Will Randi/Mike Oust Another NYSUT President?

In April 2014, former NYSUT President Richard Iannuzzi was ousted by AFT President Randi Weingarten and UFT President Michael Mulgrew in a coup that saw the entire leadership of NYSUT, other than Executive Vice President Andy Pallotta, whacked from office.

Today Ken Lovett at the Daily News reports another NYSUT leadership whacking could be in the offing:

The recent surprise retirement of the state teacher union’s top lobbyist came amid pressure from Michael Mulgrew, head of the city teachers union, sources said.

Mulgrew, whose members make up a major segment of the state union, is said to have grown disenchanted with Steve Allinger during the legislative session.

Mulgrew didn’t deny he played a role in Allinger’s departure.

“We have to get work done, move fast, and everyone has to be on the same page,” he said.

Union insiders say the Allinger situation is part of a larger schism that has left state teachers union President Karen Magee isolated from the rest of her union leadership halfway through her first term.

Sources said Mulgrew is also unhappy with Magee, though he denied it.

The two unions, Mulgrew said, “are moving together in a much more coordinated effort than we were before. All (Magee’s) positions have been good. She’s taking the right path on things.”

It was NYSUT that was telling members of the Legislature NOT vote for Cuomo's poison pill budget that increased the test score component in APPR to 50% and gave the state the power to takeover schools with a "receivership" program, while Mulgrew and the UFT were telling them it was okay if they did vote for it.

If Magee's isolated from the rest of her union leadership (i.e., Andy Pallotta, Mikey's Man at NYSUT), it can't be because Mulgrew thinks she's not standing up enough against Cuomo and his ed deform juggernaut.

Hell, nobody rolled over to Cuomo more than Mulgrew and the UFT in the last legislative session.

In any event, it sure didn't long for another UFT-engineered whacking at NYSUT, did it?

Should The Buffalo Teachers Federation And NYSUT Go To Court Over Union Busting In Buffalo?

It has been reported in various places that the Buffalo Teachers Federation, with the help of NYSUT, are looking at taking the state to court over the powers that were granted to the Buffalo schools superintendent to break the union contract in five "struggling" schools.

Here's Keshia Clukey at Politico NY with a statement from NYSUT on that:

“At this point in time, NYSUT’s attorneys are looking at every available option and we’ll take any action that’s needed to ensure we defend our teachers’ and our parents’ voice,” NYSUT President Karen Magee said Tuesday. The Buffalo Teachers Federation falls under the umbrella of NYSUT.

...

“The thing that concerns me the most about the commissioner’s decision is it basically mirrors the rushed implementation of the Common Core,” Magee said. “You would think that the engagement process and the right to collectively bargain would be one of the most respected pieces to turn around a school.”

A Perdido Street School reader worries about the outcome of such legal action:

It's clear that taking this to courts has risks that are simply beyond reasonable. The decision to take it to the courts is a reflection of the lack of creativity of ALL NYSUT LEADERSHIP, as well as their lack of knowledge and understanding about some of the most basic and essential history and thinking regarding union organizing and action.

We are, in fact, already losing. That is correct. However, at this point, we must not fully lose our ability to think clearly. If we do lose the case, and it seems fairly clear that its stacked in favor of that, we will not only have lost in Buffalo, but the entire process of placing schools in receivership and tossing union contracts is then part of the jurisprudence of the State of New York, and therefore ESTABLISHED LAW. That's not just losing....that's escalating, magnifying, and putting your loss on steroids. That's how things happen that take generations to undo.

This thinking that the courts are where we need to be are a particular symptom of a total lack of understanding of the labor movement and labor history. Unions, organizing, and labor action exist because of the ASSUMPTION that the courts can be and in fact ARE a reflection of the power structures they exist in and offer no "unbiased" look at such cases. Unions exist to organize and take action precisely to avoid courts for the most part....BECAUSE IT IS THERE, IN COURTROOMS, THAT AWFUL ANTI-WORKER POLICIES CAN BE EMBEDDED INTO LAW WITHOUT GOING THROUGH THE USUAL AND MORE PUBLIC PROCESS OF CREATING LAW IN LEGISLATURES!!

Elia and Cuomo and all the reformers would love all this to go to the courts.....its their home territory. They can get law written without all the fuss! Why do you think basically all the reformers love taking things to the courts??

Harris Lirtzman thinks a political solution might be the better course of action here but doesn't think we have the union leadership required to carry such action out:

Our "grievance" is, indeed, a political one.

Whatever one thinks of Elia she is simply doing what the amendments to State Education Law in 2014 proposed by Andrew Cuomo require her to do when there is a conflict between the receiver and the union over CBAs for receivership schools.

Because we live in a state with the Taylor Law, we cannot legally strike. Yes, of course, we can "strike" but at the cost of potentially ruinous financial penalties against NYSUT and "two days per strike day" charges against individual teachers. Yes, again, many of us might like to ruin NYSUT financially but it's hard for me to believe that NYSUT or the membership would authorize and support a strike over receivership schools--the days of "union solidarity forever" and "we shall not be moved" are long gone.

The Transit Workers Union went on a ten day strike in December 2006 which had no, nada, zip public support and it collapsed with nothing to show for it except huge penalties against the Local, loss of dues check-off for two years and fines against members--most of those eventually reduced by the judge.

Unless the "Heavy Hearters" really screwed up the drafting of the legislation for the receivership provisions it's hard to see how this case turns out well for us.

