Bending Toward Justice: BATS Congress and the Fight Against Corporate Education Reform Taking Back the Power of Teachers

BATS Congress:

Bending Toward Justice: BATS Congress and the Fight Against Corporate Education Reform Taking Back the Power of Teachers

Be the change that you wish to see in the world.—Mahatma Gandhi

Nearly a year ago today, I joined an inspiring band of intrepid activists who made their way to the nation’s capital to protest the impact of high stakes testing and corporate education reform. We arrived with the genuine hope that a demonstration at the Department of Education might encourage a national discussion about what many have rightfully identified as the destruction of public education.

After a long day of speeches and activities, a representative from the Department came out and asked for a meeting. After being ushered through security, a small contingent of protesters and I travelled upstairs where we were hustled into a small conference room. After a few minutes, Secretary Arne Duncan joined us. He stayed for only a few minutes, sometimes listening, but mostly politely but firmly pushing back and evading our grievances. It was clear that we had come to the wrong place.

After he departed, Arne’s staff pressed us for solutions. I suggested a National Teacher Congress that would allow real teachers, from across the nation, and from all backgrounds and districts, to convene in Washington to earnestly discuss and explore solutions. Arne’s aides perked up. “What a fantastic idea,” one his staffers chimed in. In abstract it was, but as we debated it in the weeks following the protest it was clear that we needed something stronger. We felt acknowledged for sure, but certainly not heard. For all the power projected on him, Arne is a functionary and we determined that we needed to go after the persons and entities on whose behalf he functioned.

In the months that followed my idea of a Teachers Congress morphed into a week of lobbying to educate elected officials about the detrimental impact of corporate education exacerbated by rampant racism and poverty. The idea of a National Badass Teachers Association (BATs) Congress was born.

On Saturday, July 24, 2015 I reprised my role as keynote speaker as part of that Congress, but the real action had already taken place as my fellow BAT and edu-bloggerSteven Singer of Pennsylvania chronicles below. The BATs returned to DC, not to revisit history but to continue our mission of BATS Congress:

Badass Teacher (BAT) Association

WELCOME TO THE BAT CAVE

Badass Teacher Association Web Site

On Ron Thorpe and The Bridge Between Teaching and Leading | The Jose Vilson

On Ron Thorpe and The Bridge Between Teaching and Leading | The Jose Vilson:

On Ron Thorpe and The Bridge Between Teaching and Leading

A few years ago, John Holland and I started this blog called The Future of Teaching [now defunct], dedicated to the themes of the book Teaching2030: What We Must Do … When we first started in 2009, we wanted a clearer vision for what teacher leadership looks like in our local and national context, not ruffling feathers (!) per se, but tackling the more complex subjects from the book.

Something changed around 2011.

I’m not sure whether it was because we gained notoriety with people we considered frenemies, or because we called out a whole host of organizations for not seeing teachers in the future of education, but we noticed how people responded to our candid calls for bridging the gap between those who teach and those who lead. So when John Holland posted this, I was like “Oh I see you.” The frustration with the National Board of Professional Learning Standards (NBPTS) was palpable with all of my National Board friends. We needed the best and brightest teachers at the forefront of discussing education reform, and many felt like NBPTS as an organization was working counter to that goal.

Still, how do you call out a man who had two hugely successful teaching conferences in New York City (WNET’s Celebration of Teaching and Learning) and hadn’t even started his first official day as president of the NBPTS? But it wasn’t just a regular guy. It was Ron Thorpe (full comment in the link):

“Since you have sent your thoughts in an open letter to me, I hope you don’t mind if I respond similarly.  First of all, THANK YOU for writing what you did.  The mere fact that you value such communication and took the time to fashion such a thoughtful set of observations is exactly what I’m hoping to find many times over — maybe 91,000 times over! — among National Board Certified Teachers. […]

Let me end with what I think is your most compelling observation:  the need for the National Board to fully exercise its commitment to that third goal of advancing ‘other education reforms for the purpose of improving student learning in American schools.’  That is the area that most 

On Ron Thorpe and The Bridge Between Teaching and Leading | The Jose Vilson:

Orange County teachers union president, board relieved of duties | www.wftv.com

Orange County teachers union president, board relieved of duties | www.wftv.com:

Orange County teachers union president, board relieved of duties

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. —

Orange County Classroom Teachers Association President Diana Moore, union officers and the board of directors have been relieved of their duties, according to officials with the American Federation of Teachers.

