A Response to Anti-Union Teacher, Matt Polazzo

Matt Polazzo, a teacher at Stuyvesant, recently appeared in the Daily News promoting the Success Charter run by Eva Moskowitz. I blogged about it here. Mr. Polazzo is also the person who suggested that we should rip up the union contract in an opinion piece in the same Daily News. He emailed me his side of this issue. I will not post his email here, but I have chosen to post my response to him, which follows below. The first paragraph refers to Mr. Polazzo's dismay that I blog anonymously while calling myself Accountable:


The irony in my anonymity, if any, lies in the fact that I am a tenured teacher whose views might end up getting him fired if his name became known. I have told the truth about Bloomberg, Klein, Black, Walcott, and other power brokers in the DOE. They do monitor my blog, and it would be foolish for me to disclose my identity. Tenure is supposed to protect me and give me the freedom of speech that an educator should have, but it does not. I have heard of at least one blogger who was U rated after her identity became known. She is now out of the system. You would have it that tenured teachers can not be removed. That is nonsense. I know outstanding teachers who have run afoul of admins and were fired for their troubles. This includes union leaders who were fired for their involvement with the UFT.

You took a poke at this blog, alleging that few people read it. While "few" is subjective, you can see that I have 72 followers, and I have received more than a half a million hits. One post of mine reached 150,000 readers. Quite a few of your own students have been here, if you care to read the comments in the posts that feature you as their subject. Perhaps you're just hoping that no one hears how real teachers feel about your blatant betrayal of your colleagues and your union?

You asked me quite a few questions about my personal life, which I decline to answer, once again for the sake of anonymity. You seem to think using your name makes you more courageous than me, but followers of Kim Jong-un who praise their dear leader aren't showing courage. You are likewise showing no courage by sticking up for the billionaires who would steal the jobs and pensions of hard working teachers.

In your letter, you claim to be anti-union. Don't you find it in the least hypocritical that you rake in the benefits of union protection while trying to tear it down? As a 14 year teacher, presumably with a master's plus 30, you earn at least $80K a year. Do you think anyone would be paying you that without your union negotiating on your behalf? When you go to the doctor, are you thankful for the health benefits that the contract affords you, or do you wish you could rip up the contract and pay your medical bills yourself?

Exactly how much do you think Eva Moskowitz would be paying you? What job protections would you have? Do you think you'd perform as well teaching poor inner city children as you seem to teaching the brightest kids in NY at Stuyvesant? If you are so anti-union, quit it and go work for Eva. You want to talk the talk, then walk the walk. Then I'd have respect for your position, if not agreement.

Speaking of which, it's extremely easy for you to ask for the contract to be ripped up when you teach at a school like Stuyvesant. Those kids are self motivated, and even if you sucked as a teacher, they would still do quite well. Why don't you try teaching in a high poverty, gang-riddled neighborhood as I did for 20 years and see how well you do. Perhaps that experience might make you more aware of the issues involved in good teaching. Perhaps then you might appreciate the job protections that your union affords you, especially when your class is NOT a group of Harvard bound seniors, but a bunch of kids who are lucky if they manage to scrape through high school.

You claim that the article in the News, in which you vilify your union and your fellow teachers, was not submitted by you. So what? You clearly gave your consent once you found out that they wanted to publish the piece. Was your 15 minutes of fame worth selling out your colleagues?

Regarding your daughter winning the lottery for Eva's school: You claim it was fortuitous that the reporter for the Daily News just happened to be there when you were and just happened to ask you questions that showed Eva in a good light. Perhaps so, but this is the same newspaper that used you once before to strike out at your colleagues. It's entirely reasonable for anyone to be suspicious when you suddenly appear in the same paper, lauding a charter school while you work for the public schools.

What concerns me most about your efforts to sabotage the UFT is that you have no skin in the game, and that you offer no solutions. Your skin is safe in Stuyvesant--as I said, whether you are a good teacher or not, your students will perform. More concerning is your lack of solutions. You advocate throwing out the UFT contract but say nothing about what would take its place (if anything). How many teachers might lose their jobs unjustly if the contract disappeared tomorrow? How many excellent teachers would be fired because they could be replaced by two newbies? Maybe if your job was at stake, as well as your ability to provide for your daughter, you might think twice before advocating that others be fired without due process.

Finally, you claim that education is in "crisis" and that we need to do something. I suggest you read Diane Ravitch, who knows more about this than anyone else in America. She would tell you that American students are actually doing better than ever in the PISA tests, and that if we adjust for poverty of our students, we perform as well as any nation in the world. So the "crisis" is a crisis of poverty, and you will never solve it by attacking teachers, any more than Bush solved the problem of terrorism attacking Iraq. You solve a problem by attacking the things that cause it, and not by randomly attacking the easiest target.

Your attack on the union was Bush-like, and bush league. If you really want to help children, you'll advocate for an end to poverty, and not take a sledge hammer to your colleagues.

