Hoenig :
(From previous issue)
Their promotion of merit pay attacks the collegiality and professionalism of teachers who must now fight to have their students, and their scores, out-perform other teachers’ students. They point out how awful we are on international tests, not acknowledging that we have never been very high to begin with nor disaggregating for poverty that would then rank us near the top. But poverty is not an issue any elected official, Democrat or Republican, likes to even acknowledge.
Badass Teachers are now helping to change the narrative on public education. Hopefully, the union affiliate leadership as well as national figureheads will get behind them, rather than watching them go by, taking charge, and fighting for public education in America.
Other attempts at finding solutions to the assault on public education are still through the unions. In spite of so many county associations seemingly bending to the demands of school board management, there is still hope in the unions. Karen Lewis is president of the Chicago Teachers Union. Her grassroots organization CORE (Caucus of Rank and File Educators) took on the very established UPC (United Progressive Caucus) and won with a majority vote (60%) in their run-off election. Union leadership under Lewis had openly challenged the mayoral administration of Rahm Emmanuel and the city’s establishment leaders on saving veteran teachers from closed schools, preventing merit pay and lessening the negative impact of teacher evaluations.
There have been other examples of unions fighting back. When the teaching staff of Garfield High School in Seattle boycotted their MAP test (Measures of Academic Progress), the AFT supported them. Additionally, the Washington Teachers Union has passed a motion supporting parents and students for opting out of state tests. (April 2014) In Baltimore County, Maryland, TABCO (Teachers Association of Baltimore County) filed a workload grievance against the school board in December of 2013 due to initiatives issued by the board.
There are other grassroots organizations involved in ending some of the more pernicious attacks on public education and its students. Testing is clearly one of the main focal points of contention. Whether it be tying teacher evaluations to student performances on standardized testing (VAMs, SLOs) or other tests that are considered to be of little value but may be part of a contract (Maryland State Assessment for middle schools that were replaced the following year with no alignment), organizations are taking the lead in a variety of ways. The Network for Public Education has called for Congressional hearings.
The state of teaching English language learners has gone through radical changes over so many decades. There has been much to learn about second language acquisition, teaching methods, the politics of teaching ELL’s, etc. What also has changed has been the nature of the ELL teacher as a professional worker. ELL teachers are no different than content teachers in demanding and expecting rights as workers that all are accustomed to. As we see drops in union enrollment amongst teachers overall, NEA membership dropped 16% from 2010-2014, we see also a decline in the effectiveness of such teachers’ unions in dealing with initiatives that come from non-educators but mandated by law to be carried out down to the classroom level.
In spite of the weakness of teachers’ unions, they have been instrumental in delaying or slowing down some of the initiatives like merit pay, evaluating teachers based on student performance on standardized tests, etc. However, this has only been a slow down. Teachers’ unions throughout the country are not permitted to call a strike, the only real power a union has, denying one’s labor. Unions would be de-certified. This is, of course, a goal of many of the so-called reformers who openly call for the busting of unions or their complete emasculation.
Every day teachers (EL, content, and elective) are finding more and more ways to see their roles in the classroom delegitimized. We’ve seen above how easily one can be terminated based on ‘voodoo’ metrics of accountability. Co-teaching models used throughout our schools are relegating ELL teachers to that of para-professionals. Pass the PRAXIS and in a morning one can be on their way to be certified in ESL. Once teaching was that magical relationship between a student and a teacher. In today’s public schools, a very large part of one’s time is administering or proctoring for standardized tests.
It is no wonder that the morale of the EL teacher, along with most others, has been reduced to the point that attrition rates have plummeted and the numbers of new teachers applying as well. Union busting programs such as Teach For America are adding to the ennui and malaise where inconsistency of employment is rewarded and supported even with tax dollars.
What the future holds is anyone’s guess. There has been a strong push-back against the excesses of the education ‘reform’ movement. Teachers are organizing, with or without their union support, parents are seeing the potential of their power, and students are speaking at public hearings and demonstrations. In a way, the public school system really does work when we see such divergent populations coalescing around common themes of ‘mis-education’. The Common Core is now under attack in many states, with many states withdrawing from the PARCC consortium of testing. The Allendale Columbia School in Rochester, a private N-12 school, has advertised itself as “The Cure for the Common Core.” The idea is catching on and ELL teachers may soon find themselves back in the classroom unhindered by such rules and regulations dictated by non-educator policy makers and doing what they do best, teach.
Frank G. Barile, B.Y.U. Education and Law Journal, “Making Enemies Out of Educators: The Legal and Social Consequence of Disclosing New York City Teacher Data Reports”, 2013 [?]
“The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of TESOL International Association, or the TESOL Employment Issues Committee.”
