Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Note To Mulgrew: You Are Responsible For The Excessive Paperwork Problem Too

A teacher called into a WNYC interview with UFT President Michael Mulgrew yesterday to complain about all the excessive paperwork teachers are dealing with.

James Eterno posted about these excessive mandates last week:

The list below was sent to me from a NYC public school teacher.

Do you want to be a teacher today? Then understand that in many schools you will spend most of the day meeting multiple mandates like those enumerated here.

Dear Staff,

Please note that I will be looking at the following in a walk through tomorrow.

Please have these items labeled in a central location where I do not have to interrupt instruction.

Student folder
Display of work inside and outside of room
Comments on work
Date on work

Conference notes
Lesson plans
Student desks
General environment
Outside bulletin board
Leadership binders
Scaffolding of learning - charts
Rubrics
All assessments posted on line and analyzed
Inquiry binder for each grade - grade leaders
Inquiry notes for your struggling students
Discipline chart
Writing process chart

James goes on to note how Bloomberg won in the battle between the city and the union because all of these mandates have been pushed through without any changes to the contract (or, I would note, any extra compensation.)

Yesterday on WNYC Mulgrew blamed Bloomberg for the excessive paperwork too:

 Mulgrew also criticized the Bloomberg administration for creating unnecessary paperwork for teachers through what he called a burdensome "obsession" with accountability. FariƱa has pledged changes to that effect, although she has yet to introduced change to the current paperwork system, and Mulgrew didn't specify what changes he'd like to see.

But what Mulgrew fails to say is that he agreed to much of this when he abdicated the evaluation system negotiation fight and hailed Governor Cuomo's proposal to have NYSED Commissioner John King impose an evaluation system on NYC teachers if Mulgrew and Bloomberg couldn't come to an agreement.

Much of the excessive paperwork has been instituted as part of the evaluation system, particularly the Danielson evaluation framework.

The union wanted to make sure that all 22 competencies of the Danielson framework were part of the evaluation system, allegedly to give teachers a better chance to receive positive evaluations, but with this came a ton of extra paperwork and compliance work like the mandates James Eterno listed in his post.

Gotham Schools covered that last year when SED Commissioner King announced the new evaluation system he was imposing on NYC teachers:

One of the only issues, it seemed, that the city and the union could agree on when it came to observations was which rubric to base them on. It turns out they lacked consensus even there.
The union proposed using the version of Charlotte Danielson’s rubric, called the Framework for Teaching, that teachers have used since the city’s Teacher Effectiveness Pilot started three years ago. The city advocated for the updated version, which came out this year and accounts for instructional practices required of teachers as the state transitions to the Common Core learning standards.
King, who has driven the state’s adoption and rollout of the Common Core, imposed the updated version.
Danielson components
The Danielson Framework contains 22 “components” broken down into four “domains.” Arguing that the framework’s elements are interrelated, the UFT wanted principals to have to consider all 22 components when rating teachers. But the city asked for only a subset of seven components to count. Both the city and UFT agreed that the domains that have to do with in-class instruction should get more weight than the domains that deal with teacher’s planning and after-class reflection.
In his ruling, King sided with the UFT. Since all of the components work together, he said, they should all factor into teachers’ ratings. He awarded 75 percent weight to the domains that the UFT and city agreed were more important.

So Mulgrew can blame Bloomberg all he wants for all the excessive paperwork and mandates teachers are drowning in these days.

The truth is, he is as much to blame as Bloomberg is - he pushed for the use of the Danielson framework to be used on teachers, he hailed the King evaluation system which imposes so much of this extra paperwork, he was defending this system as late as last September from detractors and critics (i.e., teachers who had to live under it), and he was the one who pushed the 22 competencies in the Damielson in the first place - according to reports, the DOE thought it was too much to do, but the UFT pushed it and King agreed.

In short, Mulgrew is as responsible for the excessive paperwork these days as Bloomberg is.

24 comments:

  1. ...and nowhere have teachers seen 22 models of instruction, unless you count the tons of papers given to us to study in useless pd sessions. Do Doctor's just learn from textual evidence, or do they work on real bodies?
    I wonder how much money Mulgrew was given to keep his pockets warm. And now he's going after NYSUT...game, set, match!

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    1. At times I wonder if Mulgrew is not fighting for the members because of his sister's conflict of interest with her agency and being on the record as a NYC teacher, plus the million$$$ she received from Tweed. Additionally, Mulgrew has many skeletons in the closet and the DoE probably has the upper hand. It would seem that Mulgrew made a deal with them that benefits the deformers while having the members suffer. Just remember that the UFT election is just two years away. MAY 2016 new union leadership. Need I say M.O.R.E.

