PEJAM Education Forum with Glen Ford - Oct. 27, 2012

Glen Ford, the Executive Editor of The Black Agenda Report (www.blackagendareport.com), will speak this coming Saturday at the University of Minnesota in the Carlson Building on the West Bank Campus.  Ford will discuss the on-going attack on public education, carried out by politicians of both parties, championed by front groups with misleading names like “Students First,” and funded by billionaire philanthropists, hedge-fund managers, and corporate foundations. 

Ford has carefully detailed the history of the corporate reformers as they have carried out their neo-liberal agenda aimed at privatizing our system of public education.  This effort to put corporations in control of the almost $600 billion spent on public education in the United States has led the so-called reformers to justify their cause by cloaking it in the language of the Civil Rights Movement.  The privatization reforms are being carried out with the argument that “education is the Civil Rights issue of our time.”  By extension, the billionaires, hedge-fund managers, bankers, and CEOs are claiming the title of Civil Rights leaders!

This is not just a Republican led effort, as Glen Ford has pointed out,  “on education, Obama’s first term is Bush’s Third.”  Ford explains, “Obama has advanced the corporatization of the public schools beyond Bush’s wildest dreams, methodically constructing a national, parallel system of charter schools that, in practice, undermine and subvert the traditional public schools. In some places, they have replaced, or soon will replace, the public schools. The hedge funds and billionaires are ecstatic!”

Come to the PEJAM forum this Saturday to hear more from Glen Ford.  This forum will include a member of the Chicago Teachers’ Union to explain how the education reforms have played out in Chicago, and we will wrap up with a Q and A for both guests.

WHAT:  PEJAM Eduation Forum Featuring Glen Ford

WHEN:  Saturday, Oct. 27, 2012,  from 1 pm to 3 pm.

WHERE: Carlson Building on the West Bank Campus of the U of MN.

Lessons from Finland and Chicago: Fighting Back Against the Corporate Education Reformers.

Today I went to hear a talk by Diane Ravitch at the Education Minnesota Professional Conference, and then heard Pasi Sahlberg at the Minnesota History Center.  The two of them made a clear case against the education "reforms" that dominate the discussions on public education, and for reforms that actually lead to educational equity.  I will present the arguments of each in the next couple of posts, but I'd like to share a couple of key details now.

Two important points from Diane Ravitch: Value Added Assessments (VAM) should never be used to evaluate teachers, and "reformers" simply ignore the actual data/research that overwhelmingly shows there ideas do not improve education.

From Pasi Sahlberg, I noted a couple of key quotes:
"Many Finnish teachers believe the enemy of creativity is standardization."
"Too many people are trying to do the wrong thing righter."

The second quote from Pasi, rang particularly true in Minneapolis in a very ironic way.  The main sponsor for Pasi's talk was The Minnesota Guild of Public Charter Schools, an organization created by my own union (the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, local 59), with a grant from the Innovation Fund of the AFT (the Innovation Fund was created in part with a grant from the Gates Foundation).  The Guild is trying to start "teacher-led" charter schools to out-complete other charter schools.  This effort feeds the competitive, free-market approach to education that, as Pasi pointed out, Finland has rejected.

We will not create a truly equitable, democratic, and socially-just system of public education by playing the games of the neo-liberal, corporate reformers, or trying to "out-compete" them, as too many of our own teacher union leaders are doing.  We need to listen to the information presented by Pasi Salhberg, Diane Ravitch, and we need to follow the model laid out out by the Chicago Teachers' Union.

Tomorrow, I will hear from, and talk to, Karen Lewis, the President of the Chicago Teachers' Union.  She is one of the few union leaders who have taken a courageous stance against the corporate reformers.  Also, next Saturday, October 27th, Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report will be in Minneapolis to give a full history and analysis of the damage done in the past few decades by the education 'reformers."

Posted by: Rob Panning-Miller

Which Side Are You On, Mr. President? And our Union Presidents?

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In February of 2010, ninety-three teachers and school personnel were fired at Rhode Island’s Central Falls High School, after they refused to agree to work longer hours without fair compensation.  The teachers were also blamed for low student test scores.  President Obama sided with the school board and expressed support for their decision within a week.  Secretary of Education Duncan said the action by the school board showed “courage.”

This past Monday, Chicago teachers and support staff went on strike.  They are taking a stand against the neoliberal reforms being pushed nationwide (and globally), and fighting to create schools that actually meet the needs of ALL students.  Among other things, they are calling for smaller classes, air-conditioned school buildings, and libraries in all schools. 

The demands being made by Obama’s former Chief of Staff, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, are exactly what is called for in Obama/Duncan’s Race to the Top agenda.  According to White House Spokesperson, Jay Carney, President Obama “has not expressed any opinion or made any assessment about [the Chicago teachers’ strike].”

President Obama has taken one lesson from the Rhode Island confrontation, stay quiet and try not to offend anyone.  This is because Obama wants the support of teachers and labor, but also wants the financial backing of Wall Street. 

