According to Gotham Schools, 6% of the city's Regents exams still need to be graded.
Tests are still being scanned by McGraw-Hill and teachers sat around the grading centers today with nothing to grade.
Wednesday is the last day of school.
I cannot remember a Regents exam grading season as chaotic as this one.
Will there be some accountability for the Tweedies who put this system into place and signed off on the contract with McGraw-Hill?
Perdido 03
Monday, June 24, 2013
NY Times Anthony Weiner Twitter Victim Story Is Finally Posted
You can read it here.
Goes through how the lives of the women Weiner sexted with have been upended.
It reinforces his scumminess (one victim says she never engaged in any sexual communication with Weiner before he sent "an image of himself in boxers, with an obvious erection"), it humanizes these women and helps you to empathize with them, but unless I'm missing something, it doesn't break new ground in the story.
When all is said and done, unless they took something out of this story, I don't see why they didn't leave it up when they accidentally posted it last week.
Frankly I think the Times story with Weiner throwing a salad at the wall and screaming at aides is more damaging to him than this one.
As for these victims of Weinergate, I think one commenter put it best:
I think that's exactly right.
Goes through how the lives of the women Weiner sexted with have been upended.
It reinforces his scumminess (one victim says she never engaged in any sexual communication with Weiner before he sent "an image of himself in boxers, with an obvious erection"), it humanizes these women and helps you to empathize with them, but unless I'm missing something, it doesn't break new ground in the story.
When all is said and done, unless they took something out of this story, I don't see why they didn't leave it up when they accidentally posted it last week.
Frankly I think the Times story with Weiner throwing a salad at the wall and screaming at aides is more damaging to him than this one.
As for these victims of Weinergate, I think one commenter put it best:
Leave these poor women alone. While the Times can not stop people from making crude comments--online or oterwise--it can stop writing about them. They are not public figures nor are they engaged in any ploitical activity. The news value, if any, is minimal and their request for privacy far outweighs that news value. Leave this stuff for the supermarket tabloids.
I think that's exactly right.
Quinn, Bloomberg Share Kiss Over Last Budget Deal
Whoever makes the runoff in the Democratic primary with Christine Quinn ought to run this photo every half hour on every broadcast channel plus NY1:
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Indiana Sues McGraw-Hill Over Online Testing Debacle - Why Won't NYC?
McGraw-Hill, as incompetent as Pearson when it comes to pulling off high stakes standardized testing systems, really screwed up the state tests in Indiana and now that state wants damages:
Here in NYC, McGraw-Hill, aided and abetted by the geniuses at the NYCDOE, made a similar mess of things on the state tests:
INDIANAPOLIS — The superintendent of Indiana’s public schools announced Friday she would seek more than $614,000 in damages from CTB/McGraw-Hill, the same day company President Ellen Haley apologized to lawmakers for failures in online standardized tests that caused chaos at the end of the school year.
Superintendent Glenda Ritz said the money she’s seeking would cover fines laid out in the state’s $95 million contract with the testing company and pay for an independent review of the test’s validity and improved reporting data. Department of Education staff said the fines could easily grow to millions of dollars.
Indiana’s troubles have punctuated a nationwide shift from pencil-and-paper tests to online exams. Troubles earlier this year disrupted high-stakes testing in Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota and Oklahoma. A bank of “overwhelmed” servers in New Jersey caused students in Oklahoma and Indiana to be consistently booted from the online test over two days at the end of April, McGraw-Hill executives said Friday.
“The consequences of CTB’s server failures were real and significant for Indiana schools,” Ritz said in a news release issued before McGraw Hill executives spoke to lawmakers.
Here in NYC, McGraw-Hill, aided and abetted by the geniuses at the NYCDOE, made a similar mess of things on the state tests:
Hundreds of seniors graduating this week across New York City have yet to receive their high school diplomas because of problems in the city’s new high-tech system of grading state Regents exams.In the past, teachers graded their own students’ tests, spending days poring over questions about “King Lear” and the French Revolution.But the state, concerned that some teachers might be grading too easily, recently ended that practice, and city officials turned to a modern solution: scanning the finished exams and sending them randomly to teachers throughout the city to grade.The computer system, created by McGraw-Hill Education as part of a $9.6 million contract over three years, broke down this week, leaving students and teachers anxiously awaiting results. Passing grades on Regents exams in English, science, math and history are required for graduation in most public high schools. Students can retake an exam even after the school year ends in order to get a diploma; the next round of tests is given in August....The problem occurred as teachers began grading essay questions for a science exam known as Living Environment and two social studies tests, Global History and Geography and U.S. History and Government. (Not every Regents exam is required for graduation.)The exams were shipped to Connecticut to be scanned, where a computer system experienced “intermittent slowdowns,” a spokesman for McGraw-Hill, Brian Belardi, said. He said the company had been working “around the clock” to remedy the issues.The city comptroller, John C. Liu, said he was considering an audit. Mr. Liu, who is running for mayor, said that the city should recoup the $3.5 million it had already paid McGraw-Hill this year and that the exams should be invalidated.“It is unconscionable that students, families and schools should suffer through fake graduations because their Regents grades are unknown,” Mr. Liu said in a statement.Ernest A. Logan, president of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, the city’s principals’ union, said the city needed to improve its oversight of outside contracts.“Once again, they’ve messed up, and now we’re left to clean it up,” Mr. Logan said. “This should be a time of celebration for our students.”
Mayor Bloomberg, an oligarch who never met an outside consultant contract he didn't like and never met a government employee he trusted, will never sue McGraw-Hill to recoup the money the city paid for the company's testing system and scanning services.
And to be fair to McGraw-Hill here for a moment, the incompetence of the Tweedies who signed off on this contract must be taken into account as well.
They okayed the system McGraw-Hill proposed to use for the grading, including the company's driving exams to Connecticut to be scanned and uploaded to its computer servers.
There's plenty of blame to go around in this mess, from McGraw-Hill to Tweed to Chancellor Walcott to Mayor Bloomberg himself, but there will be no accountability for any of these players - not here in NYC, where the only accountability measures we get in education are the ones Bloomberg and his minions use against teachers and schools.
Why Are Wolfson And Bloomberg Attacking Thompson?
Political hack Howard Wolfson has been given three pages in the Daily News to attack the UFT and Bill Thompson while shilling for Bloomberg's education policies and legacy.
I'm going to leave the lies and manipulated data Wolfson spews to sell Bloomberg's policies and agenda for others to knock down.
What I'm interested in is why Wolfson and Bloomberg are feeling the need to attack Thompson.
To be frank, while Thompson is talking some about changing Bloomberg's school policies, a lot of his education agenda is little different from Bloomberg's education agenda.
Thompson is not anti-charter.
