CURMUDGUCATION: Covid and the Good Guys

CURMUDGUCATION: Covid and the Good Guys

Covid and the Good Guys

You can set this Twitter comment next to a quote from Rep. Virginia Foxx, who said that Weingarten "is attempting to rewrite history by framing her union as part of the 'solution.'"

Both are a fine example of how far off the rails the re-opening school debate has gone (if we can characterize a bunch of people hollering at each other a debate). Notice that the outpouring about Weingarten's call to re-open school buildings in the fall is not talking about whether that's a good idea or not. No, what we're now arguing about is who should get to call themselves a good guy. 

One of the narratives pushed and pushed hard for the last fifteen months has been the Narrative of the Evil Unions, who have somehow been behind the whole school closing thing even though many many parents have balked at sending students back and many private schools have stayed closed and it's not even particularly clear exactly how and where this union pressure has been exerted. Nor have I ever, ever understood what the villains' motivation was supposed to be in this story--if teachers are intent on shutting down schools, why is that, exactly? But anyway-- the Narrative of the Evil Unions has never flagged, and people who are invested in it will be damned if they're going to see the unions wiggle CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Covid and the Good Guys

Revisiting California's Battle of Hastings - LA Progressive

Revisiting California's Battle of Hastings - LA Progressive

Revisiting California’s Battle of Hastings

Courtesy of re:publica/flickr.

The 2005 Sacking of the Netflix CEO as State Education Board Chief Looks Different Now

After long days supervising my children in their struggles with the miseries of distance learning and hybrid school, I try to relax by watching Netflix. As I do, I often find myself thinking about a state legislative hearing from 2005, and how different California education might be if it had gone differently.

The hearing, in a committee of the State Senate, was supposed to be routine. I, an L.A. Times reporter at the time, didn’t even bother to cover it. The subject was reappointment of the president of the State Board of Education. The president, Reed Hastings, was thought to be a shoo-in.

After all, Hastings, a tech entrepreneur and Democratic donor from Santa Cruz, had put together a successful ballot measure to make it easier to pass school bonds, launching a new era of school construction statewide after decades of neglect. He’d supported the state’s accountability system for schools, and backed the establishment of public charter schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Hastings also had bipartisan support—he’d been appointed four years earlier by a Democrat, Gov. Gray Davis, and was nominated for re-appointment by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican.

But the hearing went sideways. Some education groups didn’t like charter schools, or his blunt interest in transforming education systems. Hastings himself suggested that he was felled by CONTINUE READING: Revisiting California's Battle of Hastings - LA Progressive

Ed Notes Online: Jamaal Bowman connects charter movement to anti-labor, anti-union privatization - it takes an educator who suffered the negative impact of charters

Ed Notes Online: Jamaal Bowman connects charter movement to anti-labor, anti-union privatization - it takes an educator who suffered the negative impact of charters

Jamaal Bowman connects charter movement to anti-labor, anti-union privatization - it takes an educator who suffered the negative impact of charters

One of the things that irk me about Democrats from all wings of the party and progressives to the left is how the charter schools are often avoided in so many discussions - I think that is intentional because they don't want to alienate segments of the non-white community who support charters. 

Those of us who have been involved in fighting ed deform over the past 25 years see charters as the point of the spear aimed at privatization of fundamental public services. Anti union, anti labor.

I'm watching a webinar from the Democratic Socialists with Jamaal Bowman, Naomi Klein and SARA NELSON International President, Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO. (Call her the anti-Randi of the progressive labor movement). The goal of the webinar is to link green new deal to labor struggles and jobs by urging passage of the PRO-ACT. Dems who won't support the pro labor act are giving in to their corporate sponsors. The PRO Act gives unions tools to overturn the right to work laws in their states.

Bowman spoke eloquently, as usual, and made that charter school connection and how they must be fought to stop that CONTINUE READING: Ed Notes Online: Jamaal Bowman connects charter movement to anti-labor, anti-union privatization - it takes an educator who suffered the negative impact of charters

Attacks against teacher unions uncovers anti-educator nature of Bloomberg and Republicans – North Texas Daily

Attacks against teacher unions uncovers anti-educator nature of Bloomberg and Republicans – North Texas Daily

Attacks against teacher unions uncovers anti-educator nature of Bloomberg and Republicans

The recent controversy surrounding the reopening of U.S. schools during the COVID-19 pandemic has placed former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Republicans on the same team against teacher unions. Bloomberg and Republicans have spewed rhetoric that exposes the anti-educator beliefs inherent to the oligarch and the GOP.

