The Offical Website of the PJSTA

Posted on February 10, 2014 by thepjsta

Arthur Goldstein Shakes Up the NYSUT Election Scene

We have learned this afternoon that Arthur Goldstein, who has been referred to by none other than Diane Ravitch as “NYC’s best teacher-blogger” is throwing his hat into the NYSUT election ring with the intention of running against incumbent Executive Vice President Andrew Pallotta. Pallotta, who curiously thought all NYSUT officers but himself needed to be changed, recently cobbled together the “Revive NYSUT” slate to challenge the other incumbent officers. Coincidentally, I am sure, he made sure to leave himself in a position he believed would be uncontested. Now, however, he will have a contested election on his hands against a very qualified candidate.

Goldstein will be familiar to readers of this blog as the author of the blog NYC Educator where he has been blogging about education since 2005. It is a blog we frequently have referenced on this site. Additionally he has written articles about education for the Huffington Post (see here) and the Daily News, among other publications. Goldstein works as an ESL teacher at Francis Lewis High School in Queens where he is also a UFT chapter leader. Those of you on Twitter may very well be familiar with him as he is a frequent participant in education related topics under the handle @TeacherArthurG. Be sure to give him a follow if you don’t already. While a member of the UFT, Goldstein has been outspoken in his criticism of the Unity Caucus leadership of his local.

Via his guest post on our blog, “Reviving Unionism”…

It’s funny to hear people in NYSUT complaining about democracy. I’m chapter leader of one of the largest schools in NYC, and neither I nor anyone in my school gets to vote or participate at all in NYSUT or AFT. Though I’ve been elected twice, that means nothing. The only way a city teacher gets to be part of NYSUT is to be part of Unity, an invitation-only caucus that has run the union for over 50 years. I’ve never been invited.

The reason for that, I suppose, is my public point of view. I’ve been published in the Daily News, at Huffington Post, at Gotham Schools, on Schoolbook, on multiple blogs, and in local Queens newspapers taking positions contrary to those of UFT leadership. For example, I wrote a column labeling mayoral control mayoral dictatorship. Though giving Michael Bloomberg absolute power was a bad idea, the UFT supported it. After he used it to close schools all over the city, aiding no one but privatizers, we supported it again.

I also oppose value-added ratings for teachers, since they have no basis in science, and since great teachers have lost jobs as a result. I can’t support Common Core, no matter how many millions of dollars Bill Gates pours into it, as I don’t believe it helps the students we serve when we fail most of them and use said failure to label working teachers as defective. Brilliant education historian Diane Ravitch shares my positions, and it’s ironic to be excluded from not only UFT, but also NYSUT and AFT for the crime of sharing her opinions.

It appears as though Goldstein will now circumvent the lack of a Unity Caucus invitation as he attempts to have his voice heard in his state union.

This, ladies and gentleman, is an example of true grassroots unionism. A rank and file teacher, who has been in his classroom teaching today, finding an avenue to make his voice heard. Bottom up, member driven unionism at it’s finest. Goldstein will now give NYSUT delegates a very appealing alternative to Andrew Pallotta, who has seen Tiers 5 and 6, along with the tax cap on his watch. Goldstein’s frequent and harsh criticism of Andy Cuomo also stands in stark contrast to Pallotta who used $10,000 in VOTE COPE funds to secure a table for his Revive NYSUT cronies at Cuomo’s birthday party.

We will have more on this situation as it unfolds and as we move closer to April’s NYSUT election.

New Yorkers Outraged by Governor’s Flawed Common Core Panel

Via NYSAPE, of which the PJSTA is a member…

New Yorkers Outraged by Governor’s Flawed Common Core Panel

The leaders of the NYS Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE), a coalition of more than 45 parent and educator groups from throughout the state, expressed their outrage at Governor Cuomo’s choice of appointees to his Common Core Panel.

As Lisa Rudley, Ossining public school parent and founding member of NYSAPE said, “As a parent I am offended that the Governor’s Panel is stacked with known supporters of the Common Core, eliminating the chance for an objective evaluation. The chair, Stanley Litow, Vice President of IBM, has already written an Op-ed saying full speed ahead with its implementation. Dr. Charles Russo is one of the very few Superintendents in the state to publicly support the standards, including the flawed NYSED modules known to be rife with errors and questionable content.”

As Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters pointed out, “Several members selected by the Governor belong to organizations that are heavily dependent on funding from the Gates Foundation, which has spent more than $170 million on developing and promoting the Common Core. These include Dan Weisberg of The New Teacher Project, which has received $23 million from the Gates Foundation, including $7 million in the last year alone. Nick Lawrence is a prominent member of Educators for Excellence, which received more than $3 million from the Gates Foundation in 2013. This evident conflict of interest undermines their credibility not only concerning the Common Core, but also the highly controversial issue of whether the state should go ahead with sharing personal student data with inBloom Inc., a corporation established by the Gates Foundation with $100 million.”

“Parents are tired of having education policy in this state hijacked by deep-pocketed billionaires who do not send their own children to public school and would never consider having their education stifled by a rigid regime of instructional text, scripted modules, test prep, and their personal data provided to for-profit companies without their consent,” said Eric Mihelbergel, Ken-Ton public school parent and founding member of NYSAPE.