Thompson will not charge charter schools rent for stealing space from public schools.
Thompson wants to add more days to the school year and more time to the school day.
Thompson praised Bloomberg for refusing to give teachers the 4%/4% pattern raise every other union in the city got.
Thompson wants to continue mayoral control.
Sure, there are some subtle changes Thompson says he wants to make to Bloomberg's policies, perhaps around the emphasis on testing, but I'll believe those changes will happen when I actually see them happen and not until then.
Plus, with APPR state law forcing both increased state testing and increased local testing, it's hard to see how Thompson can change the insane testing schedules we have these days anyway even if he wanted to (which I doubt he does, in any case.)
So why is Bloomberg having Thompson attacked for his alleged education policy crimes in the pages of the Daily News?
Sure, the UFT endorsed him, but Merryl Tisch is the co-chair of his campaign and Al D'amato is one of his bundlers.
Thompson is hardly some radical bomb thrower looking to wash away the Bloomberg polices and turn the NYC school system into some bastion of progressive education.
So why are they attacking him?
Is this some reverse psychological operation to fool people who want an end to Bloomberg's education policies to vote for Thompson because they think he'll end Bloomberg's education policies while Bloomberg has some secret deal to ensure that Thompson will keep them in place?
As Tom Robbins pointed out in the NY Post today, Bloomberg uses his billions like this all the time, paying people under the table and in the back room to do what he wants.
I can see them attacking Thompson in public for saying he wants to break with Bloomberg's education policies while paying Thompson off behind the scenes to keep those policies in place.
As Norm Scott always says about the UFT, don't listen to what they say, watch what they do.
The same goes for Bloomberg, Thompson, and Wolfson.
The words mean nothing - the actions are what count.
I'm going to leave the lies and manipulated data Wolfson spews to sell Bloomberg's policies and agenda for others to knock down.
What I'm interested in is why Wolfson and Bloomberg are feeling the need to attack Thompson.
To be frank, while Thompson is talking some about changing Bloomberg's school policies, a lot of his education agenda is little different from Bloomberg's education agenda.
Thompson is not anti-charter.
Thompson will not charge charter schools rent for stealing space from public schools.
Thompson wants to add more days to the school year and more time to the school day.
Thompson praised Bloomberg for refusing to give teachers the 4%/4% pattern raise every other union in the city got.
Thompson wants to continue mayoral control.
Sure, there are some subtle changes Thompson says he wants to make to Bloomberg's policies, perhaps around the emphasis on testing, but I'll believe those changes will happen when I actually see them happen and not until then.
Plus, with APPR state law forcing both increased state testing and increased local testing, it's hard to see how Thompson can change the insane testing schedules we have these days anyway even if he wanted to (which I doubt he does, in any case.)
So why is Bloomberg having Thompson attacked for his alleged education policy crimes in the pages of the Daily News?
Sure, the UFT endorsed him, but Merryl Tisch is the co-chair of his campaign and Al D'amato is one of his bundlers.
Thompson is hardly some radical bomb thrower looking to wash away the Bloomberg polices and turn the NYC school system into some bastion of progressive education.
So why are they attacking him?
Is this some reverse psychological operation to fool people who want an end to Bloomberg's education policies to vote for Thompson because they think he'll end Bloomberg's education policies while Bloomberg has some secret deal to ensure that Thompson will keep them in place?
As Tom Robbins pointed out in the NY Post today, Bloomberg uses his billions like this all the time, paying people under the table and in the back room to do what he wants.
I can see them attacking Thompson in public for saying he wants to break with Bloomberg's education policies while paying Thompson off behind the scenes to keep those policies in place.
As Norm Scott always says about the UFT, don't listen to what they say, watch what they do.
The same goes for Bloomberg, Thompson, and Wolfson.
The words mean nothing - the actions are what count.
NYSED Commissioner John King Rigs ELA Regents Scores
Via Norm Scott at Ed Notes Online and Carol Burris, here's a letter in full from a teacher at South Side High School to NYSED Commissioner/rookie teacher John King calling him out for rigging the ELA Regents scoring chart so that passing rates will fall:
The ELA Regents exam scoring chart was a political bludgeon this year devised to fail many more students than before, thus "proving" their teachers are "failing" and giving the state and districts the opportunity to rate thousands of them "ineffective" based solely on this bogus grading chart.
This is an outrage and every politician in the state should hear from their constituents about this.
King is a smug arrogant man, and he thinks he can pull his reformy act with impunity, rigging the APPR system and the Regents scoring charts without anybody calling him on his maledictions.
But when politicians hear from outraged students, parents, teachers and administrators about this, there is at least a chance that NYSED Commissioner/rookie teacher John King and his NYSED functionaries can be held accountable for their rigging of the system.
English teacher: The “high stakes” testing agenda is shameful
A South Side English teacher, Chris Webster, speaks out about the changes in the scoring of the English Regents. He believes students are being used as pawns in the reform agenda. Below is his letter to John King.
Dear Commissioner King:
You often tell the story of a teacher who had a positive influence on your life. We all remember a teacher who acknowledged who we are; one who valued our talents and dreams. That is why I became a teacher. I wanted to have an influence on the next generation; I wanted to help mold and guide young adults and show them their value. And, of course, I wanted to express and share my love of literature. Therefore, I have enjoyed spending the last 16 years as an English Language Arts teacher. And so it is with a heavy heart that I watch the New York State Education Department blatantly manipulate data for their own agenda, the true victims being the children they purport to represent.
I will not nor can I speak to politics and what goes on behind the scenes. I am, however, right there on the front line, not in educational theory but in the classroom. My students completed the New York State Comprehensive Exam in English (the “Regents Exam”) this past Tuesday, and I am shocked and appalled by what the State is doing. I am not a statistician but I can speak in real terms of what I’ve noticed.
On the English Regents Exam, a student can score a maximum of 25 points on the multiple choice questions, and a maximum of 10 points on the three written components. These “raw scores” are then converted into a score out of 100. When one looks at the score conversion chart, one looks at the multiple choice responses along the y-axis, and the essay score along the x-axis, finds the convergence point, and within that box there is a converted score on a 100 point scale. With 25 points along the y-axis and 10 points along the x-axis, there are a total of 250 “boxes” within the chart, each with a score out of 100.
The June 2013 scores introduced a disturbing change. In the last three administrations of this exam, June 2012, August 2012, and January 2013, a passing score of 65 or higher was available in 70 of the boxes. This represented 28% of the possible scores. In the most recent administration, June, 2013, this number was reduced. The 70 boxes with passing scores were reduced to 57 boxes. This represents 23% of the possible scores. Looking at it in this manner – the state is using the same chart with the same raw data, but reduced the passing score possibilities by 5%. Another way of looking at the same data is to look at the passing score numbers. The State went from 70 boxes of passing scores to 57. This is a reduction by almost 20%.