As Paulo Freire pointed out long ago, “washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.”  Howard Zinn said effectively the same thing, as shown in the title of his memoir, You Can’t be Neutral on a Moving Train. 

Obama can remain silent, but his silence speaks volumes.  Through his Race To The Top agenda, Obama has promoted the destruction of teachers’ unions, and the privatization of our public schools.  He has sided with the powerful Wall Street hedge-fund managers, billionaire philanthropists, and all the neo-liberal advocates.

The even more troubling question for teachers such as myself, is why does our union leadership fall over itself in an effort to defend his actions?  The AFT President, Randi Weingarten, tries to endorse Obama without ever mentioning his actual educationpolicies, and NEA President, Dennis Van Roekel, pushed an endorsement of Obama over a year ahead of the election.

Thanks to the Chicago Teachers’ Union, and the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (C.O.R.E.) for showing all of us what real union leadership looks like.  We all need to demand our union leaders stop making concessions and start taking a stand to defend true universal, democratic, and socially just public schools.

Posted by: Rob Panning-Miller

Wear Red in Solidarity with Chicago Teachers on September 10th!

The Chicago Teachers Union has been front and center in the struggle to defend a strong and socially just system of public education for all students. On September 10, 2012, thousands of Chicago teachers and their supports are planning to walk the picket lines. This strike is not just a stand against the mayor and his appointed administration, this is a struggle against the destructive corporate reforms being forced upon schools, teachers, and students across the country.

Please join in this effort with a show of solidarity for the Chicago teachers.We are asking teachers and other supporters across the nation to wear red onMonday, September 10, 2012.

Encourage your colleagues and friends to do the same. Teachers, organize a union meeting in your school to discuss how you and your colleagues can work locally to both support the Chicago teachers and defend public education in your city. Parents, students, and community members please show your support for teachers and our public schools.  This is not just a struggle for Chicago teachers, this is a defense of all public schools.

"Their fight is our fight."

Posted by Rob Panning-Miller

TFA: The Not-So-Subtle Trojan Horse of Corporate “Reformers,” Part II

It Is Not a Conspiracy When They Admit It.

The last post about TFA alumni in administrative positions and Corps members in the classrooms here in Minneapolis Public Schools appears to have caught the attention of local TFA supporters.  The general reaction is shock.  They are amazed that anyone could question the intentions of the ambitious young recruits to TFA.

Repubulican Representative Pat Garofalo, chair of the House Education and Finance Committee tweeted:

“StatusQuo/Teacher's union in pathetic effort 2 demonize college grads who focus on SocialJustice + EducationalEquality

A former Minneapolis School Board member, who is now involved in charter school organizations and a number of anti-teacher union groups, began a long series of posts on a Facebook page with this charge:

“When bright, gifted, young people committed to social justice and educational equity dedicate themselves to pursuing better schools - who could assail that?

Teacher unionists of course...”

A current TFA teacher responded to the post with, “I just think that PEJAM post is hysterically hysterical,” ”Like, I laughed out loud.,” an ultimately referred to the comments as “conspiracy theories.”

Even a long-time teacher colleague who agreed with the questions I raised felt the need to add, “these TFA alumni will not/do not have the authority that [Rob] seems to suggest they have…”

Many of the people who were upset with the last post seem to confuse my criticism of the organization and some of its most active members with many of well intended recent college graduates who believe they are making the world better.  Some of those who attacked the post as outrageous believe the free market does nothing but good, and they are part of the effort to privatize our public schools.

Calling out TFA as the vanguard of the corporate reformers is not exactly a radical statement.  It doesn’t really expose much of a “conspiracy theory” either.  Daniel Sellers, the Executive Director of Teach For America – Twin Cities, openly admits the organizations long-term goal is “is to be the talent pipeline for education reform in Minnesota,” because “the ultimate solution resides beyond the individual classroom.”

As part of a Civic Caucus on July 11, 2011, Sellers and another TFA leader, Sarah Kemper, outlined the role of TFA in influencing public policy.

Teach for America can't solve the nation's education problem by pumping 10,000 new teachers into the system, the speakers said. The ultimate solution resides beyond the individual classroom, but will likely stem from the longer-term influence of the TFA alumni. The program boasts among its former corps members many education leaders including 400 principals, 15 superintendents (in Washington, DC, Newark, New Orleans, Tennessee, and elsewhere), and 12 elected officials and policy makers.

"In communities where we have seen the needle move," Sellers said, "TFA alums have had an impact." Their immediate goal in Minnesota is to provide students with a talented teacher, who is energetic, excited about getting kids to achieve big goals and not jaded by the "compliance culture" and the low expectations so often entrenched in the school system. In the long run however, TFA - Twin Cities' goal is to be the talent pipeline for education reform in Minnesota.  

