PEJAM Stands with the North Carolina Association of Educators

Stand with the North Carolina Association of Educators!

North Carolina's legislature and governor are in full ALEC mode.  They are busy passing laws that range from the ridiculous (sentencing a woman to up to thirty days in jail if her nipples are exposed) to the outrageous (allow people to carry their loaded guns on playgrounds).  However, voter suppression and the privatization of public education are the items that are truly dominating their legislative agenda.

Voter suppression legislation has been empowered by the recent damage done to the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court.  For details of this "nightmarish set of anti-voting measures," see Brendan Fischer article in PR Watch.

The assault on public education also includes a long list of bills.  North Carolina Association of Educators and other advocates of public education are trying to raise awareness and build support to defeat this legislation.  They posted the following summary on their Facebook page:

TOP 10 Things Every Educator Should Know About the Budget

1. Eliminates 9,306.5 education positions -- 5,184.5 teachers, 3,850 teacher assistants, and 272 Support Personnel (guidance counselors, psychologist, etc.).

2. Provides NO pay increases for educators, continuing North Carolina’s race to the bottom of national salaries. In 2007-08 North Carolina was ranked 25th in the nation in teacher pay, last year our state was 46th. With no additional pay, next year North Carolina undoubtedly will be at the bottom.

3. While gutting public schools and educators, the legislature adopted a $50 million school voucher program ($10 million 2013-14, $40 million in 2014-15).

4. The North Carolina Budget eliminates career status for all teachers. Senate legislation, that received no public hearings in the House, was placed in the budget to eliminate career status for teachers. The new standard requires each school district to identify the top 25% of effective teachers without providing any criteria on how to accomplish this ranking of professionals. Teachers will be placed on a 1, 2, or 4 year contract. The top 25% will be given the option of receiving $500 to compensate them for the loss of due process rights. NOTE: the new system will be phased in over the course of the next five years.

5. North Carolina no longer values educators who work on their continuing education through masters degrees. Beginning in the 2014-15 school year, educators will receive no additional pay for a masters degrees unless their job requires it, such as counselors, school psychologists, etc. Those currently paid for their master’s degrees (or will be paid for a master’s degree in 2013-14) will be grandfathered in, according to the way the bill is currently written.

6. Grades Schools (A-F), 80% based on standardized test scores, 20% based on growth. No other variables will be considered in this grading.

7. Eliminates the Teaching Fellows Program, once viewed as a national model for recruiting teachers into the classroom, the program is no longer funded.

8. Reduces targeted education funding:
• Cuts Textbook funding by $77.4 million dollars;
• Cuts Classroom supply funding by $45.7 million dollars;
• Cuts Limited English Proficiency funding by $6 million dollars.

9. Retired educators will receive NO Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA).

10. The General Assembly will be back next year.


Please go to their page and support them in any way you can.
https://www.facebook.com/wearencae

PEJAM stands in solidarity with the NCAE and other defenders of public education.



Posted by: Rob Panning-Miller

Teach for America: What do you mean were not exceptional?!

What do You Mean We are Not Exceptional?

June 14, 2013 was a dark day for Teach for America-Twin Cities and its neo-liberal backers.  It marked the second time in three weeks in Minnesota that TFA was rejected after having demanded that it be treated as the exceptional organization it pretends to be.

On Friday, May 24th, Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton signed into law a higher education bill only after he line-item vetoed $1.5 million earmarked for TFA.  Crystal Brakke, the Executive Director of TFA-Twin Cities, claimed they needed the funding to train additional TFA corps members in the next two years.  Those corps members would have attended a five-week training before being put in front of classrooms full of students with the highest needs.  Of course that same $1.5 million dollars could have provided full two-year scholarships for those same college graduates to get a master's degree in education, including their student teaching, at the University of Minnesota.  I guess a two-year master's degree in education does not produce the same exceptional, transformational teachers that a five-week TFA summer training does?

On June14th, three weeks after the Governor's line-item veto of TFA's request for state money, the Minnesota Board of Teaching voted to discontinue a group license variance to TFA.  They had been granted this group variance for the past four years, but now TFA will actually have to play by the same rules as anyone else seeking a teaching license variance in Minnesota.  Corps members will now have to apply for a variance on an individual basis.  TFA and its supporters cannot believe they are being denied special treatment.  Surely their exceptional, transformational corps members deserve exceptional treatment, right?