These same numbers work when one looks at Mastery (score 85 or higher) rates on the exam. Again, using the June 2012, August 2012, and January 2013, Mastery scores were available in 15 of the boxes, representing 6% of the scores. In the most recent administration, June 2013, this number was reduced. The 15 boxes with Mastery scores were reduced to 12. This represents approximately 5% of the possible scores. Again, the State reduced this by 1%. Nevertheless, look at the same data in another light. The State went from 15 boxes of Mastery scores to 12. This is a reduction of 20%.
There are yet other concerns. Across the board, with all scores, the scores in the corresponding boxes have been reduced. For example, in the June 2012 administration, a student who scored a 17 on the multiple choice and a 7 on the essays earned a grade of 66. In August 2012 the score was 67. In January 2013 the score was 67. In June 2013 the score was 63, a failing grade, despite the raw scores being exactly the same as the 3 previous administrations. A second example: using the last 3 administrations of the test once again, if a student’s raw score was 24 on the multiple choice and an 8 on the written responses, the grade earned was an 85 (considered Mastery level). However, in the June 2013 administration, these same raw scores converted to an 83, a drop of two points, and, more importantly, failure to achieve Mastery.
It is only a matter of time before we see the newspaper headlines saying “Regents Scores Drop Across the State.” The test has NOT become more difficult or easier; it is similar to recent exams. The State has simply made it more difficult to pass. In my opinion, this feels like one more attempt to prove that public education is not working.
In an effort to push your reform agenda, the students are the victims. New York State’s high school students deserve better. If an 11th grade student took the exam last year, statistically speaking, he or she had a 20% higher chance of meeting with success. The “high stakes” testing agenda is shameful.
Sincerely,
Christopher A. Webster
English Department
South Side High School
Rockville Centre, NY
The ELA Regents exam scoring chart was a political bludgeon this year devised to fail many more students than before, thus "proving" their teachers are "failing" and giving the state and districts the opportunity to rate thousands of them "ineffective" based solely on this bogus grading chart.
This is an outrage and every politician in the state should hear from their constituents about this.
King is a smug arrogant man, and he thinks he can pull his reformy act with impunity, rigging the APPR system and the Regents scoring charts without anybody calling him on his maledictions.
But when politicians hear from outraged students, parents, teachers and administrators about this, there is at least a chance that NYSED Commissioner/rookie teacher John King and his NYSED functionaries can be held accountable for their rigging of the system.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
What The Minimum Wage Should Be
From the devout Communists at Bloomberg News:
The minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.
It should be $21.72 an hour.
We simply cannot afford to raise the wages for the working classes of this country.
Because after all, how can the crooks on Wall Street possibly get by on less than record profits and compensation?
If the minimum wage had simply tracked U.S. productivity gains since 1968, it would be $21.72 an hour -- three times what it is now.
The minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.
It should be $21.72 an hour.
We simply cannot afford to raise the wages for the working classes of this country.
Because after all, how can the crooks on Wall Street possibly get by on less than record profits and compensation?
The ELA Regents Exam: Set Up By The Regents And The NYSED To Fail Both Students And Teachers
There are two good pieces on the brutal scoring chart that the NYSED and Regents are using for the 2013 June ELA Regents exam.
Gotham Schools covered the story yesterday:
My Life As A NYC Teacher posted about the same issue:
And that really is what all this is about - firing more teachers and being able to use the scores in the news media to "prove" that there are many "failing" schools and "bad" teachers as a reason for why we need more corporate education reformers like charter schools and online schools.
It is not a mistake that the chart has gotten so harsh in the year that accountability has been moved from the school district and the school to the individual teacher via the Cuomo/Tisch/King APPR teacher evaluation system.
Unless the NYSED and the Regents get hammered in the press by parents for the rig job they've pulled with this scoring chart, you can expect the August ELA Regents scoring chart to be as bad.
The fix is in with this scoring chart and the scores are going to plummet accordingly.
Expect King and Tisch to wring their hands in the media about all the bad teachers and failing schools and the need for more reforminess as a result of the Regents scores - even though they're the ones who ensured the scores would plummet by rigging the scoring chart.
Gotham Schools covered the story yesterday:
Bronx Center for Science and Math Assistant Principal Stephen Seltzer sent a letter to State Education Commissioner John King expressing frustration about the new conversion chart that has made it more difficult for students to pass the English Regents exam.
Seltzer writes that “the rubrics and conversion charts must be aligned and consistent, and both should be made available when teachers are preparing students, not at the time of the exam.”
In the letter, sent Thursday, Seltzer writes that there is a four-point difference in the June 2011 and June 2013 conversion charts. He gives the following example to illustrate his point:
A student who scored a 23 in the multiple-choice and a 7 in the writing received a 79 in 2011 but a 75 in 2013; a student who scored a 21 on the multiple-choice and a 5 on the writing passed with a 65 in 2011 but failed with a 60 in 2013.
The change to the conversion tables was made without corresponding changes in rubrics, which makes it more difficult for teachers to identify where students’ must improve if they have to take the test again, Seltzer writes in the letter.
“A child can receive a higher raw score, meaning they’ve answered more questions correct, but receive a lower actual grade,” said Bronx Center Principal Ed Tom. “You’ve technically done better on the exam, but the score will reflect a lower grade.”
...
Tom said his school usually has about a 90 percent passing rate on the ELA Regents exams. But this year the school is at a 75 percent passing rate. Tom said he looked at individual student grades and the numbers don’t seem to make sense.
He said a number of students scored well on the multiple choice section, but they struggled to received credit on the short answer and essay sections, which require human grading.
“As we’re looking child by child, we’re noticing that it simply doesn’t make sense that a kid would know so much information to score almost perfectly on the multiple choice and not be able to write a short response or essay to get any points,” Tom said.
My Life As A NYC Teacher posted about the same issue:
As an ELA teacher, I have a stake in the results of these tests - stake through the heart that is. Since teachers are now going to be evaluated based on student performance on these tests, we can be fired as a result of these results. For this reason, we English teachers here at Jonathan Levin H.S. in the Bronx just took a look at the scoring charts for the June 2013 English exam and the January 2013 exam. What we found is interesting indeed. Here they are.
June 2013 ELA Scoring Chart
January 2013 ELA Scoring Chart
In June 2013 if a student scored 16 on the multiple choice section and 7 on the writing sections, the student failed with a 61. However if that same student had been lucky enough to take the test last January 2013, scoring 16 on the multiple choice and 7 on the writing would have yielded a passing score of 65.
DOE formula #1: Fewer students passing = more teachers fired.