What kind of reforms can we expect from TFA alumni?  We can look at the “reforms” of Michelle Rhee or the vast number of TFA alumni now running charters schools.

We can also look to the funders of Teach for America.  The top three are, not surprisingly, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Trust.  Also in among the top 20 financial backers are:

The Bank of America Charitable Foundation, Inc.

The Wal-Mart Foundation, Inc.

Eli & Edythe Broad Foundation

The J.P. Morgan Chase Foundation

GE Foundation

Ironically, this list of funders can be found on a site called the ERIN Project.  This "impartial" project is funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, which is also listed as a funder of Teach for America.  When you look at Laura and John Arnold Foundation website, it describes its goals for education which have “four major levers for change:” “Efficient Markets,” “Human Capital,” “Learning Systems,” and “Performance Management.”  Those are terms for corporations not education, and they seem to have missed the section on social justice.

These organizations are supporting TFA because they believe it will help them to promote their corporate reforms in education.  This means TFA is part of the effort to privatize our public schools and impose a competitive, free market system for our students, whether the recruits realize it or not.  And competition, by definition, always creates winners and losers.

At this point, it may seem we have moved far from those TFA Corp members and alumni working in Minneapolis Public Schools.  They do not operate in isolation, however.  No matter their motivation, they are part of an organization that aims to implement educational changes that will make our schools more segregated and less socially just.

To point out the damage wrought by TFA is not a defense of the status quo.  Our schools do have real problems with racial and social justice, but the free market will not fix that.  Why would the corporations, banks, and billionaire philanthropists that support TFA be suddenly interested in things like justice and human rights in education. Walmart, which suppresses workers' right to organize and bargain collectively, and promotes the creation of sweatshops around the globe, they suddenly care about poor inner city kids and kids of color?  Bank of America and J.P. Morgan, major contributors to the recent economic collapse due to fraudulent or at least questionable practices, they care deeply about all children?

If Teach For America is truly working to close the achievement gap and create socially/racially just schools.  They have some surprising financial supporters.  

Representative Garofalo, you are welcome to tweet this as well. 

Posted by: Rob Panning-Miller

TFA: The Not-So-Subtle Trojan Horse of Corporate "Reformers"

Teach for America, may have started as a stop-gap to supply teachers for school districts that could not find enough licensed teachers, but they quickly became nothing more than the vanguard of the corporate reformers.  TFA Corp members and alumni are actively promoting the corporate neoliberal "reforms" that are designed to privatize our system of public education while trying to lend them credibility by identifying themselves as “teachers.”

It was announced three years ago that Minneapolis was going to hire TFA teachers for hard-to-staff positions.  Despite many licensed teachers in Minnesota looking for a job, TFAers without a license were put into classrooms across the District.  A group of TFA Corp members in Minneapolis have joined the teachers’ union and have simultaneously worked to dismantle core union rights, mainly seniority and tenure.  These hard-earned rights empower teachers to speak up and do what is best for all students.

At one school in Minneapolis, a TFA Corp member became the union steward.  He also co-authored a commentary for the Minneapolis Star Tribune with other TFAers who spoke at legislative hearings to argue for the end of seniority rights.

What may surprise some people is that you don’t need to just look to the classrooms to find Teach for America.  Recent TFA alumni, most only a few years out of college, are being hired as district administrators, building leaders, and we could soon end up with a TFA alum as a Minneapolis School Board member.

Minneapolis is building a teacher evaluation system and attempting to implement what they call “Focused Instruction” across the District (other school districts in the country know it as “Managed Instruction").  It is essentially the local equivalent of the National Common Core State Standards.  It is, no doubt, laying the groundwork for implementing the Common Core and a new testing regime that will be used for the teacher evaluations (more on this in a later post).

Two people leading the implementation of these changes in Minneapolis Public Schools are recent TFA alumni.  The Executive Director of Teacher and Learning graduated from college in 2006 and worked as a TFA teacher for 3 years.  He then work for a couple years at McKinsey and Company (another global corporation that is looking to get its hands on some of the billions that go into public education) before being hired by MPS to implement Focused Instruction and the evaluations of experienced, licensed teachers.

While the information available on the web is sparse, it appears the Director of Instructional Leadership also spent 2 years in the classroom as a TFA corp member.  She then worked another 2 years for TFA, but it is unclear if she was actually working in a classroom.

They have a combined 5 to 7 years of teaching experience between them.   They work directly under our Chief Academic Officer who has 4 years of classroom experience (Not with TFA).  The average teacher in Minneapolis has been in the classroom at least as long as the three of these individuals combined.  TFA alumni will be overseeing the evaluations that will assess the quality of all Minneapolis teachers and imposing a one-size-fits-all curriculum with more standardized tests.

We need teachers who go into the profession with a commitment for the long-term.  Professional, licensed teachers, committed to teaching as a career, need to be respected, supported, and empowered, not micromanaged.  Teaching, working with children, is a career, not a stepping-stone to law school, a corporate job, school administration, or a political career.  Two years in the classroom with minimal training does not make someone an educational expert.  

