From the New York Times
by Sam Dillon
After several years of state and local budget cuts, thousands of school districts across the nation are gutting summer-school programs, cramming classes into four-day weeks or lopping days off the school year, even though virtually everyone involved in education agrees that American students need more instruction time.
Los Angeles slashed its budget for summer classes to $3 million from $18 million last year, while Philadelphia, Milwaukee and half the school districts in North Carolina have deeply cut their programs or zeroed them out. A scattering of rural districts in New Mexico, Idaho and other states will be closed on Fridays or Mondays come September. And in California, where some 600 of the 1,100 local districts have shortened the calendar by up to five days over the past two years, lawmakers last week authorized them to cut seven days more if budgets get tighter.
“Instead of increasing school time, in a lot of cases we’ve been pushing back against efforts to shorten not just the school day but the week and year,” said Justin Hamilton, a spokesman for the federal Department of Education. “We’re trying to prevent what exists now from shrinking even further.”
For two decades, advocates have been working to modernize the nation’s traditional 180-day school calendar, saying that the languid summers evoked in “To Kill a Mockingbird” have a pernicious underside: each fall, many students — especially those who are poor — return to school having forgotten much of what they learned the previous year. The Obama administration picked up the mantra: at his 2009 confirmation hearing, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan declared, “Our school day is too short, our school week is too short, our school year is too short,” but its efforts in this realm have not been as successful as other initiatives.
“It feels like it’s been pushed to the back burner a bit,” said Jeff Smink, a vice president at the National Summer Learning Association in Baltimore.
The most ambitious federal program in this realm is part of a $4 billion effort to overhaul 1,150 failing schools, in which each is required to select an improvement model that includes a new schedule increasing learning time. In the Denver suburbs, for example, Fort Logan Elementary School has used the federal money to add four and a half hours of instruction per week.
But an interim report on the program in 10 states found that several districts visited by federal inspectors were out of compliance. In Reno, Nev., for example, officials found that Smithridge Elementary School was using the 15 minutes it had added each morning for breakfast, not academics. District officials in San Francisco, the report said, “believed that Everett Middle School extended the school day by an hour six years ago and due to this reason was not required to implement any additional time.”
In a separate report scheduled for release on Thursday, the National Center on Time and Learning, a Boston group that advocates expanding instruction time, acknowledges that an “untold number” of schools nationwide have reduced their hours and days, often by furloughing teachers. But the report also says more than 1,000 schools and districts have expanded their schedules, and highlights many examples.
In Pittsburgh, for example, $11 million in federal stimulus money is being used this summer to provide 5,300 students — more than twice the 2,400 enrolled last year — 23 additional days of math and reading instruction in a camplike atmosphere that converts some of the city’s museums, recording studios and even bicycle-repair shops into classrooms.
In the small town of Brandon, S.D., near Sioux Falls, some 65 teachers and principals plan to work without pay this summer to keep alive a summer school program that would have otherwise been canceled because of cuts in state aid.
And in Chicago, which has had one of the shortest school days of any major urban system, Mayor Rahm Emanuel won powers last month to impose a longer day and year. Mr. Emanuel is working with school authorities to add time for the fall term.
But each of these seems to have a counterexample.
Across Oregon, districts have been negotiating furlough days with teachers’ unions. In April, for instance, the local union agreed with the 17,000-student North Clackamas district, south of Portland, to six unpaid days off in 2011-12, leaving students with 168 days of class. Many of Oregon’s 200 districts have cut similar deals. The average number of days teachers are scheduled to be with students next year fell to 165 from 167 this year, according to a survey by the Oregon School Boards Association.
Oregon sets minimum annual instructional hours — 990 hours for ninth grade, for example. Most states set minimum days, and several that do — including Arizona, California and Nevada — have lowered the bar amid belt tightening. Nevada’s new law, signed in June, allows as few as 175 days, down from 180.
California made the same cut in 2009, but last week dropped the minimum to 168 for any district where revenues fall short of projections during the 2011-12 school year. Hawaii, mired in red ink, shortened its 180-day school year to 163 days in 2009, shuttering schools on many Fridays. But lawsuits and widespread protests last year persuaded lawmakers to restore the school year to 178 days.
Last month, North Carolina lawmakers moved in the same direction, raising the state’s minimum to 185 days of instruction, up from 180. But since the legislature provided no additional financing, some education officials there were less than thrilled.
The 2,800-student Balsz elementary district in Phoenix adopted a 200-day calendar starting in 2009-10, drawing on a local tax levy and a decade-old state law that increased financing by 5 percent for districts that meet that threshold. “Parents love it,” said Jeffrey Smith, the superintendent. And Mr. Smith said the results were palpable: after one year of the new schedule, reading scores jumped 43 percent in Grades 5 and 6 and 19 percent in Grades 3 and 4.
And if many students groan at the notion of spending more time in class, some have warmed to it.
Rubi Morales, for instance, said that when she started six years ago at the Preuss charter school in San Diego, which has seven hours of class (instead of the typical six) 198 days of the year, she resented returning to her gritty neighborhood in the evenings to find all her friends roughhousing in the streets.
“They were doing fun stuff, and I’d be getting home and doing homework,” recalled Ms. Morales, 18, who is headed to the University of California, Berkeley, this fall. “Now I see all those study hours paid off.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/education/06time.html?_r=3
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Teachers stand up to Rick Scott
From First Coast News.com
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A dinner in San Marco Tuesday night came to a rather unpleasant end for Governor Rick Scott.
A small group of people waited for two hours outside the Taverna restaurant hoping to speak with Scott about the education budget.
They never got the chance.
He walked by them without a word and drove away.
Scott's approval ratings have dropped precipitously since his election.
Many, like Adam Pearthree, pointed to his cuts in education as a major reason.
"I hope that other people are not discouraged from letting their voices be heard, and that, if you have the opportunity, to please let your voice be known. Let him know that we do not want these cuts to our education and social programs, that government is not a business and that we need to make changes in this state. But the ones that he's making are ones that negatively affect all of us and our future, and we don't want it to happen," said Pearthree.
First Coast News
http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/local/article/210005/3/Governor-Scott-Stops-for-Food-Gets-Booed
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A dinner in San Marco Tuesday night came to a rather unpleasant end for Governor Rick Scott.
A small group of people waited for two hours outside the Taverna restaurant hoping to speak with Scott about the education budget.
They never got the chance.
He walked by them without a word and drove away.
Scott's approval ratings have dropped precipitously since his election.
Many, like Adam Pearthree, pointed to his cuts in education as a major reason.
"I hope that other people are not discouraged from letting their voices be heard, and that, if you have the opportunity, to please let your voice be known. Let him know that we do not want these cuts to our education and social programs, that government is not a business and that we need to make changes in this state. But the ones that he's making are ones that negatively affect all of us and our future, and we don't want it to happen," said Pearthree.