Going back to Aug. 2012, June 2012 and Jan. 2012, we find the following:
Multiple Choice Writing Score
Aug. 2012: 16 7 65
June 2012 16 7 65
Jan. 2012 16 7 68
In other words, the June 2013 ELA Regents exam is set up to fail more students than in the past. Coincidentally, New York State has just "adopted" - read: had shoved down our throats - a new evaluation system that the UFT, rather than condemning, seems to be endorsing. See Chapter 52: Open Season on Teachers. Under this system, the "value" of a teacher is tied directly to student performance.
DOE formula #2: more failing students = more fired teachers.
And that really is what all this is about - firing more teachers and being able to use the scores in the news media to "prove" that there are many "failing" schools and "bad" teachers as a reason for why we need more corporate education reformers like charter schools and online schools.
It is not a mistake that the chart has gotten so harsh in the year that accountability has been moved from the school district and the school to the individual teacher via the Cuomo/Tisch/King APPR teacher evaluation system.
Unless the NYSED and the Regents get hammered in the press by parents for the rig job they've pulled with this scoring chart, you can expect the August ELA Regents scoring chart to be as bad.
The fix is in with this scoring chart and the scores are going to plummet accordingly.
Expect King and Tisch to wring their hands in the media about all the bad teachers and failing schools and the need for more reforminess as a result of the Regents scores - even though they're the ones who ensured the scores would plummet by rigging the scoring chart.
The NY Times Got The Regents Test Grading System They Wanted
Back in August 2011, the editorial board of the NY Times decried the Regents grading system that had teachers grading tests in their own schools and called for a vaunted new system.
Here is that editorial in full:
This year, the NY Times editorial board got that vaunted new grading system, with teachers no longer able to grade tests in their own schools, with tests now scanned into computers and teachers sent to central locations for grading.
Here's how the NY Times described that process today:
The NY Times editorial board was very worried about the "integrity" of the tests back in August 2011.
Are they happier with the "integrity"of the results now, with Regents exams having been graded by teachers out of license, with the McGraw-Hill computer system having crashed more often than Bloomberg's 911 call system, with tests having been scanned incorrectly or not scanned at all, with tests having been lost on the drive to Connecticut to be scanned?
It's interesting to me how quickly the editorial boards around the city are to point fingers at individual teachers for problems with testing or grading or the education system as a whole, but when it comes to a widespread systemic failure like the NYCDOE and the NYSED are currently experiencing with this Regents grading fiasco, they're willing to give the powers that be the benefit of the doubt.
In fact, it took the NY Times quite a few days to even do a story on this mess.
Kudos to Gotham Schools, a site which I usually ridicule for being a corporate education reform public relations firm, for actually covering the Regents fiasco from the beginning and getting at the severity of the situation, something which the Times article doesn't actually do.
The Regents grading mess has been a lot worse than the Times article lets on.
I look forward to the Times editorial board writing up a new editorial entitled
Here is that editorial in full:
There Has to Be a Better Way to Grade Tests
A task force appointed by the New York State education commissioner, John King Jr., is to report next month on ways to improve the integrity of the state’s educational testing system. New York has thus far escaped cheating scandals like the one that exploded in Atlanta. But troubling new developments have shown weaknesses in New York’s testing system that need to be fixed.
The annual standardized tests given in the lower grades and the Regents examination that high school students must pass to graduate now play a crucial role in decisions about how schools are rated and how principals are evaluated. In the future, teachers will also be judged, in part, on how students perform on state tests.
With the tests counting for more, attempts to tamper with them will most likely grow. The state recognized that problem this year when it ended the practice of having schools rescore the Regents exams of students who fell just below the passing level. The intent was to make sure that students weren’t failed by mistake. But an analysis by The Times showed that lots of students were getting the minimum score needed to pass, which suggested cheating. The state has ended rescoring by schools, but it permits superintendents to correct errors.
That change does not cure the far bigger problem. The Regents exams are typically scored in the same school where they are given, often by a student’s own teacher. The state Education Department has allowed this practice to go on because the exams are given very late in the academic year — often just days before graduation — so that it is convenient to have the schools grade the tests. The threat to the integrity of the results is obvious.
For the Regents to be taken seriously, this practice must end. The state needs to find a way to have the exams scored by a neutral party.
This could be accomplished by administering tests online or scanning them into computers and having them graded elsewhere.
Scoring of tests for the lower grades varies from district to district. In New York City, they are administered at the schools and sent to regulated, neutral sites for grading. But this is an expensive procedure that costs the city between $20 million and $25 million a year.
If all districts are going to take this approach, the state should assume the costs. Similarly, if the state wants school systems to use inexpensive test validation procedures — like computerized erasure analysis to check for fraud — it must not foist the costs onto the already underfinanced schools. Even in the difficult fiscal climate, the state has to ensure that student test results are reliable.
This year, the NY Times editorial board got that vaunted new grading system, with teachers no longer able to grade tests in their own schools, with tests now scanned into computers and teachers sent to central locations for grading.
Here's how the NY Times described that process today:
Carlton Swindell Jr., a senior at Chelsea Career and Technical Education High School, dreamed about his graduation day for months: white limousines and fancy bouquets, a line of teachers cheering his name as if he were a basketball star.But when the moment finally came on Friday, Carlton was subdued. As his friends held their diplomas high, he looked down at a Post-it note with his name scrawled in Sharpie.“Everyone else has a diploma,” he said. “It’s a bit of a disappointment.”Hundreds of seniors graduating this week across New York City have yet to receive their high school diplomas because of problems in the city’s new high-tech system of grading state Regents exams.In the past, teachers graded their own students’ tests, spending days poring over questions about “King Lear” and the French Revolution.But the state, concerned that some teachers might be grading too easily, recently ended that practice, and city officials turned to a modern solution: scanning the finished exams and sending them randomly to teachers throughout the city to grade.The computer system, created by McGraw-Hill Education as part of a $9.6 million contract over three years, broke down this week, leaving students and teachers anxiously awaiting results. Passing grades on Regents exams in English, science, math and history are required for graduation in most public high schools. Students can retake an exam even after the school year ends in order to get a diploma; the next round of tests is given in August.Erin Hughes, a spokeswoman for the city’s Education Department, said the city would hire extra teachers for the weekend so that exams could be graded before the school year ends on Wednesday. She said that the problem affected fewer than 3 percent of the roughly 57,000 seniors and that each year there was a relatively small number of students who received their scores, and their diplomas, after graduation ceremonies.“We anticipated there to be bumps,” Ms. Hughes said, noting that the city had originally set a deadline of this coming Monday to have all tests graded. “Things are moving more slowly than we had hoped.”The problem occurred as teachers began grading essay questions for a science exam known as Living Environment and two social studies tests, Global History and Geography and U.S. History and Government. (Not every Regents exam is required for graduation.)The exams were shipped to Connecticut to be scanned, where a computer system experienced “intermittent slowdowns,” a spokesman for McGraw-Hill, Brian Belardi, said. He said the company had been working “around the clock” to remedy the issues.The city comptroller, John C. Liu, said he was considering an audit. Mr. Liu, who is running for mayor, said that the city should recoup the $3.5 million it had already paid McGraw-Hill this year and that the exams should be invalidated.“It is unconscionable that students, families and schools should suffer through fake graduations because their Regents grades are unknown,” Mr. Liu said in a statement.Ernest A. Logan, president of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, the city’s principals’ union, said the city needed to improve its oversight of outside contracts.“Once again, they’ve messed up, and now we’re left to clean it up,” Mr. Logan said. “This should be a time of celebration for our students.”
