I will protect your pensions. Nothing about your pension is going to change when I am governor. - Chris Christie, "An Open Letter to the Teachers of NJ" October, 2009

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Bring Democracy Back To Newark

The Star-Reformer-Ledger gives over its op-ed pages today to yet another round of corporate reformer love, courtesy of editor Tom Moran. What's striking this moring is how completely Moran has swallowed all of the premises of corporate reform.

Take his interview with Cory Booker:
The core idea is that the performance of students should guide everything. That means killing tenure to get rid of bad teachers, giving families more choice by expanding charter schools and magnet schools, closing down bad schools of any type, giving principals authority to hire their own staffs, and perhaps expanding the school day and school year.

The discussion, finally, has moved beyond money and is focusing on how that money is spent.
That's the corporate reform agenda in a nutshell:

- Gutting tenure, even though there's no evidence that there are large numbers of inefficient teachers with tenure. And there's no plan to replace tenure with another system that guarantees academic freedom, gives teachers the ability to advocate unpopular plans for individual children that teachers may feel are in those children's best interests, or protects teachers from cronyism and corruption.

Further - and perhaps most importantly: how do we know there are large numbers of new teachers ready to take the place of all of these "bad" teachers? Especially after you've gutted tenure, one of the compensations for the job? Do you think, Tom, that lots of the best and the brightest are going to line up to teach after you've destroyed their academic freedom and exposed their jobs to cronyism?

- Charters. How many times do we need to go down this road? Charters don't do a better job when accounting for student characteristics.

- Closing bad schools. And replacing them with what?

- Giving principals the authority to hire their staffs. Great - with what pool of applicants?

- Expanding the school day and year. With what money?

Apparently, it's just enough to blab about this, rather than actually think about the consequences and study the potential outcomes. Because it's clear to me and many others who actually spend our time in the schools that this is nothing more than a plan based on sound bites and happy wishes, foisted on us by people who have ulterior motives and no real stake in the outcome (other than their personal fortunes).

And the people of Newark have apparently caught on:
“I worry this school reform is being hatched in a foreign place,” says Howard. “It is externally funded and externally conceived.

To Jeffries, this notion is damaging and untrue. But he blames Booker for fanning the suspicions by making decisions in secret, without engaging the community. The leaked memo is one example.

And Booker’s decision to announce the $100 million grant from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on the “Oprah” show, without telling anyone in Newark, left Jeffries flabbergasted.

“For a place like Newark, that is the absolute worst way to do it,” Jeffries says. “It was an absurd spectacle.”

Back at Science High, even the Facebook gift was regarded with suspicion.
“The foundations are interfering with public education and dividing our community,” says Cassandra Dock, a local resident. “Leave us alone. We don’t want white people coming in here and doing what they do — taking over. Destroy and leave.” [emphasis mine]
Has it occurred to anyone that maybe there is an outsized interest in charters in urban areas because they are seen by residents as a way to reinstate at least some local control into their school districts? Charters, at least, have leaders who are closer to parents than the governor, who is the de facto leader of the Newark schools by virtue of the fact that the state controls the district.

What this woman is saying is exactly right: wealthy white people are coming into her community and telling her what's best for her kids. Mark Zuckerberg of San Francisco and Eli Broad of Los Angeles and Bill Gates of Seattle and Chris Christie of Mendham and Michelle Rhee of who-knows-where (OK, not white) are sticking their fingers in Newark's pies. None of these people live in Newark; none have a child in the schools. Why are they allowed to direct the city's educational policy while its residents are kept in the dark?

Further: what happens when the kids of Newark graduate from these schools? What opportunities will they have? Where is the investment in the infrastructure of Newark that would turn it into a viable economic engine that could create good jobs?

I'll tell you where: it's collecting in the pockets of the same people who are spending fractions of their personal fortunes to move Newark's schools in the direction they desire. We shouldn't be allowing these people to use their foundations to set public policy in Newark; we should be taxing them at pre-Reagan levels and using the money to let democratically elected leaders in Newark set and implement policy.

