The Judge said: “there is no requirement that data be reliable for it to be disclosed."
What can you say? How long can the union hide from the fact that they made the deal that Klein reneged on. Crying about him being a "liar" will only carry them so far. The leadership will one day get its comeuppance.
Indeed, this is the fault of the UFT leadership. They think they're so clever walking the reform tightrope, giving enough to make the corporate "reformers" happy but holding back enough to try and keep an increasingly scared and angry UFT membership still on board.
But when you do a deal with the devil, as the data deal with Klein was, you often get burned,
The UFT got burned.
Now unreliable data with margins of error of 25%-35% will be in the papers with teachers' names next to it.
Good teachers will be slandered as "bad" and Oprah or some other corporate shill will start the call for their firing.
Hell, Oprah has her own network - she can devote hours to this garbage.
I had a meeting today to talk about how we are going to grade tomorrow's ELA Regents exam.
If Obama gets his way with NCLB, if that test happy deputy chancellor who loves tests so much gets his way, if the murderous mayor who refuses to hold himself accountable for murdering people during the Bloomberg Blizzard of 2010 gets his way, the ELA Regents exam for high school will be just one test among a battery of other tests.
Students will take ELA tests every few weeks.
Teachers will be held accountable for those tests.
The "data" will be published after every year in the papers.
Schools will be closed, charters will be opened, teachers will be fired and the final death knell of a unionized public school system will ring.
For some reason, perhaps courage, perhaps because they're corrupt, the UFT leadership refuses to fight this stuff in any effective way.
They prefer to agree to the "reforms" that have DANGER! DANGER! written all over them, then sue when the DOE or Bloomberg screws them over on the deal.
And so, you get the kind of results we got today.
The UFT will appeal this decision and they will lose that appeal.
Names and ratings will appear in the paper.
The Post and many other papers will do a hammer job on some teachers and call for them to be fired. They will name names and put pictures in the paper. Who knows, maybe somebody will get hurt out of this or killed, as happened in LA.
And Murdoch and Bloomberg and Klein and Black and Zuckerman and Obama and Duncan and Gates and Broad and all the rest of the corporate scum who are promoting this value-added stuff won't care one way or the other if somebody does get hurt.
They just want to reform the system into a privatized playground for their EMO buddies.
This is very bad day for educators.
But it is also an epiphany.
It is time to let go of any attachment we have to this job.
It is time that we start a new movement: the DON'T BE A TEACHER MOVEMENT.
Yes, I love teaching and yes, I enjoy teaching my students very, very much, but I am sick of being treated like some criminal by the press and the politicians.
Why do a job that exposes you to public ridicule, chastisement from the corporate putz in the White House and the corporate putz in City Hall, and humiliation from the corporate media?
Seriously, why would ANYBODY in their right mind sign on for that kind of stuff for the measly pay they offer?
Why would anybody sign on for that for any amount?
It is not simply a matter of people such as bloomberg, duncan, et al. not caring who is hurt by their actions and words. Too many of these sick humans actually enjoy the misery they are causing.
ReplyDeleteI understand too well your feelings as I am no longer a proud NYC DoE teacher courtesy of an entirely corrupt and diseased system. It took them 2 shots at me to succeed in ending my very belated and fractured time with them. (I began teaching as a somewhat older person and I came in the year bloomberg began his reign of hell.)
I know many, many exceptional people who were fired, forced to resign, and irreparably damaged physically, mentally, financially and other ways.
Organize to take back the profession, not to dissuade people from teaching. Organize to resist the despair, exhaustion, illness they foist upon us.
We are not the first group of people oppressed, vilified, demonized by a ruling class. We are not the first group of people rendered terrified, silent, compliant by those seeking to subjugate us for their own twisted, destructive ends.
It is the teachers, their families, pets, friends, neighbors who suffer. When the guardians and teachers of children suffer, the whole society and country suffer. The destruction will move forward in time, harming people not yet conceived if we do not face those who wreak misery and, as a body, say, "No further, no more."
I completely understand. I often feel the same way, and ask myself, "Why did I choose this path? How did I get here?"
ReplyDeleteSo, if anyone makes any claim against any other person/s about anything they want at any time or any place, it does not have to be reliable! No proof is required, just like a anonymous and phony 311 call. Break any rule, any contract, any promise...it's ok, it doesn't have to be reliable anymore! The world has gone mad.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, yes , that is the Banana Republic of United States.
ReplyDeleteI am all for a movement to discourage teachers. Once the boneheads running the country and city realize they need to change their tune to attract teachers to the profession then things will get better. Head to head fighting will not work. The unions are inept, most teachers are not fighters, and the reformers control the media and the money. Besides, people considering teaching as a profession should hear the truth about the job. Not just what they read in the papers but the horror stories that never make it to print. If you are serious about such a movement creating a website would be a good place to start. Advertise it to every university with a teaching program and teachers can share what really goes on in schools with college students considering the career.
ReplyDelete