First Coast News
http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/local/article/210005/3/Governor-Scott-Stops-for-Food-Gets-Booed
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Longhorn Steak House steps up for Duval Sports
EduJax
The Regency location of LongHorn Steakhouse is sponsoring an event Friday to help support Duval County Public Schools sports.
Some of the districts sports, including cross country, slow-pitch softball, golf, tennis, wrestling and lacrosse, lost funding for this coming school year because of budget cuts.
LongHorn is holding a fundraiser and silent auction from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. Friday for "Save Our Sports."
LongHorn will donate 10 percent of its sales that night through its Dining For Dollars program. Baskets from local vendors will also be available through a silent aution.
Expected that night are local professional and high school athletes, as well as coaches, celebrities and a DJ.
Anyone interested to volunteer time or baskets should contact Soraya Lakatos at (904)314-5440 or lakatoss@duvalschools.org.
http://jacksonville.com/opinion/blog/479262/mary-kelli-palka/2011-07-05/longhorn-steakhouse-helping-support-duval-sports
The Regency location of LongHorn Steakhouse is sponsoring an event Friday to help support Duval County Public Schools sports.
Some of the districts sports, including cross country, slow-pitch softball, golf, tennis, wrestling and lacrosse, lost funding for this coming school year because of budget cuts.
LongHorn is holding a fundraiser and silent auction from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. Friday for "Save Our Sports."
LongHorn will donate 10 percent of its sales that night through its Dining For Dollars program. Baskets from local vendors will also be available through a silent aution.
Expected that night are local professional and high school athletes, as well as coaches, celebrities and a DJ.
Anyone interested to volunteer time or baskets should contact Soraya Lakatos at (904)314-5440 or lakatoss@duvalschools.org.
http://jacksonville.com/opinion/blog/479262/mary-kelli-palka/2011-07-05/longhorn-steakhouse-helping-support-duval-sports
Chris Guerrieri gets it wrong about Duval's intervene schools
Chris Guerrieri got it really, really… wrong, in his article about the intervening schools that is in this weeks Folio and I would know, you see I am Chris Guerrieri.
Now I believe everything I wrote was factual. There is no realistic plan for the ninety-five percent of the children that go to the intervene high schools that aren’t in the advanced academic programs. The district has had more than enough time to seriously address the problem and like me doing dishes they kept putting it off hoping the problem would correct itself and Mrs. Burney and Mrs. Wright do seem to be acting more to protect their turf rather than do what’s best for the schools. No, the first part I got wrong was standing up for the newly created Education Management Organization (EMO) Duval Partners but can you blame me?
I believed Duval Partners was the best of all the bad options the state gave us. I allowed myself a glimmer of optimism because they were a non profit and all monies would be spent on the schools and since they were from the community this would give them a chance to make up for their other deficiencies, you know like having never run schools before. Plus they were hand picked by the district, though looking back this should have been a bigger red flag for me. Sadly this shadow agency’s first public move was to perpetrate a bait and switch on the people of Jacksonville.
Instead of talking with the community and the school’s administration and staff to find out how they could address the problems, instead of addressing the problems at all they went totally off the menu and are looking to subcontract another EMO, a for profit one to run the schools. Maybe this is the logical approach as the group has no experience running schools but I can’t help but think when they made this announcement a lot of jaws hit the floor at the school board building.
I don’t want to address Duval Partners so much as Anne did in her editorial but since they basically disregarded the duties they were created to do it makes me wonder about a different problem. Just what the heck is going on at 1701 Prudential Drive that they couldn’t even get this right? This is without a doubt another black mark for the school board and district and another indicator that they really don’t have an idea what’s going on if the school is located north of Beaver Street and West of Casset.
Did anybody talk to the members of Duval Partners to get a feel for what they thought or did the district just assume they would follow lock step with what the district wanted?
Was anybody at the district worried when members began dropping out including the body’s first chair?
Was nobody at the district worried that they held all their business like a secret society behind closed doors?
Did the Duval Partners mention they might look to another EMO and was that a question the district asked? How was the district able to be so blindsided by this news?
Why did the district sign the memorandum of understanding after they found out about Duval Partners plans? Did it give anybody down there any pause?
Does anybody else have the sinking feeling that the school district is just making stuff up as they go along and if it has gotten this so wrong, hand picking people, what else is amiss?
I feel like I am watching a train wreck that is moving in slow motion, a train wreck that started years ago but is now coming to a head.
It’s like the plot of a bad novel about education; district handpicks a group of locals to run schools, group says okay and then turns on the district hiring a group of foreigners to run the schools instead, school district left holding the bag.
The second part I got wrong was to hold out hope that the schools would improve to where they need to be. The truth is I don’t think there is any chance, on one hand we have a hapless school board that can’t even hand pick people right and on the other we have a shadow organization which is only interested in passing the buck, then we have a community that is apathetic at best, that’s a foot I guess. Caught in the middle are a few thousand kids who were already playing long odds, which just got a lot longer.
Families take your kids and send them elsewhere and I am not talking about other schools’ in the district either. Why not give Nassau, Baker or Clay a chance, I mean if you want your kids to have a chance that is.
I got this wrong but I learned a lesson and that’s as long as we have this same group running our district, give up hope all ye who enter.
Now I believe everything I wrote was factual. There is no realistic plan for the ninety-five percent of the children that go to the intervene high schools that aren’t in the advanced academic programs. The district has had more than enough time to seriously address the problem and like me doing dishes they kept putting it off hoping the problem would correct itself and Mrs. Burney and Mrs. Wright do seem to be acting more to protect their turf rather than do what’s best for the schools. No, the first part I got wrong was standing up for the newly created Education Management Organization (EMO) Duval Partners but can you blame me?
I believed Duval Partners was the best of all the bad options the state gave us. I allowed myself a glimmer of optimism because they were a non profit and all monies would be spent on the schools and since they were from the community this would give them a chance to make up for their other deficiencies, you know like having never run schools before. Plus they were hand picked by the district, though looking back this should have been a bigger red flag for me. Sadly this shadow agency’s first public move was to perpetrate a bait and switch on the people of Jacksonville.
Instead of talking with the community and the school’s administration and staff to find out how they could address the problems, instead of addressing the problems at all they went totally off the menu and are looking to subcontract another EMO, a for profit one to run the schools. Maybe this is the logical approach as the group has no experience running schools but I can’t help but think when they made this announcement a lot of jaws hit the floor at the school board building.
I don’t want to address Duval Partners so much as Anne did in her editorial but since they basically disregarded the duties they were created to do it makes me wonder about a different problem. Just what the heck is going on at 1701 Prudential Drive that they couldn’t even get this right? This is without a doubt another black mark for the school board and district and another indicator that they really don’t have an idea what’s going on if the school is located north of Beaver Street and West of Casset.
