Another Education Reformer Goal - Criminalize Teachers

The latest example of where the "Teachers Are Criminals" mindset education reformers have imposed on the education system gets us:

Legendary blind gym teacher Steven Sloan may have lost his job over Listerine.

Sloan, 60, a popular coach hailed as a role model for overcoming his handicap, was yanked from PS 102 in Harlem after a parent setting up for a party last year complained she smelled booze on his breath. He claims it was the alcohol-based mouthwash.

His colleagues are outraged. Several recalled his obsession with cleanliness and hygiene, saying he rinsed religiously with Listerine.

“The DOE took an outstanding career and trashed it,” said teacher Lisa Ortiz.

Sloan, who was born with macular degeneration, brought glory to PS 102 when actor Tony Danza nominated him to carry a torch at the 2006 Olympics in Italy. Former principal Sandra Gittens, who worked with Sloan for 14 years, said he arrived early, ran after-school programs, volunteered for lunch duty and chaperoned class trips.

“The students respected him,” she recalled. “He cleared his throat — ahem — and everyone got into line. It was really amazing.”

 Sloan knew the halls of PS 102 so well he didn’t use his cane. He taught exercise and sports with an assistant who served as his “eyes” to make sure the kids did as instructed.

A parent claimed she smelled booze off Sloan, found a cup in a garbage can that had remnants of a "brown liquid" in it that smelled like alcohol and accused Sloan of drinking on the job.

Sloan and his defenders claim it was Listerine.

Sloan was never seen drinking from the cup or holding it.

Nevertheless the DOE brought him up on charges for drinking on the job.

The DOE also charged him with sexual harassment for asking anybody if they wanted to go out on a "blind date" with him, a "joke" which Sloan says he habitually used to make people feel comfortable with his disability.

Sloan settled with the DOE and agreed to retire in August.

He is "devastated" about how his career ended:

“They didn’t even let me go back to my school and say goodbye,” he said. “I just want to let everybody know I did my job diligently, with all my heart and soul.”

This is how teaching careers are going to end for many of us now that the tenure rules have been rewritten so that teachers can be dismissed on expedited 3020a charges.

The allegations can be as stupid as sexual harassment against a blind teacher who makes a "blind date" joke or they can be unproven - such as drinking on the job allegations "substantiated" by one accusation and circumstantial evidence.

Doesn't matter anymore - teachers are assumed to be criminals first, guilty first, and the system will do what it does and grind them down and spew them out.

Meanwhile real criminals - the corrupt politician nominally in charge of a system owned and operated by the Wall Street and real estate criminals and tech sociopaths - commit their criminals acts with seeming impunity and only get taken down when their actions go beyond the pale (a la Vito Lopez and the pols that Preet Bharara has charged, convicted and/or indicted with crimes.)

Teacher Retirements Up 10% In New York

The "Burn and Churn" education policies of Barack Obama, Andrew Cuomo, et al. are succeeding at what they're meant to do - push teachers out:

ALBANY – Teacher retirements in New York have increased 10 percent since 2010, while active staff members have fallen 5.5 percent over the same time period, state records show.

The rise in retirements among the state’s teacher ranks is an ongoing trend as staff reaches retirement age, faces new testing standards and cashes out pensions.

The number of teachers in retirement jumped from 141,716 to 155,931 between the 2009-10 and 2013-14 school years, records from the state Teachers Retirement System show. At the same time, the number of active members in the system fell from 285,774 to 270,039.

The state’s teachers union, New York State United Teachers, blamed new testing standards and tougher teacher evaluations are part of the reason why teachers are leaving the workforce. The union has blasted the new measures.

...

The union estimates that more retirements are ahead. Last school year, about 13 percent of teachers were aged 57 to 64, and 19 percent of teachers were aged 49 to 56. Korn said that about 1 in 7 teachers has more than 25 years of classroom experience.

Nearly every teacher I know in the last two years who retired blamed the insane compliance measures - the Endless Testing regime, the Endless Danielson observations, the gutting of work protections for teachers that has put more power into the hands of administrators, the lack of respect for teachers and teaching in society in general that has helped bring about these changes.

Education reform, at bottom, has always been about streamlining the labor force in order to make the privatization of the education system more profitable for the neo-liberals.