Posted by: Robert Panning-Miller

Astroturf "Reformers" Focused on School Board Elections

Yesterday, the League of Women Voters in Minneapolis hosted a forum for school board candidates running in the upcoming election.  The candidate responses to very generic questions yielded no new information.  The questions in the first half were written by the League of Women Voters followed by questions from the audience.  However, audience questions were "screned" by the moderators.  There were at least nine Minneapolis Public School Teachers who each submitted a number of questions.  Needless to say, none of our questions made it through the screening.

The truly telling part of this event came from the list of sponsors, a who's who list of people wanting to dance on the grave the teachers' union and universal public education.  While not all of the sponsors fit this description, more than half did, most notably the recent arrivals to Minnesota such as Teach for America and MinnCAN.

Teacher members of PEJAM handed out flyers to counter the message of the education "deformers" and to expose their true agendas.  Here is one of our flyers:

Stop the Privatization of our Public Schools:

           

Minneapolis Public Schools are heading down the path to privatization. Standardized testing, under the guise of accountability, has been used to blame and punish schools and teachers.  The testing regime has been used to label schools as failures.   It is also being used as a justification for creation of a one size-fits-all curriculum. 

Minneapolis Public Schools has begun to implement what it calls “Focused Instruction”.  Like most “reforms,” this is an idea coming in from the outside.  In other districts around the country they call it “Managed Instruction.”  While teachers are told they can determine how they teach (a debatable point), they are told what they must teach.  It is also a practice that involves the implementation of more standardized tests!

We have seen school districts in Chicago, Detroit, and New Orleans dismantled and sold off to private charter management organizations, and business interests.  Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, infamously said Hurricane Katrina was “the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans.”  This was because it gave him and Wall Street, the chance to privatize the schools.  The same destruction of public schools is happening in Detroit and Philadelphia, and ironically, is being justified by the economic collapse of 2008, a disaster created by some of the same corporations and individuals looking to profit from our children’s education.

Some of the organizations sponsoring this forum are no more than astroturf groups and shills for the corporations, billionaires, hedge fund managers, and self-appointed reformers hoping to destroy true public education and benefit from its demise.  Their main target is the teachers union, because teachers are the last line of defense for ALL of our students.

MinnPost’s founder and editor, Joel Kramer, has one son who is the President of Teach for America, a daughter-in-law who works for an organization called Charter School Partners, and another son who runs a charter school in Minneapolis.

MinnCAN came into Minnesota two years ago.  Modeled after it’s parent organization ConnCAN.  It has a staff of three people and millions of dollars.  It is not working to build relationships with parents and the community.  It is focused on lobbying the state government to bring in free-market corporate reforms.  In other words, they are hoping to hasten the privatization of our schools.

Empowering Educators for Equity, is a group made up of Teach for America members and alumni.  They are promoting changes that would weaken the rights of teachers and the teachers’ union, and since most do not stay with the profession, they only help to destabilize our schools.

Minneapolis Public Schools cannot excuse themselves from their responsibility to educate ALL children.  We cannot privatize our schools and leave our students to the whims of unelected charter school boards, or the corporate “reformers.”  Parents, teachers, students, and the community, must work together to build true, democratic, and socially just public schools.  We must have schools that welcome and serve the needs of all students. 

·       For more information on how you can be part of a real education reform movement, go to the websites for the Public Education Justice Alliance of Minnesota (PEJAM): https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/101351126592234/

http://pejamn.blogspot.com/

* MinnPost is a local online newspaper that continually prints stories that perpetuate the myths of the neo-liberal corporate agenda, attacking public schools and teachers' unions.  Their article advertising this event really shows their role as a shill for the corporate "reform" agenda.  Find it Here.

Posted By: Rob Panning-Miller

Charter School Rejects Special Ed. Students

PEJAM was part of the effort in Minneapolis to save North High, but we were also part of the unsuccessful effort to save Cityview Elementary from being closed and turned into a charter.  Cityview did not have the same deep roots as North High and the parents, students, and teachers who did step forward were easily ignored.  Now look at what has happened to some of our most vulnerable students.

The online paper, Twin Cities Daily Planet, reports the charter school, Minnesota School of Science (MSS), that took over the Cityview site and was authorized by the Minneapolis School Board has now said it will not serve children with disabilities such as Down’s syndrome and autism.  The intense needs of special education students contributed to the “poor performance” of Cityview, which enable the Minneapolis School Board to justify its closing of this school. 

Now the unelected board of the MSS Charter School has voted to walk away from some of our neediest students because they get in the way of the charter school's goals on standardized tests.