Did anybody talk to the members of Duval Partners to get a feel for what they thought or did the district just assume they would follow lock step with what the district wanted?
Was anybody at the district worried when members began dropping out including the body’s first chair?
Was nobody at the district worried that they held all their business like a secret society behind closed doors?
Did the Duval Partners mention they might look to another EMO and was that a question the district asked? How was the district able to be so blindsided by this news?
Why did the district sign the memorandum of understanding after they found out about Duval Partners plans? Did it give anybody down there any pause?
Does anybody else have the sinking feeling that the school district is just making stuff up as they go along and if it has gotten this so wrong, hand picking people, what else is amiss?
I feel like I am watching a train wreck that is moving in slow motion, a train wreck that started years ago but is now coming to a head.
It’s like the plot of a bad novel about education; district handpicks a group of locals to run schools, group says okay and then turns on the district hiring a group of foreigners to run the schools instead, school district left holding the bag.
The second part I got wrong was to hold out hope that the schools would improve to where they need to be. The truth is I don’t think there is any chance, on one hand we have a hapless school board that can’t even hand pick people right and on the other we have a shadow organization which is only interested in passing the buck, then we have a community that is apathetic at best, that’s a foot I guess. Caught in the middle are a few thousand kids who were already playing long odds, which just got a lot longer.
Families take your kids and send them elsewhere and I am not talking about other schools’ in the district either. Why not give Nassau, Baker or Clay a chance, I mean if you want your kids to have a chance that is.
I got this wrong but I learned a lesson and that’s as long as we have this same group running our district, give up hope all ye who enter.
Widespread cheating in Atlanta
From the Washington Posts Answer Sheet
by Valerie Strauss
Widespread cheating on 2009 standardized tests in Atlanta Public Schools — despite “significant and clear” warnings — harmed thousands of students and resulted primarily from “pressure to meet targets” in a data-driven school system, according to results of an investigation released Tuesday.
Of the 56 schools that were examined, cheating was discovered in 44 of them — that’s more than 78 percent — and 178 teachers and principals were found to have cheated on standardized tests, according to a statement released by Gov. Nathan Deal and first reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Eighty-two confessed, while half a dozen others pled the Fifth Amendment, which is an implied admission of wrongdoing under civil law.
And cheating was found years earlier than the 2009 administration of the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test, or CRCT, according to the statement (which you can read in full below.)
Investigators also reported that there was a climate of “fear, intimidation and retaliation” in the school system, which put pressure on teachers and principals to meet specific standardized test score targets. That pressure, the report said, was the biggest factor in the cheating scandal.
Because test scores were inflated, thousands of children were denied the opportunity to receive tutoring that may have helped them do better in school, the probe concluded.
Atlanta is the first district in the country to admit wholesale cheating on standardized tests, but it is not likely to be the only one where such cheating occurred.
Cheating scandals have erupted across the country, including in Washington D.C. public schools, where a USA Today investigation raised suspicion of widespread cheating and where city officials have launched a review.
The cheating revelations in Atlanta have been dribbling out for some time, and Beverly Hall, the Atlanta school superintendent who was named 2009 Superintendent of the Year by the American Association of School Administrators, announced late last year that she would step down this summer. She just left the job, her once stellar reputation tarnished by the issue.
Few who have paid attention in the education era of high-stakes testing will be surprised at this. And the stakes are only getting higher for teachers and principals, who are increasingly being evaluated and paid according to how well their students do on standardized tests, despite research showing that test-driven reform hasn’t made an impact in the last decade on student achievement. I wrote about the cheating issue last week in this post, titled “Cheating on standardized tests and roaches,” and it seems even more relevant today.
Here is the full statement on the Atlanta cheating investigation that was released Tuesday by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal:
“Nothing is more important to the future of our state than ensuring that today’s students receive a first-class education and integrity in testing is a necessary piece of the equation,” said Deal. “When test results are falsified and students who have not mastered the necessary material are promoted, our students are harmed, parents lose sight of their child’s true progress, and taxpayers are cheated. The report’s findings are troubling, but I am encouraged that this investigation will bring closure to the problems that existed in APS and restore the focus on students and the classroom. As we begin to turn the page on this dark chapter in Atlanta Public Schools, I am confident brighter days lie ahead.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/probe-widespread-cheating-on-tests-detailed-in-atlanta/2011/07/05/gHQAURaczH_blog.html
by Valerie Strauss
Widespread cheating on 2009 standardized tests in Atlanta Public Schools — despite “significant and clear” warnings — harmed thousands of students and resulted primarily from “pressure to meet targets” in a data-driven school system, according to results of an investigation released Tuesday.
Of the 56 schools that were examined, cheating was discovered in 44 of them — that’s more than 78 percent — and 178 teachers and principals were found to have cheated on standardized tests, according to a statement released by Gov. Nathan Deal and first reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Eighty-two confessed, while half a dozen others pled the Fifth Amendment, which is an implied admission of wrongdoing under civil law.
And cheating was found years earlier than the 2009 administration of the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test, or CRCT, according to the statement (which you can read in full below.)
Investigators also reported that there was a climate of “fear, intimidation and retaliation” in the school system, which put pressure on teachers and principals to meet specific standardized test score targets. That pressure, the report said, was the biggest factor in the cheating scandal.
Because test scores were inflated, thousands of children were denied the opportunity to receive tutoring that may have helped them do better in school, the probe concluded.
Atlanta is the first district in the country to admit wholesale cheating on standardized tests, but it is not likely to be the only one where such cheating occurred.
Cheating scandals have erupted across the country, including in Washington D.C. public schools, where a USA Today investigation raised suspicion of widespread cheating and where city officials have launched a review.
The cheating revelations in Atlanta have been dribbling out for some time, and Beverly Hall, the Atlanta school superintendent who was named 2009 Superintendent of the Year by the American Association of School Administrators, announced late last year that she would step down this summer. She just left the job, her once stellar reputation tarnished by the issue.
Few who have paid attention in the education era of high-stakes testing will be surprised at this. And the stakes are only getting higher for teachers and principals, who are increasingly being evaluated and paid according to how well their students do on standardized tests, despite research showing that test-driven reform hasn’t made an impact in the last decade on student achievement. I wrote about the cheating issue last week in this post, titled “Cheating on standardized tests and roaches,” and it seems even more relevant today.