Having effectively been told twice that they are not special, TFA leaders and supporters have been left completely dumbfounded and outraged. A number of tweets and quotes show how truly dismayed they are.

The somewhat low key Director of Teach for America - Twin Cities, Crystal Brakke at first responded to a Star Tribune reporter that the outcome was "disheartening."  By the end of the day, however, she was quoting an unknown philosopher and tweeted that "people will always shit on the things they're scared of."

The former Director of TFA - Twin Cities and now Director of MinnCAN, Daniel Sellers, did not hold back or hesitate in showing his contempt for those who failed to recognize the exceptional, transformational abilities he believes all TFA corps members possess.  He was quoted in the Star Tribune saying, "it’s unconscionable that many Board of Teaching members allowed politics and their allegiances to the teachers union to keep highly effective teachers from teaching in high-needs communities."

Brian Sweeney, director of external affairs for Charter School Partners (CSP) was quoted in Minnpost saying, “this is a 'Minnesota Nice' version of union thuggery.”  An MPR reporter quoted him saying, "There was little about what the classroom needs today and a lot about union politics. I think we've seen a coup d'etat today by the unions on Minnesota education policy." 

Minneapolis City Council member, mayoral candidate, and infamous opponent of public schools, Don Samuels said in a press release: "This is just the latest in a series of power-plays in the education debate that has no regard for its effect on students, schools, or the learning environment for our kids."

Finally summarizing the frustration and hurt feelings of the corporate reformers is the editorial board of our local corporate newspaper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune.  On June 20th, a week after the decision, a Star Tribune's editorial echoed all the claims of TFA greatness, disparaged most teachers, chided the Board of Teaching for being influenced by the "all-powerful Education Minnesota teachers union," and declared colleges of education worthless.  This, as usual, was done by citing no evidence other than one "study" produced by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ).  A "study" funded by the usual foundations like Broad and Dell, and locally by MinnCAN.

These are not the comments of bold reformers, but the simple arrogance of corporate reformers.  These comments come from people who use the "fierce urgency of now" as a cover for the fierce recklessness of neoliberalism.  These individuals argue for the use of data, but comfortably and brashly ignore the overwhelming data that exposes their hypocrisy and the destruction they bring to public schools.

Like Teach for America, the NCTQ has actually worked to deprofessionalize teaching and create short cuts to the classroom.  They don't blink at their own hypocrisy.  NCTQ created the "first national alternative to traditional teacher certification" called the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence.  Any state that accepted this would grant a teaching license to any applicant that has a "bachelor's degree, complete[s] a background check...pay[s] a $500 fee" and passes a computerized exam.  Wayne Au, a professor of education at the University of Washington - Bothell, describes the history NCTQ's "alternative certification" program and its board in the summer 2013 edition of Rethinking Schools.   The organization is a collection of "voucher proponents and advocates for privatizing schools."

The Star Tribune discredits colleges of education, claiming their students are not adequately prepared to face the challenges of the classroom.  They do this using a study that was paid for with money from foundations aimed at privatizing public schools and that recognize a strong teacher voice is their last major hurdle.  It is also a study done by an organization that argues teachers will be ready for the challenges of teaching with just a B.A. degree, passing scores on a standardized test, and $500.00.  This is even worse than TFA.

Daniel Sellers is typical of the neoliberal reformers as he declares completely inexperienced college graduates with five weeks of summer training "highly effective teachers."  Sellers, Sweeney, and Samuels argue our classrooms (students) will suffer because they may not have access to poorly trained and inexperienced TFA corps members.  Charter schools and the public school administrative sellouts may actually have to hire teachers who are actually licensed...maybe even with experience!

The local collection of corporate education deformers will continue to shed their crocodile tears for Minnesota students, while continuing their efforts to weaken teaching programs and dismantle our public schools.  TFA is not only not needed in Minnesota, it has become toxic for our students and students throughout the nation.