Are they happier with the "integrity"of the results now, with Regents exams having been graded by teachers out of license, with the McGraw-Hill computer system having crashed more often than Bloomberg's 911 call system, with tests having been scanned incorrectly or not scanned at all, with tests having been lost on the drive to Connecticut to be scanned?
It's interesting to me how quickly the editorial boards around the city are to point fingers at individual teachers for problems with testing or grading or the education system as a whole, but when it comes to a widespread systemic failure like the NYCDOE and the NYSED are currently experiencing with this Regents grading fiasco, they're willing to give the powers that be the benefit of the doubt.
In fact, it took the NY Times quite a few days to even do a story on this mess.
Kudos to Gotham Schools, a site which I usually ridicule for being a corporate education reform public relations firm, for actually covering the Regents fiasco from the beginning and getting at the severity of the situation, something which the Times article doesn't actually do.
The Regents grading mess has been a lot worse than the Times article lets on.
I look forward to the Times editorial board writing up a new editorial entitled
There Has to Be a Better Way to Grade Tests: Part II
that gets at just what a mess this centralized, computerized grading has been and how incompetent the Tweedies and McGraw-Hill have been in trying to pull it off.Friday, June 21, 2013
Who Is Polakow-Suransky Kidding?
Michael Mulgrew outside of Stuyvesant High School, one of the Regents grading sites, today:
That's a very good question.
Why, it was the geniuses at the NYCDOE, that's who.
But they don't think there's any real problems with the grading and think the UFT is using the mess to score political points.
In fact, Deputy Chancellor Shael Polakow-Suransky said the UFT was politicizing the problems:
Shael is so right - the DOE would never ever politicize something like test scores or graduation rates or teacher evaluations or whatever.
What a joke.
Polakow-Suransky lies every time he opens his mouth.
This time is no different.
The Regents grading has been a disaster.
They have lost tests.
They can't get the test scanned.
They can't get them graded.
They can't get the computer system to run right.
Even when they can scan the tests, sometimes they can't scan the tests correctly.
Can you imagine if this were teachers tasked with this job and these kinds of foul-ups and instances of incompetency were occurring?
Polakow-Suransky, along with Bloomberg's other paid shills and liars, would be screaming to high heaven about the "failing teachers."
But since Shael is to blame for this mess, along with the rest of the geniuses at Tweed, there's nothing to see here, just move on, all is well, have a nice weekend.
All of these changes were wrought so that the NYCDOE could hold teachers accountable via "objective" and "scientific" scores based on the state tests.
As I wrote earlier this week, the screw ups have ensured that there is NOTHING "objective" and "scientific" about the Regents results this year - NOTHING.
Meanwhile no one holds Bloomberg accountable for this mess, no one holds Walcott accountable, no one holds Shael and the rest of the shillsters at the Tweed p.r. firm accountable for this mess.
Once again, there are two sets of standards here - one for elites like Bloomberg and their functionaries like Shael Polakow-Suransky and Dennis Walcott and one for the rest of us.
There is no accountability for the elites in this country or this city.
“Who was the genius who decided that it was a good idea to take all the tests that the children take and put them in trucks and send them to Connecticut to get scanned into systems so they can send them back here?” Mulgrew asked.
That's a very good question.
Why, it was the geniuses at the NYCDOE, that's who.
But they don't think there's any real problems with the grading and think the UFT is using the mess to score political points.
In fact, Deputy Chancellor Shael Polakow-Suransky said the UFT was politicizing the problems:
“It’s ugly to be using this for political gain,” he added.
Shael is so right - the DOE would never ever politicize something like test scores or graduation rates or teacher evaluations or whatever.
What a joke.
Polakow-Suransky lies every time he opens his mouth.
This time is no different.
The Regents grading has been a disaster.
They have lost tests.
They can't get the test scanned.
They can't get them graded.
They can't get the computer system to run right.
Even when they can scan the tests, sometimes they can't scan the tests correctly.
Can you imagine if this were teachers tasked with this job and these kinds of foul-ups and instances of incompetency were occurring?
Polakow-Suransky, along with Bloomberg's other paid shills and liars, would be screaming to high heaven about the "failing teachers."
But since Shael is to blame for this mess, along with the rest of the geniuses at Tweed, there's nothing to see here, just move on, all is well, have a nice weekend.
All of these changes were wrought so that the NYCDOE could hold teachers accountable via "objective" and "scientific" scores based on the state tests.
As I wrote earlier this week, the screw ups have ensured that there is NOTHING "objective" and "scientific" about the Regents results this year - NOTHING.
Meanwhile no one holds Bloomberg accountable for this mess, no one holds Walcott accountable, no one holds Shael and the rest of the shillsters at the Tweed p.r. firm accountable for this mess.
Once again, there are two sets of standards here - one for elites like Bloomberg and their functionaries like Shael Polakow-Suransky and Dennis Walcott and one for the rest of us.
There is no accountability for the elites in this country or this city.
Weiner's Full Of Baloney Over Homophobic Remark
Anthony's Weiner lack of moral courage and principles continues to reverberate in the mayoral race.
On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that Weiner told a voter who called his rival Christine Quinn a "dyke" that it was okay that she had used the slur.
Here's the exchange:
Notice that it wasn't until Weiner noticed that the reporter covering Weiner on the campaign trail looked horrified at the exchange that he said anything negative to the woman.
It's pretty obvious from the exchange that he wouldn't have said an admonishing word at all had the reporter not been there.
This is a telling moment in the Weiner campaign for City Hall.
When Weiner first sent out his infamous Twitter photo, his initial reaction was to lie to the press and try to cover up the truth.
He didn't give up on the cover up until it became completely untenable to continue trying to tell lies.
That Weiner never felt the inclination to tell the truth about the incident until he absolutely had to tells you a lot about him as a person - namely that is dishonest at the core.
