Six on History: Schools
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1) ICEUFT Blog CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION BACKS STRIKING WORKERS ACROSS THE COUNTRY; WHERE IS UFT SUPPORT?
Posted: 17 Oct 2021 02:11 PM PDT
"This is from the CTU supporting striking workers in multiple union. I have heard nothing from the UFT. Working people around the country are saying enough. Maybe UFTers (rank and file, not the leadership) will rise up too.
Poor working conditions continue as companies continue to profit off the lie of corporate support of "essential" workers. Educators can relate.
CHICAGO, October 14, 2021 — The Chicago Teachers Union issued the following statement today in solidarity with entertainment workers, and workers at Kellogg and John Deere, all of whom are battling for better working conditions and fair, living-wage compensation:
Frontline workers, from people who package our breakfast cereal to those who make the equipment that builds our roads, have risked their lives to keep their corporations afloat through the pandemic. Now, workers at giant corporations that include Kellogg, John Deere and major film and television studios, are demanding more than just lip service for their sacrifices, just as educators in Chicago and across the nation are demanding more from their school districts when it comes to safety and support.
At Kellogg, workers in the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) union have vowed to stay out "one day longer" than the boss in their strike for fair wages and benefits, and reasonable working conditions. At John Deere, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union overwhelmingly rejected a substandard offer from the company that would have included income inequality. And in the entertainment industry, members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) — from cinematographers and camera operators, to carpenters and makeup artists — want an end to excessive hours, exhausting back-to-back shifts and compensation for some crafts that is literally impossible to live on.
Each of these struggles remind us of 2012, 2016 and 2019, when we took collective action for the schools and the city our students and their families deserve. What unites us all is a basic demand for fairness. Labor provides the profit that these companies' shareholders live off of, just as our school district operates on the backs of the labor of teachers, PSRPs, clinicians, counselors and librarians. Yet the corporate strategy of all of our bosses is to demand more of workers in exchange for as little regard as possible.
Our sisters and brothers in the BCTGM, UAW and IATSE are fed up with this exploitation and indifference from management, especially at a time of record revenue for so many of the corporations and businesses that have provoked job action. Their struggle is our struggle —the struggle for basic rights, living wages, health care that sustains our families, and workplaces that are safe and responsibly run.
We stand in solidarity with our fellow workers at Kellogg, Deere, in the entertainment industry and beyond in their battle to force their bosses to share profit with the very workers who create this profit. And we join them in the larger struggle to lift up and support all rank-and-file workers in our country and elsewhere, who all deserve economic justice and freedom."
"Enrollments in the Cleveland Independent School District in Texas was growing rapidly. Voters passed bond issues, but it wasn’t enough. The superintendent turned to the state for help. Sadly, Governor Gregg Abbott and his hand-picked State Commissioner Mike Morath are obsessed with charters, despite the fact that their academic results are below those of public schools.
Here is the sad story of Abbott and Morath’s devotion to charter expansion.
TEXAS MONTHLY BREAKS STORY ON FAST-TRACK CHARTER EXPANSION IN EAST TEXAS
Texas Monthly, October 6, 2021
Texas Monthly writer Bekah McNeel breaks the story of how Commissioner Morath fast-tracked the approval of five new International Leadership of Texas (ILT) charter schools in Cleveland ISD within only three business days, skirting TEA’s own rules and process, and despite concerns raised by 12 area Superintendents whose districts will be affected.
The Superintendents co-signed a letter to the Commissioner that questioned ILT’s track record, especially with low-income students who are English Learners, and TEA’s rapid approval of the amendment application without input from the affected school districts.
The article also reinforces the concerns that local communities and school districts have been raising for years: The Commissioner ignores the impact of new charter campuses on local school districts and communities when he approves an unlimited number of new charter campuses without public notice or opportunities for input from the public.
Link: In East Texas, Cleveland ISD Needed Money. The State Sent Charter Schools Instead.