Here is the full statement on the Atlanta cheating investigation that was released Tuesday by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal:
“Nothing is more important to the future of our state than ensuring that today’s students receive a first-class education and integrity in testing is a necessary piece of the equation,” said Deal. “When test results are falsified and students who have not mastered the necessary material are promoted, our students are harmed, parents lose sight of their child’s true progress, and taxpayers are cheated. The report’s findings are troubling, but I am encouraged that this investigation will bring closure to the problems that existed in APS and restore the focus on students and the classroom. As we begin to turn the page on this dark chapter in Atlanta Public Schools, I am confident brighter days lie ahead.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/probe-widespread-cheating-on-tests-detailed-in-atlanta/2011/07/05/gHQAURaczH_blog.html
State says good luck to 1300
from the St. Petersburg Times
by Steve Bousquet, Stephanie Wang, Jamal Thalji and Katie Sanders
Millions of Floridians head back to work today after a three-day Fourth of July weekend.
But Toni Gugliotta won't be among them.
She'll be applying for $275 a week in unemployment benefits instead.
The Pinellas County woman is among 1,300 state employees put out of work by the new budget approved by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott on May 26.
Scott kept his promise to reduce the size of the state government bureaucracy. But he did so at the expense of real people with mortgages, health care bills, college tuition payments and credit card payments.
Many of them earned less than $30,000 a year after years of state employment.
To them, the Scott mantra "Let's get to work" rings hollow. They now join the hordes of Floridians looking for work in a state with an unemployment rate that, while declining, remains in double digits at 10.6 percent.
The state agencies that took the biggest hits are the Department of Juvenile Justice and the Department of Children and Families, which together account for most of the layoffs.
"It's like 12 years going down the drain," Gugliotta said.
• • •
Gugliotta, 50, of Dunedin, earned nearly $29,000 a year as one of 18 full-time community service officers under the Florida Highway Patrol. CSOs, as they were known, directed traffic and handled fender-bender accidents, freeing up Florida Highway Patrol troopers for more serious calls.
Most CSOs were in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, where the program was created.
The program was a perennial target of budget cuts but always managed to survive — until this year. After 14 years, it's gone.
"I was proud to wear the uniform," Gugliotta said. "I did not walk out of my house with a stain or a crease."
For the first time in 15 years, she'll be without a paycheck this week. She's single and has no other income and plans to file for unemployment benefits, but worries knowing the $275 a week won't cover her $560 monthly health insurance premiums and other bills.
"I have a mortgage. I have bills. I have to pay for my knee surgery," Gugliotta said.
She also worries about motorists who she says will now have to wait longer for help.
"Wait until hurricane season. Wait until schools open," she said. "The snowbirds are going to come down soon. Here, when they need us the most, they're eliminating the program."
Firing the CSOs saves $900,000. That's a pittance, Gugliotta says, compared with the waste that went into the $48 million courthouse in Tallahassee known as the Taj Mahal.
"Why can't they sell two pictures from the Taj Mahal wall and fund us for another year?" Gugliotta asked.
• • •
Before the state juvenile detention center in East Hillsborough closed for good on June 30, its employees lingered at the place they used to call "work."
Even those on leave before starting new jobs came by to help pack up and reminisce. They laughed at their decision to keep the lights off during the day, and said they were trying to save the state money.
For three years, East Hillsborough was on the legislative chopping block. Its luck finally ran out in 2011.
Night supervisor Mike Gentry, 47, of Seffner, walked away from the offer of another state job that would have cut his pay and wiped out 200 hours of vacation time.
After more than five years on the job, Gentry was paid $29,743 a year.
He's applying for work elsewhere and considering possible jobs in the sheriff's offices in Pasco, Hillsborough and Polk counties.
He likes the challenge of steering troubled kids away from a life of misery. He's the kind of guy who notices when teens start to lose themselves in their thoughts as they rock back and forth in their seats, elbows cradled.
Gentry figured the center would have closed eventually, no matter who was governor. But he wished Scott showed a little more compassion for the plight of jettisoned state workers.
"He doesn't show too much emotion or empathy to people being laid off," Gentry said.
• • •
Columbus Wilson bought a house in Tallahassee four years ago. Now he worries he won't be able to make the mortgage payments.
After 19 years, Wilson finds himself unemployed, fired from his job as a data clerk at the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
His job, Fiscal Assistant II, paid $24,670 a year — after 19 years.
A 58-year-old disabled Army veteran, Wilson wonders why that wasn't considered.
"What upsets me is, I'm a veteran," Wilson said. "I thought I was supposed to have a veteran's preference."
He has gone on a couple of job interviews, but so far, nothing.
"Unemployment," Wilson said. "I was hoping I would get a job so I won't have to do that. I don't want to go on unemployment. It's not going to be enough. No way."
Wilson glances around his office at the Kirkman Building in Tallahassee and realizes he has been there longer than anybody else. So much for seniority.
But his last job evaluation was a 3 on a scale of 1 to 5. The state decided he was expendable.
"The department assessed each employee's knowledge, skill set and their abilities in deciding who would be best qualified to remain," said agency spokeswoman Ann Howard.
• • •
Ida Shuler thought she and her fellow clerks in the Department of Corrections would be spared as they moved to new downtown Tallahassee offices in early June.
After all, her boss gave her a shaded parking space and her own cubicle.
"I just knew we missed the radar," Shuler said.
It wouldn't last. Shuler, a 23-year-old senior at Florida A&M, and most of her fellow student-workers lost their part-time jobs.
They earned money for tuition, books, rent and not much else. Their entry-level, $8.50-an-hour jobs were easy targets for prison officials trying to trim costs.
Shuler's job was prepping files of released inmates for entry into a state database. Now she'll look for office and day care work while taking summer classes for her degree in elementary education.
"I've done retail and fast food and I really don't want to go back there," Shuler said.
She plans to graduate in the spring and may pursue graduate school at the University of South Florida so she can become a principal.
As she watched other laid off workers cry at their desks, Shuler realized she's better off than some of them.
"Some have families they are taking care of off what we were making," she said. "This is their life."
Steve Bousquet can be reached at bousquet@sptimes.com or (850) 224-7263.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/workinglife/state-layoffs-of-1300-employees-hitting-home/1178821
by Steve Bousquet, Stephanie Wang, Jamal Thalji and Katie Sanders
Millions of Floridians head back to work today after a three-day Fourth of July weekend.
But Toni Gugliotta won't be among them.
She'll be applying for $275 a week in unemployment benefits instead.
The Pinellas County woman is among 1,300 state employees put out of work by the new budget approved by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott on May 26.
Scott kept his promise to reduce the size of the state government bureaucracy. But he did so at the expense of real people with mortgages, health care bills, college tuition payments and credit card payments.
Many of them earned less than $30,000 a year after years of state employment.
To them, the Scott mantra "Let's get to work" rings hollow. They now join the hordes of Floridians looking for work in a state with an unemployment rate that, while declining, remains in double digits at 10.6 percent.
The state agencies that took the biggest hits are the Department of Juvenile Justice and the Department of Children and Families, which together account for most of the layoffs.
"It's like 12 years going down the drain," Gugliotta said.