This past month has not been a victory for the status quo as the neoliberals would have us believe.  It has been quite the opposite.  There is no "all-powerful" teachers union, but there are true grassroots efforts that include union members working to liberate public schools from the corporate stranglehold.  We must continue to expose the hypocrisies and the true agenda of the neoliberal "reformers," and create truly democratic and socially just public schools.  Let's hope these small victories for public education are the beginning of the end of the corporate dominance of public education.

Posted by: Rob Panning-Miller

Colleges of Education Fail When They Join with TFA

University of Minnesota, Do NOT Partner with Teach for America

On the surface, Teach for America is one of the greatest ironies of the neo-liberal education reform movement.  These so-called reformers yell and scream about the poor state of teaching in our public schools, and their greatest solution is to put the most inadequately trained, and inexperienced 22 year-olds in front of the students with the greatest needs.

The truth of course is TFA and their billionaire financiers are not here to save public schools, they're here to privatize them.  While it is somewhat understandable that idealistic young college students might believe joining Teach for America is a way to help, it is inexcusable that the administrators in charge of our Colleges of Education would share this naivete.

Teach for America's dysfunctional existence is enabled every time a politician hands them money, and even more so, when colleges of education accept some of that money in exchange for offering false credibility to TFA.

Here in Minnesota, Hamline University, a private liberal arts college, was the first to sellout to the neo-liberal reforms and work with TFA recruits.  Now the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities is looking to get in on the money. 

We are fortunate here in Minnesota to have a governor who does not subscribe to the neo-liberal agenda and who believes in public education.  He recently took the bold step of line-item vetoing a section of a bill that would have given state funding to TFA.  However, TFA is flush with cash from the federal government and wealthy foundations and they are asking the University of Minnesota to "partner" with them.

Jean Quam, the Dean of the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota appears ready to accept this "partnership" and all the funding that comes with it.  Recently, the college held a couple of meetings to discuss working with TFA.  Reports from PEJAM members who attended the meetings suggest that Dean Quam has made up her mind, and wants the College to accept the partnership with TFA.

Just as PEJAM helped in the grassroots effort to call on Governor Dayton to veto the TFA funding, we must now build the grassroots effort to call on the University of Minnesota to reject any support or relationship with TFA.

Here is our petition statement:
We call on the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities to NOT partner with Teach for America (TFA).  With greater focus on the teaching profession and greater calls for thoroughly trained teachers in every classroom, it is unconscionable to have one of Minnesota's premiere universities facilitating a short cut to the classroom.  TFA was originally said to be a stop-gap for schools and districts with chronic teacher shortages.  There is no teacher shortage in Minnesota, and TFA will never be a means to improve public education.  Minnesota deserves fully-trained and licensed teachers in every classroom, not band-aids. 

TFA recruits are inexperienced and most lack a commitment to classroom teaching as a career. Not only are these young TFA members unprepared to be effective teachers, 70% to 80% leave the classroom within the first three years, creating a revolving door of inexperienced teachers for children who need the best teachers.  TFA also infringes on students’ civil rights, and does not increase academic achievement. TFA places the most inexperienced recruits in front of students who have historically been the most underserved in schools - minority, poor, and special education students.  They mislead the public by conflating learning and academic success with a test score. While test scores may or may not be indicative of the achievement of any individual student at a given point in time; education is much more than a test score and test prep.

A University of Minnesota Partnership would only help Teach for America displace career educators. TFA destroys school and community cohesion by replacing experienced, career educators with inexperienced, ineffective recruits. TFA requires partnering districts to contractually guarantee teaching spots for its recruits, thus forcing cash strapped districts to layoff experienced, career educators.

The University's ultimate responsibility in training Pre-K - 12 educators is to the students those teachers will face each day.  To that end, we call on the University of Minnesota to reject any partnership with Teach for America and maintain its commitment to develop in-depth knowledge and teaching skills through its graduate-level program.


Please click on this link and sign our petition.  Teachers here in Minneapolis are telling Dean Quam they will not accept student teacher from the U of MN if that agree to work with TFA.  Please add any additional reasons the University of Minnesota should reject this relationship.


Posted by: Robert Panning-Miller

The Truth Behind Reform Speak: Minneapolis Version

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The Truth Behind Reform Speak: Minneapolis Version

Corporate reformers have created impressive networks of astroturf organizations to disseminate the various disguised versions of the same failed plans designed to destroy public education.  The plans are packaged and repackaged and sold to legislators, school board members, and school administrators.