The AFT announced Wednesday that its executive council voted to place the OCCTA on administratorship and relieve Moore and others of their duties, saying, "The action follows a year of dealing with officer and member complaints about the erosion of democratic rights and the increasing dysfunction of their local union, and attempting every voluntary mechanism to right the ship."

The AFT executive council voted to take the action.

“The AFT and the Florida Education Association have exhausted every possible effort to help the union operate by its own bylaws. The current president, Diana Moore, has refused to comply, believing she is above the union’s governing documents. This has led to members’ rights being denied, their voices not being heard, member services being diminished, and an increasingly dysfunctional union,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a press release. “Today’s action, while permitted under the AFT constitution, is rarely exercised. It’s intended as a temporary measure to restore credibility and order and to return democratic rights to members.”

AFT officials said the action came a year after they received their first complaint from other OCCTA officers.

Moore told Channel 9 that she is on vacation and was unaware of the decision.

“As a dues-paying union member, I was not afforded the opportunity to have representation all throughout this matter. What I have tried to do is preserve the rights and due process of all members of Orange County Classroom Teachers Association. I’m shocked that the national union does not honor a paying union member’s rights to due process. Our members in Orange County are quite happy with their union. NEA has remained silent despite reaching out for support. This is all about members and money. They’re losing members and money in the national organization. It’s politics at its worst,” Moore said in a statement to Channel 9.

Stay with WFTV.com and Channel 9 Eyewitness News at 11 for the latest on this story.Orange County teachers union president, board relieved of duties | www.wftv.com:

Julian can’t go to the school next to his house–”One Newark” and Chris Cerf won’t allow it | Bob Braun's Ledger

Julian can’t go to the school next to his house–”One Newark” and Chris Cerf won’t allow it | Bob Braun's Ledger:

Julian can’t go to the school next to his house–”One Newark” and Chris Cerf won’t allow it

Sara Ferreira looks at the playground behind her house–the Oliver Street playground–where her son cannot go to school.

Sara Da Silva-Ferreira stands at the fence at the back of the property members of her family have owned for years in Newark’s Ironbound. She looks past the rough chain-links right into a school playground she knows well because she played there as a student and now her daughter Gabrielle attends school there, too. Her cousins attended the large elementary school as well. The familiar sight of the playground and the tall school walls looming behind it  makes Sara sad and angry now because she has been told for two years   that her son Julian cannot attend the same school. The Oliver Street School.

Sara Ferreira, outside her home on Pacific Street, describes her shabby treatment by school officials.

“I’ve never had any problems,” says Ferreira who works as a private bank security guard. “But now my son cannot go to the same school her sister attends. I don’t understand.”

This is called “school choice” in the Newark public schools, part of the “One Newark Enrolls” plan that disperses children throughout the city instead of allowing them to attend their neighborhood school.

This is called “school choice”–and those words have become a political sloganfor Chris Christie, the  governor who proclaimed himself the “decider”  over the Newark schools and is running for president.

But there’s a catch. The choice of where Julian Ferriera can attend is not the parent’s choice. It is a choice made by some bureaucrat, probably imported from New York City, in an administration headed by Montclair entrepreneur Christopher Cerf who became Newark school superintendent as part of a deal that, its Julian can’t go to the school next to his house–”One Newark” and Chris Cerf won’t allow it | Bob Braun's Ledger:

NYC Public School Parents: The city's attempt to bury the news of its rejection of the Blue Book Working Group's recommendations on class size

NYC Public School Parents: The city's attempt to bury the news of its rejection of the Blue Book Working Group's recommendations on class size:

The city's attempt to bury the news of its rejection of the Blue Book Working Group's recommendations on class size

Yesterday, in the middle of summer, the DOE finally released the recommendations of its own Blue Book working group, recommendations which had been finalized last December, according to several reliable sources.  (Chalkbeat wrongly reports the date as March.)  See alsoSchoolbook, WNYC radio and DNAinfo, for more information on the recommendations -- and what the city refused to accept.