• • •
Gugliotta, 50, of Dunedin, earned nearly $29,000 a year as one of 18 full-time community service officers under the Florida Highway Patrol. CSOs, as they were known, directed traffic and handled fender-bender accidents, freeing up Florida Highway Patrol troopers for more serious calls.
Most CSOs were in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, where the program was created.
The program was a perennial target of budget cuts but always managed to survive — until this year. After 14 years, it's gone.
"I was proud to wear the uniform," Gugliotta said. "I did not walk out of my house with a stain or a crease."
For the first time in 15 years, she'll be without a paycheck this week. She's single and has no other income and plans to file for unemployment benefits, but worries knowing the $275 a week won't cover her $560 monthly health insurance premiums and other bills.
"I have a mortgage. I have bills. I have to pay for my knee surgery," Gugliotta said.
She also worries about motorists who she says will now have to wait longer for help.
"Wait until hurricane season. Wait until schools open," she said. "The snowbirds are going to come down soon. Here, when they need us the most, they're eliminating the program."
Firing the CSOs saves $900,000. That's a pittance, Gugliotta says, compared with the waste that went into the $48 million courthouse in Tallahassee known as the Taj Mahal.
"Why can't they sell two pictures from the Taj Mahal wall and fund us for another year?" Gugliotta asked.
• • •
Before the state juvenile detention center in East Hillsborough closed for good on June 30, its employees lingered at the place they used to call "work."
Even those on leave before starting new jobs came by to help pack up and reminisce. They laughed at their decision to keep the lights off during the day, and said they were trying to save the state money.
For three years, East Hillsborough was on the legislative chopping block. Its luck finally ran out in 2011.
Night supervisor Mike Gentry, 47, of Seffner, walked away from the offer of another state job that would have cut his pay and wiped out 200 hours of vacation time.
After more than five years on the job, Gentry was paid $29,743 a year.
He's applying for work elsewhere and considering possible jobs in the sheriff's offices in Pasco, Hillsborough and Polk counties.
He likes the challenge of steering troubled kids away from a life of misery. He's the kind of guy who notices when teens start to lose themselves in their thoughts as they rock back and forth in their seats, elbows cradled.
Gentry figured the center would have closed eventually, no matter who was governor. But he wished Scott showed a little more compassion for the plight of jettisoned state workers.
"He doesn't show too much emotion or empathy to people being laid off," Gentry said.
• • •
Columbus Wilson bought a house in Tallahassee four years ago. Now he worries he won't be able to make the mortgage payments.
After 19 years, Wilson finds himself unemployed, fired from his job as a data clerk at the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
His job, Fiscal Assistant II, paid $24,670 a year — after 19 years.
A 58-year-old disabled Army veteran, Wilson wonders why that wasn't considered.
"What upsets me is, I'm a veteran," Wilson said. "I thought I was supposed to have a veteran's preference."
He has gone on a couple of job interviews, but so far, nothing.
"Unemployment," Wilson said. "I was hoping I would get a job so I won't have to do that. I don't want to go on unemployment. It's not going to be enough. No way."
Wilson glances around his office at the Kirkman Building in Tallahassee and realizes he has been there longer than anybody else. So much for seniority.
But his last job evaluation was a 3 on a scale of 1 to 5. The state decided he was expendable.
"The department assessed each employee's knowledge, skill set and their abilities in deciding who would be best qualified to remain," said agency spokeswoman Ann Howard.
• • •
Ida Shuler thought she and her fellow clerks in the Department of Corrections would be spared as they moved to new downtown Tallahassee offices in early June.
After all, her boss gave her a shaded parking space and her own cubicle.
"I just knew we missed the radar," Shuler said.
It wouldn't last. Shuler, a 23-year-old senior at Florida A&M, and most of her fellow student-workers lost their part-time jobs.
They earned money for tuition, books, rent and not much else. Their entry-level, $8.50-an-hour jobs were easy targets for prison officials trying to trim costs.
Shuler's job was prepping files of released inmates for entry into a state database. Now she'll look for office and day care work while taking summer classes for her degree in elementary education.
"I've done retail and fast food and I really don't want to go back there," Shuler said.
She plans to graduate in the spring and may pursue graduate school at the University of South Florida so she can become a principal.
As she watched other laid off workers cry at their desks, Shuler realized she's better off than some of them.
"Some have families they are taking care of off what we were making," she said. "This is their life."
Steve Bousquet can be reached at bousquet@sptimes.com or (850) 224-7263.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/workinglife/state-layoffs-of-1300-employees-hitting-home/1178821
Monday, July 4, 2011
Senate Bill 736, really bad or absolutely terrible?
From Scathing Purple Musings
by Bob Sykes
So says American Enterprise Institute education policy expert Rick Hess:
I’ll bet right now that SB 736 is going to be a train wreck. Mandatory terminations will force some good teachers out of good schools because of predictable statistical fluctuations, and parents will be livid. Questions about cheating will rear their ugly head. A thrown-together growth model and rapidly generated tests, pursued with scarce resources and under a new Commissioner, are going to be predictably half-baked and prone to problems. All of this will fuel Florida Education Association complaints that there’s no possible, workable, equitable way to make teacher pay and evaluation more performance based.
Hess, who doesn’t have a problem with differentiated pay scales or as he describes, “value-added metrics,” further criticizes the political spirit and legislative intent behind SB736.
SB 736 continues the disconcerting habit of imagining that policymakers in a state capital can “fix” schooling through complex mandates. Rather than create the tools and opportunities for districts and schools to do better, and then hold them accountable for doing so, well-intentioned legislators have voted to replace the old credential-and-paper micromanagement with mandates that rely way too heavily on test scores of uncertain reliability, validity, or import. By setting one-size-fits-all prescriptions that apply to every teacher in every school in the state, SB 736 manages to emulate best practices in the pay of encyclopedia and aluminum siding salesmen circa 1951.
Hess is talking about door-to-door salesman at that. The greatest Fuller Brush salesman in the world isn’t going into a neighborhood where nobody’s going to come to the door when he knocks. Neither will he go into any poor neighborhoods. The option not to serve poor children doesn’t exist for Florida’s educators. SB 736 will make that even more difficult than it is now.
http://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/sb736-is-going-to-be-a-train-wreck/#comment-418
by Bob Sykes
So says American Enterprise Institute education policy expert Rick Hess:
I’ll bet right now that SB 736 is going to be a train wreck. Mandatory terminations will force some good teachers out of good schools because of predictable statistical fluctuations, and parents will be livid. Questions about cheating will rear their ugly head. A thrown-together growth model and rapidly generated tests, pursued with scarce resources and under a new Commissioner, are going to be predictably half-baked and prone to problems. All of this will fuel Florida Education Association complaints that there’s no possible, workable, equitable way to make teacher pay and evaluation more performance based.