Bianca Tanis a New Paltz public school parent and special education teacher noted, “Experts in special education, early childhood development and elementary school teachers have all noted that the Common Core standards are developmentally inappropriate, were created without their input and need significant reform. And yet not a single individual from any of these groups was selected for the Panel, ensuring that their recommendations will be profoundly deficient.”

“I am astounded that the governor would fail to include any teachers of younger students and those with special needs, especially since many of the criticisms and concerns surround the issue whether the standards are appropriately designed for these children,” pointed out Lori Griffin, a Copenhagen public school parent and educator.

“The Governor argues that no decision should be made on the Common Core until this Panel has come up with its recommendations. The fact that this Panel is so heavily stacked only reinforces our conviction that there is no reason to wait for the Panel’s conclusions. The Common Core standards must be immediately pulled back and revised, with input from educators and parents, the over-testing must come to a halt, the teacher evaluation system scrapped, and the contract with inBloom cancelled,” said Jeanette Deutermann, Bellmore public school parent and founder of Long Island Opt-Out.

Jessica McNair, New Hartford public school parent concluded, “Our children are suffering and cannot wait. If Commissioner King does not immediately stop the runaway train, call a halt to the standards and the testing, and withdraw his agreement with inBloom, the Legislature must act in his place.”

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1 Comment

Posted on February 10, 2014 by thepjsta

PJSTA’s McMullan Responds to Newsday’s Propaganda

Those unfortunate souls who still read Newsday may have seen an editorial in today’s edition titled, “Stop the testing tug-of-war”. Other editions seemed to have it titled “Don’t Slow Down the Common Core in New York”. It was a real propoganda piece in which Newsday shilled for the Common Core. The PJSTA’s Melissa McMullan penned a response. Diane Ravitch published it on her blog today. Here is McMullan’s reply…

In response to “Stop the testing tug-of-war”

Upset is not the word. As a teacher, as a mother and as a taxpayer, I am filled with disgust. Let’s speak of facts from people who are in the system, rather than the hypotheses of those (the media and corporations) on the outside.

1.    The “standardized tests” do not track year-to-year progress of a student. No teacher knows what students mastered, and what they did not. Last year’s assessment tested students on materials that were not available until after the assessment. It contained proprietary material that the test’s maker, Pearson, includes in curricular materials that it sells to school districts – giving purchasers an unfair advantage on the test. Next, the test’s outcome was predicted by the Commissioner weeks before the tests ever made their way to schools for administration. Finally, in the six years I have administered the assessment to my students, I have personally observed ten point swings between passing and failing – depending upon how the state wanted schools and teachers to be perceived by the public.

2.    The state teacher evaluation system (APPR) will find few teachers ineffective because the majority of the score (60-80%) is derived from local measures – observation, lesson plans, parent communication,etc…. The state gave me a 1 out of 20 for my growth score for last year. If the state’s portion were used as my only evaluative tool, I would have been considered ineffective. I could accept a 1 out of 20, if the state could tell me what I did well, what I did not and which portion of that score was for my math instruction of 60 students, and which portion was for my English Language Arts (ELA) instruction of 30 students. No one has this information.

3.    Standards-based evaluations have yet to be seen. During my years in business, I had objectives I was required to meet. Each year, I sat down with my supervisor and we discussed those I had met, those I had not, and how to improve. In this system, we give students assessments that have no standardized bar to pass. After they take the assessment, their teachers and parents never know what standards they have met, and which they have not.

4.    The curricular materials were not available last year. This is true. This fall, the state released materials. The math modules availablefor my sixth grade class required me to spend two hours per day modifying them in order to eliminate spelling and grammatical errors, replace a 10-point font with a 14-point font that young children can read and see, as well as define ways to bridge gaps between what my students were able to do, and the skills they needed to have to get through the lessons. Furthermore, the first unit was comprised entirely of lengthy word problems that my students, who are reading several years behind, were unable to read.

As a mother and a teacher I ask for:

o  Assessments that measure state standards, with consistent benchmarks for passing to track progress over time.

o  Item analysis for parents and teachers so both parties know what students have mastered and what they have not.

o  A state growth score that tells a teacher what his /her students mastered, and what they did not.

Until those three requirements are met, my own four children will not participate in the state’s fraudulent assessment system that drains valuable resources from cash-strapped school districts, promotes growth for corporations like Pearson and in its lack of transparency, erodes the teacher-student relationship.

Sincerely,

Melissa McMullan

6^th Grade Teacher

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Posted on February 8, 2014 by thepjsta

Cuomo’s Rigged Common Core Panel

Yesterday, Andy Cuomo, the self-proclaimed “Lobbyist for Students” announced his Common Core Implementation Panel. In a move that surprised absolutely nobody, the panel is stacked with people who have already professed their love for the common core publicly. It would seem as though the reason it took our esteemed governor such a long time to put this panel together was because he needed to go to the far reaches of the universe to find a superintendent and teacher who liked the Common Core to put on the panel. But he did that.