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    2. I agree that something funky happened with that particular "conflict of interest."

      And yes, From Under The Bus, the Danielson has the feel of someone who never taught real students before!.

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  2. Paperwork! Does UFT leadership #1, even know what the hell is going on in our schools, or they don't care? I remember talking to my DR who I have a good relationship with back in Sept asking him why is the UFT supporting Thompson? I had questions because Thompson was getting financial and other support from Meryl Tish during his campaign. That I had a problem with. The UFT in bed with Tish/Thompson...but why? He couldn't give me a straight answer because he wasn't given one from UFT Executive Board, in particular UFT Prez Mulgrew! Really makes you think who has Our Back!!

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    1. In my school ( a D75 school), most teachers ARE not teaching. Why? They are consumed with paperwork, from constructing IEP's, to collecting data, and administering NYSAA. When they're not doing that, the rest of the time is taken up with planning Danielson domained lessons. Essentially, the paras are there to keep the kids engaged during "instructional" time, when the teacher is doing all of his/her paperwork.
      Any wonder why NYC students are behind educationally? FREE teachers from the madness of the paperwork, and let them do what they were hired to do- TEACH.

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    2. I agree that we are fortunate Thompson did not win, because then we would have gotten the Tisch/King platform unadulterated. There's at least a chance w/ de Blasio.

      Also, agree with freeing teachers from the madness! The lesson plan stuff is insane too - I have always written lesson plans, but now that its been "suggested" we use the SED modules as models, they're taking a couple of hours a day to do, on top of teaching, grading, meetings and the rest of my job. And the only use is for compliance!

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  3. Regarding money given to Mulgrew to allow this to happen? Lets start with 40 MILLION DOLLARS IN BUSINESS HIS SISTER DID WITH BLOOMBERG'S DOE ???

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    1. Funny how that happened, isn't it? I'm sure it had nothing to do with Mulgrew's connections, however. Nothing to see here, just keep moving...

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  4. Maybe graft, corruption, and the ensuing phone, and other conversations are why Mulgrew is known to regularly "debug" his offices...? Wouldn't want an adversary to get the dope in him...? I know...a conspiracy theory...but a theory nonetheless...Weingarten is getting rich, why not Mikey...?

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    1. I found the sweeping of the offices twice last year an interesting development as well. Wonder what Mulgrew was worried about?

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  5. Excessive paperwork has plagued elem school teachers since almost the advent of the BloomKlein era -- and now it's even worse. Also on the ATR issue - Mulgrew got away with pinning it on Bloomberg when it should have been pointed out by the caller that it was the UFT that agreed to a 2-party agreement -- if not for the UFT no ATRs. UFT leaders bathe themselves in Teflon - nothing sticks - yet. It is the job of all of us to make the teachers out there aware of what the leadership has done and is doing.

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    1. Good points, Norm. As usual, never Unity's fault. Always Bloomberg's. Or ALEC's.

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  6. Conflict of interest here, between Mr. Mulgrew and the DOE?

    Shame on us for putting up with so called union leaders that are supposed to be representing us with OUR dues money, yet clearly are watching out for their own selves and their family interests.

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    1. Yes, but let's be honest, the Unity contingent are VERY good at maintaining power and privilege. That's what they do best.

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  7. It is difficult to fathom where Mulgrews' incompetence ends and his fraud and corruptions begins. Rest assured, he has egregiously betrayed teachers in order to fulfill his opportunistic ambitions. He is beholden to the Gates foundation and Andrew Cuomo. He puts their (Gates and Cuomo) agenda ahead of teachers safety, security and financial needs.

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    1. I don;t think he's incompetent, I think it's as you say, he is beholden to interests who are not looking out for the interests of the rank and file. He is there to manage the terms of exploitation.

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  8. How is taking millions of dollars form Bill and Melinda Gates foundation not a conflict of interest. How is not unethical and illegal?

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    1. I ask that of Randi sometimes on the Twitter. Never really get a straight answer.

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  9. Mulgrew has thrown the NY city public school teachers under the bus.

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    1. It's why I facetiously refer to Mulgrew as "Shillgrew" and Weingarten as "Swinegarten".
      I think my names for our "leaders" are more appropriate....
      The wheels on the bus go round and round........OUCH!

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  10. $.....40,000,000.00...From Bloomberg to the Mulgrew Family...

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    1. When I grow up, I want to be a UFT union representative like Michael Mulgrew, too. NICE money.....

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  11. ....where are the competing bids...?

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