“It’s time for Joe Biden to stand up and to say, the kids are the most important things, important players here,” Bloomberg said during an interview on MSNBC. “And the teachers just are going to have to suck it up and stand up and provide an education.” This is not the first time Bloomberg has made an enemy of himself against teachers’ unions. In 2013, Bloomberg compared teacher unions to the National Rifle Association.

Bloomberg’s unwarranted advice to President Biden does not have much basis in the political reality of the moment. Presidents should never have to “stand up” to teacher unions. Instead, whoever the president is, regardless of party, must always be doubtfully allied with teacher unions.

There is nothing that the unions want more than to be included at the negotiating table. American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten published an article that laid out a plan for reopening schools. Teachers are yearning for the classroom, the only problem is lawmakers are not willing to make the investment to do so safely.

Carefully reopening all public schools is a massive task mainly because marginalized schools lack funding for resources required to follow health protocols. It is no surprise that the ninth richest person on the planet — who also made $6.8 billion since the COVID-19 pandemic started — is out of touch with the economic challenges that ill-funded schools face.

AFT has estimated that reopening schools would require $116.5 billion in federal funding. The price tag seems high, but dissecting the figure reveals essential costs such CONTINUE READING: Attacks against teacher unions uncovers anti-educator nature of Bloomberg and Republicans – North Texas Daily

Shawgi Tell: Charter Schools Bully Teachers | Dissident Voice

Charter Schools Bully Teachers | Dissident Voice

Charter Schools Bully Teachers

It is no accident that fewer than three percent of the nation’s roughly 7,300 charter schools are operated by teachers and that 90% of charter schools do not have a teachers union. So much for the narrative that charter schools started nearly 30 years ago to empower teachers. Some states even allow charter schools to hire teachers with no teaching certification. In addition, most charter school teachers are paid less than their public school counterparts and usually have fewer years of teaching experience. Charter school teachers also tend to work longer days and years than public school teachers.

As deregulated “free-market” schools, charter schools, which are more segregated than public schools, see teachers unions as undermining the free, flexible, and autonomous nature of charter schools. Privately-operated charter schools prefer to treat teachers as non-unionized at-will employees, just like employees in most private businesses. Such employees can be hired and fired at any time for any reason; there is no due process. Charter schools do not want to be “bogged down” by any “restrictions.” They wish to do as they please. In exchange for this liberty, charter schools claim they will deliver CONTINUE READING: Charter Schools Bully Teachers | Dissident Voice

CURMUDGUCATION: Anti-Union Activists Want To "Speak Out For Teachers"

CURMUDGUCATION: Anti-Union Activists Want To "Speak Out For Teachers"

Anti-Union Activists Want To "Speak Out For Teachers"

Among the folks pushing the narrative that schools are shut down because of the Evil Teachers Unions, we find this sparkly website--  Speak Out For Teachers. Here's their pitch:

Are you one of the millions of teachers eager to return to safe, in-person learning — only to find a teachers’ union is fighting to keep schools closed and students at home? Share your story below. It might even air on national television!

"It's time to speak out for teachers," they declare, as they invite you to hear some teacher stories they have already collected. There are three so far.

One is Catherine Barrett from Phoenix, who a few years back was part of #RedforEd until she became a GOP political operative for Doug Ducey, attacking the #REdforEd movement. She also turned up as chair of a group pushing a Classroom Code of Ethics in Arizona, proposed gag rule for teachers in the wake of #RedforEd; that proposal turned out not be an Arizona thing, but an anti-teacher move cooked up by activist David Horowitz and pushed out across the country. 

