis. The term was replaced by the more innocent sounding catchall, “public relations”

Tips, questions, feedback?

Contact us at .

Word from Our Sponsor

Follow GothamSchools

RSS
Subscribe to the daily email digest:

Chalk It Up

Recent Comments

15 comments so far today
View all comments »

RSS Feeds

Newsroom posts Community posts All GothamSchools content

Archives

May 2013
M T W T F S S
« Apr  
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  

Copyright Notice