Seems to me two choices:

1. Work politically to get the legislation changed or to defeat in 2016 members of the legislature who voted for it.

2. Take action--perhaps even non-violent direct action--to bring about a crisis in the local political structure sufficient to cause elected officials to change education policy.

Either one of these approaches will have required our unions, specifically, and our members, more generally, to have done the hard, sloggy, unpleasant organizing work to mobilize the members and to educate parents and the general public about the issues involved.

What do you think will happen? I used to believe that the political system could be changed or that direct-action, creatively done, could create the sort of "crisis" that leads to change. I no longer do and I especially no longer do if any of that involves NYSUT, the UFT or the membership-at-large.

Lastly, a reader points out the abysmal rep the NYSUT legal team have:

WHAAAAAAT????????

There is a reason anybody who knows tells you to NEVER use NYSUT legal if you get jammed up...always hire someone yourself. On the micro level of dealing with teacher legal issues, they are known to suck.

On the macro level of shepherding a case of this magnitude through the courts successfully they have NO (zero, 0, none) track record of success.

NYSUT legal is a huge part of our problem. Talk about cushy jobs....NYSUT legal is made up of elite educated lawyers pretending at having a hardcore lefty union gig. They have offered no help, advice, or anything to our cause.

NYSUT legal is beyond a joke and deeply part of the problem.

So many ways a legal case here could go wrong - it's almost as if the union leadership at both BTF and NYSUT are double agents, trying to make it look like they're fighting for the rights of their members while for all practical purposes extending the power and policies of the deformers.

On second thought, check that.

There's no "as if" - as Sean Crowley noted in this comment:

I fear any direct union action will have to be taken without the support or benediction of the double retirees of NYSUT's so called leadership. They don't want to jeopardize one drop of their own precious fat by involving themselves in anything that could be construed as a job action. As noted above the legal dodge they have made into an artform will satisfy whichever box they have to check off on their rubric that proves they demonstrated interest in the rank and file. I think maybe some more phone calls to the White House, another dozen Nae Nae videos and a strongly worded letter or two will be about the most NYSUT can be expected to contribute. This one is going to have to be rank and file driven.

The best course to me here is to have the receivership law changed through the legislative process but given that NYSUT didn't fight Cuomo's imposition of the law much in the first place, I am under no illusions that they'll work very hard to do this.

Rather, they might just take the worst possible action imagined so as to, as the first reader quoted above said, make "the entire process of placing schools in receivership and tossing union contracts is then part of the jurisprudence of the State of New York, and therefore ESTABLISHED LAW."

Indeed, with the tenure/seniority lawsuit already here in the courts here in NY coupled with the receivership suit BTF/NYSUT may take forward, you can see a point in the near future where tenure, seniority protections, and local school control are all abolished and union contracts not worth the paper they're printed on since the state and/or the district will have the power to supersede and/or circumvent them.

Lawsuit Over Elia/Cuomo Union Busting To Have National Implications

In the spring Andrew Cuomo pushed through a school receivership law that allows the state to take control of "struggling" and "persistently struggling" schools and supersede the union contracts for teachers at those schools.

This week NYSED Commissioner MaryEllen Elia gave the Buffalo schools superintendent the power to "circumvent" union contracts at five Buffalo schools.

The Buffalo News reports the Buffalo Teachers Federation is planning to sue over the move and the lawsuit will have national implications:

State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia’s ruling this week that Superintendent Kriner Cash can circumvent the union contract to make changes at receivership schools will likely end in a court battle with one of the most powerful teachers unions in the country. It’s a fight that will be watched across the nation.

...

Five schools have been deemed persistently struggling: Burgard and South Park high schools, West Hertel Elementary School, Marva J. Daniels Futures Preparatory School and Buffalo Elementary School of Technology. Those schools were given just one year to show demonstrable improvement under Cash before they can be turned over to an outside entity. The district has tried to negotiate changes at an additional 14 schools that were given two years to show improvement. Several other schools were included on earlier receivership lists, but some made last-minute improvements, while others are being phased out.

Elia issued her ruling in a dispute between Cash and the Buffalo Teachers Federation over changes that go against the teachers contract. The law requires the receiver to try and negotiate changes with bargaining units; but in situations where the two parties cannot come to an agreement, the commissioner can intervene.

The BTF, with the backing of New York State United Teachers, will likely challenge the law in court. The union will likely ask for an injunction to prevent the changes from happening. Meanwhile, Cash continues to move forward on plans for those schools and has previously indicated changes could be rolled out in January.

Anybody out there have any confidence the BTF, backed by NYSUT, can win a court battle over the law?

NYSED Commissioner Elia Looks To Bust Buffalo Teachers Union

Herein lies the endgame for "receivership":

In one of her most significant actions as state education commissioner, MaryEllen Elia has granted Buffalo Superintendent Kriner Cash unprecedented power to make changes at the district’s most struggling schools, bypassing the teachers union contract.

Those changes could include a longer school day and year, required teacher training and more control over staffing – all things Cash says are essential to improve student performance.

 In a 107-page ruling released Monday, Elia largely imposes Cash’s proposals with some modifications that call for giving teachers more notice of contractual changes and preference for other jobs, should they be displaced from their position. She also recommends that a committee created to assist with staffing at the receivership schools be limited to three or five people, and consist of an odd number to prevent deadlock between union and district representatives.

