National Education Association's Lily Eskelsen Garcia on teaching, testing, and fighting back
Jul 27, 2014 2:45pm PDT by
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Both major teachers unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, have been moving toward a more confrontational response to the push, from Democrats as well as Republicans, for public education to be more and more dominated by standardized testing. That testing is taking over the time students spend in the classroom, as well as being used as a weapon against their teachers—and it's all a distraction from real problem of inequality, in the schools and in the American economy more generally. "Reform" has come to mean attacking teachers and enriching testing companies, not seeking structural change; it means narrowing what children learn to what's on math and reading tests, not developing a broader vision for education. In this context, I interviewed Lily Eskelsen Garcia, the president-elect of the NEA, while at Netroots Nation.Eskelsen Garcia, a former cafeteria worker, kindergarten aide, and then elementary school teacher, is upbeat and intense and outspoken against testing—but, as you'll see late in her comments, is carefully politic when it comes to figures like Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who her union's representative assembly called on to resign, and who she characterizes as "a good person" but one who's "just dead wrong on this obsession with test scores."
On testing and where she wants to take the NEA:
It is to me the epitome of wrongheaded corporate solutions to things like boys and girls and it is a factory model of quality control that is all wrapped around hitting a cut score on a commercial standardized test and what's being lost is the whole happy child. [...]
I got involved in my union because I had 39 kids in my classroom in Utah, where we stack 'em deep and teach 'em cheap. ... I said I want somebody who's going to fight for what I need to do my job as a good, creative, caring, competent teacher, and I got more and more involved as I saw the forces from outside education coming in and telling us that teaching and learning was reduced to multiple choice tests, because that what not what made me the teacher of the year ...
As much as I want to move a very positive agenda, if we can't move this incredible boulder out of the road and that boulder is you hit your cut score or you fail, we're never going to be able to move toward whole child reform. Whole child means the National Education Association's Lily Eskelsen Garcia on teaching, testing, and fighting back:
Spring is usually the season when private contractors across the nation seem to come out of the woodwork seeking public school contracts. Why? They know school board members are desperately trying to balance budgets for the upcoming school year.
On testing and where she wants to take the NEA:
It is to me the epitome of wrongheaded corporate solutions to things like boys and girls and it is a factory model of quality control that is all wrapped around hitting a cut score on a commercial standardized test and what's being lost is the whole happy child. [...]
I got involved in my union because I had 39 kids in my classroom in Utah, where we stack 'em deep and teach 'em cheap. ... I said I want somebody who's going to fight for what I need to do my job as a good, creative, caring, competent teacher, and I got more and more involved as I saw the forces from outside education coming in and telling us that teaching and learning was reduced to multiple choice tests, because that what not what made me the teacher of the year ...
As much as I want to move a very positive agenda, if we can't move this incredible boulder out of the road and that boulder is you hit your cut score or you fail, we're never going to be able to move toward whole child reform. Whole child means the National Education Association's Lily Eskelsen Garcia on teaching, testing, and fighting back:
The Key to Fighting Privatization? Preparation
By John Rosales
Spring is usually the season when private contractors across the nation seem to come out of the woodwork seeking public school contracts. Why? They know school board members are desperately trying to balance budgets for the upcoming school year.
And nothing is easier for cash-strapped trustees needing to strike a zero balance by summer than outsourcing the jobs of education support professionals (ESPs). While spring is the high season for privateers to court vulnerable board members, the time for local Associations to prepare arguments and mobilize members against outsourcing is … always.
“The sooner you realize your school board is considering privatization, the better prepared you can be to fight it,” says Scott Wagner, a teacher for 32 years and president of Clearview Education Association (CEA) in New Jersey.
Wagner knows what he is talking about. CEA is a merged local with 330 members, including about 100 ESPs. Last spring, when ESP members still had 15 months remaining on their contract – through June 30, 2015 — school board members with the Clearview Regional School District announced on the lazy Friday afternoon of March 21 that they were considering outsourcing custodial and paraeducator positions.
“I was so broken up when I heard the news … completely devastated,” says Mike Larmond, a custodian for 20 years fondly known to students as “Mister Mike.” Larmond says he lost his appetite and couldn’t sleep for days after the announcement.
“I didn’t see that one coming,” says Diane D’Agostini, a paraeducator for 18 years and whose four children graduated from Clearview Regional High School. “It was on my mind 24/7. I couldn’t sleep a wink. ”
The 17 paras and 13 custodians in jeopardy of losing their jobs were notified by e-mail at 2:00 p.m. and told