Minneapolis School Board member, Carla Bates, acknowledges mistakes, but falls short of admitting that her, and the Board's, support of charter schools is part of the problem.  If it is simply a failure of the MSS charter school, the Minneapolis School Board can talk to Eric Mahmoud of Harvest Prep Academy (another charter).  The school district recently authorized him to open a District sponsored charter school next year and possibly five more, in total.  Rather than scattering the Special Education students across north and northeast Minneapolis, lets put them in Harvest Prep Academy, and have them participate in mainstream classes there.  Our School Board seems to believe that if anyone can succeed with our neediest students it is Mr. Mahmoud and his Harvest Prep Academy.

Of course, in reality, the Minneapolis School Board should immediately cancel its lease with the MSS Charter School and its authorization.  

This is just the latest evidence that charter schools do not serve all students.  We need to have true public schools that meet the needs of ALL of our students, and our elected school board members need to accept that responsibility.  Charter schools are not part of a universal, democratic, and socially just system of public education.

Rob Panning-Miller

Twin Cities Daily Planet story: http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2012/07/24/cityview-leaves-north-minneapolis-special-education-students-behind

Integration Works to Close the Gap.

This Thursday the Public Education Justice Alliance of Minnesota's Forum featuring Myron Orfield will examine the growing number of racially and socially segregated schools in Minnesota.  As the corporate education reformers call for more free-market solutions, including charter schools, to close the achievement gap, they continue to undo one of the real reforms proven to close the achievement gap - integrated schools.  David Kirp, a public policy professor from UC, Berkeley explained this in an opinion piece in today's New York Times.

Join us this Thursday at 7 pm to hear more about this from Myron Orfield and to discuss ways to bring back integrated schools and communities.

Public Education: A Look at Segregation, Housing and Our Collective Future

When: Thursday, May 24, 2012  at 7:00 p.m.

Where:  University of Minnesota Law School, Mondale Hall, Room 50

What: The presentation and discussion will focus on public education, housing, and segregation in the Minneapolis/St Paul met...ro area.

Orfield will present data from the past twenty years, looking at the trends and policies that have closed public schools and further segregated our schools and our city.

 

No need to reserve a spot, but you can let us know you'll be attending on our Facebook Event page:  https://www.facebook.com/events/#!/events/413030492049276/

 David Kirk's Opinion Piece can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/opinion/sunday/integration-worked-why-have-we-rejected-it.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

 

Weingarten still Supporting the Corporate Reformers

The College Board, which administers the SAT and Advance Placement (AP) courses and exams, has just announced David Coleman is their new president.  Coleman is identified as an architect of the Common Core State Standards.  This news was welcomed by the AFT President, Randi Wiengarten.  She described Coleman as “innovative and an excellent choice,” who “put the common core on the map and he's very respectful of the teacher voice."  He has pushed for "informational texts" rather than fiction.  He said “[A]s you grow up in this world you realize people really don’t give a shit about what you feel or what you think.”  Weingarten’s comments are very troubling.  I would hate to meet the teacher that feels Coleman is “respectful” of their voice.

Coleman worked for McKinsey and Company, which has become a major supplier of education “experts” even here in Minneapolis.  His appointment is troubling, but AFT President Wiengarten's comments are even more so.  Wiengarten's record, which includes inviting Bill Gates to the AFT Convention is marred by the collaboration with those who are interested in destroying public education.  

Learn more about David Coleman at Perdido Street School Blog: http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2012/03/david-coleman-and-common-core-consortia.html

An end to Testing Season

We are not just nearing the end of the school year, but the end of the testing season.  From March to June, schools are deluged by tests, after spending much of September through February prepping for the tests.  As politicians and pundits perpetuate the myth that confuses standardized testing with learning, students’ education suffers, and teachers are blamed.  Schools spend less and less time working on what would improve the educational experience of all of its students; instead spending more time and resources trying to survive wave after wave of new tests.

I teach at South High School in Minneapolis.  It is a school that highlights the ridiculous realities of our obsession with testing, although I’m sure most every other school could tell a similar story. 

According to the latest US News and World Report High School Ranking, South High ranked the 24^th best high school in the state of Minnesota, out of 786, and in the top 5% of high schools nationally.  At the same time, No Child Left Behind rules label South as a “Stage 4 AYP” school.  This requires the school to take “corrective action” and prepare for “restructuring.”  While neither the US News ranking or the NCLB labeling actually tell us about the real quality of education at a school, they are both based on the same testing data.  The disparate results exemplify the failed nature of standardized tests.

Despite the mixed messages, our District is requiring students in all schools to take a new series of standardized tests this year called the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP).  This is apparently being done to improve our scores on the state mandated MCA tests, and includes 9^th graders in the high schools.

The MAP test has two parts - math and reading, and they are taken once in the fall and again in the spring.  At South, ninth graders took the fall portion during their English classes, and are taking the spring portion now during their social studies classes.  This means students in my five World History classes need to spend two class periods taking the two parts of this test.  While two days of missed class time might not seem like too much, the set up requirements of the computerized test, along with the limited computer lab space results in the testing of my students being scattered over six days rather than just two.

