NEA and TFA Update: Nancy Carlsson-Paige vs. Dennis Van Roekel

Last summer Matt Damon was introduced by his mother, Nancy Carlsson-Paige and spoke at the Save Our Schools March. Damon said...

"...So the next time you’re feeling down, or exhausted, or unappreciated, or at the end of your rope; the next time you turn on the TV and see yourself called “overpaid;” the next time you encounter some simple-minded, punitive policy that’s been driven into your life by some corporate reformer who has literally never taught anyone anything. … Please know that there are millions of us behind you. You have an army of regular people standing right behind you, and our appreciation for what you do is so deeply felt. We love you, we thank you and we will always have your back."

Matt Damon and Nancy Carlsson-Paige have once again stood up for America's teachers. Reacting to the recent editorial collaboration between NEA President Dennis Van Roekel and TFA CEO Wendy Kopp, Dr. Carlsson-Paige wrote to Van Roekel,

Recently, I read the opinion piece you wrote with Wendy Kopp in USA Today and was upset and confused by your collaboration with Teach for America. I am a life long teacher educator. I believe that one of the first things we must do to improve our nation’s schools is to extend, strengthen, and support teacher preparation. I am very familiar with TFA and believe that its short-term, minimal training of teachers undermines teacher quality and harms children who too often get an inadequate education with its teachers.

Furthermore, she and Damon have chosen to reject the nomination for the Friend of Education award offered by the NEA.

Writing that she was “confused by your collaboration” with Teach for America, Dr. Nancy Carlsson-Paige said she and her son, Mr. Damon, no longer desired to be nominated for the National Education Association’s Friend of Education Award.

There's a disconnect between what the NEA Representative Assembly agreed to last summer and the collaboration between President Van Roekel and TFA CEO Kopp.

The NEA has come out against anti-public education forces aligned against teachers. TFA is one such force and last summer the NEA Representative Assembly spoke out against putting untrained amateurs in the neediest schools in the country [see New Business Item 93].

NEA will publicly oppose Teach for America (TFA) contracts when they are used in Districts where there is no teacher shortage or when Districts use TFA agreements to reduce teacher costs, silence union voices, or as a vehicle to bust unions.

The NEA Friend of Education Award is

...the Association's highest honor and may be bestowed on an individual, organization, or group whose leadership, acts, or support have significantly benefited education, education employees, or students on a national scale.

By refusing the nomination for the NEA's award Matt Damon and Nancy Carlsson-Paige have proven that they understand and support the NEA's official position better than Van Roekel does.

Hallelujah, Corporations are Buying Public Education

The Citizens United Decision gave corporations the right to spend unlimited quantities of money on political campaigns. Justice Stevens dissented,

[the Court's ruling] threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution...At bottom, the Court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.

Make no mistake, the push behind the privatization or the so-called "reform" of public education, is corporate based with high profits for online learning companies, private school and charter school management companies, and testing companies and those corporations are supporting candidates who will support them through privatization and anti-public education legislation.

Keeping that in mind, here is a musical number relevant to the Citizens United Decision.

You might also like:

The Assault on Public Education: Confronting the Politics of Corporate School Reform

Reading Articles about Real Estate Sales in the Wall Street Journal

Kill NCLB Now

By 2014 nearly 100% of public schools in the country will be failing simply because they are operating under No Child Left Behind, a law which virtually guarantees that every school in the country will fail.

The Obama administration has offered waivers so that the worst aspects of NCLB don't take effect. In doing so, however, the administration requires certain unpleasant aspects of their own education plan, Race to the Top. Those requirements are bad enough that some states, most notably California, have refused the waiver and have chosen to take their chances, instead, with the destructive and anti-education bill, NCLB.

The waivers now offered by the US Department of Education require the states to comply with other mandates, still tied to the NCLB-style accountability framework. The emphasis on testing under the waiver plan is as heavy-handed as it has been under NCLB. Many schools with high numbers of low-scoring students will be subject to firings and closings. They need help, not punishment.

Neither NCLB nor Race to the Top is good for public education...and neither of the two major parties in the US has any clue how...or any intention...to change things.

In his blog entry titled Resolve in 2012: Abolish No Child Left Behind, John Young likens No Child Left Behind to the NCAA giving extra scholarship money to the most successful athletic programs.

Have you heard of the Capital One Cup?

It goes to the two Division I NCAA schools that win the most titles each year in men's and women's sports.

The prize? In addition to the glittering silver keepsake: $400,000 in athletic scholarships. Inspiring, right?

Don't you know Texas, or Florida, or USC, or some other booster-endowed NCAA mega power could use that extra scholarship money?

OK. It's not inspiring; it's ridiculous.