(Concluded)
(From previous issue)
Their promotion of merit pay attacks the collegiality and professionalism of teachers who must now fight to have their students, and their scores, out-perform other teachers’ students. They point out how awful we are on international tests, not acknowledging that we have never been very high to begin with nor disaggregating for poverty that would then rank us near the top. But poverty is not an issue any elected official, Democrat or Republican, likes to even acknowledge.
Badass Teachers are now helping to change the narrative on public education. Hopefully, the union affiliate leadership as well as national figureheads will get behind them, rather than watching them go by, taking charge, and fighting for public education in America.
Other attempts at finding solutions to the assault on public education are still through the unions. In spite of so many county associations seemingly bending to the demands of school board management, there is still hope in the unions. Karen Lewis is president of the Chicago Teachers Union. Her grassroots organization CORE (Caucus of Rank and File Educators) took on the very established UPC (United Progressive Caucus) and won with a majority vote (60%) in their run-off election. Union leadership under Lewis had openly challenged the mayoral administration of Rahm Emmanuel and the city’s establishment leaders on saving veteran teachers from closed schools, preventing merit pay and lessening the negative impact of teacher evaluations.
There have been other examples of unions fighting back. When the teaching staff of Garfield High School in Seattle boycotted their MAP test (Measures of Academic Progress), the AFT supported them. Additionally, the Washington Teachers Union has passed a motion supporting parents and students for opting out of state tests. (April 2014) In Baltimore County, Maryland, TABCO (Teachers Association of Baltimore County) filed a workload grievance against the school board in December of 2013 due to initiatives issued by the board.
There are other grassroots organizations involved in ending some of the more pernicious attacks on public education and its students. Testing is clearly one of the main focal points of contention. Whether it be tying teacher evaluations to student performances on standardized testing (VAMs, SLOs) or other tests that are considered to be of little value but may be part of a contract (Maryland State Assessment for middle schools that were replaced the following year with no alignment), organizations are taking the lead in a variety of ways. The Network for Public Education has called for Congressional hearings.
The state of teaching English language learners has gone through radical changes over so many decades. There has been much to learn about second language acquisition, teaching methods, the politics of teaching ELL’s, etc. What also has changed has been the nature of the ELL teacher as a professional worker. ELL teachers are no different than content teachers in demanding and expecting rights as workers that all are accustomed to. As we see drops in union enrollment amongst teachers overall, NEA membership dropped 16% from 2010-2014, we see also a decline in the effectiveness of such teachers’ unions in dealing with initiatives that come from non-educators but mandated by law to be carried out down to the classroom level.
In spite of the weakness of teachers’ unions, they have been instrumental in delaying or slowing down some of the initiatives like merit pay, evaluating teachers based on student performance on standardized tests, etc. However, this has only been a slow down. Teachers’ unions throughout the country are not permitted to call a strike, the only real power a union has, denying one’s labor. Unions would be de-certified. This is, of course, a goal of many of the so-called reformers who openly call for the busting of unions or their complete emasculation.
Every day teachers (EL, content, and elective) are finding more and more ways to see their roles in the classroom delegitimized. We’ve seen above how easily one can be terminated based on ‘voodoo’ metrics of accountability. Co-teaching models used throughout our schools are relegating ELL teachers to that of para-professionals. Pass the PRAXIS and in a morning one can be on their way to be certified in ESL. Once teaching was that magical relationship between a student and a teacher. In today’s public schools, a very large part of one’s time is administering or proctoring for standardized tests.
It is no wonder that the morale of the EL teacher, along with most others, has been reduced to the point that attrition rates have plummeted and the numbers of new teachers applying as well. Union busting programs such as Teach For America are adding to the ennui and malaise where inconsistency of employment is rewarded and supported even with tax dollars.
What the future holds is anyone’s guess. There has been a strong push-back against the excesses of the education ‘reform’ movement. Teachers are organizing, with or without their union support, parents are seeing the potential of their power, and students are speaking at public hearings and demonstrations. In a way, the public school system really does work when we see such divergent populations coalescing around common themes of ‘mis-education’. The Common Core is now under attack in many states, with many states withdrawing from the PARCC consortium of testing. The Allendale Columbia School in Rochester, a private N-12 school, has advertised itself as “The Cure for the Common Core.” The idea is catching on and ELL teachers may soon find themselves back in the classroom unhindered by such rules and regulations dictated by non-educator policy makers and doing what they do best, teach.
Frank G. Barile, B.Y.U. Education and Law Journal, “Making Enemies Out of Educators: The Legal and Social Consequence of Disclosing New York City Teacher Data Reports”, 2013 [?]
“The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of TESOL International Association, or the TESOL Employment Issues Committee.”
(Concluded)