The tests cost the district about $12 per student, which amounts to at least $400,000 annually, and this is only one of the many standardized tests given in Minneapolis Public Schools.  The District has also recently negotiated a contract with teachers that will add four additional student days next year.  They are paying millions of dollars for these four additional days.  The merit of these additional days is itself questionable, but why claim students need more days in school only to use up more of that time taking standardized tests?

Every few days a new story comes out about the dysfunction of standardized tests themselves, and the dysfunction they create in our school environment.  Recent example include, the “Pineapple” story in New York, the FCAT writing scores in Florida, and numerous cheating scandals across the country.  Yet these are just the superficial problems with standardized tests.  Todd Farley worked for 15 years at Pearson Education, one of the largest for profit companies in education and testing, and he said, “there aren’t scoring problems on some standardized tests—my experience suggests there are scoring problems on all of them.”

Beyond the scoring problems, the manner in which the questionable test results are used compound the problems.  They have narrowed the curriculum and reduced the opportunities for students to engage in creative play and critical thinking.  They have been used to punish teachers and schools, and forced educators to teach to the test rather than meet the individual needs of the children.  An incredible amount of time and money is dedicated to testing rather than actual learning.

If we really want to improve the educational experience for all students, we would not add more time in school and require more testing.  We would try to eliminate standardized testing and focus on empowering teachers to make time in school a rich meaningful experience for students.  If politicians and administrators cannot or will not end the testing obsession, parents, students, and teachers must work together to force an end this destructive process.  It pains me too much to watch my students sit in front of a computer answering questions they don’t care about and are not making them better students or better people.

Public Education: A Look at Segregation, Housing and Our Collective Future

Public Education Justice Alliance Minnesota is hosting a forum with Myron Or field from the University of Minnesota's Institute on Race and Poverty.  The presentation and discussion will focus on public education, housing, and segregation in the Minneapolis/St Paul metro area.

Orfield will present data from the past twenty years, looking at the trends and policies that have closed public schools and further segregated our schools and our city.

Racial segregation in America also means class segregation.  The segregation of schools is dramatically increasing because of failure to enforce federal, state, and local civil rights laws. Whether public or charter, segregated schools are associated with low achievement and increased learning gaps. Charter schools not only aggravate the problem of segregation, they also under-perform and undermine our public schools. Teachers and schools are being blamed and punished for the results of increased segregation, and the current “solutions” are making problems worse.

Join us at the University of Minnesota Law School, Mondale Hall, Room 50, 229 19th Ave. South
Thursday May 24th, 7 PM

https://www.facebook.com/events/413030492049276/

Fighting for Relevant Reform

The Minneapolis Federation of Teachers is holding elections this spring.  The following is a highlight of a speech I gave as a candidate for re-election to the Executive Board:

Teacher unions cannot continue to fight to simply stay relevant, we must fight for what is relevant.  Our union, at the national, state, and local levels, has tried to deal with the neo-liberal corporate attacks by looking for areas to collaborate, to compromise, and to get a “seat at the table.”

Fighting to sit at a table set by education deformers like Bill Gates, Arnie Duncan, and Wendy Kopp is to accept their premises and to immediately silence any questioning of the need for the table.  To sit at the charter school table is to accept the argument that competition will make schools better and ignores the fact that by definition, competition results in both winners and losers.

Instead of trying to out-reform the self-appointed “reformers,” we must work with students, parents, and the community to revitalize our public schools.  The Chicago Teachers’ Union, under the leadership of the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (C.O.R.E.) is already doing this.  In New York, teachers in the Grassroots Education Movement (G.E.M.) are also doing this.  Brian Jones, who spoke in Minneapolis in March, is a member of G.E.M. and helped to create the documentary, An Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman.

The documentary outlines some of the real reforms we need.  They include, among others:

·      More teaching – Less Testing

·      Anti-racist Educational Policies

·      Culturally Relevant Curriculum

·      Qualified and Experienced Educators in every Classrooom

·      Democratic and Social Justice Unionism

·      And Small Class Size

We need to work with parents to build the public schools our students need and deserve.  To do this, we also need to work to create the community our students need and we all deserve.

Robert Panning-Miller

Discussion with Brian Jones following the screening of An Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman

PEJAM's screening of An Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman on March 3, 2012 was well attended and included a Q & A Discussion with Brian Jones, one of the writers and narrators of the documentary.  Here is the discussion:

National Opt Out Day - January 7th

High stakes testing is hurting our students and our system of public education. Ending this damaging practice will take parents, students, teachers, and the community working together. Join in this growing national effort by making a statement on January 7th.

Here is a message from the United Opt Out National:

"United Opt Out National has declared January 7th as National Opt Out Day. On this day we are encouraging Occupy movements everywhere to endorse this action. We are asking parents, students and community members to write letters/postcards to their school districts stating how they will OPT OUT. We have created a postcard that allows for multiple ways to opt out and it can be purchased in bulk to share. Of course, the slam dunk is opting out of the state test as this will shut down corporate education reform. If everyone opts out in mass they will have NO test data to punish students, teachers and communities.