Hess, who doesn’t have a problem with differentiated pay scales or as he describes, “value-added metrics,” further criticizes the political spirit and legislative intent behind SB736.
SB 736 continues the disconcerting habit of imagining that policymakers in a state capital can “fix” schooling through complex mandates. Rather than create the tools and opportunities for districts and schools to do better, and then hold them accountable for doing so, well-intentioned legislators have voted to replace the old credential-and-paper micromanagement with mandates that rely way too heavily on test scores of uncertain reliability, validity, or import. By setting one-size-fits-all prescriptions that apply to every teacher in every school in the state, SB 736 manages to emulate best practices in the pay of encyclopedia and aluminum siding salesmen circa 1951.
Hess is talking about door-to-door salesman at that. The greatest Fuller Brush salesman in the world isn’t going into a neighborhood where nobody’s going to come to the door when he knocks. Neither will he go into any poor neighborhoods. The option not to serve poor children doesn’t exist for Florida’s educators. SB 736 will make that even more difficult than it is now.
http://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/sb736-is-going-to-be-a-train-wreck/#comment-418
Just who is Florida's new education chief
From the Palm Beach Post's editorial board
Way down on Gerard Robinson's résumé is this entry: Marcus Garvey School, Los Angeles. Fifth-grade teacher. 1991-92. Taught English, geography, reading, writing and other subjects. Organized field trips for students and parents. Participated in school fundraisers.
That long-ago, short-term stint is the sole extent of Mr. Robinson's experience as a K-12 public schoolteacher. He's spent a lot of time in academia, including a 1995 master's degree in education from Harvard. And Mr. Robinson has spent a lot of time as a policy wonk advocating vouchers and charter schools.
Last year, he parlayed that "choice" advocacy into an appointment as Virginia's secretary of education. And after slightly more than a year in that job, flying the choice banner was sufficient to make him the Florida Board of Education's unanim ous pick to replace Eric Smith as Florida's commissioner of education.
Of course, Florida doesn't actually need a choice cheerleader in the top job. The state is a self-proclaimed leader in charter schools, voucher programs and online education. What Florida needs is a leader to advocate for students who will continue to attend regular public schools - and that's the majority of them.
In fact, Florida's expansion of choice programs has come so quickly that students going that route could benefit more from an education commissioner with moderate skepticism that those voucher schools and start-up charters are providing an adequate education. Lax oversight has been a problem all the way back to then-Gov. Jeb Bush.
The biggest job for Florida's new education chief will be administering a teacher evaluation system that doesn't exist yet that relies on dozens of end-of-course tests that don't exist yet. That's relatively easy to do if the real intent is to punish public schoolteachers - a motivation that gains credence from the speed with which the Legislature and Gov. Scott acted and their failure to consult teachers.
Creating a credible evaluation system is a much harder job if the intent is to improve teaching. And even if that's Mr. Robinson's genuine goal, his lack of recent, in-depth classroom experience could be a hindrance. He also might find it necessary to tell the governor and lawmakers that instead of cutting the education budget, as they did this year, they need to provide serious pay raises for good teachers.
We know Mr. Robinson is good at telling his bosses what they want to hear. That's why he got the job. He'll be due for merit pay if he has the guts to tell them what they need to hear.
- Jac Wilder VerSteeg,
for The Palm Beach Post Editorial Board
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/editorials/evaluating-the-new-chief-1576037.html
Way down on Gerard Robinson's résumé is this entry: Marcus Garvey School, Los Angeles. Fifth-grade teacher. 1991-92. Taught English, geography, reading, writing and other subjects. Organized field trips for students and parents. Participated in school fundraisers.
That long-ago, short-term stint is the sole extent of Mr. Robinson's experience as a K-12 public schoolteacher. He's spent a lot of time in academia, including a 1995 master's degree in education from Harvard. And Mr. Robinson has spent a lot of time as a policy wonk advocating vouchers and charter schools.
Last year, he parlayed that "choice" advocacy into an appointment as Virginia's secretary of education. And after slightly more than a year in that job, flying the choice banner was sufficient to make him the Florida Board of Education's unanim ous pick to replace Eric Smith as Florida's commissioner of education.
Of course, Florida doesn't actually need a choice cheerleader in the top job. The state is a self-proclaimed leader in charter schools, voucher programs and online education. What Florida needs is a leader to advocate for students who will continue to attend regular public schools - and that's the majority of them.
In fact, Florida's expansion of choice programs has come so quickly that students going that route could benefit more from an education commissioner with moderate skepticism that those voucher schools and start-up charters are providing an adequate education. Lax oversight has been a problem all the way back to then-Gov. Jeb Bush.
The biggest job for Florida's new education chief will be administering a teacher evaluation system that doesn't exist yet that relies on dozens of end-of-course tests that don't exist yet. That's relatively easy to do if the real intent is to punish public schoolteachers - a motivation that gains credence from the speed with which the Legislature and Gov. Scott acted and their failure to consult teachers.
Creating a credible evaluation system is a much harder job if the intent is to improve teaching. And even if that's Mr. Robinson's genuine goal, his lack of recent, in-depth classroom experience could be a hindrance. He also might find it necessary to tell the governor and lawmakers that instead of cutting the education budget, as they did this year, they need to provide serious pay raises for good teachers.
We know Mr. Robinson is good at telling his bosses what they want to hear. That's why he got the job. He'll be due for merit pay if he has the guts to tell them what they need to hear.
- Jac Wilder VerSteeg,
for The Palm Beach Post Editorial Board
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/editorials/evaluating-the-new-chief-1576037.html
13 things the NEA doesn't like about Arne Duncan
From Parents Across America
Posted by Leonie Haimson
The NEA Representative Assembly directs the NEA President to communicate aggressively, forcefully, and immediately to President Barack Obama and US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan that NEA is appalled with Secretary Duncan’s practice of:
1.Weighing in on local hiring decisions of school and school district personnel.
2.Supporting local decisions to fire all school staff indiscriminately, such as his comments regarding the planned firings in Central Falls, RI.
3.Supporting inappropriate use of high-stakes standardized test scores for both student achievement and teacher evaluation, all while acknowledging that the currently available tests are not good.
4.Failing to recognize the shortcomings of offering to support struggling schools or states, but only in exchange for unsustainable state ‘reform’ policy.
5.Focusing too heavily on competitive grants that by design leave most students behind—particularly those in poor neighborhoods, rural areas, and struggling schools—instead of foundational formula funding designed to help all the students who need the most support.
6.Not adequately addressing the unrealistic Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) requirements that brand thriving or improving schools as failures.
7.Forcing local school districts to choose from a pre-determined menu of school improvement models that bear little resemblance to the actual needs of the school that is struggling.