Another is Bruce Aster. Aster was a legislative assistant in DC before becoming a teacher, and he has never been a union fan. His profile is listed on For Kids and Country, the website of anti-union activist Rebecca Friedrichs. They have more in common than a hard-right anti-union stance; when CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Anti-Union Activists Want To "Speak Out For Teachers"

CURMUDGUCATION: The National Review Vs. Evil Teachers Unions

CURMUDGUCATION: The National Review Vs. Evil Teachers Unions

The National Review Vs. Evil Teachers Unions

Upon first reading "Teachers Unions and the Myth of 'Public' Schools" at National Review, my immediate impulse was to just mutter "fatuous bullshit" and move on. But this piece is a fine distillation of a current genre of writing--the piece that blames current school closures on the self-serving teachers' unions, who see distance learning as a great way to pursue their dream of being paid for doing nothing. And as such, it needs to be responded to, even if only by a lowly blogger. Also, the National Review is not some completely stupid rag, and it should do better than this.

The writer is Cameron Hilditch, a William F. Buckley Fellow in Political Journalism at National Review Institute. He's originally from Belfast, went to Exford, and has been playing in the big leagues. When you see his picture, you're going to think he looks like he's about twelve, but it's not fair to hold that against him; in my picture at the top of this blog, I look like I still have hair. 

Hilditch comes out of the gate mighty aggressive:

American taxpayers have been hoodwinked by the whole idea of “public schools.” No other institutions get away with such bad behavior on the part of some employees who staff them.

He cites the last batch of NAEP scores as his proof, making the usual mistake, deliberate or not, of mistaking NAEP "proficiency" for "adequacy" instead of "top quality." He calls these numbers CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: The National Review Vs. Evil Teachers Unions

Attacks on Teachers Have Been Central to Republicans’ Agenda to Reduce Government Spending | janresseger

Attacks on Teachers Have Been Central to Republicans’ Agenda to Reduce Government Spending | janresseger

Attacks on Teachers Have Been Central to Republicans’ Agenda to Reduce Government Spending

Among the lingering effects of state budget reductions during the 2008 Great Recession have been widespread drops in teachers’ overall compensation. Although some states and local school districts do their part to pay their teachers fairly, and some provide the fringe benefits such professionals should expect, overall according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute, “teachers are paid less (in wages and compensation) than other college-educated workers with similar experience.”  And, “(T)his financial penalty discourages college students from entering the teaching profession.”

Our economy has now entered another recession due to layoffs and business closures during COVID-19, and without further federal relief to states, teachers are likely once again to be the victims.

All summer and through September, U.S. Senate Republicans have refused to negotiate with House Democrats, who passed their bid for a second coronavirus relief bill, the HEROES Act, on May 15.  Until this past weekend, it looked as though Congress would recess until after the election without the Senate’s agreeing even to take up the bill for consideration.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and White House negotiator Steve Mnuchin returned to discussions last week, but until the President became ill with COVID-19 over the weekend, it looked as though progress had broken down. The President’s infection by COVID-19 and indications that the economy will continue to lag have, apparently, brought Pelosi and CONTINUE READING: Attacks on Teachers Have Been Central to Republicans’ Agenda to Reduce Government Spending | janresseger

Sacramento City Unified to begin distance learning Tuesday | abc10.com

Sacramento City Unified to begin distance learning Tuesday | abc10.com

Sacramento City Unified to begin distance learning Tuesday

The plan will move forward without an agreement with the Sacramento City Teachers Association, the district said in an announcement

Big Education Ape: Choosing Democracy: SCUSD Imposes a Plan for Distance Learning - Lets see what teachers do ! - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/09/choosing-democracy-scusd-imposes-plan.html

Teachers in the SCTA want flexibility in the learning styles for their students, not forcing them to be online at a specific time, doing specific work. They say all of the flexible language was taken out of the proposal.

"We can't in good faith use a one-size fits all approach. Our kids deserve better than that," said Ingrid Hutchin, a second grade teacher.

SCUSD and SCTA have been negotiating over the summer about distance learning. Two mediators were assigned, and a mediation session was held on Sept. 4, according to the school district.

"Eight hours of mediation failed to produce any significant movement towards a distance learning agreement. The fundamental difference centers on whether the district will allow teachers to exercise the same professional judgment in a distance learning platform that they exercise in a brick and mortar setting," SCTA said in a Facebook post Friday.

"In our plan our teachers were given the flexibility given the ability to use their professional judgement to determine what is best for their students in terms of how they design their classrooms and how they design their lessons," said Preston Jackson, a middle school teacher.