"Occupy our Public Schools"

“Occupy Our Public Schools”

Below is the original written version of a speech I gave at the Occupy Minnesota Rally on October 28, 2011.

I’ve been a teacher in Minneapolis public schools for 20 years, and have been active in the union the entire time, including two years as president of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers. I have watched corporations continually push their way into the public schools the entire time. It is clear, corporations hate to see our government money go to the public good, instead of their own pockets. Unfortunately, corporations and the “1%” have managed to buy out not just the Republicans, but the Democrats as well.

Wall Street is destroying our system of public education as much as every other aspect of our democracy. Educators, parents, and students need to not only "occupy Wall Street," we need to "occupy our public schools." Testing companies, textbook corporations, charter school operators, corporate "philanthropists," and other profit seekers need to be removed from our public space so schools can be truly democratic institutions working for social justice. And, we cannot "hope" for change from the Obama Democrats any more than we can from the Republicans. Both parties are dominated by corporate money.

1 in 5 children live in poverty in the United States. In some areas it’s close to 1 out of every 2 children. Corporations and the politicians they have bought and paid for have created this economic and social reality, and yet it’s the public school teachers who are made the scapegoats for the failed economic system. When teachers point out the additional challenges facing students in poverty and the need for more resources, we are told we are simply making excuses. The so-called “education reformers” argue that teachers need to stop making excuses. This “no excuse” mentality is itself an excuse for corporations and politicians to do nothing about the real problems they have created!

Corporate education “reformers” like to talk about accountability for teachers and public schools, but there is no accountability for them.

Big banks triggered massive home foreclosures and a recession with their sub-prime mortgage scams and faulty mortgage-backed securities. The banks then got bailed out with our tax dollars. At the same time, tax revenue in Minnesota and other states has tanked because of the recession caused by the banks. In response, the Minnesota legislature took money from public education with gimmicks including funding shifts to pretend to balance the budget. Schools districts were forced to borrow money from the same big banks that created this disaster and pay them back with interest!

Education is a right and the public schools belong to all of us. We must occupy our public schools as well as Wall Street.

The banks got bailed out, and our schools got sold out!

Rob Panning-Miller,
Minneapolis Public School Teacher
PEJAM Co-founder
Executive Board Member of MFT, Local 59

How are Contracts Awarded by Minneapolis Public Schools? Good Question.

Accountability, a buzzword of corporate education "reformers" is a concept that seems to be missing at the District level in Minneapolis. Sheila Regan of TC Daily Planet published a two part series on the process for awarding contracts by Minneapolis Public Schools. Transparency and accountability are apparently not part of the process. In fact, as Ms. Regan points out, recent changes to the process may in fact reduce transparency and accountability. Here are the links to her stories:

Part 1: http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2011/06/17/mps-school-contracts

Part 2: http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2011/07/11/contracts-and-transparency-minneapolis-public-schools

Now we need an examination of what the numerous outside "consultants" hired by Minneapolis Public Schools actually do for the students of Minneapolis. Spoiler alert: very little!

More Psuedo-Administrators, Fewer Classroom Teachers

The Administration of Minneapolis Public Schools recently passed a budget for next school year. They said they had to close a $20 million hole in the budget. Among other things, this means class sizes will remain well above the original Referendum targets. In spite of this, the District will hire another 24 teacher "coaches" that will NOT work with students.

Today Detroit – Tomorrow, Every City in America

by Rania Khalek

If Milton Friedman, father of the free market, were alive today, I imagine he would be jumping with joy at the prospect of the abandonment of public education for private, for-profit charter schools.
Back in 2005, following the devastation of hurricane Katrina, Friedman wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal where he said “This is a tragedy.  It is also an opportunity to radically reform the educational system.”  Soon after, Friedmonites rushed into New Orleans for the chance to implement what Friedman had long envisioned. With the help of the Bush administration, they dissolved the public school system and in its place built a network of publicly funded charters run, not by educators, but by private entities that made their own rules.
At the time, New Orleans residents alerted the rest of the country, that what was happening to their city was only the beginning and it wouldn’t be long before it spread to our neighborhoods.  In 2006, Bill Quigley, a local lawyer and activist warned:

We know that what is happening in New Orleans is just a more concentrated, more graphic version of what is going on all over our country. Every city in our country has some serious similarities to New Orleans. Every city has some abandoned neighborhoods. Every city in our country has abandoned some public education, public housing, public healthcare, and criminal justice. Those who do not support public education, healthcare, and housing will continue to turn all of our country into the Lower Ninth Ward unless we stop them. Why do we allow this?

