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I remember the moment I stopped resenting the deduction in my paychecks that went to my union. It took me three years, and happened suddenly.

Halfway through my third year of teaching music, in 2007, administrators in my St. Louis district decided to cut student time in the arts by 64 percent at the middle-school level as part of a plan to improve student test-scores. Appalled, I sent an email to my fellow arts teachers across the district asking what we were going to do.

The response from my colleagues? There is nothing you can do; this has been happening for the past 20 years. Nonetheless, unwilling to let the arts programs go quietly, I circulated petitions among staff, acquiring signatures from several hundred teachers—arts and non-arts teachers alike. It didn’t do anything.

Out of ideas, and with no sense of what it might accomplish, I called my union. The response was immediate: The union would help mobilize teachers and parents opposed to the planned cuts.

In the end, the union’s role in the struggle was minimal. But at that moment when I felt ready to give up, its contribution was decisive: It rejected the powerlessness that my colleagues had articulated, and affirmed my professional convictions about the centrality of the arts in public education. With renewed confidence, several of my colleagues and I began to organize, and following a large outcry from parents and teachers, the administration ultimately reversed its decision.

Flash forward to today. I am in my sixth year of teaching, now in New York City, and what bothered me then in St. Louis bothers me even more now. (more…)

Critical thinking —  “reasonable reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do”  — is embraced by education reformers as key to fixing our schools. Having learned that simply graduating from high school does not ensure success, city officials now hope that by implementing the Common Core standards our students will gain this fundamental skill, and their college readiness will soar.

I’m one of those New Yorkers lucky enough to send his kids to solid public schools with involved parents and committed teachers. A recent social studies test given at one of my kid’s schools shows how hard it is to teach critical thinking when we adults struggle to model it ourselves.

Having studied early colonization in America for about two months, my middle school child came home with a “study sheet” for an upcoming test. The questions and the “right” answers, all bullet points, were listed. “All I have to do is memorize this,” my child explained. (more…)

In 2012, Mayor Bloomberg’s mandate to provide comprehensive sex education is scheduled to take effect in New York City’s public middle and high schools. As the executive director of Inwood House, which specializes in teen pregnancy prevention and supportive services for pregnant and parenting teens, and as one of the mayor’s appointees to the Panel for Educational Policy, I support this addition to our youth’s education.

I also understand that while the majority of parents welcome sex education for their child, others are apprehensive. I would like to address the concerns and critiques that have surfaced since the mandate’s announcement.

One major concern is that teaching sex education in schools undermines values that parents teach at home. Critics of the mandate point to the “risk cards” used by the Reducing the Risk curriculum which compare the relative risks of sexual practices. They also cite homework assignments that require students to locate sexual health resources in their neighborhoods.

It’s important to keep in mind that nearly half the DOE-recommended curriculum lessons for high school students are devoted to abstinence, refusal techniques, delaying tactics, and ways to avoid high-risk situations. These teach our teens how to think critically about making healthy decisions. The risk cards and sexual health resource assignments arm them with medically accurate information that informs those decisions. It is well documented that having information about and access to contraception does not advance sexual activity. Knowing where to go for sexual health resources is a skill and safety measure that will protect them throughout their lives. (more…)

As a special education teacher at a Washington Heights elementary school for the last three years, I’ve made a number of professional connections that have aided me in getting adjusted to the school and to the contours of my job. One of those connections was the family worker. She assisted me with my questions about my students’ services and how to best work with SESIS, the Department of Education’s unwieldy special education data system. Her remarkable memory supplied me with essential details about every one of my students, their parents, and their Individualized Education Plans. Frankly, she was my biggest support in the special education department.

Last month, she worked her last day at my school.

On Oct. 7, three school aides and the family worker worked their last day at my school, cutting the number of aides at my school from six to three and leaving us without a family worker entirely. Losing our school aides unfortunately was just another cut our school of 700+ students and 50+ staff members has had to endure over last three years of budget cuts, which have also shrunk our teaching staff and caused us to lose intervention teachers. But my colleagues and I have been feeling the loss of our school aides every day since the layoffs.

The aides at my school served many functions throughout the school day. The most visible area where the school aides were the greatest help was in the cafeteria. With four periods of lunch with students ranging from pre-kindergarten to fifth grade, the aides were watchful eyes and the go-to people if there were troubles at any of the tables. The school aides also helped make copies for over 50 teachers, phone calls to parents to assist the parent coordinator, and plans for parent workshops and special events.