This week Minneapolis Public Schools unveiled its latest version of these reforms under the title, “The Time is Now to Shift.”  The Superintendent invited “all stakeholders” to come and hear the “new” plan and get involved.  Unfortunately, the great unveiling took place at 7:30 a.m. on Monday morning, which meant teachers and most parents were unable to attend.  Perhaps we are not “stakeholders.”

I think it is important for those of us fighting the corporate reformers, and fighting for strong public schools, to recognize the reform plans in all their various disguises.  While the Superintendent’s speech detailing “the shift” is now available on district’s website, PEJAM is providing the corporate reformer’s outline version of the speech without the extra packaging.

Watch for a version of this near you!

Title: The Time has Come to Double-down on Corporate Reforms! (Call it a “shift”)

Part 1: The current situation according to Gates, Broad, Walton, etc.

·      Generous Greeting of fellow reformers

·      Platitudes

·      Outline speech

·      Platitudes

·      Platitudes

·      Platitudes

·      Platitudes

·      Claim we have tried the “extremes” of top-down and bottom-up operations and declare that both have failed.  We must now take a  “new” approach which means going with the only tried and failed top-down structure, but call it a “partnership.”

·      Share statistics without any meaningful context

·      Platitudes

·      Throw in backhanded praise for teachers

·      Platitudes

·      Declare test-prep charter schools as success stories, and that that will “soon be our norm.”

·      Throw in business jargon

·      Quote Martin Luther King Jr.

Part 2: The “New” Plan

·      Emphasize high standards for all

·      Explain how we will fix teachers

o   Implement flawed and burdensome teacher evaluation and VAM

o   Implement a test-driven, teacher-proof, standardized curriculum (Minneapolis calls it “Focused Instruction”)

o   Explain why there needs to be a strong leader in the “partnership,” and that this will be accomplished by following a TFA approach to principals.  Use a double-dose of TFA jargon for the title of the new principal training program

·      Include a reference to “choice.”

·      Highlight of the plan is a “Strong Partnership.”  (definition of Strong Partnership: a relationship in which one side concedes that the district “partner” is always right, doesn’t argue with the district “partner,” and always does what they are told to do.)

Part 3: Solve Problems by Gutting the Teachers’ Contract

·      Cut Seniority and Tenure Rights!

·      Tagline – “It’s time to shift.” (Wait for applause!)

·      Take away more of the teachers’ personal and family time without concern for burn-out and without fair compensation.

·      Tagline – “It’s time to shift.” (Wait for applause!)

·      Create teacher hierarchy that pits teachers against one another and call it a “career ladder” (because teachers go into teaching hoping to climb away from the students).

·      Tagline – “It’s time to shift.” (Wait for applause!)

·      Cut teacher and staff pay and benefits.  Introduce a merit pay system, but call it being a “good steward of resources.”

·      Tagline – “It’s time to shift.” (Wait for applause!)

Part 4: The Rollout and Big Finish

·      Implement the draconian reforms, first, on the schools with the highest need kids and most beaten-down teachers.

·      “Invite” people to “partner” with you by following your plan.

·      Platitudes

·      Platitudes

·      Message of Urgency

·      Appeal to Emotions

·      Tagline – “Together…we must shift!” (Wait for applause)

·      Wait for results…

·      Wait for results…

·      Wait…

As the Minnesota legislature prepares to vote on an omnibus education bill, defenders of public education are speaking out against a part of the senate version of the bill that gives $1.5 million to Teach for America.  TFA is trying to expand its presence in Minnesota and wants tax money to do it.  This, despite the facts that public schools have been underfunded for years, and we have plenty of fully licensed teachers here in Minnesota.

The following message state legislators and the public was originally posted on MN2020 Hindsight.  Please e-mail your state legislators and tell them not to give public funds to an unneeded non-profit.  Tax dollars should be spent on true public schools.

Caroline Hooper, is a Minneapolis teacher and a member of PEJAM.