The DOE not only delayed the release of these recommendations for over six months; they refrained from putting out a press release or posting them anywhere on their website, presumably because officials wanted to tamp down as much as possible on the news that the city had rejected the most critical proposal: that the space utilization formula should be aligned with smaller classes.

More specifically, the city signaled that it would not align the class sizes in the Blue Book with the goals in the DOE's original, state-mandated Contract for Excellence plan -- of 23 students per class in grades 4-8 and 25 in high school.  As Lisa Donlan was quoted in Schoolbook, 

Certainly for me and for many of us, the class size issue was the biggest issue that we felt would have the greatest impact on bringing us to painting an accurate picture of reality and making sure that all kids got access to an adequate education — hands down," said Lisa Donlan, president of the Community Education Council for District 1 and a member of the working group.

Because the class size standards in the Blue Book (currently 28 students in grades 4-8 and 30 in high school) are larger than current averages, the failure to align the formula with smaller classes will likely stand in the way of efforts to reduce class size, and  contribute to even more overcrowding in the years ahead.

One of the members of the Working Group, Isaac Carmignani, explained the six month delay to  Chalkbeat this way: that the city didn't want the Group's recommendations or (presumably) their rejection to complicate their negotiations over the budget or mayoral control.

If so, this is yet more evidence that they are aware of the political volatility of this issue -- the number one priority of parents according to their own surveys --as well as their unaccountable refusal to take any real action to reduce class size, or even make an honest attempt to calculate which schools could and could not accommodate smaller classes. 

While several news accounts correctly reported that this refusal appears to violate numerous promises made by Bill de Blasio during his campaign to reduce class size, and adhere to the original C4E plan approved by the state in 2007, they omitted the fact that he made even more specific pledges to align the Blue Book formula to smaller classes, according to his response to a KidsPAC survey, filled out by his campaign manager, Emma Wolfe, in July 2013:

Also glossed over in some of the news stories is how the city is shirking its constitutional and legal obligations to reduce class size.  In the CFE decision, as pointed out in our press release by Wendy Lecker, an attorney at the Education Law Center, the state's highest court said that NYC public school students were denied their constitutional right to an adequate education, in large part because of their excessive class sizes -- a NYC Public School Parents: The city's attempt to bury the news of its rejection of the Blue Book Working Group's recommendations on class size:

U.S.: Georgia illegally segregating students with disabilities in inferior buildings with inadequate instruction - The Washington Post

U.S.: Georgia illegally segregating students with disabilities in inferior buildings with inadequate instruction - The Washington Post:

U.S.: Georgia illegally segregating students with disabilities in inferior buildings with inadequate instruction

The U.S. Justice Department is accusing the state of Georgia of segregating thousands of students with behavior-based disabilities from their peers in inferior buildings that formerly served as schools for black students back in the years of legal segregation. Furthermore, the students are receiving unequal educational opportunities but instead many are getting only computer-based lessons rather than direct instruction from a certified teacher.

The department sent a letter (see below) to Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal and Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens on July 15, detailing an investigation it had done into decades-old Georgia Network for Educational and Therapeutic Support and its compliance with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on the letter here.

A spokesman for the Georgia Department of Education said he could not comment on whether state officials have responded to the Justice Department. Daryl Robinson, spokesman for Olens, said in an e-mail: “We have been in contact with the Department of Justice since receiving the letter, but we have not responded formally in writing.  For the time being we do not intend to comment further on this matter.”

The Georgia Network for Educational and Therapeutic Support program (GNETS) started in 1970 in a single educational center in Athens, and now consists of a network of “psycho-education centers” in 24 regions around the state with a total of about 5,000 students at any given time. The letter, which notes that state officials cooperated with the probe, says that investigators concluded that the state has violated ADA’s Title II, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in nearly all services, programs, and activities provided to the public by state and local governments. It also describes the effects of the program, quoting one as saying, “School is like prison where I am in the weird class.”