8.Focusing so heavily on charter schools that viable and proven innovative school models (such as magnet schools) have been overlooked, and simultaneously failing to highlight with the same enthusiasm the innovation in our non-charter public schools.
9.Failing to recognize both the danger inherent in overreliance on a single measurement and the need for multiple indicators when addressing and analyzing student achievement and educators’ evaluations.
10.Failing to recognize the need for systemic change that helps ALL students and relies on shared responsibility by all stakeholders, rather than competitive grant programs that spur bad, inappropriate, and short-sighted state policy.
11.Failing to recognize the complexities of school districts that do not have the resources to compete for funding, particularly in rural America, and failing to provide targeted and effective support for those schools and school districts.
12.Disrespecting and failing to honor the professionalism of educators across this country, including but not limited to holding public education roundtables and meetings without inviting state and local representatives of the teachers, education support professionals, and faculty and staff; promoting programs that lower the standards for entry into the profession; focusing so singularly on teachers in the schools that the other critical staff members and higher education faculty and staff have been overlooked in the plans for improving student learning throughout their educational careers.
13.Perpetuating the myth that there are proven, top-down prescribed ‘silver bullet’ solutions and models that actually will address the real problems that face public education today, rather than recognizing that what schools need is a visionary Secretary of Education that sets broad goals and tasks states, local schools districts, schools, educators, and communities with meeting those goals.
Further, the NEA Representative Assembly directs the NEA Executive Committee to develop and implement an aggressive action plan in collaboration with state and local leaders that will address the issues above.
Starting November 2011, the NEA President will provide regular updates to the delegates on the progress of this plan throughout the year.
The Secretary is accessible to NEA, is a strong advocate for poor children and additional funding for public schools, and has been outspoken in support of collective bargaining rights, but too many NEA members have been alienated by his actions.
http://parentsacrossamerica.org/2011/07/13-things-the-nea-hates-about-arne-duncan/
Posted by Leonie Haimson
The NEA Representative Assembly directs the NEA President to communicate aggressively, forcefully, and immediately to President Barack Obama and US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan that NEA is appalled with Secretary Duncan’s practice of:
1.Weighing in on local hiring decisions of school and school district personnel.
2.Supporting local decisions to fire all school staff indiscriminately, such as his comments regarding the planned firings in Central Falls, RI.
3.Supporting inappropriate use of high-stakes standardized test scores for both student achievement and teacher evaluation, all while acknowledging that the currently available tests are not good.
4.Failing to recognize the shortcomings of offering to support struggling schools or states, but only in exchange for unsustainable state ‘reform’ policy.
5.Focusing too heavily on competitive grants that by design leave most students behind—particularly those in poor neighborhoods, rural areas, and struggling schools—instead of foundational formula funding designed to help all the students who need the most support.
6.Not adequately addressing the unrealistic Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) requirements that brand thriving or improving schools as failures.
7.Forcing local school districts to choose from a pre-determined menu of school improvement models that bear little resemblance to the actual needs of the school that is struggling.
8.Focusing so heavily on charter schools that viable and proven innovative school models (such as magnet schools) have been overlooked, and simultaneously failing to highlight with the same enthusiasm the innovation in our non-charter public schools.
9.Failing to recognize both the danger inherent in overreliance on a single measurement and the need for multiple indicators when addressing and analyzing student achievement and educators’ evaluations.
10.Failing to recognize the need for systemic change that helps ALL students and relies on shared responsibility by all stakeholders, rather than competitive grant programs that spur bad, inappropriate, and short-sighted state policy.
11.Failing to recognize the complexities of school districts that do not have the resources to compete for funding, particularly in rural America, and failing to provide targeted and effective support for those schools and school districts.
12.Disrespecting and failing to honor the professionalism of educators across this country, including but not limited to holding public education roundtables and meetings without inviting state and local representatives of the teachers, education support professionals, and faculty and staff; promoting programs that lower the standards for entry into the profession; focusing so singularly on teachers in the schools that the other critical staff members and higher education faculty and staff have been overlooked in the plans for improving student learning throughout their educational careers.
13.Perpetuating the myth that there are proven, top-down prescribed ‘silver bullet’ solutions and models that actually will address the real problems that face public education today, rather than recognizing that what schools need is a visionary Secretary of Education that sets broad goals and tasks states, local schools districts, schools, educators, and communities with meeting those goals.
Further, the NEA Representative Assembly directs the NEA Executive Committee to develop and implement an aggressive action plan in collaboration with state and local leaders that will address the issues above.
Starting November 2011, the NEA President will provide regular updates to the delegates on the progress of this plan throughout the year.
The Secretary is accessible to NEA, is a strong advocate for poor children and additional funding for public schools, and has been outspoken in support of collective bargaining rights, but too many NEA members have been alienated by his actions.
http://parentsacrossamerica.org/2011/07/13-things-the-nea-hates-about-arne-duncan/
Is Michelle Rhee up to anti-teacher tricks?
From People's World
by Mike Greunberg
DETROIT - A supposed nonprofit, non-partisan group established by Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of the Washington, D.C., school system who became known for her anti-union schemes, has virtually written the slew of anti-teacher bills moving through the GOP-run Michigan legislature, an outside investigator reports.
In a case of “if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, then it is a duck,” so to speak, Laura Clawson, a senior writer at Daily Kos, uncovered the working document from Rhee’s group, Students First. Wilson posted her article and a link to the group’s document on her blog.
The revelation came just as the GOP-run Michigan legislature was moving the package of education bills towards an expected signature by GOP Gov. Rick Snyder, and just after the administrator of the majority-minority Detroit school system – now under state control – unveiled a reorganization plan which left the Detroit Federation of Teachers very wary, at best.
The scheme from Students First, led by abolition of collective bargaining and denial of tenure for a teacher’s first five years – and return to probation and potential firing, if she falls below snuff in any succeeding one year period – is part of the nationwide right-wing business war on workers.
That war includes abolition of collective bargaining for teachers in Tennessee and potentially Florida, and imposition of a taxpayer-paid voucher scheme covering 60 percent of Indiana’s students, thus yanking money from public schools.
In Michigan, Clawson wrote, “the crucial take-away is that, although Rhee claimed publicly that eliminating collective bargaining is not her end goal, and although Students First didn’t publicly support Michigan’s bill limiting collective bargaining for teachers, the document leaves no doubt that in fact the organization privately supported the bill.”
Clawson then quotes Rhee’s plan:
“Students First did not work directly with the House on the collective bargaining bill and we have not expressed public support for the bill. However, many of the things they included came from our policy agenda and pave the way for implementing a new evaluation process, mutual consent and performance-based RIFs,” or firings.
Rhee herself became nationally notorious after former D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty (D) appointed her schools chancellor and she posed for the cover of Time magazine in front of a blackboard with a scowl on her face and a broom in her hand. The story said her mission was to sweep the city schools clean and improve student performance.