SCTA said the mediators concluded negotiations and released the parties to fact-finding, the next step in the negotiation process.

"One thing we know for sure is that no matter what happens teachers will be teaching their hearts out come Tuesday," SCTA said.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) announced Saturday that it will implement a full distance learning plan beginning Sept. 8.

The plan will move forward without an agreement with the Sacramento City Teachers Association (SCTA), the district said in the announcement.

"We have little choice but to move forward without an agreement and are committed to providing our community with what they have been asking for: quality instruction, effective communication and accountability to ensure we meet our students’ academic, social and emotional needs," said Superintendent Jorge Aguilar. 

The district’s plan includes the following:

• Essential standards for every student, which are the building blocks for learning mastery and are part of the Common Core standards. 
• Recorded instruction to provide students from working families and those with multiple siblings, for example, to access instruction at a later time. 
• Assessments of student learning and identification of where targeted intervention and support are needed.
• Students with disabilities receive documented individualized services as required by their IEP and state and federal law. 
• Adequate live instruction rather than a reliance for students to learn on their own through independent work. 
• Professional Development for SCUSD Teachers as provided to teachers on Sept. 1 through 4 to provide teachers with the support to provide the quality distance learning program as indicated above.
• Consistent Google Classroom learning platform to provide consistency for our students, and access for site administrators and support providers to assist our teachers and students.
• Compliance with federal and state law, including SB 98 which establishes guardrails to ensure that distance learning isn’t the crisis learning of the spring. 

"We want to be clear: while we were unable to reach an agreement with SCTA, our decision today is not a judgment of our incredible teachers. However, our families and our educators have been kept in limbo far too long and need to know what distance learning will look like for their students, and their classes," Aguilar said. CONTINUE READING: Sacramento City Unified to begin distance learning Tuesday | abc10.com

Outraged parents want SCUSD, teachers union to agree on plan | abc10.com - https://www.abc10.com/article/news/education/outraged-parents-want-sacramento-city-educators-to-reach-agreement-on-distance-learning/103-d7986de5-90d2-4d0e-a41e-c4849f73d05b on ABC10

Sacramento school district, teachers union hit impasse days before start of school - YouTube - https://youtu.be/yaWwpLI3hbw on @youtube

Choosing Democracy: SCUSD Imposes a Plan for Distance Learning - Lets see what teachers do !

Choosing Democracy: SCUSD Imposes a Plan for Distance Learning - Lets see what teachers do !

SCUSD Imposes a Plan for Distance Learning - Lets see what teachers do !

 The Sacramento City Unified School District adopted a distance learning plan Saturday after starting the school year two days before without one. The teachers union says its teachers will not follow the plan.

The two groups have been working for weeks to determine how much time teachers will spend in direct instruction via video conference calls and how much time students will be asked to learn asynchronously, or independently

The district decided to move forward without an agreement with the union. The plan is the same originally set forth less than a week ago on Aug. 30

The district is calling for more time spent in synchronous instruction and less time doing independent work. Although both plans meet state education requirements, SCTA’s relies more on independent study in favor of face-to-face screen time. 

The Sacramento Bee has an editorial on the impass. 

Administrators do not teach., Teachers do.  Lets see what happens next.

Choosing Democracy: SCUSD Imposes a Plan for Distance Learning - Lets see what teachers do !

Maurice Cunningham: Why the Waltons and Koch Support Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Maurice Cunningham: Why the Waltons and Koch Support Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Maurice Cunningham: Why the Waltons and Koch Support Charter Schools

Maurice Cunningham, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts, specializes in exposing the role of Dark Money in education. If you read my book, Slaying Goliath, you know that Cunningham’s research and blog posts helped to turn the tide against a state referendum in 2016 to expand the number of charter schools in Massachusetts. Cunningham showed that “Yes on Two” Organization was funded by billionaires and that the billionaires were hiding their identities. Despite being outspent, the parent-teacher-local school committee won handily.