It says in part:

Students in the GNETS Program also often lack access to electives and extracurricular activities, such as after-school athletics or clubs. Moreover, many of the students in the GNETS Program attend school in inferior facilities in various states of disrepair that lack many of the features and amenities of general education schools, such as gymnasiums, cafeterias, libraries, science labs, music rooms, or playgrounds. Some GNETS Centers are located in poor-quality buildings that formerly served as schools for black students during de jure segregation, which have been repurposed to house the GNETS Program.

As for how the segregation affects students, the letter says in part:

The negative effects of inappropriate segregation faced by students in the GNETS Program are readily apparent. One student in the GNETS Program stated, “school is like prison where I am in the weird class.” He attributes this in large part to isolation and distance from other students in the general education community, as he does not have the opportunity to 

U.S.: Georgia illegally segregating students with disabilities in inferior buildings with inadequate instruction - The Washington Post:

Bloomberg Is No Longer Mayor, but His Schools Agenda Thrives in Albany - NYTimes.com

Bloomberg Is No Longer Mayor, but His Schools Agenda Thrives in Albany - NYTimes.com:

Bloomberg Is No Longer Mayor, but His Schools Agenda Thrives in Albany

Former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has been out of office for a year and a half, but his influence over New York schools is practically as strong as ever.

A group devoted to continuing his education agenda and founded in part by his longtime schools chancellor, has become one of the most powerful forces in Albany by pouring millions into lobbying and adroitly exploiting rivalries in state politics.

The organization, StudentsFirstNY, and another group with a similar focus calledFamilies for Excellent Schools have formed a counterweight to teachers’ unions, long among the top spenders in the state capital. This year alone, the groups saw major elements of their platforms come to pass, such as tying teacher evaluations more closely to test scores, adding hurdles to earning tenure and increasing the number of charter schools, measures all unpopular with the unions.

Among the backers of StudentsFirstNY are major donors to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, and to the Republican majority in the State Senate, two of the three parties to all negotiations. Emails and interviews show that StudentsFirstNY has been in regular contact with the governor’s office since his re-election.

At the same time, the two groups have become a major nuisance to Mr. Bloomberg’s successor as mayor, Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, who campaigned on reversing some of his predecessor’s policies and is friendly with the city teachers’ union.

The groups have delivered a drumbeat of attacks on Mr. de Blasio’s education policies, in television advertisements, rallies where parents upbraid the mayor for not confronting what they call an education crisis, and weekly, or at times daily, emails to reporters. Amid this onslaught, Mr. Cuomo and the Senate delivered arebuke to the mayor this year by agreeing to only a one-year extension of mayoral control of city schools. (By contrast, Mr. Bloomberg, a political independent, was initially given control for seven years, then received a renewal for six.)

In language that echoed that of important figures in both groups, Mr. Cuomo suggested that Mr. de Blasio had to earn the right to govern the city’s schools.

“Next year we can come back,” the governor said, “and if he does a good job, then we can say he should have more control.”

Jenny Sedlis, the executive director of StudentsFirstNY, said the group’s goal was to create a permanent organization to advance important education changes and neutralize the influence of the teachers’ union.

“Before we came on the scene, the pro-reform community would get together for episodic fights and then we’d scatter, and the U.F.T. was always there,” she said, referring to the United Federation of Teachers, the city teachers’ union.

“With StudentsFirstNY, there’s a board with a war chest that’s always there,” Ms. Sedlis added. “We’re there before the election and after. And that has to be reassuring for ed reformers who want to stick their necks out, and disconcerting for the other side.”

The group is so plugged into the capital that Ms. Sedlis has sometimes served as a go-between among different government offices, relaying messages and scouting information about education bills being considered. It has not hurt the group’s efforts that Mr. Cuomo and the Republican majority in the Senate are no fans of Mr. de Blasio.

Wiley Norvell, a spokesman for Mr. de Blasio, said, “When a group professing to support education reform opposes mayoral control of schools, it calls into question Bloomberg Is No Longer Mayor, but His Schools Agenda Thrives in Albany - NYTimes.com:

Forty Years Later | Taking Note

Forty Years Later | Taking Note:

Forty Years Later

Public Law 94-142, “The Education of All Handicapped Children Act of 1975,” passed not long after I began reporting on education, and it became the first issue that I dug into deeply on my weekly NPR series. A lot has happened since then, much of it very positive, which makes the 40th Anniversary an occasion to celebrate–while continuing to search for ways to improve the learning opportunities for kids with special needs.