Key Excerpts:
- Instead of offering funding and flexibility to the public schools…the state fast-tracked the expansion of charter schools that aren’t held to the same standards of community accountability or required to find a seat for every student regardless of ability or disciplinary status.
- Public school advocates worry that the process circumvents public accountability. Charter growth is driven by decisions made in Austin and charter network headquarters, not by the communities where those schools will be located or their elected school boards.
- Kevin Brown, the executive director of the Texas Association of School Administrators, said that when decisions are made in a public school district about anything from curriculum to adding new schools, democratically elected boards create a conduit for parents and community members to offer their views. Charters, by contrast, whose appointed boards often do not live in the cities and towns whose students they serve, do not need a community’s approval to open a new school next door. “To a local community, it often feels like an invasion from outsiders,” Brown said.
- On that same day, Conger and ILTexas chief financial officer James Dworkin broke the good news of their expansion on a call with investment managers. “If somebody’s looking for ‘where’s the local school?’ they’ll be pointed to an ILTexas school,” Dworkin said. “That is a change to the charter industry as I’ve seen it in my time here, and I’m proud to be part of ILTexas leading the way.”
- In response to concerns that ILT is allowed to expand under state rules even though it currently has 2 F rated campuses and 6 D rated campuses out of a total of 32 campuses, State Board of Education member Pat Hardy from Fort Worth responded, as Texas Monthly wrote: “Hardy accepted that the policy allowed expansion, but pushed back: ‘I really think that any charter school that has an F should not have the privilege to expand.’ Morath advised her, politely, to take up the issue with the Legislature.”
- For the record:
- 884 new charter campuses have been approved between 2010 – 2021 in Texas through charter expansion amendments approved solely by the Commissioner of Education.
- 586 new charter campuses have been approved since 2015. ..."
"Billy Townsend of Florida writes here about an emerging development: the end of high-stakes testing. As a candidate, Biden promised to end it, but didn’t. Now Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis says its day is done. Even his state commissioner loves testing but turned on a dime to support the Governor. The vaunted “Florida model” of test-punish-choice is dead, writes Townsend.
No state has been more devoted to standardized testing than Florida, so the fact that its leaders are adopting anti-testing rhetoric suggests that the wind is shifting.
Townsend begins:
Last month, Ron DeSantis turned heretic. Without any warning, the 2024 GOP presidential hopeful publicly trashed the Republican education policy scripture Jeb Bush wrote 25 years ago.
He joined U.S. president Joe Biden in publicly rejecting the cornerstone of America’s dying “education reform” movement: the big money, high-stakes, end-of-year, badly designed, standardized test.
Bipartisan/institutional American power has used these tests to label and punish American children, teachers, parents, schools, and communities for a generation, with no measurable or perceivable life benefit.
In Florida, we call this test the Florida Standards Assessment (FSA).
Ironically, in killing the FSA, DeSantis and his pro-test Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran used the language teacher unions and Opt-Out activists and public school advocates have used for years and years. – “I want more learning and less test prep,” DeSantis said.
“From April to May, we basically shut down schools for testing,” said Corcoran, who also called the Florida test he championed for years “archaic.” For Corcoran particularly, this is the equivalent of a Wall Street investment banker publicly repudiating capital as “archaic.”
In theory, the massive testing period near the end of the year will be replaced by three “progress monitoring” windows during the school year. Everyone in the state will use an as-yet unbuilt state-owned, state-run assessment platform.
But the policy detail is actually much less important than the political rhetoric this time.
With Joe Biden rejecting the current use of high stakes testing during his campaign; and DeSantis rejecting “test prep” and the experience of testing in Florida, the autopilot awfulness of American test-based “reform education” has lost all organized political support. It has enormous unelected money to sustain the inertia for a while. But, I believe, it is doomed.
“Absolutely central”
To understand what an earthquake this announcement was for the Florida Model of education, which has set the toxic American “education reform” template for a generation, you shouldn’t look to me.