Ultimately deformers want the power to bypass union contracts in every school, but they're happy for now to start with the "struggling" ones and work their way onward later.

The Buffalo Federation of Teachers plans to sue.

Helluva day - Boston mayor throws a bomb by making a secret deal to close a bunch of Boston schools and Elia gives her handpicked Buffalo superintendent the power to bypass the union contract in the "persistently struggling" schools in Buffalo.

Chancellor Farina Claims Almost A "Celebratory Attitude" Around Renewal Schools

Eliza Shapiro at Politico NY, writing about a joint appearance between NYSED Commissioner MaryEllen Elia and NYCDOE Chancellor Carmen Farina on school "turnaround" efforts

Fariña has also made Renewal schools a priority, and has said she is seeing improvement in many of them.

"There has almost been a celebratory attitude around Renewal schools," she said.

Huh?

Almost a "celebratory attitude"?

This is just anecdotal, but what I have heard from teachers at Renewal schools both here on the blog and in communication elsewhere is that the pressure and stress at these schools has reached toxic levels.

From what I am hearing the only people with the "celebratory attitude" are the charter operators who stand to benefit from the receivership law when Renewal schools get turned over to them.

Are you hearing anything different?

If so, I'd like to correct the record and help "celebrate" receivership too.

Cuomo's School Receivership Program Is "Stack Ranking" For Schools, Designed To Break Up The System

Fred LeBrun in the Times-Union dissects Cuomo's vaunted school receivership program:

In the Capital Region, only Albany's William S. Hackett Middle School is on the persistent list, but if a handful of schools in Albany, Troy, Schenectady and Amsterdam, including Albany High School, don't show appropriate progress, they will join Hackett next year.

What happens now for schools like Hackett is as complicated as directions to Atlantis, and about as reliable.

Albany school Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard becomes the acting school receiver, with broad powers, for the next year. A required community engagement team composed of the principal, staff, teachers, parents and even students from Hackett will forward recommendations for improvements to the superintendent, who will use them to help create her intervention plan to turn the school around. The plan is due at State Ed for approval by the end of this month. Over the next year, the community team will look over her shoulder as the intervention plan unfolds.

In the meantime, the school receiver can do pretty much what she wants (with approval from State Ed): change the curriculum, replace teachers and administrators, increase salaries, reallocate the budget, expand the school day or year, turn Hackett into a community school, even convert to a charter school. Although there's enormous rigmarole attached to much of it, including going charter. Remember, the receiver in this case remains the superintendent for the rest of the district, so she is answerable for any wild and crazy ideas to the voters through the school board.

Anyway, to help start the process, Vanden Wyngaard can apply for a grant from a $75 million pot set up by the state, although she'll have plenty of competition from other "persistently struggling" school receivers in Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Yonkers, New York City and elsewhere. She has a year to do her turnaround. Or the hammer falls and we are off to Neverland.

Then the state would appoint an independent receiver who is answerable only to State Ed. At which time the process of community involvement, an intervention plan, and the rest are repeated, only now change is apt to be far more radical, with wholesale staff firings. An independent receiver can be a person from an approved list that doesn't yet exist, or an institution or charter school. Although charter schools upstate have been mostly a bust, as Albany well knows. Middle school charters in Albany could not save themselves, let alone others.

So. If you're getting the idea that this receivership idea seems like a plan designed to fail and thus prepare the way for school privatizers to make a bundle, move over.

For one thing, the state has yet to give school receivers a clear idea of what would constitute appropriate progress to avoid an independent receiver. Presumably, we'll know by the end of the month when intervention plans have to be approved. What is expected and how reasonable it is will answer a great deal.

Because just a year to show any marked improvement on any front for a school like Hackett, no matter how thoughtfully considered, broadly accepted by the community, or earnestly pursued, is absurd. Real change needs time for all stakeholders to become invested. Teachers at Hackett today are still complaining that attendance and discipline as major problems, just as it was when I substituted there, oh, a half century ago. These are, after all, manifestations of the poverty and despair underlying most of Hackett's problems; they don't go away. They are the community's problems, not just Hackett's.

The school can be taken over in a year if it doesn't "improve," but the state still hasn't explained what that "improvement" will look like.

Yeah, that's a plan designed to "fail" schools and hand them over to the privatizers, profiteers and/or charter operators.

LeBrun's writing about a school in Albany, but Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Farina have a lot riding on this too, since the city has 62 schools in the receivership program, with six deemed "persistently struggling" and having only one year to improve (the seventh is already closing.)

As with Hackett, these schools don't know yet what will constitute "improvement," which is a problem since the deadline for that "improvement" is fast approaching.

The cynic in me wonders if a side benefit to declaring all these schools "failing" and handing them over to the privatizers, profiteers and/or charter operators isn't another opportunity for Governor Cuomo to declare his "friend" bill de Blasio a loser too.

Governor Cuomo promised the Daily News and a Forbes forum he would "break" the public school "monopoly" before his re-election in 2014 and it certainly looks like the receivership program is part of that plan.

After the state gets through privatizing these 144 schools, the next slate of so-called "struggling" schools will be added to the receivership list - this will be an ongoing program:

The program was one of several education reforms hammered out during budget negotiations this spring. Under the deal, schools are placed into two categories, “struggling schools,” those in the bottom 5 percent of schools in the state for three years, based on measures like test scores and graduation rates, and “persistently struggling schools,” which have been in that bracket since 2006.