This homophobic slur incident is another excellent insight into Weiner as a human being.
His initial reaction, after the woman called Quinn a "dyke," was to ignore the slur and get her signature on his petition.
He didn't care a whit that she had used a homophobic slur.
It wasn't until he realized the reporter had seen how he didn't care a whit about the slur that he realized he had to react and lightly admonish the woman.
Just as his initial reaction in Twittergate was to lie, his initial reaction here was to ignore the slur and get what he needed from the woman - a signature on his petition.
Weiner has since apologized to Quinn directly, even calling her to tell her his side of the story, but as in Twittergate, his words are meaningless.
His actions are much more telling.
On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that Weiner told a voter who called his rival Christine Quinn a "dyke" that it was okay that she had used the slur.
Here's the exchange:
The offense occurred in The Washington Post, which published a lengthy story Thursday on the mayor’s race that included this scene that described Mr. Weiner’s interaction with a voter on the campaign trail:
“You a registered Democrat?” he asked an elderly woman wheeling a shopping cart by him.
“I am,” she said. “And I’m not voting for uh, what’s her name? The dyke.”
“Okay. I just need you to sign the petition to get me on the ballot,” said Weiner, who then noticed the incredulous reaction of a reporter and added, “and you really shouldn’t talk that way about people.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the woman said.
“It’s okay,” Weiner responded. “It’s not your fault.”
Notice that it wasn't until Weiner noticed that the reporter covering Weiner on the campaign trail looked horrified at the exchange that he said anything negative to the woman.
It's pretty obvious from the exchange that he wouldn't have said an admonishing word at all had the reporter not been there.
This is a telling moment in the Weiner campaign for City Hall.
When Weiner first sent out his infamous Twitter photo, his initial reaction was to lie to the press and try to cover up the truth.
He didn't give up on the cover up until it became completely untenable to continue trying to tell lies.
That Weiner never felt the inclination to tell the truth about the incident until he absolutely had to tells you a lot about him as a person - namely that is dishonest at the core.
This homophobic slur incident is another excellent insight into Weiner as a human being.
His initial reaction, after the woman called Quinn a "dyke," was to ignore the slur and get her signature on his petition.
He didn't care a whit that she had used a homophobic slur.
It wasn't until he realized the reporter had seen how he didn't care a whit about the slur that he realized he had to react and lightly admonish the woman.
Just as his initial reaction in Twittergate was to lie, his initial reaction here was to ignore the slur and get what he needed from the woman - a signature on his petition.
Weiner has since apologized to Quinn directly, even calling her to tell her his side of the story, but as in Twittergate, his words are meaningless.
His actions are much more telling.
Weiner Vs. Thompson
Two telling stories:
Is anybody surprised that a politician who used a racially charged mailer to win his first political race would shrug at some voter calling Quinn a slur?
Former Rep. Anthony Weiner came under fire Thursday after he didn't decisively condemn a prospective voter who used a derogatory term for a lesbian to describe Democratic mayoral rival Christine Quinn.
According to an audio recording posted on the Washington Post website, Mr. Weiner asked a woman if she was a registered Democrat. She said she was and that she wouldn't vote for "what's her name." She then used the slur, according to the recording.
"Okay. I just need you to sign the petition to get me on the ballot," Mr. Weiner said. He paused a moment, and then added: "And you really shouldn't talk that way about people."
"Oh I'm sorry," the woman said on the recording.
"It's okay," Mr. Weiner said. "It's not your fault."
The exchange occurred last Saturday in the Forest Hills section of Queens and was published on Thursday, causing a reaction that overshadowed Mr. Weiner's policy speech on universal health care.
...
Earlier this month, Bill Thompson, who is seeking to be the city's second black chief executive, cringed when an elderly man in the Bronx told him, "We don't want no gay." Mr. Thompson walked away, telling him, "We're not going to have that."
Is anybody surprised that a politician who used a racially charged mailer to win his first political race would shrug at some voter calling Quinn a slur?
Wall Street, World Financial Markets Very Sad Free Fed Money May Be Coming To An End
From The Guardian:
Let's repeat: "through QE, policymakers had deliberately inflated 'the biggest bond bubble in history'".
From a tech bubble to a real estate bubble to a commodity bubble to a bond bubble.
That's the 21st century economy in a nutshell.
Phonied up profits and stock prices propped up by the Fed printing press and cheap money.
Stock markets worldwide plummeted on Thursday, after the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, rattled investors by signalling an end to America's drastic recession-busting policy of quantitative easing.
Share prices across the globe have surged over the past year, helped by an unprecedented injection of cheap money, with the Fed buying up $85bn (£55bn) worth of bonds every month, and the Bank of Japan pledging "shock and awe" QE to revive a stagnant national economy.
But when Bernanke laid out a timetable on Wednesday night for cutting off the Fed's bond purchases by mid-2014, his words prompted a violent sell-off, which began in New York after European markets were closed, and ricocheted around the world on Thursday, from Tokyo to Istanbul and Oslo to Jakarta. In London, the 2.98% decline in the FTSE 100 index was the steepest since September 2011.
Elsewhere in Europe, shares suffered their biggest one-day fall in 19 months, with Spain's Ibex losing 2.9%, and the German, French and Italian markets all down by more than 3%.
The slide on Wall Street resumed when US markets reopened on Thursday. After heavy selling throughout the day the Dow Jones closed down 2.3%.
"We've had a market that for some years has been addicted to stimulus, and it's taken a brave man to say it has to end somewhere," said Neil Mellor, of BNY Mellon. He added that the true test of whether the US economy was strong enough to cope without QE would come when the prop of cheap money had been removed. "We don't know if there's a credible recovery there; we're peeling back the plaster."
Bond prices also fell worldwide, a trend that will push up borrowing costs for governments and consumers if it is sustained. Andy Haldane, the Bank of England's outspoken director for financial stability, warned last week that through QE, policymakers had deliberately inflated "the biggest bond bubble in history".
Let's repeat: "through QE, policymakers had deliberately inflated 'the biggest bond bubble in history'".
From a tech bubble to a real estate bubble to a commodity bubble to a bond bubble.
That's the 21st century economy in a nutshell.
Phonied up profits and stock prices propped up by the Fed printing press and cheap money.
Got My Final "S" Rating
Think I'm going to frame the paperwork and put it next to my signed and framed copy of BLOOMBERG by BLOOMBERG.
Should make a nice companion piece.
Should make a nice companion piece.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Weiner: City Workers Should Pay 10% Of Their Salaries For Health Care Costs
From the Daily News:
Anthony Weiner rolled out an ambitious health care plan Thursday, asking city workers to contribute to their health care costs and proposing that the city act as a “single-payer laboratory” to bring down costs.