Rhee used that attitude on the D.C. affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers – which had its own problems with a corrupt politically connected former union president – and repeatedly arbitrarily fired teachers without due process and in violation of the contract. Rhee also claimed the firings were needed due to budget shortfalls, but later “discovered” money for the budget, after the teachers were canned. She also tried to jam through a new contract that abolished tenure in return for huge raises.
Rhee’s actions, and her open advocacy of vouchers and charter schools got her and her boss, Fenty, in hot water. He lost re-election after one 4-year term and she was forced to resign. Rhee now runs the “Students First” group and is an education advisor to right-wing Gov. Rick Scott, R-Fla., a former hospital CEO.
The document from Rhee’s group specifically says that it worked on the package of four Michigan education bills. One abolishes “reasonable and just cause” as the only reason for firing teachers and replaces it with any reason that “is not arbitrary and capricious.” Another bill axes collective bargaining. A third makes tenure tough and lets school districts easily throw teachers back on probation.
The Students First document also listed a lobbying agenda for Michigan on May 19 and extended it to Ohio that evening, where Rhee met GOP Gov. John Kasich, after Kasich viewed the film Waiting for Superman, which glorified Rhee in D.C.
Before the meeting, former bond trader Kasich also viewed a “pre-taped special message” from Margaret Spelling, Education Secretary under anti-worker GOP President George W. Bush, about Students First, the document says.
Meanwhile, in Detroit, the presidents of the unions that represent Detroit’s teachers and school system workers said they are willing to work with administrators on the new plan rolled out to improve the city’s schools – but will not be pushed aside.
“Any cohesive plan that helps students of Detroit succeed deserves the benefit of the doubt, but the devil will be in the details,” said Detroit Federation of Teachers President Keith Johnson, Detroit Association of Education Office Employees President Ruby Newbold and Paraprofessionals Federation President Donna Jackson.
“It will require the input of educators, parents and other community members to succeed. Collaboration is the only way to develop and implement a plan [to] improve student performance,” they said. “The first real test will be whether there is a genuine effort to include community members and educators as real partners to turn around the Detroit public schools. Unfortunately, to date, community groups and education unions have been excluded from the discussions. We are not prepared to be treated as bystanders; land community members and educators, the safety net for students when others fail them, should not accept this treatment either.”
http://peoplesworld.org/probe-shows-union-busting-michelle-rhee-wrote-michigan-anti-teacher-law
by Mike Greunberg
DETROIT - A supposed nonprofit, non-partisan group established by Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of the Washington, D.C., school system who became known for her anti-union schemes, has virtually written the slew of anti-teacher bills moving through the GOP-run Michigan legislature, an outside investigator reports.
In a case of “if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, then it is a duck,” so to speak, Laura Clawson, a senior writer at Daily Kos, uncovered the working document from Rhee’s group, Students First. Wilson posted her article and a link to the group’s document on her blog.
The revelation came just as the GOP-run Michigan legislature was moving the package of education bills towards an expected signature by GOP Gov. Rick Snyder, and just after the administrator of the majority-minority Detroit school system – now under state control – unveiled a reorganization plan which left the Detroit Federation of Teachers very wary, at best.
The scheme from Students First, led by abolition of collective bargaining and denial of tenure for a teacher’s first five years – and return to probation and potential firing, if she falls below snuff in any succeeding one year period – is part of the nationwide right-wing business war on workers.
That war includes abolition of collective bargaining for teachers in Tennessee and potentially Florida, and imposition of a taxpayer-paid voucher scheme covering 60 percent of Indiana’s students, thus yanking money from public schools.
In Michigan, Clawson wrote, “the crucial take-away is that, although Rhee claimed publicly that eliminating collective bargaining is not her end goal, and although Students First didn’t publicly support Michigan’s bill limiting collective bargaining for teachers, the document leaves no doubt that in fact the organization privately supported the bill.”
Clawson then quotes Rhee’s plan:
“Students First did not work directly with the House on the collective bargaining bill and we have not expressed public support for the bill. However, many of the things they included came from our policy agenda and pave the way for implementing a new evaluation process, mutual consent and performance-based RIFs,” or firings.
Rhee herself became nationally notorious after former D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty (D) appointed her schools chancellor and she posed for the cover of Time magazine in front of a blackboard with a scowl on her face and a broom in her hand. The story said her mission was to sweep the city schools clean and improve student performance.
Rhee used that attitude on the D.C. affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers – which had its own problems with a corrupt politically connected former union president – and repeatedly arbitrarily fired teachers without due process and in violation of the contract. Rhee also claimed the firings were needed due to budget shortfalls, but later “discovered” money for the budget, after the teachers were canned. She also tried to jam through a new contract that abolished tenure in return for huge raises.
Rhee’s actions, and her open advocacy of vouchers and charter schools got her and her boss, Fenty, in hot water. He lost re-election after one 4-year term and she was forced to resign. Rhee now runs the “Students First” group and is an education advisor to right-wing Gov. Rick Scott, R-Fla., a former hospital CEO.
The document from Rhee’s group specifically says that it worked on the package of four Michigan education bills. One abolishes “reasonable and just cause” as the only reason for firing teachers and replaces it with any reason that “is not arbitrary and capricious.” Another bill axes collective bargaining. A third makes tenure tough and lets school districts easily throw teachers back on probation.
The Students First document also listed a lobbying agenda for Michigan on May 19 and extended it to Ohio that evening, where Rhee met GOP Gov. John Kasich, after Kasich viewed the film Waiting for Superman, which glorified Rhee in D.C.
Before the meeting, former bond trader Kasich also viewed a “pre-taped special message” from Margaret Spelling, Education Secretary under anti-worker GOP President George W. Bush, about Students First, the document says.
Meanwhile, in Detroit, the presidents of the unions that represent Detroit’s teachers and school system workers said they are willing to work with administrators on the new plan rolled out to improve the city’s schools – but will not be pushed aside.
“Any cohesive plan that helps students of Detroit succeed deserves the benefit of the doubt, but the devil will be in the details,” said Detroit Federation of Teachers President Keith Johnson, Detroit Association of Education Office Employees President Ruby Newbold and Paraprofessionals Federation President Donna Jackson.
“It will require the input of educators, parents and other community members to succeed. Collaboration is the only way to develop and implement a plan [to] improve student performance,” they said. “The first real test will be whether there is a genuine effort to include community members and educators as real partners to turn around the Detroit public schools. Unfortunately, to date, community groups and education unions have been excluded from the discussions. We are not prepared to be treated as bystanders; land community members and educators, the safety net for students when others fail them, should not accept this treatment either.”
http://peoplesworld.org/probe-shows-union-busting-michelle-rhee-wrote-michigan-anti-teacher-law
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