In addition, the family worker worked to make sure CAP (another special education database system) and SESIS were up-to-date and compliant to state and city requirements. She was also the first welcoming face any new student coming to our school after a placement change would see and interact with, and she provided as smooth of a first day as she could. With over 70 students with IEPs and constant new student influx, this was no small undertaking. (more…)

Gov. Cuomo says he has made up his mind about the millionaires tax – he’s against it. Saying that continued taxation would push New Yorkers to leave the state, he recently said nothing could make him support extending the millionaires tax.

Think about that for a minute. Do you really believe that residents and businesses are likely to leave the state because a tax that has been in place for two years is going to be continued? Have you noticed real-estate prices in lower Manhattan dropping precipitously as all the millionaires have fled since 2009, when the tax was first enacted? Of course not.

But a recent poll found that 72 percent of registered voters in New York support continuing the tax, so it’s clear the governor is indeed taking a stand that carries some political risk. Why would he do that? Why would he say, as he did, “The fact that everybody wants it, that doesn’t mean all that much”? The answer has to be that he is counting on the support of the super-rich, and he’s not going to push any policies that make them nervous. Support for what? Let’s just say that Cuomo is ambitious.

So, what does this have to do with education? Well, of course, without more than $4 billion in revenue in the next year from the millionaires tax, schools across the state, but especially in the city, are looking at huge cuts to education. I’m a public school teacher and have seen the effects of budget cuts firsthand. But it is as a parent that I am most outraged. (more…)

I got the first call Thursday afternoon. A recording asked if I could volunteer at a shelter during the hurricane. Press 1 for yes or 2 for no.

I felt a wave of the familiar not-working-but-still-getting-paid-teacher-in-summer guilt. I thought about the fact that I didn’t have kids and what my mother would say. I pressed 1, mentally crossing my fingers I wouldn’t be called to volunteer. That evening a voicemail message told me to report to Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn Friday morning for my 12-hour shift. I was in shock. I played the message for my roommates and they howled with laughter, especially when the awkward automated voice said “12-hour shift.” At this point, I didn’t know these calls were only being made to city workers.

The next day I made my way to Clara Barton. I knew it was the right thing to do, and honestly, feared I might get in trouble if I didn’t show (the message was unambiguously in the imperative). There were about 15 of us that day — an industrious bunch — and we got to work unpacking the large bins that had been stored at the school for years for an event like this. They were filled with instructional videos and books, forms, walkie-talkies, flashlights, notepads, signage, batteries, tape, markers, pens, and more. Along with the three other teachers in the group, I drooled over this abundance of brand-new school supplies — particularly the oodles of Post-It brand poster paper (with the sticky back!) that every teacher knows cost 30 bucks a pop. Our schools might stop just short of putting campus safety in charge of supplies, but apparently the city’s Office of Emergency Management had plenty to go around.

We were to be an evacuation center: a place for evacuees to check in before heading to a “satellite” hurricane shelter. I ended up with the job of entering information on the website OEM uses to keep track of its staff and evacuees. By now I knew of course, that only city employees had been asked to volunteer. I wondered why there were so few teachers — most people were from the Human Resources Administration. Eventually I heard back from the teacher friends I had texted. Many of them had been contacted; they had all said no. Two were away, the rest were just not interested. I didn’t get the sense that anyone had refused out of spite for the Department of Education or the city; it seemed more that they weren’t keen on spending a hurricane working at a shelter. (more…)

Ama Nyamekye taught high school English in the New York City public schools from 2004 to 2007 and now works as a communications consultant for nonprofits. This post originally appeared in the Commentary section of Education Week.

In college, I pumped my fist at a rally against standardized testing. I’d never seen the exam I was protesting, but stood in solidarity with educators and labor organizers who felt the testing movement was an attack on teachers, particularly those working in poor public schools. My opposition grew when I became a teacher in the South Bronx, one of America’s poorest communities. I wanted to uplift my students and resented the weight of a looming high-stakes test.

Besides, I thought good teachers should be left to their own devices. And, I was certain that I was a good teacher. For the most part, my students were punctual, respectful, and engaged. It wasn’t until my second year in the classroom that I began questioning this assumption.

In a routine evaluation, my principal praised my organization, management, and facilitation, but posed the following question: “How do you know the kids are really getting it?” She urged me to develop more-rigorous assessments of student learning. Ego and uncertainty inspired me to measure the impact of my instruction. I thought I was effective, but I wanted proof.

In my third year of teaching, I put myself to the test. (more…)

When I announced to my three classes during the second week of June that they would be responsible for reading two books over the course of the summer, a riot nearly ensued. Amidst the cacophony of groans, deep sighs, and loud complaints, I was the recipient of a populist anger not seen since the Grinch was around stealing Christmas. In fact, I was charged with a similar crime: stealing summer and forcing my students into the no-fun zone of intellectual hard labor.

