THIS WEEK FROM THE US DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION ED.GOV
NEWS FROM DR. MIGUEL CARDONA AND THE US DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
“Sometimes I aint so sho who’s got ere a right to say when a man is crazy and when he aint. Sometimes I think it aint none of us pure crazy and aint none of us pure sane until the balance of us talks him that-a-way. It’s like it aint so much what a fellow does, but it’s the way the majority of folks is looking at him when he does it.”
― As I Lay Dying
Recently I’ve spent a lot more time focused on the state and its education policies and less on MNPS and their actions. There are several reasons why. First and foremost being that under the leadership of Commissioner Schwinn and her chief enabler Governor Lee, the TNDOE has become an ever-expanding dumpster fire. You can slap all the lipstick you want on the pig, but it remains an ever-growing swine.
At the same time, the administration under Dr. Battle’s leadership has proven to be a marked improvement, though there is still plenty of room for more. The tendency to treat everything as if it was a state secret still exists, as does the practice of crafting policy in isolation. Sure there is a parent advisory council, and a teacher panel, as well as a principal advisory committee, but in CONTINUE READING: WHAT YOU SEE, AIN’T ALWAYS WHAT YOU GET – Dad Gone Wild
The past two decades have been rough times for the two big teachers’ unions. Republicans have demonized them. The Obama administration courted their support but did little to help them as they were attacked by the right in Republican state houses and the Courts. Duncan gleefully promoted the misguided use of test scores to evaluate teachers, despite repeated warnings by eminent researchers that the methodology was flawed. In fact, eligibility for states to compete to get more than $4 billion in Race to the Top funding was contingent on states enacting laws to do exactly that. “Value-added measurement” flopped; it was not only a costly failure but it was enormously demoralizing to teachers. When the Los Angeles Times and the New York Post published the VAM scores of teachers, Duncan applauded them.
As a candidate, Joe Biden made clear that he’s not only pro-teacher, he’s a union man. Whether or not either will be chosen, the names of the leaders of the NEA and AFT have been floated as possible choices for Secretary of CONTINUE READING: Politico: Will Biden Bring Teachers’ Unions in from the Cold? | Diane Ravitch's blog
While people all discuss the low incidence of COVID in schools, compared to the population at large, it's important to note that the city has not, in fact, followed its own programs for months. Not only was UFT supposed to consent to testing, but all students in buildings were supposed to consent as well. I recall reading somewhere that so far, only 15% of students had agreed to testing.
As if that's not enough, I've heard that in my school and others, there was a quote the testers were supposed to reach in a building, and once they reached it through volunteers, they didn't bother compelling anyone. This means that many if not all results from schools resulted from self-selection. I don't have to be a statistical expert to see that isn't random.
So now the DOE is saying publicly that it will enforce an agreement it made three months ago. But there are quite a few holes in it. Mayor de Blasio is planning to have students up to grade 5 in attendance tomorrow, but it looks like they haven't quite caught everyone.
Students in 3-K, Pre-K and Kindergarten are exempt, but others have to bring parental consent forms on Monday. Those without parental consent or a valid excuse will be CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Sense, Nonsense, and de Blasio's DOE
SALT LAKE CITY — Former Utahn Lily Eskelsen Garcia, who recently concluded six years as president of the nation’s largest teachers union, is considered a contender for Education secretary in the administration of President-elect Joe Biden, according to Politico.
The Washington-based website and newspaper that focuses on American politics says Eskelsen Garcia, Utah Education Association president in the 1990s, is “an early favorite for the position.”
“Biden has committed to putting a public school teacher atop the Department of Education, a pledge that has encouraged unions and public education advocates alike, and is seen as a hard rule within the transition team. Given Biden’s close ties to organized labor, there is also a widespread expectation that he wants to put a union official or someone with union ties in his cabinet,” according to Politico.
Eskelsen Garcia, a former elementary school teacher in Utah and former president of the NEA, which claims 3 million members, checks off both boxes.
“Having a secretary of Education who has been a boots-on-the-ground classroom teacher who knows how policies make their way to the classrooms and into the lives of our students and into the working conditions of our teachers, that is just so exciting to me and CONTINUE READING: Is former Utah teachers leader slated for Education post for Biden? - Deseret News
The DOE is full of Bloomberg leftovers hired from TFA refugees, cocktail parties, hopeless relatives and who knows where else. What are we going to do to get the next mayor to sweep clean, get rid of the incompetence and indifference, and sweep the stench of Bloomberg from Tweed forever?
Why, exactly, would I ask a thing like that? For one thing, it's years of dealing with DOE "legal." Ostensibly, this group exists to advise principals, but in reality, its prime directive is to impede union activity in any way possible. It will offer the most outlandish advice, and a chapter leader might repeatedly spend months grieving as a result.
One of the reasons is that, at Step Two of grievances, the DOE generally doesn't even bother listening to UFT. Like "legal," the people repping the DOE can't be bothered with rules, evidence, or any such frivolity. They just do any damn thing they like and make you wait months again to see an arbitrator. I was once told to stand outside a door, and actually heard the rather loud hearing officer essentially say the principal had no case. Months later, I lost the Step Two hearing anyway.
For one very long year, I took the job of LAB BESIS coordinator. This job had to do with testing ELLs. I had to deal with a whole lot of records. It was good in one way, because I finally had an office to conduct union business, but I wasn't particularly fond of the actual job. It was a lot of tedious computer work, and the DOE system I had to CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: The Lingering Stench of Mike Bloomberg
Above is the video from today's Contract Committee of the Panel for Educational Policy. It was a short meeting, mostly composed of Charlotte Hamamgian, the DOE Executive Director of Contracts and Purchasing, reading aloud the list of summaries of all the different contracts, which together cost about $400 million this month. Only two PEP members asked questions, Kathy Park Price with a quick follow-up from Isaac Carmignani; unclear how many others listened in or if there was a quorum.
It was extremely disconcerting how the most elementary questions about the busing contracts were responded to with confusing, inadequate and sometimes downright contradictory responses from the DOE officials in charge. including Lindsey Oates, the DOE CFO and Sean Fitzpatrick, the executive director of the city Department of Education's pupil transportation unit.
I sent this memo to the members of the Panel for Educational Policy last week; questions about their busing contracts, DOE's lack of compliance with the state student privacy law by failing to post their district data privacy policy and contracts with vendors that have access to personal student data, and problems related to PEP governance.
Update on busing: After this memo was written, it was also revealed that the DOE is planning purchasing Reliant bus company, for an unknown amount, acquiring one thousand buses and thousands of new employees, with ongoing considerable costs to the DOE budget. As I said to the NY Post, this move raises all sorts of questions, including how can the city afford this in the face of huge budget shortfalls? And why are they adding more city employees while threatening to lay off thousands of others?
Update on the Covid testing contracts: As of Friday 10/16/20, DOE has now posted the three vendor Parent Bill of Rights agreements here, after we and others urged them to do so. We still have concerns about the provisions regarding deletion of the personal student data portions in their Parent Bill of Rights, which do not clearly state when the data is to be deleted and thus do not appear to comply with the state student privacy law Education Law 2D, or regs, which fully came into force January 2020. There still are no contracts or PBOR posted on the DOE website for the 75+ ed tech companies that DOE has acquired and encouraged teachers to use, many of which also have access to personal student data.
The meeting of the PEP contract is Monday Oct. 19 at 11 AM today; you can see livestream here. Meeting of the PEP is Wed. Oct 21 at 6 PM; more info including agenda here. The agenda has a link to the proposed contracts. You can listen or sign up to speak starting at 5:30 PM here.