Weiner wants city workers to pay 10% of their salaries for health care — 25% if they smoke — and he’s proposing for the city to directly pay employee medical expenses rather than pay through an insurance company as a first step toward “single-payer” health care funded by the government.
Politicker: Lhota Calls Bloomberg Education Results "Incredible"
Bizarre speech from former Giuliani budget director Joe Lhota:
Nothing incredible about Bloomberg's education policies or achievements.
Everybody knows the test scores plummeted to earth a few years ago when the state revealed Richard Mills and his merry Regents (including Merryl Tisch) were inflating the test scores like the real estate market circa 2006.
Everybody knows the graduation rates are horse@#$%, artificially inflated by credit recovery programs that had students reading Spiderman comic books, watching Spiderman movies and comparing the two for semester credit.
Everybody knows that the achievement gap between white and Asian students and black and Latino students is as large now as when Bloomberg and Klein first took over the school system.
Everybody knows these things - except for Joe Lhota, who apparently does not know these things.
But what can you expect from a guy who challenged a 77 year old man to a fist fight at an MTA board meeting?
This is not exactly a rational or sane man we're dealing with here.
Lucky for us he has little chance to become mayor.
Republican mayoral candidate Joe Lhota heaped praise on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s education legacy in a speech this morning, commending the current mayor for achieving “incredible” results, and admonishing his Democratic rivals for failing to give him equal praise.
Mr. Lhota pointed to a smattering of improvements on state tests, as well as the city’s jump in graduation rates–which actually dipped slightly this year.
“I believe these results are incredible,” said the former deputy mayor, speaking at an Association for a Better New York breakfast at the New York Hilton Hotel in what was billed as the first major policy speech of his campaign. Coincidentally, the remarks came a day after the city’s powerful teachers’ union endorsed former Comptroller Bill Thompon, who has promised to roll back many of Mr. Bloomberg’s most controversial policies.
But Mr. Lhota criticized the union’s the influence, and argued that when crime dropped under his old boss Rudy Giuliani, electeds fell “all over themselves to join in taking credit.” Today, he said, Mr. Bloomberg has been forced to stand alone, without the support of the Democrats vying to succeed him, or the teachers’ union.
“I look at the great success of the Bloomberg administration with the education system in our City and I ask, ‘Where are the other elected officials? What are they saying? Where is the support of these officials for the achievements of Mayor Bloomberg. Why aren’t they rallying around him?’” he said.
“The answer is: They are afraid.”
Unlike the Democrats running, he said, “I will not pander to the union. I am willing to cooperate with the UFT, but labor should not expect me to give them a backrub in an election year like so many other candidates.”
Nothing incredible about Bloomberg's education policies or achievements.
Everybody knows the test scores plummeted to earth a few years ago when the state revealed Richard Mills and his merry Regents (including Merryl Tisch) were inflating the test scores like the real estate market circa 2006.
Everybody knows the graduation rates are horse@#$%, artificially inflated by credit recovery programs that had students reading Spiderman comic books, watching Spiderman movies and comparing the two for semester credit.
Everybody knows that the achievement gap between white and Asian students and black and Latino students is as large now as when Bloomberg and Klein first took over the school system.
Everybody knows these things - except for Joe Lhota, who apparently does not know these things.
But what can you expect from a guy who challenged a 77 year old man to a fist fight at an MTA board meeting?
This is not exactly a rational or sane man we're dealing with here.
Lucky for us he has little chance to become mayor.
D'amato, Tisch, Weingarten, Mulgrew, And Thompson
Yeah, I know - it sounds like the worst law firm in the history of law firms.
But it's no law firm.
Instead, that is the coalition of business interests, corporate shills and union elites backing Bill Thompson for mayor.
The labor contingent wants the labor rank and file to see their support of Thompson as a reason to come out and vote for him in September.
But I see their support for Thompson as another emblem of how they have sold out working people and union members.
That Weingarten and Mulgrew have seen fit to endorse and raise cash for the candidate with the backing of a Wall Street shill like Al D'amato and an ed deformer like Merryl Tisch crystallizes how the UFT and the AFT have become the Vichy government collaborating with the enemy and selling out their members in order to maintain their power and influence.
As I noted earlier, the good thing in all of this is, many UFT members are saying, if Weingarten and Mulgrew want this, then there must be something wrong with it.
That, frankly, is true of everything Mulgrew and Weingarten want.
But it's no law firm.
Instead, that is the coalition of business interests, corporate shills and union elites backing Bill Thompson for mayor.
The labor contingent wants the labor rank and file to see their support of Thompson as a reason to come out and vote for him in September.
But I see their support for Thompson as another emblem of how they have sold out working people and union members.
That Weingarten and Mulgrew have seen fit to endorse and raise cash for the candidate with the backing of a Wall Street shill like Al D'amato and an ed deformer like Merryl Tisch crystallizes how the UFT and the AFT have become the Vichy government collaborating with the enemy and selling out their members in order to maintain their power and influence.
As I noted earlier, the good thing in all of this is, many UFT members are saying, if Weingarten and Mulgrew want this, then there must be something wrong with it.
That, frankly, is true of everything Mulgrew and Weingarten want.
Democracy UFT Style
I called this Thompson endorsement by the UFT leadership a long time ago.
It wasn't difficult to see that this was the candidate they would eventually endorse.
John Liu is tarred by scandal, so he wasn't going to get the nod.
Bill de Blasio was seen as too lefty (as noted by one of the Unity slugs in a comment at Gotham Charter Schools a few weeks back), so he was out.
Quinn, had she still been polling strong, might have been their pick because the most important objective the UFT leadership wanted from this endorsement was to pick a winner.
But Quinn has fallen in every poll taken since February and is no longer the presumptive frontrunner in this race, so the UFT leadership could take a chance and go with somebody other than Quinn.
That somebody was Al D'amato's, Merryl Tisch's and Randi Weingarten's favorite candidate, Bill Thompson.
The sham of all of this is that the decision was made weeks ago, but the UFT made believe like they were going through some "democratic process" to come to the endorsement decision.
But as with every other decision the UFT makes, from the sellout on the Common Core to the sellout on APPR, the fix was in and the decision was made by the union elites and handed down to the rank and file.
That's why they had Thompson ready to go yesterday right after the endorsement announcement, that's why they had the posters already printed up.
The good news in all of this is, as I noted yesterday, winning the UFT endorsement doesn't give Bill Thompson much juice other than a day of headlines and some extra cash for the campaign.
Mulgrew can preen in the papers about the vaunted UFT GOTV machine, but the truth is, this is a paper tiger union with most of its power base residing on the golf courses in Florida.
Most members I spoke with yesterday, both in my school and at Regents grading after school, said if Mikey Mulgrew wanted them to vote for Bill Thompson, then there must be something wrong with Bill Thompson.