The term “Handicapped” was soon cast aside, and “Special Needs” became the term of choice. Before long “Handicapped” became the field’s “H word,” never to be spoken in public. Word games ensued. Some preferred “Exceptional” as the descriptive adjective–and in fact it had been the Council for Exceptional Children in Washington that pushed hardest for passage of legislation in the 1970’s. Militants often referred to non-disabledchildren (and adults) as “temporarily able-bodied,” but that did not catch on.

Although the vote in the House and Senate had made it veto-proof, PL 94-142 was not universally popular. In a break with tradition, President Gerald Ford refused to allow photographers into the room when he signed the bill. He was upset and angry about the precedent the law was setting–requiring services but not providing the money. Somewhere in our video archive is an interview with then former President Ford, in which he reflects on the ‘unfunded mandate’ of PL 94-142, which required schools to serve these students but did not come close to providing the funds. He predicted–correctly–that this would become an albatross around the necks of school boards.

PL 94-142 required that every child who was diagnosed and labeled be provided with an IEP, an “Individualized Education Plan,” that would serve as a road map for their education. That essential provision also created a bureaucratic situation, sometimes a nightmare, for parents and administrators.

The new law also created, almost overnight, a new area of specialization for teachers and a growth industry for schools of education. Even today, it’s the easiest area of education to find a job.

The law and its successors have created other problems, most notably the “lawyering up” of parents determined to force public schools to pay for expensive private school education for their children with special needs. It’s not a ‘cottage industry’ for lawyers, the special education attorney Miriam Freedman notes, but a “mansion industry.”

The new law required that students with disabilities be educated in the “least restrictive environment,” a reaction Forty Years Later | Taking Note:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Duncan big on accountability. But not his own.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Duncan big on accountability. But not his own.:

Duncan big on accountability. But not his own.

Arne Duncan is the great educational know-nothing. As a result, he loads his speeches up with empty clichés and meaningless phases in place of solid dialog about teaching and learning.



In a speech Monday at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, Duncan tells his faithful,

"When students enroll in college, he said, the chances of a successful outcome — getting a degree — amount to “a coin toss.”

“The challenge we face is easy to articulate, if not to solve.” There is, he said, “a lot of heavy lifting and culture change ahead.”

 "This is not a free lunch for higher education by any stretch."

He goes on to decry the "lack of accountability" (not his own) in public ed. He blames it all on "politics" and "bureaucracy". This coming from Pres. Obama's chief political appointee to the top of the one of the world biggest bureaucracies.



It all reminds me of when Duncan was Mayor Daley's patronage pick to run Chicago's schools back in 2001. He had been the protege of investment banker and Daley pal Jonathan Rogers, who Duncan claims, taught him "the business of education."



When I proposed putting a new small public school inside of shuttered Austin High School, Duncan said he would get the board to okay it, but warned that it had to be charter school. When I asked why, he explained that otherwise, "the Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Duncan big on accountability. But not his own.:

Four unintended consequences of using student test scores to evaluate teachers - The Washington Post

Four unintended consequences of using student test scores to evaluate teachers - The Washington Post:

Four unintended consequences of using student test scores to evaluate teachers

As any even semi-regular reader of this blog knows, the practice of using student standardized test scores to evaluate teachers is riddled with problems. I’ve written before about some of the more ridiculous consequences, such as teachers being evaluated by students they don’t have and/or by subjects they don’t teach. (See here and here.) There are other consequences as well, some of them likely unintended. Here’s a post on the subject by Susan Moore Johnson, Jerome T. Murphy Research Professor in Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education. Johnson directs the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers, which examines how best to recruit, develop, and retain a strong teaching force. This appeared on the theShanker Blog, the voice of the Albert Shanker Institute,  a nonprofit organization established in 1998 to honor the life and legacy of the late president of the American Federation of Teachers.

[How students with top test scores actually hurt a teacher’s evaluation]

By Susan Moore Johnson

Academic scholars are often dismayed when policymakers pass laws that disregard or misinterpret their research findings. The use of value-added methods (VAMS) in education policy is a case in point.