What we have here is "stacking ranking" for schools, with the state playing rank and yank every year, adding schools to the privatization, er, receivership list, setting them up to "fail" and then handing them over to the privatizers, profiteers and/or charter operators.

Just as with stack ranking for employees, the program will disempower, demoralize and ultimately destroy the system (this is also the same rationale behind Cuomo's APPR teacher evaluation system, btw - ranking teachers every year and declaring 7% "ineffective" no matter what.)

Just ask Microsoft, which used stack ranking as its evaluation system for employees, how well that worked for them as Apple was kicking them to the wayside in competition.

But of course if you're Andrew Cuomo, you want to destroy the system - that's exactly what he promised to do in 2014 and that's the plan he's been carrying out since.

John Flanagan Admits State Intervention In School Districts Doesn't Go So Well

State Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan over the East Ramapo monitor:

As the state Education Department moves to oversee the East Ramapo school district, Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan on Tuesday urged caution in taking away local control of the district.

“When we move in any way shape or form to usurp local control, we have to be extraordinarily judicious,” Flanagan said. “I’m not suggesting for a moment there aren’t extraordinarily acute issues on that district, because there are.”

He added: “It’s important to recognize that in the state of New York where we’ve directly intervened in school districts, our track record isn’t very good.”

That's an interesting admission since the state is set to take over 144 schools in the next year or two if they don't "improve."

Flanagan's sending a message to Dennis Walcott and his East Ramapo monitoring team to not upset the Hasidic men who sit on the school board for the school district that serves a largely black and Latino population of students.

And I get the politics of that - the Hasidic community knows how to use political donations to make sure that politicians take care of them.

Witness the Kiryas Joel/Cuomo relationship.

Nonetheless, Fanagan has unwittingly also admitted that state ought to be careful in how it administers the school receivership program pushed by the governor and approved by the state Senate and Assembly in the last budget.

There it is, in plain language from John Flanagan, former head of the education committee in the state Senate, current state Senate Majority Leader (at least until he's indicted like the last five):

“It’s important to recognize that in the state of New York where we’ve directly intervened in school districts, our track record isn’t very good.”

Being A Teacher These Days Means Walking A Tightrope Without A Safety Net

There's this myth perpetuated by education reformers, politicians and the media that "bad teachers" can't be fired, that once you become a tenured teacher, all you have to do to remain in the job is breathe and not get convicted of a felony.

The truth is far from the myth as this commenter at Perdido Street School blog writes:

Who'd want to become a teacher anywhere? I don't teach in a struggling school (though its close) and the decision to come in to teaching ranks as the biggest mistake of my life. Financially, psychologically, etc. A toll is taken on the psyche when your profession is labeled as the reason for almost all the negative issues going on in our society, relentlessly, no matter how ridiculous. The volume of it and the incessant nature makes one a bit twitchy. It was a stupid call. At least working at Amazon, you are probably paid well for the few years you survive....and then you can go get another job.

The thing that isn't talked about so much, and should be, is that when a teacher is drummed out, for any reason really, they will never teach again in public school. It's an established, formalized, institutionalized, fully-legal blacklisting. So a public school teacher falling under the hatchet of reform faces a much steeper slope out of unemployment than does, say, a corporate person who gets fired. As always, the "accountability" and "disruption" on the corporate side is always somehow lighter than they want to impose on the public side.

A fired teacher is DONE....the one thing they have prepared and trained for is no longer something they can tap on in their job search. (Unless they go to work at a desperate private school that will pay them like $19k a year.) Even admin....they leave or get booted somewhere, they get to become admin somewhere else (see Elia). No deep institutional, legal blacklisting for them! Even principals, AP's, Directors, etc in my district who have been let go for deep incompetence always get another job in Admin by the next school year in another district.

So that's a thing and it matters. For teachers, our options become way way way limited after being fired. We are the ultimate tightrope walkers...no safety nets.

That's right - as I posted this morning, get the "I" rating smeared on your head and you're pretty much done - administrators will look to drum you out (especially if you're a senior teacher higher up on the salary step ladder), the system will look to drum you out (and with two "ineffective" ratings in a row, that can be done in an expedited manner), and no one will look to hire you.

I am in my fifteenth year as a public school teacher, before that I was in grad school and working as both a per diem substitute teacher and an SAT tutor.

I haven't had a job outside education since 1999.

Let's say I get dinged two years running under the new iteration of Andrew Cuomo's APPR teacher evaluation system and get an expedited trip out of my NYCDOE teaching job by 2017.

What would I do for work then?

As the commenter above noted, my experience and my resume is stuffed to the gills with education-related credentials and work.

Good luck to me trying to get a job doing something outside education with that kind of resume, but good luck to me trying to get a job inside education with the "ineffective" scarlet letter.

Walmart greeter here I come.

Welcome to Walmart, welcome to Walmart, welcome to Walmart...

It's time to dispense with the media myth that tenure is a lifetime appointment to a teaching gig.

The truth is, tenure no longer exists and it doesn't take a whole hell of a lot to have your career taken from you in an expedited (and rigged) process.

Think I'm engaging in hyperbole?

Head on over to a receivership school and see where you are in two to three years.

Teachers Should Think Long And Hard Before Working At "Struggling" Or "Persistently Struggling" Schools

NYSED has labeled 144 schools around the state "struggling" or "persistently struggling," with 62 of those schools located in NYC.

