Our third episode of PJSTA Live deals with Ed Reform 2.0. We were joined by two guests, Alison McDowell and Jia Lee. McDowell, a parent and a public education activist, blogs at Wrench in the Gears where she takes a skeptical look at digital curriculum in public schools. Additionally she has been involved in United Opt Out and has presented her findings regarding digital curriculum at various locations across the country. Lee is well known in public education and teacher union circles. She has been a conscientious objector for several years, ran against Michael Mulgrew for UFT President last year, and has been a dedicated member of the Movement of Rank and file Educators. She has worked tirelessly to organize teachers in the fight against school privatization.
Here is the video of the panel discussion at the Students Not Scores “Going Beyond Opt-Out” conference today in Port Jefferson Station. The panel was followed by different workshops and a group discussion to round out the day.
Yesterday we shared with you about PJSTA Live, a new initiative of ours to engage members of the PJSTA and broader public education and labor communities on the issues that are pertinent to the work that we do. Today I am excited to announce details of the broadcast’s first episode.
On Wednesday night we will be recording our first broadcast with the title being “Impact of the 2016 Election on Public Education”. After the recording is complete we will add it to our site here, so be sure to look for it. We will be discussing how the election of both Donald Trump and the down ballot state legislators will potentially impact our schools. We’ll also take a look at the major victory that Massachusetts public school teachers and advocates achieved and discuss what lessons those of us in New York State can take away from that situation.
For this initial broadcast I will be joined by three guests…
Jeanette Deutermann- Long Island Opt-Out, NYSAPE
Ali Gordon- Comsewogue School District Board of Education
Merrie Najimy- President- Concord Teachers Association and member of the Educators for a Democratic Union Caucus- Massachusetts Teachers Association
If you have a question you’d like to see addressed during our broadcast, please fill out the embedded form on the PJSTA Live page. You can also tweet at us using the hashtag #PJSTAlive.
I am excited today to announce the launch of a project that I am pretty excited about… PJSTA Live! PJSTA Live will be a regularly broadcast show on YouTube where we cover different angles of the public education and union landscape. Our goal is to further engage our members, teachers outside of our local, and the broader public education and labor communities on the issues that impact us deeply. We are hopeful that our viewers will not just use these shows as an opportunity to listen and learn, but also as discussion topics to raise within their own schools and education communities.
Episodes will typically feature one or more guests who will be participating in a discussion on a given topic. Additionally, we will try to take questions from our millions many viewers for our guests to answer. Once the episode is recorded we will post it, along with any pertinent show notes, right here on our blog. We will also link to all of our shows on our PJSTA Live page that can be accessed via the menu at the top of this page…
If you have questions for our guests you can ask them by filling out the embedded form on the PJSTA Live page. You can also tweet at us using the hashtag #PJSTAlive.
Be sure to check back here at thepjsta.org later this week for news on our first broadcast!
As we wait to hear on opt-out numbers across the state today, a few worthwhile links to pass along.
Though their local union, the UFT, may be working against the opt-out movement in New York City, the teachers at the Earth School in Manhattan have an important message to the families they serve…
Public education is important to us. As teachers, we share a deep commitment to our school’s mission and have chosen public education because that is where our values lie. The founding teachers of our school envisioned a “dream school”: a public school to serve diverse students and families. Our participation in public education comes with responsibilities and implicit agreements–a social contract. We agree that all of society benefits when children have access to quality education. We also share the uniquely democratic hope that children who learn together will later govern together with more compassion, more social cohesion, and a greater sense of civic responsibility.
Be sure to read the full text of their letter. It is well worth your time.
Teachers at the Earth School
Over at Living in Dialogue, Michelle Gunderson of the Chicago Teachers Union write about her experience organizing picket lines for their one-day strike last week…
A picket line is sacred ground. As a labor organizer and teacher unionist, I do not say this lightly. Workers have fought and died on picket lines fighting for work conditions that respect the inherent dignity of human life. A picket line is hallowed ground sanctified by sacrifice.
After negotiations fell apart last night, Seattle teachers will be on strike to begin their school year today. We send out thoughts of support and solidarity to our sisters and brothers in the SEA!
Seattle teachers unanimously vote to authorize a strike.The Seattle Education Association is ready to strike tomorrow, on the first day of school in their district, if negotiations tonight do not reach an agreement. In a situation reminiscent of the Chicago Teachers Union’s 2012 strike, the teachers in Seattle are ready to strike for more than just typical “bread and butter” union issues. While things such as salary increases and length of work day are part of negotiations, the negotiating team in Seattle has also made demands to reduce high stakes testing, address structural inequities, and increase recess time for students who have continually had recess time dwindle all while they have been besieged by increasing amounts of test prep.