I will be posting this letter (but not your letter to me) on my blog, in the hopes that my tiny audience will read it. I once again extend you an offer to guest blog and attempt to refute anything I have said here.

I do appreciate you writing to me, and I hope you decide that you would like to respond publicly.

Yours,

He who shall remain nameless

Stuyvesant's Matt Polazzo Wins the Lottery!

Some of you may remember our old pal Matt Polazzo. He was the genius who suggested that the we tear up the union contract and allow "bad" teachers to be fired at will. Of course, Mr. Polazzo teaches at Stuyvesant, the city's top high school, so the odds him ever being classified as "bad" are practically nil. Nevertheless, he courageously offered his colleagues as cannon fodder for the Klein regime, without expecting  anything for himself, except perhaps the opportunity to go on teaching the top students in the city, while shitting on teachers who have to take on all comers.

I'd pretty much forgotten about this blot on education, until his name came up today unexpectedly. You see, he's won the lottery! No, not the Mega Millions, but something much more precious: he won his daughter a spot in a charter school run by fellow union basher Eva Moskowitz.

What an amazing coincidence! Matt Polazzo, one of Joel Klein's favorite ass-kissers, somehow gets his daughter a spot in a school run by Eva Moskowitz, who was famously at the top of Klein's speed dial. I mean, what are the odds?

A suspicious person might think that maybe this whole lottery thing was rigged, given how closely related these folks are. It must be a million to one shot that Polazzo, whose brown lips were firmly fastened to Klein's sphincter, got a spot in a school run by Moskowitz, who had to have Klein's lips separated from her own ass with a derrick. Seems hard to believe, eh?

And then, add in the fact that Polazzo just happened to be on hand to suck up to Moskowitz for the reporters at the Daily News.

Of course, we all know that charters are 100% on the up and up, and they would never show preferential treatment to someone who sucked up to them. Charters would never cherry-pick their students, or kick out students who don't perform, or accept less than their fair share of ELL or special ed students, so we can be confident that this lottery was legit.

Maybe, if Matt plays his cards right, he can win the lottery again, and end up a principal in one of Moskowitz's  schools. It's a long shot, but hey, who knows? He's been pretty lucky so far.

Fair Hearings--Even for Teachers?

Check out Arthur Goldstein's great piece on the phony debate over "predator" teachers. What the city would like is to deprive teachers of due process and tenure, and they are starting by targeting teachers accused of sexual misconduct.

Mr. Goldstein points out that no one wants predators in the classroom, but that everyone--yes, even teachers--deserves a fair hearing.

Follow Me On Twitter!

I've been getting more active on Twitter lately, especially in light of Campbell Brown's assault on due process. If you'd like to follow me--and who wouldn't?--my Twitter name is @accountabletalk. I promise to stick it to the ed deformers, and you're invited to watch!

Alleged Perv Walks

For an excellent point of view on the Randi Weingarten/Campbell Brown duel on Twitter, you should read NYC Educator's piece on the dust-up. If you haven't been following it, what happened, briefly, was this:

Campbell Brown, formerly of CNN, wrote an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, basically accusing teachers unions of protecting sexual predators. Randi Weingarten jumped into the fray to defend teachers, claiming that even teachers who are accused of sexual infractions are entitled to due process, and can certainly be removed if arrested or if an arbitrator rules the against a teacher. Ms. Brown claims that due process is "protecting" sexual predators, and that teachers should be summarily fired if accused in order to protect children.

One issue that came up in the debate is that Campbell Brown failed to disclose in her piece that her husband, Dan Senor, is on the board of StudentsFirstNY--an organization run by Michelle Rhee.

A cynic might believe that Ms. Brown has an agenda here because of her conflict of interest, but she eventually came clean and admitted that she should have disclosed her close ties to such an staunchly anti-teacher group.

So, who is right? Normally, I would side with Randi on this one, as I believe everyone deserves due process. But recently I heard a case of perverted behavior with a child that can not be ignored in a discussion such as this. This kind of sick behavior must be punished, and I am sure Ms. Brown and Ms. Rhee would agree.

The case involves a teacher who allegedly groped a 16 year old girl. The police recorded a phone call from this teacher apologizing to the girl for what happened. The case was investigated by the police, who declined to prosecute. In the end, the teacher reportedly paid a settlement to the girl to end the matter. As bad as this case was, yet another accusation surfaced against this teacher. A student again complained of inappropriate behavior by this teacher, although she later recanted. Nevertheless, in light of the first settlement paid, coupled with a subsequent allegation of similar misconduct, we should in this case agree with Michelle Rhee and Campbell Brown that this teacher needs to lose his job and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near young girls.

Oh, wait. My bad. It wasn't a teacher against whom these allegations were leveled. It was a politician, namely Kevin Johnson, the mayor of Sacramento.

The husband of Michelle Rhee.