According to the NY Times article I linked to above, "struggling schools" have two years to make "demonstrable" improvement in graduation rates, test scores and attendance or be given over to "an outside receiver, like a nonprofit group, that will be chosen by the district superintendent or chancellor to oversee the schools."

The Times reports that "persistently struggling schools" have just one year to make the "demonstrable" improvement or be given over to an "an outside receiver, like a nonprofit group, that will be chosen by the district superintendent or chancellor to oversee the schools."

Teachers who currently work at any of the "struggling" or "persistently struggling" schools will have to reapply for their jobs.

Some will not be rehired and will either have to find other jobs in the system or become ATR's.

"Struggling" and "persistently struggling" schools will almost certainly be looking for new blood to replace some of the teachers who aren't rehired at those schools.

The UFT put out this statement regarding that part of the receivership plan:

The UFT is working to support the Renewal program, including by building teacher leadership in the schools and ensuring that all hiring is conducted by joint city-union committees.

Here's what may await any teacher who goes to work in one of these "struggling" or "persistently struggling" schools, per a comment left on another post here at Perdido Street School blog:

Graded regents this week with a teacher who taught at a specialized school. He told me about 5 years ago a friend left to take a job at one of the struggling schools where Math/Science teachers would get a 10k bonus for transferring there. After just 1 year they began phasing the school out and he became an ATR. While he eventually found a job in a decent school it is nothing compared to his original situation.

That's actually the best case scenario, where the teacher becomes an ATR but eventually gets another placement.

The worst case scenario?

Toiling forever after as an ATR (or at least until the UFT completes throwing the ATR's to the wolves and the program no longer exists per a future contract deal) or two-three years of consecutive "ineffective" ratings and a swift trip to the unemployment office.

Teachers should think long and hard about going to work at any of the "struggling" or "persistently struggling" schools on the receivership program list.

Despite Carmen Farina's desire to put asterisks next to the names of "highly effective" teachers who transfer to "struggling" or "persistently struggling" schools, the first people that will get thrown under the bus when these schools do not make the "demonstrable progress" timetable that the state wants will be the teachers.

And it won't matter what a teacher's evaluation rating was before she/he got to the "struggling" or "persistently struggling" school either, because the system is set up with a "What Have You Done For More Lately" gloss and teachers who get dinged as "developing" and "ineffective" at those schools will wear those ratings on their heads like scarlet letters no matter what their ratings were in the years before they got to the receivership schools.

Reformers pay lip service to wanting to reward so-called "excellent teachers" who go to work with the most vulnerable populations, but all it takes for an "excellent teacher" to become a "developing" or "ineffective teacher" is to work a year or two in a school with low test scores.

Reformers, including the governor of the state and the commissioner of NYSED, do not care what a teacher's rating was a few years before, they care only what the most recent rating was - and remember that two consecutive "ineffective" ratings will get you fired under Cuomo's latest APPR evaluation system iteration.

Reformers also constantly demonize "ineffective" teachers in the press, never once noting that maybe some of those "ineffective" teachers were actually "effective" or "highly effective" teachers who transferred into a school with low test scores and had their ratings implode as a result.

So if you're a teacher out there with an "effective" or a "highly effective" rating and you're thinking about going to bring your talents and skills to one of the receivership schools, think long and hard before you make the jump.

In a year or two, you could very well be a "developing" or "ineffective" teacher headed for the ATR pool.

Or, if we're looking at another mayor in two years who gets elected with the backing of the reform community, an ally of Eva Moskowitz and her ilk, you could be looking at a dried up ATR pool and instant unemployment.

The way the system is these days, the only way for a teacher to protect herself/himself is to think and act very carefully around employment decisions.

It doesn't take much to get demonized as "ineffective" and smeared with the "I" scarlet letter on your head - and if that"i" is on your head for two consecutive years, you could be out of a job.

How MaryEllen Elia Fools Some Critics (But Not All)

I've been writing for a few weeks now that new NYSED Commissioner MaryEllen Elia is engaging in a "rebrand" effort for New York's education reform agenda, but underneath the "repainting" we see the same old same old reforms - the Endless Testing regime, a pro-Common Core push, and a Blame Teachers attitude toward educators.

Jessica Bakeman writes that Elia comes at this agenda with a more deft touch than her predecessor, John King, and has managed to fool many critics so far that her agenda is different - even though it isn't:

ALBANY—New York’s new education commissioner, MaryEllen Elia, and her predecessor, John King, both support the state’s controversial reform agenda, including implementing the Common Core standards, testing students on the more difficult material and evaluating teachers using students’ exam scores.

But it’s what makes her different from the former chief that state education officials have highlighted.

Elia is seasoned at 66, compared to King, who at 36 became the youngest education commissioner in the state’s history. Elia spent more than four decades working in traditional public schools, as a teacher, an administrator and a superintendent, while King had relatively limited experience in schools before founding a prominent charter school network. She has been described as a skilled listener, communicator and collaborator, while he was often criticized as being out of touch and tone deaf.

In hopes of turning King’s critics into Elia’s supporters without reversing course on the reform agenda they’ve pursued for five years, the new commissioner, her communications staff and the State Board of Regents, which appointed her in May, have pitched her as his opposite.

 So far—and granted, it’s still early—the strategy seems to be working.

...

Elia’s record, like King's, is that of an aggressive reformer. In her last position as superintendent of a large, diverse school district in central Florida, she implemented teacher evaluations before the rest of the state with a $100 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and negotiated with teachers a merit-pay system. Since coming to New York, she has repeatedly described herself as a believer in “accountability.” She supports Governor Andrew Cuomo's receivership model to turn around struggling schools, a plan that could lead to the firing of principals and teachers, and she stressed just giving schools more money isn't the answer.