Don’t Use Tax Dollars for TFA

By Caroline Hooper, Guest Commentary , April 29, 2013 at 1:30 pm

The State Senate higher education bill provides Teach for America (TFA) up to $1.4 million in taxpayer funding over the next two fiscal years (See line 5.29). TFA undermines and is at odds with Minnesota’s tradition of providing quality education and the best teaching corps in the nation. Minnesota should not be promoting TFA.

• TFA recruits are inexperienced. It is not the individual, young TFA recruits, but the model itself which is problematic. TFA recruits are provided a five week boot camp the summer prior to being placed in some of the most challenging classrooms in the state. Five weeks is hardly enough preparation for successfully managing classrooms of children. Many TFA recruits admit that their training left them ill-prepared for real classrooms.
• TFA recruits lack a commitment to teaching and to the classroom. Not only are these young TFA members unprepared to be effective teachers, 70% to 80% leave the classroom within the first three years, creating a revolving door of inexperienced teachers for children who need the best teachers.
•  TFA infringes on students’ civil rights. TFA targets communities with large numbers of minority and/or low-income students thereby creating teacher turnover in the schools serving these children.
• TFA is not effective. “Multiple studies have demonstrated that TFA recruits are no more effective than traditionally trained new teachers and are far less effective than experienced, career educators. Some studies indicate that TFA recruits actually lower the reading scores of students.
• TFA does not increase academic achievement. TFA misleads the public by conflating learning and academic success with a test score. While test scores may or may not be indicative of the achievement of any individual student at a given point in time; education is much more than a test score and test prep.
• TFA displaces career educators. TFA destroys school and community cohesion by replacing experienced, career educators with inexperienced, ineffective recruits. TFA requires partnering districts to contractually guarantee teaching spots for its recruits, thus forcing cash strapped districts to layoff experienced, career educators.

Furthermore, the goal of TFA in Minnesota is not about providing quality teachers for classrooms; instead the goal is, in the words of Daniel Sellers, TFA alum and head of MinnCAN, "not a teacher-training program. It’s a leadership training program." "Its mission," he said, was to "equip the best and the brightest to go into the most disadvantaged classrooms for two years. After this time, some would stay in teaching while others would move on." TFA sets out to create teacher turnover in the classrooms of some of the neediest students in the state.
Additionally, TFA is not a cash-strapped nonprofit. It is a corporate funded political organization that has over 1800 (non-classroom) employees and annual operating surpluses in the millions--$114 million in a recent federal filing.
Policymakers should not divert public money meant for education into corporate driven reform such as Teach for America. Instead, the legislature should use this money to encourage and support young Minnesotans, especially our young people of color and from our immigrant communities, to pursue careers in teaching.

TFA's 'Transformational' Public Money Grab

Say NO to $1.5 Million in Public Money to TFA!

Teach for America (TFA) is a tax exempt nonprofit with "reported annual operating surpluses of $35 million, $114 million and $37 million" from 2009 to 2011.   In 2010, they received a $50 Million grant from the federal Department of Education, and another $8.3 million funded under the Supporting Effective Educators Development (SEED) program.  The government further subsidizes TFA with student loan forbearance and education awards.  TFA is also looking to get more public money from state legislatures, including Minnesota!

With the state of Minnesota still facing budget deficits, following years of educational spending cuts, TFA is at the capitol with its hand out.  Bills are moving through the Minnesota state legislature that would give Teach for America $1.5 million in public funding (HF 1594 and SF 975).  Minnesota School Districts are already required to pay TFA $3,000 to $5,000 dollars for each TFA corp member they hire, in addition to paying their full teacher salary and benefits.

An e-mail was recently sent out by Crystal Brakke, the Director of TFA - Twin Cities.  Here is what she was asking her supporters:

Hello Choose the Twin Cities weekend attendees!

I’m asking you to take 5 minutes out of your busy schedules today to help expand our impact in Minnesota. WE NEED HELP…and since you decided to come spend the weekend with us in February, I know you are passionate about Minnesota and education here!

Over the past 8 months, our Twin Cities team has been working with the Minnesota State Legislature to secure a state investment of $1.5 million over two years. We are pursuing these funds in response to the demand we are hearing from school leaders that would like to expand partnerships with Teach For America –Twin Cities, and which we simply do not have funding to support. State resources will be used to leverage private dollars to help recruit, train, select and grow our overall Twin Cities corps and alumni force in Minnesota. (It’s also important to note that the state is investing heavily in K-12 education this session, which is fantastic—we’re asking for a very small appropriation that as part of that overall investment.)