Now, imagine that in addition to awarding college behemoths with more riches, we decreed that a gridiron patsy like Columbia, Tulane or Florida Atlantic shut down its football program for having too bad a record.

He continues...

The Obama administration realizes that the monster is about to hit the wall — or crash through it — the one requiring 100 percent "proficiency" in core subjects nationwide next school year.

Almost from day one this administration has urged a rewrite of NCLB. However, the Senate is frozen into irreconcilable parts, and this House is sworn to resist Obama's every twitch. Consequently, the Department of Education has set up a system of waivers for states on a case-by-case basis.

Lawmakers are incensed by this, but they know what NCLB requires regarding "100 proficiency" is beyond the pale.

This is the year, with Democratic frustration over NCLB's untenable realities, with Republican frustration over the federal meddling it authorizes, it's time to kill NCLB.

The mistake, however, is in assuming that the Obama administration, while deserving credit for wanting to change NCLB, is proposing anything better. In truth, the Democrats are providing the corporate "reformers" with the same reward NCLB provided: Closing "failing" schools, increasing charters, and blaming teachers and their unions for the failures of the economic system. There's little or no research basis for Race to the Top and there's very little difference between the two major parties when it comes to education policy. This non-choice is between Corporate Democrats or Corporate Republicans.

We need to kill No Child Left Behind, as the Democratic administration wants...but we also need to kill Race to the Top and the corporate influence in public education.

Instead of Race to the Top or No Child Left Behind we need a systemic change in American society. Diane Ravitch lists some places to start in her speech to the Opportunity to Learn Campaign.

So what can we do? First, we should speak out when politicians say “there is no more money.” There is money to do what we want to do. There is money to fight wars in the Middle East. There is enough money to give big corporate cuts. There is enough money for 1% of this nation to live lives of splendor. Why is there not enough money to provide the basic public services that every child needs?

• Every pregnant woman should have good pre-natal care and nutrition so that her child is born healthy. One of three children born to women who do not get good prenatal care will have disabilities that are preventable. That will cost society far more than providing these women with prenatal care.
• Every child should have the medical attention and nutrition that they need to grow up healthy.
• Every child should have high-quality early childhood education.
• Every school should have experienced teachers who are prepared to help all children learn.
• Every teacher should have at least a masters degree.
• Every principal should be a master teacher, not a recruit from industry, the military, or the sports world.
• Every superintendent should be an experienced educator who understands teaching and learning and the needs of children.
• Every school should have a health clinic.
• Schools should collaborate with parents, the local community, civic leaders, and local business leaders to support the needs of children.
• Every school should have a full and balanced curriculum, with the arts, sciences, history, civics, geography, mathematics, foreign languages, and physical education.
• Every child should have time and space to play.
• We must stop investing in testing, accountability, and consultants and start investing in children.