So far, the plan is going swimmingly.

Of course, so many retiring teachers means pension payouts, something else that saddens neoliberals.

You can bet that will be a "reform" we see pushed in New York State before too long.

Adding Real Value To Students' Lives

From DNAinfo:

GREENPOINT — When they reach school-age, kids not only deserve to learn reading, writing and math, Danielle Mussafi says — they should start their quests for the meaning of life and God.

So Mussafi created the "Spiritual Explorers" group, an alternative to religious school that asks kids to "tap into that voice inside of them" as they navigate the world.

"We want them to focus on the questions and the mystery," said Mussafi, 30, whose new kids group is part of Original Blessing, North Brooklyn's first Unitarian Universalist congregation (and the second in all of the borough). The denomination embraces all beliefs and encourages a "free and responsible search for truth and meaning."

"God could be to them a man in the sky, laughter, music," said Mussafi of children's diverse beliefs and inklings. "They're already getting images and information...I want to foster spiritual exploration for them."

The weekly class, for children 4 to 10, will begin with a candle lighting or other ritual, and then each session will differ slightly, but Mussafi will often read a story that provokes discussion about a different theme (like "gratitude" in the month of November).

And each class will be coordinated with the congregation's adult services, which have been held in the documentary screening and production center Union Docs Center for Contemporary Art since last fall. Original Blessing is seeking a new space come November, when the Spiritual Explorers class begins, Mussafi said.

The theme of each children's class will correlate to that of the adult service, and afterward kids and parents can come together to continue discussing the topic throughout the week.

Mussafi, who grew up Jewish attending Hebrew school, but said she never bonded with her congregation, said she hoped to provide kids with an "intentional community" based on a value of nature, expression, social justice and the search for meaning.

"We want them to understand that they're part of something bigger than them," she said.

Before Danielson, before VAM, before APPR and the like, I used to see my role as a teacher in an English Language Arts classroom similarly to how Mussafi describes her role - to lead students to questions.

Why are we here?

What is our role in the world?

Are we here just to accumulate material goods, eat food and procreate or is there some other purpose to existence?

What are the myths we have grown up with in our families, our communities, our schools, our nation, our society that keep us from asking the questions we have deep in our hearts or keep us from becoming the free, unique individuals we yearn to be?

Literature is a great spark for these kinds of lessons, these kinds of discussions.

A bi-monthly written by teens for teens called YC Teen (formerly NYC Youth Connection) is another great spark.

So are journal writings, restorative circles, reflective quiet time.

I learned very early on as a teacher that if kids saw me as one of them - not somebody above them, not somebody smarter than them, not somebody with more answers than they have - but simply as another member of the human community struggling with life's problems, searching for answers to the eternal questions and mysteries of human existence, they would be willing to go to extraordinary lengths in talking about their own questions, their own thoughts, their own fears.

There have been some extraordinary classes where I have simply planned a theme, read something aloud to students, given them time to reflect upon the reading, write some personal response about that reading, then started the discussion with my own share that set the tone for a serious but revelatory back and forth where we spoke our own truths.

I have had assistant principals say to me more than once after witnessing this kind of class "Wow, that was really something.  I've never seen students so comfortable about sharing these kinds of personal questions, fears, concerns."

I have always taken pride in setting up that kind of trust, that kind of mutual respect between myself and my students, as well as between student and student, so that these kinds of class lessons could take place.

It doesn't work every semester or with every class.

Sometimes you have a class with one or two strong personalities or cliques that cannot or will not allow the class to go in that direction.

I've learned to let that go and be.

That was part of my own growth as both a teacher and a person - to let go of the need to control or impose my will on everything or everybody around me.

It was an important lesson for me to learn.

At any rate, the reason why I still teach is because I love to hold these kinds of classes and see the spark that comes across kids' faces as they realize those deep questions they have are questions that many of us have and it's okay to ask them.

Alas, under Danielson, under VAM, under APPR, there will be little time for this kind of class.

How do you measure this kind of learning?

Will it add value to the test scores at the end of the year?

Will it help the kids show growth on their performance assessments?

What would Danielson say about such an open-ended lesson plan that simply sets up a framework and allows for the class to go in many different directions, depending upon the class chemistry, the mood of the class and other variables?