SEA member Jesse Hagopian, who helped lead the historic high stakes testing boycott in 2013, discusses the pending strike below…
This summer I had the pleasure of spending some time with SEA member Dan Troccoli, a member of the SEE Caucus in Seattle, who is a wonderful example of what it means to be a union activist. Here is his take on the pending strike, originally published on socialistworker.org…
MY NAME is Dan, and I have been teaching in some form or another for 15 years. My union, the Seattle Education Association (SEA), is currently in negotiations with Seattle Public Schools and recently voted unanimously to authorize a strike for the first day of school if we cannot reach an agreement with the school district.
The mood in our union is angry and defiant. Educators have been pushed around for a long time, and many have just had enough. Our strike is about respect. It’s about fairness. But more than anything, it’s about redefining the narrative around public education and reasserting the voice of educators in how public education is shaped going forward.
During the discussion on the strike question, many members began supportive remarks with a disclaimer along the lines of “I don’t want to strike, but…” I understand the sentiment behind that phrase. Teachers are a dedicated bunch. We sacrifice our time (in the form of many unpaid hours) and invest a huge amount of emotional energy worrying about our students. It’s a fact so many people are aware of that it easily belies the corporate education reform game of shaming teachers.
Yet I have to say that I want to go on strike. Just walking an info picket line the other day, I saw many students and rejoiced seeing them after being apart for the summer. And yet, I think of how the Washington state legislature consciously ignored the mandates of the state Constitution and a state Supreme Court decision to fully fund education for years. I think of how supports for struggling students, such as counselors and even summer school, have been cut. I think of the massive ranks of amazing educators I’ve known over the years who have either left the profession or been forced out by cold, draconian administrators.
The SEA hasn’t been on strike in 30 years. The problem with that is that people forget. We forget about the power we have to change these things. And our employers forget, too.
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WHEN I think of going on strike, I think of some of my struggling students whose parents lost their job and had to move just as I was getting through to them. I think about some whose parents were unexpectedly deported and were suddenly homeless. And I think of many of my students who live with the daily realities of oppression, whether it be from racial profiling or homophobic teasing.
I think of what it will take to change these much larger issues, and my resolve is bolstered a thousandfold. This is because of a fundamental reality: that collective struggle is the most powerful means of making change–not simply because it marshals and coordinates the main power that ordinary, working people have, but because it requires people to work together and depend on each other with such urgency that they begin to overcome divisions among themselves and can for the first time really envision the possibilities of much larger change.
Ignoring this important lesson has proven disastrous for the labor movement. It is no coincidence that unions are experiencing their lowest membership numbers in 70 years now, at the same time that the number of strikes is at an all-time low. The last time that the SEA negotiated, the union wasn’t prepared for a strike, and we ended up with a contract that included the same inequitable and inaccurate growth ratings based on student test scores in our evaluations–exactly what we are currently trying to remove.
During our strike vote, many people talked about having trust in the negotiating team and the elected leadership. Indeed, those groups have shown more resolve recently than in previous bargaining. But to me, the strength in the union isn’t trust in anyone having elected me, but trust in all the members of that union having the courage to stand together. Because, again, that’s the most powerful way we can change things for the better.
This is so important, particularly now when our politicians are so out of touch and misrepresent us so badly that many people seem desperate to find among any of the candidates who would deliver some change. They miss the important reality that the ones we can look to are all around us–that we don’t need politicians to represent us when we have the power, if it is organized and mobilized.
So I want to strike. For my students, for our future and for a change.
Dan Troccoli
SEA Board of Directors, Social Equality Educators
This was passed along to me, so I figured I would share here. Rahm Emanuel, the former Obama chief of staff, and current Mayor of Chicago, has done everything in his power to destroy public education in Chicago. On Monday night, at a public hearing on the city’s 2016 budget, Emanuel made a rare public appearance. While he worked the crowd, shaking hands, he was promptly shut down by Isaac Krantz-Perlman, a special education classroom assistant in Chicago. Check out the gif below…
Micah Uetricht of In These Times has a full write up of the story here.
All PJSTA members headed out to the rally in Manhattan on Saturday will receive a free doughnut, cup of coffee, and train ticket compliments of the PJSTA. Meet at the Ronkonkoma Train Station at 11:20 AM in time for the 11:40 train into Penn Station. The rally will be held downtown at City Hall Park. Dr. Rella will be one of the featured speakers…
As we roll through the spring towards next November’s elections we are starting to hear a lot from the gubernatorial candidates when it comes to public education. Let’s look a little bit closer at our options now.
We are all familiar with Governor Cuomo’s litany of attacks on public schools, the children who they serve, the teachers who work in them, and the labor unions who represent those teachers. It would take course correction that is unprecedented in modern politics for Cuomo to earn my vote in November. The man who brought us the tax cap and who foisted school deform upon New York at an alarming rate has been quite possibly the worst education governor that we have ever had in the Empire State. Don’t forget this is the man who is on the take from Wall Street, DFER, and charter school operators. He is also the man who declared that schools who perform poorly on standardized tests should receive the death penalty. While NYSUT may not want to publish anything against Cuomo and may secretly hope that he gets the AFL-CIO endorsement, the PJSTA is happy to report that we will, under no circumstances, be encouraging our members to vote for him.