Now those are changes I can believe in.

~~~

Looking Back

Here are a few of my favorite blog entries of 2011 from a few my favorite education bloggers (including two of my own). The most important one is the last one. If you missed it before, don't miss it this time. It's a must read for every American citizen who has an interest in public education (aka everyone).

••• From It's Not All Flowers and Sausages, October 19, 2011

I Think It's Called "Having A Chip On Your Shoulder"

Mrs. Mimi (now aka, Dr. Mimi) is the author of It's Not All Flowers and Sausages, a collection of her early blog posts. Mrs. Mimi is a teacher...a real one. She works with real live children in real live classrooms. You can tell.

I guess these days I just assume people are going to shit on teachers. I assume they are going to complain without pausing to recognize what is working. I assume they will be all critique and no constructive thought. I assume they're going to blame it all on the teacher.

••• From Parents Across America, December 31, 2011.

The worst and the best education events of 2011

The list from Parents Across America lists events from other sources, not their own blog.

Hundreds of millions of dollars from the Billionaire Boys Club of Gates, Broad, the Walton family, and the Koch brothers are funneled into creating and expanding numerous Astroturf organizations like Stand for Children, Students First, Teach Plus, 50Can, etc. all devoted towards spreading their tentacles into both political parties, to choke off democracy, demonize teachers, mandate more high-stakes testing, and privatize our public schools.

••• From An Urban Teacher's Education, December 31, 2011

Life Learnings: 2011

A teacher near Seattle, WA (formerly of New York City; Washington, DC; Renton, WA; and Knoxville, TN) writes about the challenges he faces daily in his classroom, as well as national issues. His reports on the SOS Conference in Washington DC from July were especially interesting. This excerpt is from his end of the year post. Click the link embedded below to read his "Day One" entry.

5) The importance of working together

In July (July 28, 2011) I went to the SOS Conference in Washington, DC. I met hundreds of amazing educators there, all rallying together to fight the stubbornness of corporate reform, and I learned the impact that people can have when they come together. My experience there in combination with what I've read over the past year about the Arab Spring and similar protests across the world has reminded me that for all the reasons so many have to complain about this world that we live in, I am happy to remember that it truly is the people who have the power, and that we really do have the government we deserve. Perhaps we might soon deserve something better...

••• From The Answer Sheet, December 12, 2011

A Superintendent Calls School Reformers’ Bluff

Every public school teacher in the United States should read and/or listen to John Kuhn. Thanks to Valerie Strauss and her valuable Answer Sheet blog in the Washington Post.

By John Kuhn

Today some 22 percent of American children live in poverty. Are we going to pretend forever that it is acceptable to ignore the needs of children outside the schoolhouse and blame teachers and principals for everything that happens inside?

As soon as the data shows that the average black student has the same opportunity to live and learn and hope and dream in America as the average white student, and as soon as the data shows that the average poor kid drinks water just as clean and breathes air just as pure as the average rich kid, then educators like me will no longer cry foul when this society sends us children and says: Get them all over the same hurdle.

And so I as an educator now say to a nation exactly what it has said to me for years: No excuses! Just get results.

••• From Walt Gardners Reality Check, November 18, 2011

Teaching is no Longer Fun

For teachers who started their careers before the accountability movement gained traction, the transformation has been traumatic. No longer can they rely on their professional judgment in preparing lessons, nor are they likely to experience the satisfaction of having opened the eyes of their students to knowledge for its own sake. They now have to treat their lessons as part of an assembly line, where instruction is evaluated strictly on the basis of how much value it adds. The rationale is that the real world operates accordingly.

Reformers maintain that teaching and learning can't always be fun. They say that discipline is an indispensable part of the educational process. That is certainly true. But the way things are unfolding in classrooms across the country means that even if students perform adequately on standardized tests, we run the risk of forever turning them off to further learning in the same subjects. As I wrote before, you can teach a subject well but teach students to hate the subject in the process. When that happens, it's a Pyrrhic victory.

••• From Bridging Differences, October 27, 2011

There Are No Quick Fixes

The Bridging Differences Blog is written by Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch. I spent a lot of time this year quoting Dr. Ravitch (and did again at the end of this post), but one of the most important entries in their blog was this one from October by Deborah Meier. Make sure you take 10 minutes to watch the chalk talk by Daniel Pink.

By Deborah Meier

Why suddenly does the common-sense fact that teachers (and unions) fight for contracts that give them less onerous workloads, more job security, and more pay turn into a crime? Does Wall Street live by another code? (Educators and Wall Street'ers both need to watch Daniel Pink's chalk talk on motivation to consider his counter-intuitive findings—that rewards are counterproductive when it comes to honesty and doing good work.)

••• From Living In Dialogue, July 6, 2011

The Brooks/Ravitch Dialogue Expands

Anthony Cody is a powerful voice for public education. He was instrumental in organizing the SOS Conference in Washington DC last summer and has continued to speak out for public education in the United States. Here he comments about the single most important factor which the so-called corporate "reformers" refuse to discuss, the level of poverty afflicting our nation's children.

Witness the latest cheating scandal in Atlanta. We have leaders intent on proving that poverty is no obstacle to student success. After 24 years of teaching in Oakland, I can tell you that it is. Poverty and the social and environmental phenomena that are its companions: hunger, violence, PTSD, chemical pollution, lack of access high quality daycare in early years, lack of access to vision, dental and medical care, and lack of access to books. Addressing ANY of these would yield better results than the policies underway that attach ever higher stakes to standardized tests, and continually expand the variety and frequency of tests.

••• From Live Long and Prosper, March 4, 2011.

The Daily Show: Diane Ravitch - Teachers vs. Wall Street

Click HERE to see this entry. No one highlights the hypocrisy of the so-called "reformers" better than Jon Stewart of the Daily Show.

••• From Live Long and Prosper, December 11, 2011.

The Most Important Speech on Education in Years

This year, the OTL Summit featured Diane Ravitch as one of the keynote speakers. Dr. Ravitch's presentation was titled Whose children have been left behind? The Daily Kos calls it the "most important speech on education in years." I agree. It is important. The Daily Kos blogger (teacherken) wrote:

You can read the entire text here (pdf).
You should.
You should pass it on.

Ravitch wrote:

Surely the greatest nation in the world can mobilize the will to do what is right for the children. It won’t be easy, it won’t be cheap, and it won’t be fast. Doing the right thing never is. The only simple part is to recognize that what we are doing now is not working and will never work. What we need is a vision of a good education for every child. We should start now. Today.