Unfortunately, a small but vocal group of individuals opposed to our requested funding are calling on Senate leadership, and in particular the Majority Leader, Senator Tom Bakk of the Iron Range, to reject state support for TFA.

We need your voice! A call to Senator Bakk’s office* in support of TFA’s pending funding could make a real difference in our ability to help expand educational opportunities for children in Minnesota. We also encourage you to enlist the support of others to express support for this smart state investment. I’ve provided contact information and talking points below, if helpful. (*In case it’s helpful to know, when calling you will most likely speak with an assistant in his office that will take note of why you’re calling and share that with Senator Bakk.)

I’d love to know if you’re willing to help and also what you’re hearing in response. Thank you—deeply!

Crystal

PEJAM has also obtained a copy of a letter sent to the Minnesota State Senate leadership, by Mark Bonine, an Associate Superintendent of Minneapolis Public Schools.  Assoc. Supt. Bonine oversees the MPS Office of New Schools which sponsors charter schools and works with TFA.  Minneapolis Public Schools have clearly embraced the irrational ideas of TFA and the argument that inexperienced and poorly trained teachers can close the achievement gap.

In this letter, Assoc. Supt. Bonine advocates for TFA funding by claiming, "Minnesota can elevate its education system by attracting, developing, and retaining teachers that consistently matches the quality seen in the world's leading systems."  It is truly troubling to see an experienced educator and administrator suggest that someone with five weeks of summer training can walk into a classroom for two years and perform at the levels of teachers in the "world's leading systems."  I hope teachers in Finland and Singapore don't read this. 

Even TFA alum like Matt Barnum who credit the organization with accomplishing some good, would not agree with the claims made by Bonine and other TFA supporters.   Barnum notes that "districts, like the one [he] used to teach in, appear to cycle through corps members every two years, with high turnover among TFA teachers who are in turn replaced by a fresh slate of bushy-tailed, ill-trained corps members."  Barnum explains how poorly prepared TFA corp members are to step into the classroom:

"For many corps members, the required five-week summer training “institute” is close to useless. Why? Not, as some have argued, because it’s so short. Rather, it’s because for many of us the training doesn’t come close to simulating what it’s like to be teaching during the real school year. As alumni blogger Gary Rubinstein has pointed out, many institutes’ corps members teach for very little time in front of very few students."

He goes on to describe how useless the on-the-job "professional development" and "coaching" are:

"TFA loves to talk about the coaching of and professional development for its teachers. This sort of talk sounds good to prospective corps members, to districts, to donors, and to the media. Again, I can only draw from own experience and those of others I know, but with few exceptions, TFA’s continued support rarely made me a better teacher."

Teach for America, an organization that began as a way to serve school districts in areas of the country that could not find qualified licensed teachers, has now been in Minnesota since 2009.  After a decade of declining enrollment and teacher layoffs, the Minneapolis Public School district is responding to a growing student population by sponsoring charter schools and hiring TFA corp members rather than hiring experienced, licensed teachers.  This is the norm for TFA as Stephanie Simon explains:

"The organization that was launched to serve public schools so poor or dysfunctional they couldn't attract qualified teachers now sends fully a third of its recruits to privately run charter schools, many with stellar academic reputations, flush budgets and wealthy donors. TFA also sends its rookies, who typically have just 15 to 20 hours of teaching experience, to districts that have recently laid off scores of more seasoned teachers." 

TFA members are overwhelmingly self-proclaimed liberals, but as Andrew Hartman, who teaches history at Illinois State University, points out:

"The history of TFA reveals the ironies of contemporary education reform. In its mission to deliver justice to underprivileged children, TFA and the liberal education reform movement have advanced an agenda that advances conservative attempts to undercut teacher’s unions. More broadly, TFA has been in the vanguard in forming a neoliberal consensus about the role of public education—and the role of public school teachers—in a deeply unequal society."