Listen to a smart champion of “reform” and the Florida Model instead.
Travis Pillow long worked as a top editor — and by far the smartest voice — for ReDefined, the Florida-based “choice” PR/media shop. ReDefined is funded by Step Up for Students, the massive “charity” that doles out Florida’s various vouchers. Now he writes for an “education reform” site called the “Center on Reinventing Public Education.” Here’s what Travis tweeted after the DeSantis announcement. It’s completely accurate:
“The biggest piece I think non-Floridians (and some Floridians) are missing in this news is how absolutely central A-F school grades are to so many facets of our state’s education policy and how critical it will be to make sure test data can still be relied upon for them.”
As Travis understands, wiping out the FSA wipes out the functional totality of the elementary school grade formula. And it wipes out huge chunks of the middle, high school, and overall district grades. It requires Florida to completely rebuild the grade system, almost from scratch. This includes the basic legal definition of words like “growth” and “achievement” in a way that the “data” from an as-yet unbuilt state progress monitoring platform can feed.
The FSA is also the basis of Florida’s cruel and educationally unsound 3rd grade retention policies, for which there is no supportive research, and which exists only to pump student scores on another big national test, the 4th grade NAEP.
Indeed, Florida’s school grades have been entirely political tools and destructive fraudssince the day they were introduced after Jeb’s election in 1998. They have been used to advance the privatization agenda by driving public school children into un-FSA-tested, ungraded voucher schools.
Please keep reading. Open the link."
"Recently, in Chicagoland, a story hit the papers about a teacher committing suicide. She wrote in her suicide note that the major reason for this drastic act was work-related. According to her colleagues, this woman took her own life because of the bullying and fear she experienced at her school.
As I discussed this event with a friend who is a current CPS teacher, he mentioned that in the comments section of the article many non-educators were shocked and horrified at this tragic happening but were also quick to assume that the woman must have been "soft" or had some kind of underlying mental health problem. But, he quipped, when many CPS teachers heard about the incident, they just shook their heads and said, "Yeah, I can see that happening."
Truth is, so could I. When I think back to my measly one year of teaching at a horribly-run CPS elementary school, I can very easily imagine that scenario unfolding with a number of my colleagues and yes, even with myself.
Did you all catch that? Suicide is not considered shocking in the realm of teaching in CPS.
And I don't think the general public understands the toll that years of working in an increasinlgly horrible environment coupled with the latest wave of teacher-bashing actually takes on the people who do the hard work of education.
Let me try and paint you a picture:
Imagine you've had one of the worst weeks of your life. You haven't slept in months, you have money troubles building, your relationships are failing, you feel unheard and unappreciated at home and at work, you worry daily about your future and whether or not you will have a job next year or even next week, and the idea of getting up to go to work the next day is practically unbearable. You need a moment to catch your breath, a moment to clear the clutter of worry, failure and fear from your clouded mind. But you don't get it. There is too much to get done. And all the while, you think, if I don't get it done, I am failing these kids. I have no choice but to keep pushing.
Now add onto that a vindictive, power-hungry boss who would fire you as soon as look at you, and colleagues at work who are themselves so tired, afraid and overwhelmed that they are one bad day from breakdown.
And then there are your students. God you love them. But some of them have problems you simply do not know how to fix. Or, even with the interventions you know to do through experience and training, you also know it will take all of your mental energy to implement them. You don't have that kind of energy left. Some of your kids are currently homeless and show up to school unbathed and with dirty clothes. Others have developed significant behavior problems and despite your best efforts, they continue to fight, curse, and act out in class. Some of them are so embarrassed they can't read that they throw books off their desks and rip up their hand-outs. You know deep down that most of the difficulties your children face are beyond your control. But still, most days you come home and cry because of the guilt and helplessness.