Bakeman has two pretty good examples of how Elia isn't doing anything different than what came before at SED, but is getting credit for "change" from her critics.

The first is when she said she was instituting a review of the Common Core standards.

That review is in state law as passed this year but Elia broached it as if it were her idea.

The second was in the new testing contract with Questar that "Elia emphasized that the new contract specifically requires teachers’ input in the tests’ content."

Her PR on this:

“New York State teachers will be involved in every step of the test development process,” Elia said in a statement. “Teacher input is critical to building a successful state test.”

But a former NYSED functionary points out that stipulation was in the Pearson contract too:

What’s not in her statement: The contract with Pearson, which ultimately totaled $38 million over five years, also required input from educators. Education officials for years stressed to critics that every question on the exams had been vetted by New York teachers.

Ken Slentz, former deputy education commissioner who now leads a small district in the Finger Lakes, said the department’s messaging suggested the new contract offered something the old one didn’t, which he called “disingenuous.”

“The Questar contract calls for the role of teachers; the Pearson contract had that as well,” he said. “Instead of going out and having these fact-based conversations, we’re being a little bit disingenuous about how we do business. That doesn’t help us in terms of overcoming these misinformed conversations.”

There has been no change to the state's education reform agenda under MaryEllen Elia, but that hasn't stopped critics of NYSED and John King from falling all over themselves to praise Elia.

Take NYSUT, for example.

NYSUT President Karen Magee declared Elia's appointment a victory for NYSUT.

Then there are the nice things NYSUT said about the Questar contract.

Bakeman reports how Assembly Dems like Patrica Fahy are saying nice things about Elia too.

But make no mistake, there are no changes to the state's reform agenda under Elia, as members of the Board of Regents acknowledge:

Board of Regents member Roger Tilles, who represents Long Island on the board, said he believes Elia will be better suited to convince Cuomo and lawmakers to increase state aid to the department.

“The new commissioner is in a much better position to ask for that than the previous commissioner,” he said. “She’s not tainted. There’s not the baggage. And maybe she’ll make exactly the same pitch that John King made. I’ve already seen it when she’s talked to the public in general. She could [talk about] the same issues, and the public will buy it, as opposed to John, when there was immediate antagonism.”

Board of Regents chancellor Merryl Tisch said Elia's long career in public education has helped her gain the respect of skeptics.

“She has been very well received by all constituent groups,” Tisch said, referring to Elia. “She’s got 40 years of experience, so when she says something, people can’t just say to her, ‘No, I don’t think so.’ She speaks with authority. She speaks from experience. She speaks with conviction, and she speaks with deep knowledge. And that is important.”

Bakeman reports that NYSAPE are not fooled by MaryEllen Elia and see the Endless Testing regime continuing under her despite the new PR efforts.

If you're a reader of Perdido Street School blog, NYC Educator's blog, ICEUFT blog or Ed Notes Online, you know we're not fooled by the PR either.

MaryEllen Elia's reform agenda is the same as John King' reform agenda was and Andrew Cuomo's reform agenda is.

At the core is a "Blame Teachers" mentality, an attitude that accountability is for individual schools and teachers, perhaps for districts, but never for the geniuses in Albany who make the policy or put it into action, and a love of the Endless Testing regime and the Common Core.

Elia is pursuing that agenda right now in the receivership push, talking tough to officials and administrators in districts with "struggling" schools while dismissing funding inequity or any other issues other than mismanagement.

I'm not exactly sure what John King's critics who've become MaryEllen Elia's fans are watching with Elia - it's pretty obvious that her game is the same as John King's game (and the same as Andrew Cuomo's game.)

Nonetheless, I will continue to point out over and over that the state's reform agenda has no changed under MaryEllen Elia, I will continue to illuminate Elia's track record in Hillsborough which was abysmal bordering on the criminal, and do my best, in my little corner of the Internet, to get people to see MaryEllen Elia for the corporate reformer and jive artist she is.

Jeb Bush Calls For Merit Pay For Federal Employees, Disruption For Federal Government

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush laid out a plan today to "disrupt" the federal government if he is elected president, saying that he will cut the federal workforce by 10% and institute merit pay for government workers:

In a speech on Monday in Florida, the Republican presidential candidate unveiled his plan for "disrupting" Washington by downsizing the federal government.

Bush's plan takes aim at the federal budget. He proposes cutting the number of federal employees by at least 10% and radically overhauling the budget process to require a balanced budget, a controversial prescription popular with the conservative base.

"It will not be my intention to preside over the establishment, but in every way I know to disrupt that establishment and make it accountable to the people," Bush said.

...

Bush says that he will institute a policy of hiring one employee for every three who leave when it comes to federal hiring, with the exception of national-security related jobs. Bush suggested that federal agencies shouldn't replace many workers who retire — according to the governor, 10% of the federal workforce will retire within the next five years, and "not everyone who leaves has to be replaced."

And then there's this:

• Merit pay. Bush claims too many mediocre federal employees are being paid the same as exemplary employees. Though he didn't delve too far into specifics on this point, the former Florida governor said that he'll make it easier to fire bad federal employees.

It seems both the rhetoric and policies of Jeb's education reform agenda will now be leveled at the federal government and federal workers too.