With summer reading assignments of my own a less-than-distant memory, I chose the two books with empathy to the agony my students would surely endure if assigned a pair of less than captivating novels. Thus, I was genuinely excited about my choices of “Copper Sun” by Sharon Draper and “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins, and assumed my students would be as well, which paved the way for either a huge letdown or an epic battle of wills. I presented the novels to my students with great fanfare and as I responded, first calmly, to the barrage of attacks with statistics on summer learning loss and the importance to prepare for high school, I lost my cool when a student defiantly declared that I could not make him read in the first place and that he could choose not to read at all. A battle of wills was at hand.

As I hurled threats towards him of serious academic consequences such as failing the summer reading test and hurting his chances at a good grade, I was most frustrated by the truth in his statement. I really could not force him or any other student to read. As a teacher that strongly cares for his students, thinking that their minds going to waste over the next two months was agonizing for me. That was the real reason behind assigning summer reading in the first place — to prevent the learning loss that typically afflicts low-income students during the summer time because of limited exposure to activities, resources, and experiences that would provide academic stimulation. I feared all the progress we made over the course of the year would evaporate as quickly as water spilled on burning pavement during a hot summer day. I had witnessed this phenomenon before with this same group of students as they returned to school after the previous summer. Those that participated in an enrichment program I offered at my school were adequately prepared for the rigors and expectations of seventh grade, while those that languished by the poolside or in front of the television returned mentally sluggish and in poor condition to begin the yearlong academic marathon that would follow.

Although I may have suffered an initial defeat in the war of summer reading, I would not be overcome by my students’ intransigence. (more…)

Mayor Bloomberg’s comments on his Friday radio show that tenure “may have been necessary in the McCarthy era” but is now a relic of the past highlight how out of touch he is with the current realities of the school system.

Bloomberg argued that protection for academic freedom was not necessary for public school teachers because we are “not writing papers about things that are very controversial.” However, in some schools, advocacy for students or for the employment rights of teachers can result in witch-hunts from school administrators that can border on the McCarthyesque. Tenure is meant to shelter teachers from the whims of these administrators.

As two New York City teachers who have both been targeted with unsatisfactory ratings because of our union activity, we know from firsthand experience that tenure is one of the few protections for whistleblowers and teacher advocates.

One of us, Rachel Montagano, as a union representative at MS 216 in Queens, experienced a repeated pattern of being scrutinized for her teaching practices immediately after conducting union activities. For example, after she refused to sign off on a safety plan that was written without teacher input, she was accused of insubordination. That began a pattern that has resulted in Montagano, a veteran reading coach who helped develop curriculum for the school, receiving her first-ever unfavorable reviews and facing incompetence charges. Administrators entered union meetings, or stood outside, sometimes writing down who showed up; a clear force of intimidation with the message, “we are watching you.” Without tenure due process, Montagano and some of her colleagues would already be facing unemployment because of her willingness to stand up for the safety of her students and for the rights of her colleagues. Meanwhile, their principal, Reggie Landau, set fire to his office with an illegal hotplate but has not faced sanction from the Department of Education.

The other of us, Peter Lamphere, as a union delegate at the Bronx High School of Science, participated in a harassment grievance along with 19 other colleagues from the mathematics department. Shortly afterward, he received unsatisfactory ratings for the first time in his career, and other teachers were subjected to various forms of harassment. A neutral fact-finder later supported the grievance and found that administrators’ belief that Lamphere was a ringleader of the grievance played a role in the harassment. Without tenure rights, Lamphere would have been fired long before the grievance was heard. Five of the six untenured teachers who signed the math department grievance had left the school within six months, either after being fired or fleeing before their careers would be destroyed.

We join a long list of educators who have been targeted because of their union activity or for aspects of their identities. (more…)

As a high school special education teacher and adjunct instructor of education at Pace University, I was deeply concerned by with the nature and content of this month’s Global History and Geography Regents exam. The exam reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of teaching Global History in public high schools and revealed that the New York State Board of Regents is at best conflicted about the purpose of the exam, and at worst wrong in its concept of  what history should be taught.

The recent results of a 2010 NAEP assessment in U.S. History have rightfully been damned by leading figures in the school reform movement as evidence of a startling lack of student knowledge about the history of our country. My experience administering the exam this year showed me that there is a disconnect between the State Board of Regents and teachers on history teaching. The victims of this disconnect are the students who deserve to be appropriately assessed on their understanding of global history but are not.

My main concern about this year’s exam lay with the “Document Based Question,” or DBQ, which asked students to synthesize primary source material into an essay that addressed the concept of human rights using three examples: the Ukrainian famine of the 1920s and 1930s, the Cambodian crisis of 1970s, and the conflicts in Rwanda during the 1990s. (more…)