The Danielson rubric is the work of a control freak with little aptitude or desire for sometimes just letting things be and seeing where they go, trusting to the universe that if you bring a certain intent to a lesson, consciously create the tone for the discussion, that it's okay to let it veer wherever it veers without the need to tie it all up in a bow.

It's been a long week and I'm not articulating this as well as I would like.

But the thing that kept coming back to me this first week at work, this first week under Danielson and APPR, was the regimentation and standardization that has been imposed on all of us and just how much joy and wonder it is already sucking out of the classroom and the school.

The political observer in me says it's not a mistake that this is the kind of education system an oligarch like Bill Gates promotes and funds all across the nation.

The political observer in me says it's not a mistake that diminished human beings like Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee and Michael Bloomberg and Arne Duncan push this kind of dehumanized and dehumanizing system all across the nation.

God knows, they don't want to teach the kids to question anything.

Just sit down, shut up, do what you're told, believe what you're told, buy what you're told to buy and everything will be all right.

That's the kind of system perpetrated on America by the corporate education reform movement.

It's not a surprise, given that the corporate education reform movement is made up of corporate oligarchs and their political functionaries.

But I won't be a part of this.

I am going to attempt to continue to teach the way I always have and if they want to declare me "ineffective" and fire me, so be it.

I can't regiment myself the way they want me to.

I can't standardize how I teach.

It's not me.

More importantly, when I try to do these things, it doesn't work.

I teach from within, from who I am.

I do not lie to my students ever - I am completely open about why I teach the way I do, what I am teaching and why I am teaching it.

I will continue to do that.

And if that means that I am seen as a "bad teacher" by Andy Cuomo and NYSED Commissioner and three year teacher John King, then as I said before, so be it.

Declare me "ineffective" and move to terminate me.

I guarantee you that I will video tape my classes and get responses from my students about my effectiveness as a teacher to use in court when I sue Andy Cuomo, John King, the NYSED and the NYCDOE over my termination, however.

Maybe none of that will hold up in a court of law.

But I sure am going to try and make my case.

Teaching cannot be standardized anymore than living can be standardized.

The control freaks running the show these days may not believe that, but it's true.

And the universe often has a way of bringing that lesson home to you.

The more you try and control things, the more things ultimately get out of control.

The Most "Over-Looked Sign" Of Good Teaching

Oprah's Principal gives four "over-looked signs" of good teaching to OWN.

My most "over-looked sign" of good teaching?

Teaching kids how much bullshit the system is going to try and put over on them.

I think George Carlin put it best:

“Don’t just teach your children to read… Teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything.” -- George Carlin

Carlin elaborates here:




The most valuable lesson you can teach children these days is that every time someone in authority opens his or her mouth and says something to you, they're either lying to you, jiving you or selling you some crap you don't want and don't need.

The education reform movement wants to drive this kind of teaching and learning out of the system.

The movement wants schools to churn out obedient workers and compliant consumers, but certainly not children who grow up learning to question the crap the people in authority are trying to pull on them.

That's why they have promoted the Danielson rubric, with its 57 page checklist of "good teaching" that makes sure there is no room or time for teaching critical thinking skills that would question a system that puts a rigid observation rubric as a major measure of so-called good teaching into place.

That's why they have promoted so-called "student achievement" as measured by standardized multiple choice tests and essay tests graded by Microsoft/Pearson computer programs as a method for detecting good teaching.

They want to make sure that the only teaching that goes on in the classroom is the kind that teaches obedience, compliance, and FEAR - fear of failure, fear of authority, fear of the future, fear, fear, fear. 

I say, teach children how full of shit humans are - especially those in charge.

Start with teaching kids how full of shit the politicians and the business leaders and the media figures and the so-called Best and Brightest are.

You know, the people who brought us a country with Third World economic inequality, a dwindling standard of living for all but the top 1%, an oligarchical political system rigged by the wealthy, and a nation with a poisoned food system, a polluted environment and an exploitative economy.

That's a lesson kids need to learn.

And it's one you won't get from the full of shit Oprah Winfrey or the neo-liberal propaganda she promotes on OWN.

You won't get it from many other media sources either or from our politicians or business leaders or media figures.

But that is the most "overlooked sign" of good teaching - teaching kids how to detect and avoid the bullshit.