Can "turnarounds" for federal departments be far behind?

Maybe receivership for some federal departments, with goals to be hit or the whole thing gets turned over to a non-profit charter entity?

Oh, the ideas for bringing education reform ideas to Washington government are limitless.

How exciting! 

What A Real Solution To "Failing Schools" Would Look Like

A commenter named Dutch left this at the Capitol Confidential piece about NYSED announcing 144 schools going into "receivership":

All urban school districts. All in poverty stricken communities. None of the problems are with the schools per se but with the communities which they serve. Solutions must be sought outside of the school districts. Intensive economic redevelopment in the neighborhoods. Massive infusion of community/social services to help struggling families. Mergers between city and suburban school districts. “Receivership” is nonsense. Changes within the schools won’t ameliorate the problems because schools can’t change the underlying social dysfunction.

Dutch is absolutely right, of course, but the receivership program isn't meant to fix any problems - it's meant to exacerbate them.

The ultimate goal of corporate education reform is the privatization of public education.

In order to get to that goal, education reformers look to destabilize the system as much as possible, create as much churn and burn as possible, in order to spread problems as far and wide as possible.

That's why they shoved through radical changes to the state's standards and state's testing regime before they rolled out any curriculum to go with those changes, that's why they shoved through a radical change to the teacher evaluation system at the same time they brought radical changes to the standards and the testing.

The goal was to create chaos, to take schools that had not been "failing" and suddenly declare them "failing" when the new rigorous test scores, rigged for high failure rates, came through on their promise.

The goal of the receivership is the same - spread chaos, privatize what they can, destroy everything else.

You can bet these receiver schools, once they're controlled by an independent entity, will get to cherrypick their students, just as the charter schools do now, so that the "receivership" program can be deemed a "success" and public schools can be branded "failing."

It's all rigged for a pre-determined outcome and that outcome has nothing to do with the public good and everything to do with private gain and power.

What "Master" Teacher Would Go Work In A "Struggling School"?

NYSED released a list of 144 schools around the state that have been placed into receivership, with 61 here in NYC:

The New York State Education Department announced on Thursday that 144 underperforming schools, nearly half of which are in New York City, will enter receivership, a new designation that puts pressure on the de Blasio administration to show improvement at the city’s most troubled schools, and to do so quickly.

The program was one of several education reforms hammered out during budget negotiations this spring. Under the deal, schools are placed into two categories, “struggling schools,” those in the bottom 5 percent of schools in the state for three years, based on measures like test scores and graduation rates, and “persistently struggling schools,” which have been in that bracket since 2006.

For the first years of receivership, the superintendent — or, in the case of New York City, Carmen Fariña, the schools chancellor — will be the receiver. As receivers, they will have the authority to make changes, like lengthening the school day or year and requiring teachers to reapply for their jobs.

Struggling schools will have two years to make “demonstrable” improvement in areas like graduation rates and attendance; persistently struggling schools will have one year to do so. If they do not, an outside receiver, like a nonprofit group, will be chosen by the district superintendent or chancellor to oversee the schools. That receiver must be approved by the state, which has set aside an additional $75 million for the schools.

The list of those schools is here.

There are an awful lot of Queens high schools on that list.

Also a lot of schools in Buffalo.

Here is initial thrust of the program while these schools remain in local receivership:

Under the receivership law, a school receiver is granted new authority to, among other things, develop a school intervention plan; convert schools to community schools providing wrap-around services; expand the school day or school year; and remove staff and/or require staff to reapply for their jobs in collaboration with a staffing committee.

But the ultimate goal is "independent receivership," i.e., an outside entity brought in by NYSED to take over these schools from the local district and convert them to charter schools.

That will happen for schools deemed "persistently struggling" after one year where they are deemed by the state of not improving.

Schools deemed "struggling" have two years before "independent receivership."

And just who are these independent receivers?

Independent receivers, who can be an individual, a not-for-profit organization, or another school district, have sole responsibility to manage and operate the school and have all of the enhanced authority of a school receiver.  Independent receivers are appointed for up to three school years and serve under contract with the Commissioner.
 
As with Persistently Struggling Schools, the independent receiver appointed by the district must be approved by the Commissioner, and the Commissioner will make the appointment if an acceptable receiver is not selected by the district.

NYSUT was busy praising new NYSED Commissioner MaryEllen Elia last week, but her first big step this week is aimed at firing teachers and privatizing schools as allowed by Cuomo's "Schools Death Penalty Budget of 2015."

Harris Lirtzman left an astute comment on the efficacy of this reform program:

Every single one of these schools is in NYC, Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, Syracuse, Albany or Islip/Bellevue in Long Island. Jeez, that's really a surprise.

We all know that the only example where "receivership" supposedly does anything for struggling schools is the short-term and very limited improvement in the Lawrence, MA school district. As with every other element of the reformista program--which claims to prize "data," "accountability," "evidence" and "research" above all else--none of that really matters when the reformistas just want to do something.

Beyond that, where are all the magical teachers going to come from to staff these schools when their current rosters get dumped into the ATR in New York City and straight fired everywhere else? Will the State give the "receivers" special wands and hocus-pocus powers to make magical teachers appear from thin air? What "master" teacher anywhere would transfer to any of these schools when the State accountability system will turn a "master" teacher into a "developing" teacher in one year?

Indeed, what "master" teacher would go teach in one of these schools and end up "developing" or "ineffective" the next year under the state's punitive, test-centric teacher evaluation system?