You also know that your job is on the line if you don't get these kids to perform on some silly test. You know the tests are a joke, that they do not capture the intelligence, wit, humor and spark that live within your students. But still they hang there, always lurking in the shadows. Time is slowly marching until the day you must administer the dreaded test and seal your fate.
Now imagine turning on your TV or flipping through the Tribune or Sun-Times to see yet another story loudly proclaiming that the problem with America's schools is, well, you. "More teachers must be fired!" they scream. "Teachers are the ones failing the kids, we need to hold them accountable!" "Teachers are lazy and need to work longer, harder, for less pay!" "Teacher pensions are destroying our economy!" (Whoa, did I miss the part where newspapers yelled at the people who caused the financial crisis that is slashing education budgets around the country? Are the mortgage brokers, big banks and financial industries getting demeaned every five seconds? How about the corporations not paying their fair share of taxes which help schools? And don't forget the politicians and their horrible education policies. Surely no one reading the news is believing this baloney, are they?) And every time you hear the insults or name-calling you think to yourself, "Well what the heck are any of you doing to help these kids..." The unfairness of it all burns.
Now stretch that one terrible week into nine months. Welcome to CPS.
Of course, the great irony is that as the powers that be complain about "quality" teachers they create teaching environments where it becomes impossible to be great. Teachers at my old school started to look liked the walking dead as the stress and fear accumulated. The increased "accountability" robbed us all of the very qualities which would make us great teachers: our passion, kindness, drive, energy, camaraderie and humor.
And then there are people, like our lovely mayor, who seem to enjoy kicking you while you're down. Rahm would have us believe that something like extending the school day is so easy. Oh, that smurk on his face as he seems to say "How dare you expect to be paid for your extra time!" And "Sure, you've been working this whole year close to breakdown, barely scraping by, without any resources and with abnormally large class sizes, but I'm sure you can come up with 90 extra minutes of activities for your kids. Oh, and if you really cared, you'd do this willingly and for free. And stop asking for paper to make copies or books for them to read, you greedy teachers. And no, we are not going to fix your school building, give you the resources you say you need, or help you in any way, shape, or form. You suck, your school sucks, and we are just biding our time until we can shut the whole thing down."
Sigh...
Now, maybe not every school and every teacher has as bad a time as that, but I know I did. And I know too many other teachers out there who are experiencing that same fear, intimidation, and stress. Teaching under these unacceptable conditions has become the rule, not the exception. I recently came across a blog post which described something called "compassion fatigue" which is "a combination of physical, emotional, and spiritual depletion associated with caring for patients in significant emotional pain and physical distress." The author goes on to say:
Like nurses, teachers confronting these pathologies [such as abuse, abandonment and alienation] are forced to perform triage. But teachers still have to somehow find the time and energy afterward to teach the subject matter they were hired to do. The debilitating effects on them are cumulative. It's little wonder, therefore, that teachers in inner-city schools have a higher rate of absenteeism and turnover than their colleagues in the suburbs. It's also not at all surprising that teachers who are faced with the challenge often find themselves drawing away from their students. The same sadness and despair that nurses report also affect teachers.
Now, if you've been paying attention to the education reform debate at all in recent years, you will know that this is the place in the story where the corporate reformers of the nation, you know, the Michelle Rhees, Bill Gates, Arne Duncans, and yes, Rahm Emanuels, would jump in and say something ridiculous like "no excuses" or "poverty is not destiny." They will fill your ear with talk of "the soft bigotry of low expectations" while completely ignoring the hard bigotry of poverty, racism and crippling income inequality. Their ignorance of the reality of life for students and teachers alike in the inner cities is frankly, criminal.
No more I say.
This post is for all my teacher colleagues out there. It's time for us to fight back. It's time to take back our profession. Teachers, use your natural inclination to educate and start teaching your friends and families about the hard realities of our profession. And don't be afraid to sing our praises. What we do is good work and it needs to be protected and cherished.