In this post, originally from February, Cunningham explains why the Waltons and Charles Koch are so devoted to privatizing public school governance. He’s right that they want to lower their taxes. They also want to smash teachers’ unions; more than 90% of charters are non-union. The corporate sector doesn’t like unions, and most private unions have been eliminated. The teachers’ unions are still standing, which annoys the billionaires

Maurice Cunningham: Why the Waltons and Koch Support Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Mr. G for District 3: Chris Guerrieri's Education Matters: Just what we need during a pandemic, a Jeb Bush siting

Mr. G for District 3: Chris Guerrieri's Education Matters: Just what we need during a pandemic, a Jeb Bush siting

Just what we need during a pandemic, a Jeb Bush siting

Mr. G for District 3: Chris Guerrieri's Education Matters: Superintendent Greene, the pandemic won't last but you losing the confidence of your staff probably will - https://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2020/08/superintendent-greene-pandemic-wont.html

Jeb Bush pushes vouchers for unregulated private schools. These schools don't take any of the high stakes tests that public school is required to and in fact, have so little accountability you might as well say they have none.  Jeb Bush also pushes the high stakes accountability tests that have been beating public schools up. Both of these are facts and both of them are incongruent which makes me think Bush either doesn't know hat he is talking about, just wants to punish public schools or both.

There is a pandemic going on, whether we are in school or not things are going to be considerably different for at least a while. Those in charge should be looking to lighten the load, but instead Bush wants to double down. 

From WLRN,

Florida education officials canceled state exams this spring as public schools shifted abruptly online at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.CONTINUE READING: Mr. G for District 3: Chris Guerrieri's Education Matters: Just what we need during a pandemic, a Jeb Bush siting

CURMUDGUCATION: Trump Comes After Public School Teachers

CURMUDGUCATION: Trump Comes After Public School Teachers

Trump Comes After Public School Teachers

Against every law of society and nature, our children are taught in school to hate their own country and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes but that were villains.

One of the big pull quotes from Donald Trump's historically shallow paean to the idea of American exceptionalism on July 3rd at Mount Rushmore, an attack on public education and the teachers who work there echoed at other points in his speech.

There was never any doubt that we'd end up here, never any doubt that he would come at teachers.

There can't be more than 11 undecided voters in the country right now, and very little likelihood that this campaign will be about winning folks to one side or another. It will be a contest to see who can get the most people to actually vote. That means energizing the base, which in Trump's case means a steady diet of "They are coming to get you, and only I can protect you from them." The "they" includes all those brown and black folks (you know, except for the "good" ones) and anybody who wants to say anything critical about the country, or about this President. They are coming to get you, and only the strength of Beloved Leader can stop them. Also, Jesus, freedom, America.

So why teachers?

Well, the administration has been clear on its anti-public education bona fides. But it has also been CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Trump Comes After Public School Teachers

CURMUDGUCATION: Rebecca Friedrichs Still Hates The Teachers Unions

CURMUDGUCATION: Rebecca Friedrichs Still Hates The Teachers Unions

Rebecca Friedrichs Still Hates The Teachers Unions

In 2014, Rebecca Friedrichs, after twenty-some years in the classroom, decided to go ahead and be the face of a lawsuit that would be derailed when Justice Scalia died. The court would eventually get to take their shot at unions with the Janus case. But while Friedrichs may have lost a lawsuit, she did manage to launch a career as a far-right Christianist spokesperson. She has done plenty of work for other folks, while pushing her own group, For Kids and Country.

If you want to catch a full catalog of the many people she objects to, you can catch her latest op-ed in the Washington Times, the right-wing outlet.

Yeah, this lady.

She's casting a wide net here, and she's come up with more old boots than actual fish. She starts by going after the 1619 Project and Black Lives Matter. She does the standard nod to black lives while still All Lives Mattering it ("Again, don’t get me wrong. Black lives do matter! Indeed, every human life is sacred.") At the same time, she wants you to know that Black Lives Matter are Very Naughty:

But the organization named Black Lives Matter is not what it claims to be. Like the unions, it’s a Trojan horse of anti-American, anti-family beliefs masquerading as defenders of good.

Friedrichs needs to bring up the union because they are part of this whole anti-American plot. She notes that some historians disputed the project, but not the NEA.

Instead, the NEA coordinated directly with The New York Times, the Pulitzer Center, Southern CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Rebecca Friedrichs Still Hates The Teachers Unions