It's, to continue with one of Andrew Cuomo's favorite analaogies for what should happen to "bad schools," the "death penalty" for a teacher's career, since two years of consecutive "ineffective" ratings can get you fired and three years of them will get you fired.

Cuomo's "Death Penalty Program" for struggling and persistently struggling schools is going to bring a lot of destabilization in the next couple of years before most of these schools are ultimately turned over to independent receivers and privatized.

And of course that was always the goal of Cuomo's reform plans - to "bust" the public school "monopoly," to destabilize public education and to privatize public schools.

School Officials Look To Gut Labor Contracts At Buffalo Schools Under Receivership

Here is the future of many public schools in New York State:

Some of Buffalo’s most struggling schools could get unprecedented power to hire staff, extend the school day and implement reform strategies without negotiating them with labor unions under a receivership plan being developed by the state.

The preliminary plan also removes powers such as developing the budget and approving curriculum from the Board of Education, and puts them in the hands of the receiver.

School officials who have been in talks with state education leaders presented early ideas of what the receivership model could look like during a School Board meeting on Wednesday.

The guidelines are still being developed, but the talks give some idea of how the model could affect the schools.

“What this looks like is our legislators created the Taylor Law and the Triborough Amendment and after years and years of our schools sliding into failure, they know they need to make changes,” said board member Carl Paladino, referencing state laws that guarantee union protections. “They’re doing a carve out.”

Make no mistake, the powers that be would love to "carve out" whole swaths of the system from work protections, labor contracts and the like.

And make no mistake, that's exactly what is going on here in Buffalo:

Board members and district administrators, however, recognized that the language being used to discuss the potential guidelines is somewhat vague, and it is still unclear just how much power the receiver will have to circumvent contracts.

They unilaterally agreed that they should attempt to influence the development of the guidelines by advocating for powers they believe the schools need to succeed.

“If you don’t push this thing as far as you can, you won’t get the benefits intended,” said Interim Superintendent Donald A. Ogilvie.

The receivership model is Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s latest proposal for assisting schools that consistently fail to meet academic standards.

They can't get more blatant than this - you'd better "push things as far as you can" or "you won't get the benefits intended."

So they're going to advocate "for powers they believe the schools need to succeed" - you know, like the power to hire and fire at will, dole out the money without any direction from the Board of Education, and basically create an autonomous "public school" that is running autocratically without any say from anybody other than the "receiver."

We've seen this in Michigan, we've seen a lighter variation of it at the "turnaround schools" in NYC, but Buffalo's going to get the full version if Cuomo and his buddies have their way.

And make no mistake, once a few school are put into receivership in Buffalo, the powers that be will champion the system and look to put the whole city system into receivership:

The targeted schools are Buffalo Elementary School of Technology, Futures Preparatory School, West Hertel Academy, and Burgard and South Park high schools. More schools would likely be in the same position after two years.

Then they'll go at Rochester, at Syracuse, at Yonkers, and NYC, chopping away at the "failing" public school system until they have gutted all but the wealthy suburbs with charter schools and receivership schools.

Shock Doctrine 101 - we must do what works!

And what works?

Why, autocracy and oligarchy, of course.

Heastie Doesn't Get It: Testing Issue Not Just About Hours Spent On Testing

From State of Politics:

The response to the large number of students opting out of the most recent round of standardized tests be may be a “macro look” at the number of hours spent on examinations, Speaker Carl Heastie on Monday said.

“It is a concern for all of us with a huge number of students opting out,” Heastie told reporters.

...

Heastie said the numbers will likely spur lawmakers in Albany to take a broader look at the issue of testing in the classroom.

“We do have to take a real macro look at this,” he said.

It's not about how much time is spent on testing.

It's about the stakes that are attached to the testing.

So long as the stakes are schools get closed and teachers get fired based upon test scores, there will be test-driven classrooms and schools that dominate everything else.

That's the "macro look" at testing.

Cuomo Still Pushing For State Takeover Of "Failing" Schools

Update about an hour ago from the ever-informative State of Politics blog:

Assembly Democrats on Saturday continued to hash out the finer points of the 2015-16 state budget and while a deal seemed close, details on school receivership, education aid distribution and a potential minimum wage hike linked to property tax relief still remained outstanding issues.

Speaker Carl Heastie met with Gov. Andrew Cuomo for about an hour on Saturday morning before returning to speak with some of the Democratic lawmakers who returned to the Capitol.

...

Broader questions remain on school aid, however, even as education reforms such as teacher evaluation criteria are no longer linked to funding.

Sources familiar with the discussion say a final school aid figure could be north of $1.4 billion. The more nettlesome task now underway for legislative and executive staff is distributing school aid, and the “runs” for districts may not be available until early next week.

“We’re still going over the break down on the education,” Heastie said.

Meanwhile, Assembly Democrats continue to raise concerns with Cuomo’s proposal to have the state takeover struggling schools.

Lawmakers want to include a local component for school receivership as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio pushes his own renewal program for public schools on the local level.

It's quite telling that now that there's a mayor in New York City whose first instinct isn't to close schools that Cuomo, acting on the behalf of his ed deform and charter donors, is adamant that a) mayoral control is not a permanent thing and b) the state needs to have the power to take over "failing" schools.

You can bet if we were in a fourth Bloomberg term and he was still closing schools left and right, they wouldn't be pushing so hard for receivership.