Our friend Reality-Based Educator did a great job giving us the lowdown on the background of the people on the panel. Via Perdido Street School…

As Leonie Haimson pointed out, Litow is a proponent of CCSS (he wrote an opinion piece stating New York must not abandon the Common Core.)

So we have a CCSS proponent chairing the panel.

John Flanagan, head of the Senate Education Committee, was endorsing Common Core as late as last August, though he has recently stepped back a bit from that as the political pressure has mounted and has called for a delay in their use for high stakes.

Cathy Nolan is also a supporter of the Common Core standards, though like Flanagan, she has called for a delay in their use for high stakes.

Linda Darling-Hammond has given some support to CCSS, though she has criticized the process by which the standards were developed as well as expressed concerns around the CCSS testing and the way CCSS has been implemented.

Todd Hathaway is a teacher from Erie County who has publicly testified against the testing as imposed by SED and the Regents.

Alice Jackson-Jolley is the daughter of a Pataki “pal” who said this about CCSS:

Jackson-Jolley said she has an open mind about the Common Core, in particular how it has been introduced in New York. But she said that she wants her two daughters, 10 and 7, who attend North Salem schools, to receive a more challenging public-school education than what she received.“I hope they get an education that is rigorous, challenges them, and inspires them, so they never feel they are skating through,” she said. “When they get to college and beyond, I want them to feel prepared and competitive.”

Don’t want to say she sounds definitively like a CCSS supporter, but she’s throwing around the kind of CCSS buzzwords (“rigorous” and “competitive”) you hear from pro-CCSS supporters.

Nick Lawrence is a member of Educators4Excellence who testified he supports the Common Core.

Delia Pompa is senior VP for programs at La Raza, an organization that has supported CCSS even as it has expressed concern over how CCSS implementation will affect Latino students.

Anne Kress, President of Monroe Community College says there are no problems with the Common Core standards as standards – she thinks they’re just swell.

Charles Russo is a district superintendent who testified he loves Common Core and the EngageNY modules.

Dan Weisberg is an education reformer who runs an education reform outfit that is pro-CCSS and just recently wrote this:

Back in the fall, we noted that teachers unions in New York appeared to be resorting to Tea Party tactics in an attempt to bully Governor Andrew Cuomo and Education Commissioner John King into backtracking on two of their signature achievements: Implementing a state law that requires better teacher evaluation systems, and adopting the Common Core State Standards, a set of more ambitious and coherent learning standards for students.

What has happened in the months since? Despite all the maneuvering, Cuomo and King haven’t backed down. In fact, Cuomo reiterated his focus on these achievements in his State of the State address last week, pointing to the evaluation law as a success story and proposing to use the results from evaluations to award bonuses of up to $20,000 to the state’s highest-rated teachers.

…

What’s happening in New York is an important lesson for leaders across the country: If you’re serious about education reform, be prepared to fend off a steady stream of political attacks from both sides of the aisle, even after your policies have been adopted.

Fortunately, Governor Cuomo and Commissioner King don’t scare easily, and they finish what they start. They’re setting a commendable example by sticking to their principles in the face of all these attacks. Here’s hoping they keep it up, for the sake of the millions of students in New York who will benefit from higher standards.

Cuomo’s rigging of the panel was very much expected. What was very disappointing, however, was UFT President Michael Mulgrew. Mulgrew, whose Unity Caucus torpedoed an attempt to rule out a Cuomo endorsement last month, continued his love affair with Andy Cuomo in this UFT press release…

Mulgrew praises formation of Governor’s Common Core panel

FEBRUARY 7, 2014

UFT President Michael Mulgrew on Feb. 7 applauded Governor Cuomo’s appointment of an 11-member group — including education expert Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University, State Senator John Flanagan, and Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan — to recommend changes to the flawed rollout of the Common Core Learning Standards.

In response, UFT President Michael Mulgrew said:

“I want to thank the Governor for listening to parents, children, principals and teachers across the state who have made it clear that the rush to implement the Common Core standards in New York State has not worked. We look forward to the panel’s recommendations.”

So there’s that. It’s no wonder UFT rank and file members want MORE from their union! Mulgrew, who couldn’t endorse the Revive NYSUT slate quick enough, either doesn’t care about the fate of his members or he is the most out of touch labor leader around. As one commenter on James Eterno’s ICEUFT blog put it…

Pogue said…

Happy with Gates.
Happy with Cuomo.
Happy with Common Core.
Happy with King.
Happy with Tisch.
Happy with Bloomberg. (2009 election)
Happy with Danielson.
Happy with 40% MOSL’s.

Is there a teacher/student-abusing person or policy the UFT Leadership is unhappy with?

PJSTA Unanimously Votes to Support Portland Teachers

At tonight’s executive board meeting the PJSTA’s executive board unanimously approved the following resolution…

Whereas, the Portland Public Schools are harming students and educators with a refusal to negotiate a fair contract, particularly in regards to class sizes, teacher workloads, wages, insurance coverage, and staffing levels and

Whereas, the Portland Association of Teachers, a fellow NEA local, now sit on the front lines of the fight for quality public education;

Be it resolved, that the Port Jefferson Station Teachers Association supports them in their fight.