I'm sure that any moment now, we can expect Michelle Rhee and Campbell Brown to call for the ouster of Kevin Johnson as mayor. After all, although none of the charges were substantiated and no charges filed, I'm sure they would agree that we can't allow a little thing like due process stand in the way of protecting our children.

Right, Michelle and Campbell?

Hello?

Note to Lori Wheal: Teaching is its own Career Path

Lori Wheal, member of Asshats for Education (A4E), regaled us today with the sorrowful tale of why she is leaving the classroom. In typical Asshat style, she tells her tale of woe while informing us--repeatedly--what a wonderful teacher she is and what a shame it is to lose her. She tells us she is a great teacher "by all measures". She lumps herself in with the "irreplaceable" teachers the city loses every year. She talks about being in the Master Teacher program, and refers to herself as a Master Teacher at every conceivable opportunity. No, really. She uses the title on LinkedIn and on Twitter. She even got NY1 to refer to her that way.

I don't know Ms. Wheal at all, but I do know that people who feel the need to toot their own horns all the time are usually the weakest and most insecure teachers.

So what's causing Ms. Wheal to leave and put the entire NYC school system in jeopardy of imminent collapse? Well, she was (as you may have heard) a Master Teacher at a turnaround school, and now that position has been eliminated because those schools will not be closed. This has left poor Master Teacher Wheal hopeless, as her precious "career ladder" has been yanked out from under her. Clearly, she has no option but to leave the system, because despite her Master Teacher credentials, she no longer has any intention of teaching children and wants to turn to education policy.

Maybe there's a way to introduce Master Teacher Wheal to Ruben Brosbe, another Asshat who had no trouble telling everyone else how to teach but headed for the hills when there was real teaching to be done.

I've got news for the boo-hoo-ing Asshats like Master Teacher Wheal: Teaching is its own career path. If you have gone into teaching because you hope one day to run a school district, you are in the wrong profession. If telling other teachers how wonderful you are is more important to you than getting in front of kids and doing the day in, day out work of actually educating children, you are in the wrong profession.

I may not know as much as Master Teacher Wheal; after all, I have only been teaching for more than twice as long as she has. But I do know that getting a gig in a turnaround school with a nifty title doesn't make you a master teacher.

What makes you a master teacher is dedication to those children in the classroom. It's sticking it out even when the going gets tough. It's being dedicated to teaching as a career and not looking at it as a stepping stone to greater things for your own advancement. It's knowing that every year in the classroom teaches you something you can use the next year, and the next.

If you go into education with the view that being a classroom teacher is the bottom rung of the ladder, you are a disgrace to the profession and you should leave.

That means you, Master Teacher Wheal.

Don't let the door hit you on the asshat on the way out.

A New Alternative to Merit Pay

In keeping with current trends, a writer for the Atlantic, who is not an educator, wrote about an idea hatched by a bunch of professors (who teach students who want to be in attendance) to increase teacher performance.

In short, the idea is this: Merit pay doesn't work, so let's punish teachers who don't "perform" (i.e., get the test scores the government wants) by giving them incentives at the beginning of the year and taking them back if students don't perform on standardized tests.

You can see how brilliant this is. The study, run by a co-author of Freakonomics and others, offered teachers either $8000 up front, or $4000 up front with the promise of more money if their students excelled and (here's the brilliant part) a promise that the 4k would have to be paid back if the students didn't do as well as hoped. The idea is that teachers would respond better to the fear of losing money than they would to merit pay. This is called "loss aversion". The authors claim this will work based upon their exhaustive study of a whopping 150 teachers whom they claim did better when threatened with the loss of income. The study is referenced in the article, but unfortunately the link leads not to the promised study, but a NY Times article on layoffs. One can assume that the author lost some pay for that boneheaded move.

Of course, if this works, loss aversion could be the new thing in ed reform. Why stop at money, though? Sure, teachers would hate losing salary, but bigger incentives would surely lead to bigger increases. Perhaps we should start lopping off the fingers of teachers who do poorly on standardized exams. Score in the upper quartile, and you get to keep your digits. Scoring in the middle would cost you, let's say, a pinky. The bottom quartile could lose a thumb or two (if I recall, this type of loss aversion has been successful in getting gamblers to repay their debts, as well). Not only would this incentivize teachers to work harder, but it would serve the dual purpose of giving parents a way to judge the effectiveness of teachers. ("What do you mean, Johnny, that everyone calls Mr. Talk 'Lefty'"?)

Of course, NYC and the UFT are already ahead of the curve. They're working on implementing a new "loss aversion" system based upon the value-added methodology. In this, if you score poorly for two consecutive years, you will lose not 4000 dollars, but your career, your salary, and a good portion of whatever pension you might have earned over decades of service.

In many ways, losing fingers seems like quite the bargain in comparison, so I hope we implement that instead. But even if we do, I'll resign before I lose all my fingers. I want to make sure I keep at least one to give to the mayor, Michael Mulgrew, and that idiot from Freakonomics.