It's called democracy - time to bring it back.

ADDING: Great stuff from a commenter:
Your pool of applicants question. I found this 03.20.2011 article about how teachers are being replaced in PA. 

http://tinyurl.com/5sa4zxr

From p. 2:

Ruth Hocker, former president of the parents' group at the Young Scholars of Central Pennsylvania Charter School in State College, began asking questions when popular, certified American teachers were replaced by uncertified Turkish men who often spoke limited English and were paid higher salaries. Most were placed in math and science classes.

"They would tell us they couldn't find qualified American teachers," Hocker said.

That made no sense in Pennsylvania State University's hometown, she said: "They graduate here every year."

Other school parents described how uncertified teachers on H1B visas were moved from one charter school to another when their "emergency" teaching credentials expired and told of a pattern of sudden turnovers of Turkish business managers, administrators, and board members.
This is inevitable - it's supply-and-demand. The next step is to dumb down teacher credentials enough to make this stuff legal. Don't worry - that's coming soon.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your pool of applicants question. I found this 03.20.2011 article about how teachers are being replaced in PA.

http://tinyurl.com/5sa4zxr

From p. 2:

Ruth Hocker, former president of the parents' group at the Young Scholars of Central Pennsylvania Charter School in State College, began asking questions when popular, certified American teachers were replaced by uncertified Turkish men who often spoke limited English and were paid higher salaries. Most were placed in math and science classes.

"They would tell us they couldn't find qualified American teachers," Hocker said.

That made no sense in Pennsylvania State University's hometown, she said: "They graduate here every year."

Other school parents described how uncertified teachers on H1B visas were moved from one charter school to another when their "emergency" teaching credentials expired and told of a pattern of sudden turnovers of Turkish business managers, administrators, and board members.

CommutingTeacher said...

Who is to say that the principals are of the highest caliber? How is it that Booker thinks the principals have escaped the same stain of nepotism and cronyism as the rest of the school district and that they will base their decisions upon what is best for the students? It's easy in large districts for certain decisions to be overlooked because of size. In this whole conversation about teachers being 'bad' and NJEA protection, no one has looked at the cause of supposed bad teachers.

Why are they getting tenure and why aren't those decisions looked at? Why are those teachers getting excellent reviews year after year, there is no documentation to support their removal. Why do administrators constantly move some teachers from position to position because of poor performance but never document the reasons? Why are hard working teachers on the hook for the jobs the principals and administrators aren't doing?

Therefore an intense investigation needs to be done on administrators and principals first; make them accountable. We're not seeing that now because that would expose their own ineptitude in allowing those 'bad' individuals to persist without intervention. For years administrators have taken the easy way out, and they still are with these new evaluations, but it's time that ends. It's past time their decisions are challenged.

NJEA has done their job, and that job is not to protect 'bad' teachers. That job is to demand accountability of the administrators could bring unfounded charges against members; checks and balances. Their job is to demand evidence and documentation, something administrators don't do nearly enough. Therefore, the NJEA is actually protecting good teachers from unfounded dismissal. Demanding due process and evidence is the job of NJEA and if they are the bane of administrators as a result, then perhaps administrators and principals need to demand more accountability of each other instead of passing the buck to teachers and NJEA.

Teacher Mom said...

Am I correct in assuming that the "charter schools" are in the process of bankrupting the local public schools? Isn't it strange that even with a $100 million grant and other fund-raising to match it, that there is still a huge deficit. Is anyone aware that the sending schools are responsible for the cost of transportation to send students to "out of district" and charter schools. Talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul.

CommutingTeacher said...

Teacher Mom, the district I work for has had to place 1.5 Mil aside for the charters for next fall. IF they don't get the max enrollment, the district may see a refund. However what is going to happen is they will have max enrollment, keep the kids just long enough to keep the money, then toss the undesirable ones back to the public school w/ out a refund. So all these charters are absolutely bankrupting the public schools and districts they are placed in, but you don't see that in the news now, do you?