If only we had listened.  Soon after New Orleans came the drastic transformation of the Chicago school system by Obama’s Labor Secretary Arne Duncan, New York City schools by Mayor Bloomberg, and Washington DC schools by Michelle Rhee. Which brings us to Detroit.
Following the passage of Michigan Republican Gov. Rick Snyder’s “Financial Martial Law,” Emergency Financial Manager (EFM) of Detroit Public Schools (DPS) Robert Bobb is closing 8 schools and selling 45 to charter companies.  DPS is currently preparing a charter school board through training sessions provided by the National Charter Schools Institute, which had more than 70 charter operators and entrepreneurs in attendance just this month.  In addition, DPS has hired the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) to review applications.  NACSA’s president, Greg Richmond, worked with charter schools set up in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and claims “The system opened up to the people of New Orleans in a way it hadn’t before…Now there are dozens of opportunities to get involved.”
In sharp contrast to the lingering unemployment that plagues Detroit, the auctioning off of Detroit’s schools is taking place with breathtaking speed.  Gov. Snyder is on a mission to reinvent public education.  He is calling for more measurements of student and teacher performance, while at the same time proposing deregulation and more teacher autonomy.  He says “We have to put much more emphasis on proficiency, on growth, on measurements and results than we have had in the past” and “Michigan’s public schools need to more rigorously measure students’ academic growth, but with fewer state rules to make that happen.”
Detroit residents have already started protesting.  Just last week, eight students, along with their children and some faculty members of the Catherine Ferguson Academy of Detroit, began a sit-in at the end of the school day in protest of EFM Robert Bobb’s announcement to close the school.  About a dozen or so were arrested by Detroit police for refusing to leave.  The school is specifically designed for pregnant and teen parents and their children, and has a 90% graduation rate and 100% college and higher education acceptance upon graduation.
Gov. Snyder recently said his focus is a holistic approach to education from pre-natal to life-long learning.  He says early childhood education is important and should involve “a public and private partnership.”  If shutting down an award-winning school and arresting, rather than listening to the students he claims to care so much about, is his idea of a holistic approach, then Detroit is in for a treat.
Shanta Driver, National Chairperson of By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), in an interview with Voice of Detroit at the sit-in, said it best:

The massive school closures that have been carried out in DPS since 2004 have led to the depopulation of Detroit and to the deepening financial crisis of the district. Public schools are being closed to make way for charters and are part of the national attack on public education. Today Detroit – tomorrow, every city in America. The parents and students of Catherine Ferguson are fighting to maintain the right of every student in our nation to a free, quality public education. Every supporter of public education should do everything possible to support their fight and make sure they succeed

Driver is warning us, as did the people of New Orleans in 2006.  This corporately funded education reform movement that praises standardised tests, non-union teachers, and private management as the solution to the budget woes of Detroit’s education system is a threat to us all.

Saturday APRIL 9TH - PEJAM presents, Chicago Teachers' Union President, Karen Lewis.

Public Education Justice Alliance of Minnesota (PEJAM) announces spring forum:

“Stand Up for Public Education: Testimonials from the Struggle to Save Our Schools.”

facebook event page - invite all your friends!

Saturday, April 9th
2pm-4pm
Minneapolis Labor Center
312 Central Ave NE, Minneapolis
 

The “Stand Up for Public Education” Forum will take place on Saturday, April 9 from 2-4 PM at the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation Building, 312 Central Ave in Northeast Minneapolis. This event is part of PEJAM’s efforts to defend public education and the... unions that empower our teachers and families. Speakers will discuss the current efforts to counter the national and local attacks on our schools, our teachers, and our communities.

The keynote speaker is Karen Lewis, President of the Chicago Teachers Union and a member of CORE- Caucus of Rank & File Educators. In her election acceptance speech in June, Ms Lewis declared, “Today marks the beginning of the end of scapegoating educators for all the social ills that our children, families and schools struggle against every day. Today marks the beginning of a fight for true transparency in our educational policy — how to accurately measure learning and teaching, how to truly improve our schools, and how to evaluate the wisdom behind our spending priorities.”

Additional speakers will address local school concerns such as the struggles to keep North High School alive, the closing of Cityview, school changes in St Paul and reports from Wisconsin teachers, whose collective bargaining rights are under attack by their governor.

PEJAM is a grassroots community organization of teachers, parents, students, and community members dedicated to defending and supporting a fully funded, just, equitable, and democratic system of public education.

Hundreds of Idaho Students Walkout to Protest Education Cuts!

by KTVB & Associated Press

KTVB.COM

Posted on February 28, 2011 at 8:53 AM

Updated Tuesday, Mar 1 at 11:44 AM

BOISE -- Hundreds of students across the state organized a walk-out in protest of Superintendent Tom Luna's plan to overhaul education.
Word about the protest spread quickly among students thanks to social networking and text messages.
There were protests in Nampa, Meridian, Caldwell, American Falls and Pocatello.
In Boise, nearly 250 students skipped school and came to the capitol to protest the reform bills before the legislature.

Click here to read more