I think that's EXACTLY right.
Any candidate who enjoys the support of Al D'amato, the hedge fund/charter school contingent, Merry Tisch, Randi Weingarten and the UFT is a candidate who should not be trusted.
Just like the "democracy" the UFT engaged in to anoint Bill Thompson their candidate.
It wasn't difficult to see that this was the candidate they would eventually endorse.
John Liu is tarred by scandal, so he wasn't going to get the nod.
Bill de Blasio was seen as too lefty (as noted by one of the Unity slugs in a comment at Gotham Charter Schools a few weeks back), so he was out.
Quinn, had she still been polling strong, might have been their pick because the most important objective the UFT leadership wanted from this endorsement was to pick a winner.
But Quinn has fallen in every poll taken since February and is no longer the presumptive frontrunner in this race, so the UFT leadership could take a chance and go with somebody other than Quinn.
That somebody was Al D'amato's, Merryl Tisch's and Randi Weingarten's favorite candidate, Bill Thompson.
The sham of all of this is that the decision was made weeks ago, but the UFT made believe like they were going through some "democratic process" to come to the endorsement decision.
But as with every other decision the UFT makes, from the sellout on the Common Core to the sellout on APPR, the fix was in and the decision was made by the union elites and handed down to the rank and file.
That's why they had Thompson ready to go yesterday right after the endorsement announcement, that's why they had the posters already printed up.
The good news in all of this is, as I noted yesterday, winning the UFT endorsement doesn't give Bill Thompson much juice other than a day of headlines and some extra cash for the campaign.
Mulgrew can preen in the papers about the vaunted UFT GOTV machine, but the truth is, this is a paper tiger union with most of its power base residing on the golf courses in Florida.
Most members I spoke with yesterday, both in my school and at Regents grading after school, said if Mikey Mulgrew wanted them to vote for Bill Thompson, then there must be something wrong with Bill Thompson.
I think that's EXACTLY right.
Any candidate who enjoys the support of Al D'amato, the hedge fund/charter school contingent, Merry Tisch, Randi Weingarten and the UFT is a candidate who should not be trusted.
Just like the "democracy" the UFT engaged in to anoint Bill Thompson their candidate.
Mulgrew's Explanation On The Thompson Endorsement Is Just Lame
Here it is - the rationale for the UFT's endorsement of Bill Thompson for mayor:
You'd think if all the candidates were offering similar education policies to Thompson, then the UFT would have gone with a candidate who has talked about making sure teachers get a fair contract, including the money they got screwed out of when Bloomberg broke the last pattern.
That candidate would have been John Liu.
But that's not what the UFT leadership, such as it is, decided to do (and let's dispense with the myth that this was some "democratic process" the UFT went through in choosing Thompson - there's is nothing "democratic" that the UFT engages in ever.)
Nope, the UFT leadership instead went with the candidate who said Bloomberg did the right thing by screwing teachers out of the 8% pattern.
Uh huh - you heard right.
The UFT leadership endorsed the candidate who said "I'm glad Bloomberg @#$%ed the teachers!"
You can bet that a candidate who once said "I'm glad Bloomberg @#$%ed the teachers!" will say it something similar the next time contract negotiations come around and he is running them.
Now I dunno about you, but if all things were equal in how the candidates approached education policy (a position which I dispute, in any case), I wouldn't have gone with the guy who was happy to see Bloomberg screw teachers out of their 8% raise.
I would have gone with the candidate saying that teachers should receive a fair contract, including the money they got screwed out of last time around.
As I wrote last night, this Thompson endorsement is just the latest ed deform collaborationist sell-out from the UFT/AFT.
You can be sure if Thompson is elected, he will turn his back on teachers and pursue the ed deform policies his co-chair, Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, and his DFER/charter buddies want him to pursue.
Another UFT/AFT-devised disaster in the making.
Heckuva job, Mike.
Heckuva job, Randi.
Mulgrew said that “If you look at most of the candidates, their policies on education are quite similar.”
But he said Thompson was “clear in saying, ‘The city is going in the wrong direction.’”
You'd think if all the candidates were offering similar education policies to Thompson, then the UFT would have gone with a candidate who has talked about making sure teachers get a fair contract, including the money they got screwed out of when Bloomberg broke the last pattern.
That candidate would have been John Liu.
But that's not what the UFT leadership, such as it is, decided to do (and let's dispense with the myth that this was some "democratic process" the UFT went through in choosing Thompson - there's is nothing "democratic" that the UFT engages in ever.)
Nope, the UFT leadership instead went with the candidate who said Bloomberg did the right thing by screwing teachers out of the 8% pattern.
Uh huh - you heard right.
The UFT leadership endorsed the candidate who said "I'm glad Bloomberg @#$%ed the teachers!"
You can bet that a candidate who once said "I'm glad Bloomberg @#$%ed the teachers!" will say it something similar the next time contract negotiations come around and he is running them.
Now I dunno about you, but if all things were equal in how the candidates approached education policy (a position which I dispute, in any case), I wouldn't have gone with the guy who was happy to see Bloomberg screw teachers out of their 8% raise.
I would have gone with the candidate saying that teachers should receive a fair contract, including the money they got screwed out of last time around.
As I wrote last night, this Thompson endorsement is just the latest ed deform collaborationist sell-out from the UFT/AFT.
You can be sure if Thompson is elected, he will turn his back on teachers and pursue the ed deform policies his co-chair, Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, and his DFER/charter buddies want him to pursue.
Another UFT/AFT-devised disaster in the making.
Heckuva job, Mike.
Heckuva job, Randi.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Daily News: Weingarten Behind The Thompson/UFT Endorsement
From the Daily News politics blog:
Not a surprise.
Weingarten still runs this union.
She makes all the big calls, from teacher evaluations to contract negotiations to sell-outs on the Common Core to mayoral endorsements.
Nothing has changed since she left.
We're getting the same ed deform collaborationist sell-outs we got when she was officially running this union local.
The Thompson endorsement is just the latest ed deform collaborationist sell-out.
Sources in the labor movement told the Daily News that former UFT President Randi Weingarten, now head of the UFT’s national parent, the American Federation of Teachers, was a deciding factor in the union’s selection.
Weingarten had personally endorsed Thompson and pressed Mulgrew, her hand-picked successor at the UFT, to support Thompson as well, the sources said.
Not a surprise.
Weingarten still runs this union.
She makes all the big calls, from teacher evaluations to contract negotiations to sell-outs on the Common Core to mayoral endorsements.
Nothing has changed since she left.
We're getting the same ed deform collaborationist sell-outs we got when she was officially running this union local.
The Thompson endorsement is just the latest ed deform collaborationist sell-out.
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