About a decade ago, some researchers reported that teachers are the most important school-level factor in students’ learning, and that that their effectiveness varies widely within schools (McCaffrey, Koretz, Lockwood, & Hamilton 2004; Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain 2005; Rockoff 2004). Many policymakers interpreted these findings to mean that teacher quality rests with the individual rather than the school and that, because some teachers are more effective than others, schools should concentrate on increasing their number of effective teachers.

Based on these assumptions, proponents of VAMS began to argue that schools could be improved substantially if they would only dismiss teachers with low VAMS ratings and replace them with teachers who have average or higher ratings (Hanushek 2009). Although panels of scholars warned against using VAMS to make high-stakes decisions because of their statistical limitations (American Statistical Association, 2014; National Research Council & National Academy of Education, 2010), policymakers in many states and districts moved quickly to do just that, requiring that VAMS scores be used as a substantial component in teacher evaluation.

While researchers continue to analyze and improve VAMS models, it is Four unintended consequences of using student test scores to evaluate teachers - The Washington Post: 

2015’s States with the Best and Worst School Systems | WalletHub®

2015’s States with the Best and Worst School Systems | WalletHub®:

2015’s States with the Best and Worst School Systems

Source: WalletHub

Unless one is destined for the ranks of wildly successful college dropouts like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, education remains the traditional route to professional and financial success for many Americans. Consider themedian incomes for workers aged 25 and older in 2014. Those with a bachelor’s degree earned 65 percent more than those with only a high school diploma, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The data reveal that income potential grows — and chances of unemployment shrink — as one’s educational attainment improves.

And with school resuming session, many parents will be seeking the best school districts to secure their children’s academic success. When comparing their options, however, parents should recognize that the amount of available public funding is by no means a determinant of a school system’s quality, as our findings demonstrate, though money is certainly helpful.

In addition, states that invest more dollars in education benefit not only their residents but also their economies. The Economic Policy Institute reported that income is higher in states where the workforce is well educated and thus more productive. With better earnings, workers in turn can contribute more taxes to beef up state budgets over the long run.

In light of back-to-school season, WalletHub compared the quality of education in the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia by analyzing 13 key metrics that range from student-teacher ratios to standardized-test scores to dropout rates. By shining the spotlight on top-performing school systems, we aim to encourage parents to help their children realize their maximum potential and to call the attention of lawmakers on the work that remains to be done to improve America’s schools.

1Main Findings2Ask the Experts

3Methodology

Overall Rank	State	“School-System Quality” Rank	“Safety” Rank
1	Massachusetts	2	1
2	Colorado	1	47
3	New Jersey	5	9
4	Wisconsin	4	14
5	Kentucky	10	4
6	Vermont	6	12
7	North Dakota	3	46
8	Minnesota	9	16
9	Connecticut	7	28
10	Illinois	8	32
11	Virginia	11	14
12	Kansas	14	22
13	Iowa	12	39
14	Utah	16	17
15	New Hampshire	15	29
16	Maryland	19	17
17	Nebraska	17	26
18	Wyoming	13	41
19	Maine	20	13
20	Montana	18	32
21	North Carolina	24	6
22	Ohio	23	29
23	Florida	26	20
24	Indiana	22	50
25	Arkansas	21	42
26	Tennessee	28	29
27	Texas	31	19
28	Missouri	27	38
29	Pennsylvania	29	43
30	South Dakota	25	47
31	Washington	32	11
32	Michigan	30	37
33	Oklahoma	34	2
34	New York	33	27
35	Rhode Island	38	10
36	Georgia	35	20
37	Hawaii	36	5
38	Delaware	40	7
39	Alabama	39	36
40	Mississippi	45	8
41	Idaho	42	34
42	New Mexico	44	3
43	California	37	49
44	West Virginia	46	22
45	South Carolina	47	24
46	Oregon	41	45
47	Louisiana	43	44
48	Arizona	48	40
49	Nevada	50	25
50	District of Columbia	49	51
51	Alaska	51	35

2015’s States with the Best and Worst School Systems | WalletHub®: