You saw this coming, didn't you? After a week long orgy of teacher bashing, including the Oprah show, Waiting for Superman, and the ridiculous Education Nation hate fest on MSNBC, the other shoes have finally dropped. Having made education a "crisis", politicians are salivating at the opportunity of turning all that ill will to their benefit.
Barack Obama announced his desire to extend the school year by a month. Then Mayor4Life Bloomberg, who doesn't believe in lifetime jobs except for himself, announced that he wants an end to seniority based layoffs and to make getting tenure tougher.
I have a few questions. First, for Obama: Extending the school year immediately adds an extra ten percent to the work year. Does you expect us to work for free, or will you take the money from food stamps like you did when funding Race to the Top?
Now for Bloomberg: You failed miserably last time when trying to change seniority rules, so what makes you think you'll succeed this time? And why all the posturing on tenure when you know damn well that untenured teachers can be fired for any reason as the system now stands?
Obama and Mayor4Life are trotting out the old shock doctrine again. They're trying to manufacture a crisis in education and then propose the "solutions" that they wanted in the first place. Bush used the shock doctrine after 9-11 to invade Iraq despite the fact that they had no WMDs. Now the president and the job-for-life mayor are using a phony educational crisis to implement the "reforms" they wanted all along.
This was predictable. They've used the shock doctrine against us before. See here, here, and here. Fortunately, it has been a failure in the case of seniority, and I think it will fail again.
But that's not enough. It's time to make politicians pay when they try to ruin careers. That includes any politician who would even consider a change to last in first out, as well as Obama himself when 2012 rolls around. We've seen what happens when the union stands on the sidelines as in the last mayoral election. The UFT should urge all teachers to stay home from the polls in 2012 if Obama doesn't change his tune pronto, and to actively oppose state legislators who support a change in either tenure or seniority.
Showing posts with label shock doctrine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shock doctrine. Show all posts
Monday, September 27, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Seniority Means Always Having to Say You're Sorry
I've noticed something strange. Whenever the discussion turns to layoffs, tenured senior teachers seem to want to apologize for having job security. "Sure, there are some bad senior teachers out there," we say, almost whimpering, "but most of us work just as hard as the newbies!"
Well, I'm sick of it. There are lousy doctors, lawyers, accupuncturists, and envelope stuffers out there, but you never hear the good ones making excuses for the bad ones. In other professions, it is assumed that the good ones far outnumber the few rotten apples. In teaching, we constantly apologize for the very few crappy senior teachers despite the fact that most of us with a few streaks of white in our hair are damn good educators. I think it's high time we stopped apologizing for the failures of a few and started demanding recognition for the fine work the vast majority of us do.
The myth of the great teacher persists in our society, but the myth of the do-nothing, feet-on-the-desk, waiting-to-collect-a-pension teacher has become almost as pervasive. They are just myths. There are only a few Mr. Chips out there, and probably just as few Buffalo Chips. The vast majority are neither great nor awful--we are just hard working, dedicated people doing a difficult job to the best of our ability.
The idea that senior teachers should be laid off is gaining traction as well. Yet, you almost never hear new teachers apologize the way senior teachers do. And the real, rarely spoken truth is that senior teachers are almost always better than new teachers. I was a new teacher once, and I was lousy in my first year. I was so bad that I didn't even know how much I sucked. By my third year, I had some idea of what I was doing. It wasn't until about my 8th year or so that I knew I belonged and that I could handle just about anything. Most teachers will tell you just about the same story. It took time for us to become the teachers we are today.
BloomKlein would gladly throw us on the dung heap if they could under the guise of keeping the "best" teachers. In my view, the best teachers in any school are the veterans. Many of the newbies will one day become fine teachers but that day isn't today. This is even acknowledged by the city itself in their Teacher Data Reports, in which new teachers are compared to each other and not to veterans. (Pardon me for using the reports for anything other than spare toilet paper. It shan't happen again).
Layoffs aren't about weeding out the few incompetents. Layoffs, when they truly have to occur, should be about keeping the workforce stable and making sure that those who have dedicated their lives to the profession aren't shafted. Those new to the profession, if they are truly dedicated, will return when the fiscal crisis ends.
In any case, I believe the current threats of layoffs are little more than Mayor4Life employing the Shock Doctrine. He runs arounds in a Chicken Little-esque manner, claiming that the educational sky is falling due to the recession. In the ensuing panic, he hopes to realize the mayoral wet dream of being given the authority to fire high priced teachers and all but end that nasty practice of having to actually pay pensions. I really believe when Bloomberg sees that we will not give in to him and he will have to lay off new teachers, he will suddenly find a way to avert most, if not all, the layoffs. Witness Washington D.C., where Michelle Rhee miraculously found a 34 million dollar suplus AFTER she managed to lay off 266 teachers. This layoff threat is just a Rhee-play on a grander scale.
Before someone demands an apology for anything I've said here, let me head them off at the pass. The answer is no. I'm not sorry for wanting to keep and protect my job. I'm not sorry for having learned my profession through years of hard fought experience. I'm not sorry for sticking up for the "last in, first out" method of layoffs, because I believe that to be a lynchpin of unionism that newbies will appreciate themselves one day.
The only thing I'm sorry for is that we all have to work under a mayor and chancellor who think that educational policy means wielding an axe and a machete.
Friday, February 19, 2010
The Case for Seniority
There's been much discussion lately about layoffs given the current state of the economy, and that has led to much discussion about ignoring seniority and giving the boot to senior teachers. When I read articles like the one by Barbara Maritinez in the Wall Street Journal, I am mystified by the intellectual laziness of the reporting. It's no surprise, really, as politicians spout the same old lame arguments as to why "last in, first out" is the wrong way to go, and reporters tend to echo those sound bites. If you'll excuse me being serious for a change, I'd like to examine the logic, or lack thereof, of the anti-seniority arguments. Here are the ones presented in Martinez's piece:
Argument 1: Many effective and talented teachers who have been hired in recent years will lose their jobs. This argument is wrong on several fronts. First, even in the most terrible budget crunch, the majority of teachers laid off will be first or second year teachers. While certainly many of them may develop into effective teachers, almost none of them are, and I mean no disparagment when I say that. New teachers struggle. I did, and so did every other teacher I know. A new teacher's lack of experience makes them less effective than good veteran teachers. Research has shown that it takes about five years before a teacher really starts to come into his or her own. Second, this argument carries the implication that these "new and effective" teachers are better than veteran teachers, and there is no evidence whatsoever to support that. I am a veteran who works with many new teachers in my department, and they constantly come to me for advice and lessons. So not only are veterans good, but they tend to make new teachers better in a collaborative environment. Third, we already lose almost half the new teachers we hire in NY before they reach that critical fifth year. If school systems really cared about retaining new teachers for their talent rather than for their relative cost, they would stop pressuring and underpaying them. In truth, school systems seem to like the "churn" of newbies, because it keeps overall salaries down, lowers health care costs, and reduces the number of teachers who will eventually be eligible for pensions.
Argument #2 (This one made by Joel Klein): Because newer teachers earn less than veterans, more teachers will end up losing their jobs. While this is true mathematically, let's take the argument to its logical conclusion. The cheapest teachers are the ones with the least experience and the least education. So the teacher who has one day of experience should be retained, according to this argument, while a third year mathematics teacher with a master's degree plus thirty additional credits should be laid off (in NYC, there is a 15 thousand dollar difference between these two teachers). So this argument assumes that we should retain the least experienced and least educated teachers. Would any parent want to send their child to a school system in which experience and education are punished? Would any prospective teacher want to come to a system in which they would be treated as expendible after just a few years and much hard work?
Argument #3 (Made by Tim Daly, head of the New Teachers Project): You will lose teachers you invested a lot in. Haven't we invested a lot in senior teachers, as well? Haven't senior teachers invested a lot of their lives, dedication, and education into serving children? Every effective school I've ever been in got that way because they built a community of teachers who have a common interest in improving that school. You build that interest by giving people a reason to stay, not by threatening their jobs with every economic crisis. And truth be told, how much money has really been invested in new teachers anyway? Last I heard at my own school, we had at least 50 applicants for a vacancy. While some schools are most likely harder to staff, it's usually because they're more challenging schools. We can devote our energies to improving those schools so they become inviting places to work, or we can throw the least experienced teachers in to educate the most needy students, as Tim Daly would have us do. Which makes more sense?
Argument #4: Quality new teachers will be laid off while poor performing veterans will be retained. Yes, there are some poor performing veterans out there. There are also quite a few poor performing new teachers. By laying off veterans, it is virtually guaranteed that even the worst new teachers will be retained because they are far cheaper and because the layoffs will necessitate keeping those low-priced bodies in the classroom.
Argument #5: Layoffs are necessary in the first place. This, of course, is the biggest lie of all. I'm no expert on education spending, but even I know that useless projects drain the education coffers more than enough to pay for any layoffs. ATRs and the rubber rooms alone have cost the city more than 130 million dollars, and that cost is set to keep rising with the closing of 19 schools. Those 19 will probably end up being 60 small schools, with 60 principals and 60 custodians and 60 secretaries. We pour money into charter schools and pay people like Eva Moskowitz nearly half a million dollars a year to run them. We set up systems like ARIS that cost 80 million that have been riddled with problems that render them virtually useless. We have had seemingly endless reorganizations of the city system, each of which takes money away from classrooms. The 700 million dollars the city gained to reduce class sizes has seeminly vanished while class sizes have grown. And while this is going on, the mayor rewards his campaign staff with six figure government jobs while pointing to a looming fiscal calamity.
In my view, this whole layoff argument is nothing more than a blatant implementation of the shock doctrine, in which politicians look for, or in some cases manufacture, a crisis in order to push through their political agendas. Klein, Bloomberg, and other education deformers have long seen the end of seniority as the holy grail of their education policies, and they see the current economic crisis as a means of implementing those policies.
Good public schools have always been a mix of talented senior teachers and eager new ones. Bloomberg, Rhee, Duncan and company would like to do away with all that, and educate your children on the cheap in the guise of education reform and in the name of saving money. Don't let them do it.
Argument 1: Many effective and talented teachers who have been hired in recent years will lose their jobs. This argument is wrong on several fronts. First, even in the most terrible budget crunch, the majority of teachers laid off will be first or second year teachers. While certainly many of them may develop into effective teachers, almost none of them are, and I mean no disparagment when I say that. New teachers struggle. I did, and so did every other teacher I know. A new teacher's lack of experience makes them less effective than good veteran teachers. Research has shown that it takes about five years before a teacher really starts to come into his or her own. Second, this argument carries the implication that these "new and effective" teachers are better than veteran teachers, and there is no evidence whatsoever to support that. I am a veteran who works with many new teachers in my department, and they constantly come to me for advice and lessons. So not only are veterans good, but they tend to make new teachers better in a collaborative environment. Third, we already lose almost half the new teachers we hire in NY before they reach that critical fifth year. If school systems really cared about retaining new teachers for their talent rather than for their relative cost, they would stop pressuring and underpaying them. In truth, school systems seem to like the "churn" of newbies, because it keeps overall salaries down, lowers health care costs, and reduces the number of teachers who will eventually be eligible for pensions.
Argument #2 (This one made by Joel Klein): Because newer teachers earn less than veterans, more teachers will end up losing their jobs. While this is true mathematically, let's take the argument to its logical conclusion. The cheapest teachers are the ones with the least experience and the least education. So the teacher who has one day of experience should be retained, according to this argument, while a third year mathematics teacher with a master's degree plus thirty additional credits should be laid off (in NYC, there is a 15 thousand dollar difference between these two teachers). So this argument assumes that we should retain the least experienced and least educated teachers. Would any parent want to send their child to a school system in which experience and education are punished? Would any prospective teacher want to come to a system in which they would be treated as expendible after just a few years and much hard work?
Argument #3 (Made by Tim Daly, head of the New Teachers Project): You will lose teachers you invested a lot in. Haven't we invested a lot in senior teachers, as well? Haven't senior teachers invested a lot of their lives, dedication, and education into serving children? Every effective school I've ever been in got that way because they built a community of teachers who have a common interest in improving that school. You build that interest by giving people a reason to stay, not by threatening their jobs with every economic crisis. And truth be told, how much money has really been invested in new teachers anyway? Last I heard at my own school, we had at least 50 applicants for a vacancy. While some schools are most likely harder to staff, it's usually because they're more challenging schools. We can devote our energies to improving those schools so they become inviting places to work, or we can throw the least experienced teachers in to educate the most needy students, as Tim Daly would have us do. Which makes more sense?
Argument #4: Quality new teachers will be laid off while poor performing veterans will be retained. Yes, there are some poor performing veterans out there. There are also quite a few poor performing new teachers. By laying off veterans, it is virtually guaranteed that even the worst new teachers will be retained because they are far cheaper and because the layoffs will necessitate keeping those low-priced bodies in the classroom.
Argument #5: Layoffs are necessary in the first place. This, of course, is the biggest lie of all. I'm no expert on education spending, but even I know that useless projects drain the education coffers more than enough to pay for any layoffs. ATRs and the rubber rooms alone have cost the city more than 130 million dollars, and that cost is set to keep rising with the closing of 19 schools. Those 19 will probably end up being 60 small schools, with 60 principals and 60 custodians and 60 secretaries. We pour money into charter schools and pay people like Eva Moskowitz nearly half a million dollars a year to run them. We set up systems like ARIS that cost 80 million that have been riddled with problems that render them virtually useless. We have had seemingly endless reorganizations of the city system, each of which takes money away from classrooms. The 700 million dollars the city gained to reduce class sizes has seeminly vanished while class sizes have grown. And while this is going on, the mayor rewards his campaign staff with six figure government jobs while pointing to a looming fiscal calamity.
In my view, this whole layoff argument is nothing more than a blatant implementation of the shock doctrine, in which politicians look for, or in some cases manufacture, a crisis in order to push through their political agendas. Klein, Bloomberg, and other education deformers have long seen the end of seniority as the holy grail of their education policies, and they see the current economic crisis as a means of implementing those policies.
Good public schools have always been a mix of talented senior teachers and eager new ones. Bloomberg, Rhee, Duncan and company would like to do away with all that, and educate your children on the cheap in the guise of education reform and in the name of saving money. Don't let them do it.
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