Bringing in and promoting TFA in Minnesota has not been based on a shortage of licensed teachers.  We have a surplus of licensed and experienced teachers.  Rather, TFA has cited Minnesota's (specifically Minneapolis') large achievement gap.  Ironically, local corporate reformers who are also behind the push for TFA, and public funds to support it, are also the ones who complain the most about the lack of experienced teachers in our schools with the highest need students.

This shift in TFA's argument is not unique to Minnesota.  In Chicago, thousands of teachers have been laid off while charter schools and TFA proliferate.  The rationale for TFA is now about the quality of teachers.  They essentially argue that poorly trained, but young and enthusiastic teachers will better serve our most challenged students.

Professors Julian Vasquez Heilig and Su Jin Jez, in the most thorough survey of research on TFA corp member effectiveness, found "the students of novice TFA teachers perform significantly less well than those of credentialed beginning teachers.”

As Andrew Hartman also explains:

"TFA, suitably representative of the liberal education reform more generally, underwrites, intentionally or not, the conservative assumptions of the education reform movement: that teacher’s unions serve as barriers to quality education; that testing is the best way to assess quality education; that educating poor children is best done by institutionalizing them; that meritocracy is an end-in-itself; that social class is an unimportant variable in education reform; that education policy is best made by evading politics proper; and that faith in public school teachers is misplaced."

 

This is not just a Minnesota phenomenon.  In Mississippi, TFA asked the state legislature for $12 million and ended up getting $6 million.  This is in addition to the $3,000 - $5,000 school districts must pay TFA for each corp member, plus their full teacher's salary. 

Tom Aswell describes the current effort to get $5 million in funding from Louisiana:

"While Teach for America is going around asking for money from state legislators and local school districts, the organization has quietly been amassing a fortune even as TFA comes under fire from former TFA teachers and the media.

Like a snake trying to swallow its own tail, TFA has begun to devour itself, to feed off its own perceived success to the detriment of those it was formed to help.

Louisiana Superintendent of Education John White, himself a TFA alumnus, calls TFA “an incredibly good investment.”

Of course they are. School districts are laying off veteran teachers with years of education and classroom experience in favor of TFA corps members because they are less expensive to hire. Some districts seem to prefer to cycle through ill-trained TFA teachers every two years.

A former TFA teacher claims that the organization’s five-week training model is ineffective, that TFA spends $33 million “doing a poor job teaching corps members to teach.” He describes the TFA training as “not enough depth, not enough breadth, not enough time.”

This is all on top of the millions of dollars funneled into TFA coffers by the billionaires, hedge fund managers, and foundations looking to dismantle our system of public schools.  Aswell also lists the exorbitant salaries earned by those running this "non-profit" organization.  Wendy Kopp, in her final year as CEO earned $393,600 and Minneapolis local Matthew Kramer was paid $328,100 as TFA President.  Kramer is now a co-CEO of TFA.  His current salary could not be found.

Improving our system of public education requires dedication, commitment, and experience.  Minnesota and other states must invest in teachers who are licensed, fully-trained and committed to teaching as a career.

Teach for America corp members are generally well-intentioned, but the organization is little more than a well-funded front for neo-liberals looking to privatize our public schools. Minnesota must reject the rotating door of cheap, poorly trained labor, that is TFA, and the legislature must vote down the funding bills.

Posted by: Rob Panning-Miller

Defending Public Education in Minneapolis: An Interview on the DTOE Talk Show

DTOE Talk Episode 7 (04.05.13) – Robert Panning-Miller, Minneapolis Teacher, Former MFT President, and Co-Founder of the Public Education Justice Alliance of  Minnesota (PEJAM)

I had a chance to talk with Francesco Portelos on his on-line talk show, Don't Tread on Educators.  We discussed many of the various corporate reforms affecting Minneapolis and Minnesota in general, including charters, teacher evaluations, TFA, and Value-Added Measures (VAM).

Mr. Portelos is one of the New York teachers in the limbo existence known as the "rubber room."  He has made the most of his time by researching the history and effects of the corporate education reform movement and interviewing others working against the neo-liberal agenda.  He has also publicized his own story, his short version is included below:

My name is Francesco Alexander Portelos. I am a parent and educator of Staten Island’s North Shore.  I was teaching technology at Berta Dreyfus IS 49 for 5 years after I left a successful 7 year career in the Environmental Engineering/Inspection field.   My record, as a teacher and school community member, was stellar.  