And while you're at it, don't forget to teach as many people as possible about the true nature of corporate reform and how it's left behind entire neighborhoods. Let people know about the ridiculous goals of No Child Left Beind and the evils behind high-stakes testing. Tell the truth about charters, that they are not, in fact, miracles. Speak up about the reality of Teach for America -- how placing untrained novices in classrooms with the hardest to educate students is unjust and wrong. Make people start to at least question the hype!
More than anything, make the act of teacher-bashing unacceptable. We know that when we are overwhelmed, upset, fatigued, demoralized and stressed out beyond our limits, we will be no good for our students. Remember, fighting for teachers is fighting for students.
So fight for the kinds of teaching environments which benefit kids. Fight for workplaces where teachers do not flee, breakdown, or God forbid take their own lives. Fight for a steady and strong group of committed professionals who actually stick around long enough to bring the slow change that is needed in our schools. Fight for the respect we deserve. Fight for the autonomy to make decisions on curriculum, implementation, and assessment that help the kids sitting in front of us. Fight for equity in resources so we have the tools to acutally do the difficult job of teaching. Fight for the mental health that we need to be the excellent educators kids deserve.
By fighting, we can beat back some of the hopelessness and exhaustion. We need to stop blaming ourselves, alone and guilty, and instead get angry at the forces that are hurting us and the important work we do. And all you non-educators out there need to get angry right alongside us. So sing along with me: ... "
Katie Osgood is a special education teacher at a Psychiatric Hospital in Chicago. Before that, she taught in a Chicago Public School and in Japan.WATERBURY, Conn. — "This fall, there is a surreal swirl of newness and oldness in the hallways of John F. Kennedy High School: Black Lives Matter face masks and exhortations to pull them up — “Over your nose, please!” — but also ribbing and laughter, bells ringing, hall passes being checked and loudspeaker reminders about the dress code (collared black or navy shirts and khaki or black bottoms).
Kennedy was open for in-person learning most of last school year. But families in this working-class, majority Hispanic and Black school district in Waterbury, Conn., opted out in large numbers, with two-thirds of high school students ending last year fully online.
This year, only students with severe health concerns can qualify for remote learning, and so far, no Kennedy families have been approved.
The school is teeming with over 1,300 students, more than before the pandemic, because of the closure of a nearby Catholic school and an influx of families moving from New York City in search of affordable housing.
A majority of students are making up missing credits from failed courses, according to the principal, Robert Johnston. Some are scared to enter the crowded cafeteria, so they are allowed to eat and socialize in quiet classrooms. There have been a few fights, and it is clear some teenagers are struggling to regulate their behavior after so much time at home, often isolated from peers.
Before the pandemic, Kennedy was on a trajectory of improvement: The graduation rate went up from 73 percent in 2011 to 84 percent in 2019. Now, that progress is at risk, with many upperclassmen behind on college or career planning. Some feel that after 18 months of learning via computer screen, they do not know teachers well enough to ask for recommendation letters. Many hope to become the first in their families to graduate from a four-year college.
“It is a completely wild experience,” Mr. Johnston said as he stood in a hallway intersection directing students to classrooms — many had forgotten how to navigate the building. “I’m still a little nervous. At the same time, it’s exhilarating.”
Here are the voices of Kennedy High School. Interviews have been edited.
Markela Karameta, 16, SeniorSeeing my friends had been the best part of my day. Going to school, hanging, doing whatever.
It was so draining being on social media; staring at the phone screen all day. There was a lot of drama going on in the beginning. The quarantine made you lose a lot of friends.
And we never got a pep rally. I’ve never been to a homecoming. I’ve never been on a field trip. Are we going to be able to have Senior Day?
My freshman year, I knew the school like the back of my hand. But when I came back for junior year this fall, I didn’t know where anything was. I felt like it was my first time being there.