That brings us to Rob Astorino. Mr. Astorino achieved some well deserved praise when he opted his children out of the state tests this year. Kudos to him. Of course that’s not the only issue that matters in public education. When speaking of charter schools Mr. Astorino has said, “And for you charter school parents whose classrooms are being shut down, I’ll have your back. We need more charter schools in New York, not fewer.” In other words, like Cuomo, he will continue to support our tax dollars being siphoned off to be used to fund what amount to exclusive private schools. The last thing our schools need is a continued loss of funds as politicians kowtow to the powerful charter school operators. No thanks Mr. Astorino. I won’t make the mistake of giving him my vote either.
That brings us to the increasingly popular third party options. Last week we learned that Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins, a Teamster, named Brian Jones of the MORE Caucus as his running mate. Perhaps you remember when we previously posted this video of Jones…
Below is the Green Party’s education platform. It has certainly earned my vote…
Education
Introduction: The purpose of education is to produce critically thinking, civically engaged responsible adults committed to building and maintaining a just sustainable, democracy. All children in New York State deserve a quality public education preK-? (grade 16, beyond) that fosters critical thought and creativity. Learning is a lifelong and life-affirming process and all people, regardless of age, should have equal access to education.
The Green Party of New York State supports the following policies:
Equity for All Students
All schools should receive the same amount of services and resources regardless of the socio-economic class of the community.
Public schools should not be funded by outside sources such as corporations.
Every school shall be fully staffed with a nurse, a social worker, and services available to parents.
Every school shall have afterschool and weekend programs.
Each child, regardless of economic status, must be offered free breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Improve Our Students’ Learning Conditions
Funding must be made available for Creative Arts (Music, Art, Drama, Digital Arts), Physical Education, Technology, Social Studies, English Language Arts, Science, Math, and electives.
Every school shall be equipped with working computers, interactive boards, internet, heat, air conditioning, and have a fully-staffed library and media center.
Class size limits should be reduced by at least 10%, with no exceptions.
Fair Student Assessment
Standardized tests should be only one tool used for assessing student learning and growth. Portfolios, written assignments, verbal presentations, digital presentations, and projects shall all be available options.
Academic Freedom and Support
Educators shall be responsible for decisions regarding the methods and materials used for the instruction of their students.
When any new, significant education policy is agreed upon for implementation in the classrooms, it shall be:
Limited to one per academic year.
Administered with a minimum of two years professional development.
Continuously reviewed by a jointly agreed upon panel of experts for effectiveness.
Special Educators
Professional educators working with special education students should be assigned reasonable caseloads that will allow for all mandated services and paperwork, to be completed during the work day.
Educators working with special education students shall be able to safely report any inconsistencies between the mandated services included in a student IEP and the services that the student is actually receiving.
Paraprofessionals, Physical Therapists, and Occupational Therapists
Salaries for all paraprofessionals, physical therapists and occupational therapists should be increased to levels closer to teachers.
All paraprofessionals, physical therapists, and occupational therapists shall be offered the same job protections as teachers.
Guidance Counselors
There should be one guidance counselor in every school.
The state recommended ratio of 250 students to one counselor should be lowered to 200:1.
Fairness and Due Process in Evaluating Educators
Eliminate the use of test scores for teacher evaluations and reduce the amount of evaluation paperwork.
Observations of teachers should not be conducted by principals, but by fellow teachers, department chairs, and experts in the field of the teacher being observed.
All employees shall have the right to respond to accusations and demonstrate that they are inaccurate or unfair.
Restore the principle of innocent until proven guilty in all investigations. An independent arbitrator, jointly selected and paid for by the school district and union local, shall judge all grievances and removals.
There shall be a clear and explicit path to tenure, stating what is expected from new teachers in order to receive it. All denials must include a written explanation and be eligible for appeal before an independent arbitrator.
Administrator Conduct
Any administrator that is found to be routinely violating the contract at their school shall be automatically removed and face charges for permanent removal.
Governance of New York City Schools
End centralized mayoral control of New York City public schools.
School board members should be publicly elected, not appointed.
High schools teachers must have the right to elect the chairs of their own departments.
Prohibit the sale of public school land and buildings to private real estate developers.
Charter Schools
End public subsidies and tax breaks for charter schools.
Ban the co-location of charter schools in public school buildings.
School Funding
Stop the testing of students and evaluation of teachers for the purpose of funding schools or closing schools.
Federal and state funding of schools should be based solely on need.
Military Recruitment
Prohibit military recruitment and access to student records in public schools and public colleges.
Higher Education
Allow City University faculty to continue to elect their own department chairs.
Restore free tuition at CUNY and SUNY, for all low-income students who graduate from public schools.
Provide tuition-free education at SUNY, CUNY, and community colleges for students who perform 250 hours of community service per year, or 125 hours per year for students in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics); and who stay in New York for at least five years after graduation.
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