 After I became a new father in the community, my focus transcended past my praised classroom and I looked at the issues at the school as a whole.   The school is currently ranked 939th out of 1,124 middle schools in NY State.   I had a lot of work to do.   It was a school that my son would be going to in just 10 short years.   As I brought attention to matters, such as discipline, budget and school goals, a hostile work environment was suddenly created around me.   Principal Linda  Hill began calling me a “hindrance to the community” and questioning my classroom instruction that was previously praised.   It did not stop me as I knew something was going on and I pushed forward starting investigations on potential financial misconduct and educational neglect.  I submitted the allegations on January 26, 2012.

Starting on January 30, 2012 20 allegations were made against me, and 3 disciplinary letters were placed in my file in just 10 days, I received my first unsatisfactory classroom observation and I was ultimately removed from school on April 26, 2012. I now sit in exile, at an empty conference room (Rubber Room), 20 miles away at 8201 Rockaway Blvd waiting. Waiting for what? The investigations on the administrators back at Berta Dreyfus 49? The investigations on me? My Federal lawsuit? In the meantime, the  students lose out the most.

Posted by: Robert Panning-Miller

FrankenGuild...It's Alive!

FrankenGuild... 

It's Alive!

The Monster
Two years ago the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) created the Minnesota Guild of Public Charter Schools and were officially approved by the state to be a sponsor of charter schools.  This effort was financed by two Innovation Grants from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).  The Innovation Grants were funded in part by the Gates Foundation and the Eli Broad Foundation.

This is yet another attempt to do what Pasi Sahlberg called, "trying to do the wrong thing, righter."

Creators
Like our AFT and NEA presidents (Weingarten and Van Roekel), many of our local leaders in Minneapolis believe it is possible to work with those who are trying to privatize our public schools, or in this case, to beat them at their own game.  Both our current MFT President, Lynn Nordgren, and a former president, Louise Sundin, are behind this effort.  In fact both of them are board members of the Guild, along with Sandra Peterson, a former President of the Robbinsdale Federation of Teachers,  former President of the Minnesota Federation of Teachers and former Co-President of Education Minnesota.

They claim we can "show the reformers how to run a school."  While teachers should be an integral part of shared school leadership, the charter school system is a tool of the neo-liberal reformers.  Even if the Guild creates a "great" charter school, it will only empower the corporate reformer agenda.  You can't defeat the master, using the master's tools.

The Guild's Director is Brad Blue, a long-time educational entrepreneur, and a classic salesperson.  He sees no contradiction or irony in having the Guild sponsor a talk by Pasi Sahlberg, an opponent of the corporate reforms.  Mr. Blue has simultaneously worked as the Director of the Guild, while opening another charter school called Upper Mississippi Academy (UMA).  His UMA charter school was launched with the help of Charter School Partners and possibly the Walton Foundation, as noted on the Charter School Partners' blog:

Finally, since 2010, CSP has also assisted in the launch of eight other quality schools either through our Charter Start efforts or Walton Family Foundation support including Cornerstone Montessori (2010), Minneapolis College Prep (2011), Hennepin Elementary School (2012), Mastery School (2012), Adelante Prep (2012), Upper Mississippi Academy (2013), Prodeo Academy (2013), and Venture Academy (2013)).

Charter School Partners has a goal of opening 20 more charter schools in Minneapolis in the next five years.  Minneapolis is already one of the most charter-school-saturated cites in the country.  One of the leaders of Charter School Partners is Katie Barrett Kramer of the local "reformer" dynasty - the Kramers.  The CSP board includes Chris Stewart, a former Minneapolis School Board member and vocal defender of the corporate reform movement, and Daniel Sellers, former President of Teach for America - Twin Cities and current president of MinnCAN.

This Saturday, the Minnesota Guild will hold an open house at the office of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers.  Charters are not real public schools, and the measures of success (standardized tests) use to determine which schools work "best" are destructive.  In reality, the Guild is our Frankenstein's monster, and it will help to destroy the true system of public schools we, not only hold dear, but recognize as essential to a socially-just democracy. 

It's time to gather the torches and pitchforks.  This monster must be stopped!