I used to give people hugs; give high-fives. Now it’s a fist bump or waving hi. You don’t want to touch people like that anymore. You don’t want to go near people. It doesn’t really feel “me,” because I like to socialize, be in a conversation, be close, be one-on-one. Just to be in a group of people now and have fun? It’s kind of hard. You never know if there is Covid around. It’s scary.
Robert Johnston, PrincipalStudents have not been together, and how they are handling interpersonal conflict isn’t the best. There is some social media drama. It can quickly escalate. We had an established culture in the building before the pandemic. Now we need to reestablish that ecosystem.
It is surprising just how isolated many students were throughout the pandemic. There are more students who are having anxiety.
We have a number of students who really do not want to go into the cafeteria. The sheer number of students is really causing a lot of anxiety.
Math is the biggest academic challenge, and that was true even before the pandemic. We’re providing tutoring and credit recovery, which stimulus dollars are helping pay for.
Normally it’s rather easy for a student to ask for a college recommendation letter. But how well do staff members actually know students who haven’t been in person for the last year and a half?
Dania Gray, 17, JuniorI tried going to school in person for a few weeks sophomore year, but we had to stay home every few days because one person would catch a case and then the whole school would shut down. Also, staying home was easier on my mom and sister. My mom was working in person as a social worker in New York City.
In the morning, I’d make sure my sister was awake and got on the bus for kindergarten. Then I’d wait for her to come home and help her with her homework. I’d make sure she showered — give her food to eat.
I didn’t want to be at home. And when I realized I wouldn’t have school sophomore year, it really took a toll on the mind.
I did well in my online classes. But I’d sleep into the afternoon and then do schoolwork for the rest of the day. Then I’d watch TV and videos all night into the morning. It was a repeating pattern. There was just so much free time.
Now that I’m back in school, I’ve met a lot of new people. Everyone seems a lot friendlier and more open. I’m playing volleyball. And I want to get involved in the community, maybe volunteer with the Red Cross.
I want to go to college and get a doctorate in psychology. I always find myself questioning, “What makes people think and act the way they do? And how can I, as a person, relate to them?” The pandemic made me more self-aware.
Last year, some students were working at supermarkets, pharmacies, restaurants. McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts hire a lot of our kids. Students were contributing financially more than they had ever contributed prior.
The timing of working was easier when they were virtual. Now that school gets out at 1:50, they have to take the bus home and they have to change into their work uniform. You have to remind them, essentially, that school is their priority. It’s time management. I have a part-time job myself working at the Gap, so I can talk with them about that.
Jaikwon Francis, 16, JuniorIn April 2020, my grandmother in Brooklyn died of Covid. We were close — I lived with her for a while. It was hard to move on from at first.
I didn’t go into school last year. Daily life was different. I slept late and missed 80 days of geometry, which was first period. I failed that class and did credit recovery over the summer. It was an online program that took two hours per day for two weeks.
Now, I try my best to be optimistic. Covid is not going to last forever.
And really, the pandemic opened my mind. I’ve been complimented a lot on my writing, and last year, I took journalism class online. I started to interview people. And I also got into photography. When you’re trapped inside, it makes you want to go out more. I started going on walks past my neighborhood to this area with woods. It was so peaceful, and I got this urge to snap away. Now, anywhere I go, I can picture a picture.
My journalism teacher tells me I’m really good at it. My mom and stepdad encourage me a lot. They say I have to go to college. Now I’m taking journalism again and will work on the school paper.
Donald Lafayette, Chemistry TeacherLast year, I was teaching in the classroom and, at the same time, on video with the kids at home. Only a few students were in-person, so the focus was really on remote. During first period, people would be in bed. The hardest part was, when you tell stories in the classroom, you can see if they’re engaged.
But the experience of remote learning will help them in college online courses. A lot of jobs are now remote, too. Things are changing.
Jessinya Severino, 17, SeniorI feel better now that we’re back in person.
Now I have to finish my college applications, but I feel like I didn’t get a chance to really think about it or, like, breathe with it. I’m overwhelmed.
