With A Brooklyn Accent:
Are Teachers and Teachers Unions Really to Blame for the Shrinking of the Middle Class?
If the American Dream of upward mobility seems to be fading away, if in fact more people are falling out of the middle class than moving into it- is the explanation for this really "a failing public school system, filled with incompetent teachers" which is what Billionaires and the media would have you believe.Not a,government protected, too big to fail, banking system that creates mega
YESTERDAY
Love Letter to the BATS- On the First Anniversary of the Badass Teachers Association
I have been enraged by what has been happening to teachers and public education for at least 7 years. My involvement began in 2007 with school grading and school closings in the Bronx, which drove the history projects I was doing out of the public schools, and victimized many of the great teachers I had worked with. It built up steam when Barack Obama and Arne Duncan unleashed Race to the Top
JUN 12
Message from a Florida Teacher on the Discriminatory Impact of High Stakes Testing on Students in High Poverty Communities
But there is something about teacher accountability that everyone seems to be missing. I worked at a school with an extremely transient population for two years. We had more than a 50% transiency rate in a highly impoverished neighborhood. For purposes of teacher accountability, the only students that "counted" toward our evaluation were the ones at school for the 20-day count. That mean
Why Teachers Need Tenure and Due Process:
Teaching is an incredibly "political" profession. The content of curriculum, as well as school budgets and hiring policies are the subject of intense debate from local school districts through legislators. Public officials, given a chance, will use schools as centers of patronage or places where they build political machines, and they will attempt to make teachers serve those ends if tea
Keeping Great Teachers is More Important than Getting Rid of Bad Ones
I have been a teacher and a coach now for 50 years, with extensive experience working in public schools and neighborhood sports programsas well as universities. And what upsets me about the Vergara case is that the strategy for improving schools of those who filed the suit is focused on getting rid of bad teachers rather than attracting and retaining great ones. Two things happen when you do that.
JUN 10
"I Know You Hate Me" A Lifetime Teacher's Lament
From a lifetime teacher..Yeah, I know you hate me. I've spent a long time trying to figure out why and I think a lot of it is jealousy. You see, I actually have some feeling of accomplishment in my job. Because I've been in the classroom a long time, I not only see children grow and blossom every year, I get to see them return as adults with their own children, explaining how what went on my class
My Reponse to the Vergara Decision
It is just amazing that politicians, billionaires and significant portion of the general public seem to think you can improve schools by attacking teachers, undermining their tenure protections, depriving them of due process, and generally viewing them as an enemy of children and families who have to be watched, evaluated and scripted lest their deep seated selfishness do their students and the na
JUN 08
Alliances Across the Political Spectrum in the Movement Against Common Core Have Antecedents in the Depression Era Labor Movement
Many of my friends on the left, with the best of motives, have raised questions about my wilingess to work with Conservatives and Libertarians in the movement against Common Core and other top down attacks on public education. They think that alliances of this kind are both dangerous and historically unprecedented.However, while such alliances may not have been very common in the post World War 2
Why the Battle Against Common Core is Everyone's Fight
The greatest threat to democracy in the United States is the excessive concentration of wealth in a small number of hands. It is because of this that one single extremely wealthy individual- Bill Gates- was able to leap on a relatively obscure proposal for a national curriculum and get 45 states to adopt it at breakneck speed, with little scrutiny and no field testing. The protest against that cu
JUN 07
Notorious Phd on the New Orleans Charter District
It started under Bush,But Duncan Loved It,The City of New Orleans,Told teachers to shove it,When Katrina struck,They brought charters in,With TFA to staff them,Saying students would win,But 9 years later,The schools may be worse,What looked like progress,Is just the reverse.A privatized district,With revolving door staffWhere students with problemsAre thrown out like chaff.
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Happy Birthday BATs! By: Dr. Mark Naison and Priscilla Sanstead – Co-founders of BATsPriscilla SansteadI came to activism late. I'd always heard that eventually you find something in life that combines all the things you love with all the things you do pretty well. I'd also wanted to find that thing that helps people. The wake-up call to action for me came with the Seattle Map Test Revolt. To thi
JUN 12
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Resignation Letter from a First Year Public School TeacherBy LESLIE CONTRERAS SCHWARTZDear Principal of Title 1 Elementary School,Thank you for the opportunity to work in your school with your children, as you have referred to them. Thank you for reminding me to look you in the eye, for reminding me to never “turn my back on students” as I walk them in straight lines down the hall, for telling me
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Badass Teachers Association Press ReleaseFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 12, 2014More Information Contact:Marla Kilfoyle, General Manager, BATsMelissa Tomlinson, Asst. General Manager, BATscontact.batmanager@gmail.comBadass Teachers Association - http://www.badassteacher.org/The Badass Teachers Association (BATs), an association of over 48,000 teachers, is horrified by the ruling yesterday in the Ve
JUN 08
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My Wife Is A TeacherBy: Vic DeSantis I am a guy who lives for summers. I wasn’t always like this but I’m pretty sure I can pinpoint the exact time in my life where the months of June, July, and August became such an integral part of my happiness. You might be inclined to deduce that my yearning for these warmer times is related to a sports season or a passion for outdoor activities; perhaps even
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Why the Battle Against Common Core is Everyone's FightBy: Dr. Mark NaisonThe greatest threat to democracy in the United States is the excessive concentration of wealth in a small number of hands. It is because of this that one single extremely wealthy individual- Bill Gates- was able to leap on a relatively obscure proposal for a national curriculum and get 45 states to adopt it at breakneck speed