How To Spend Your Teachers Choice Bonanza

This blog (i.e., me) has always had a bug up its ass about Teacher's Choice. I hate the program. I won't rehash all my arguments here; if you are interested, you can read my past rantings about this ridiculous program here. Suffice it to say that my main argument against TC is that classrooms should be adequately supplied at all times--Mayor4Life would never dream of running any of his businesses without supplies, so why would he run schools that way?

Of course, this is a mayor who is trying to install a room air conditioner in his chauffeured SUV because he hates getting into a hot vehicle, while teachers and 1.1 million students sweat out a prolonged heat wave.

As you are probably aware, Teacher's Choice went from $260 a year at its high point, down to $150, then $110, until it was finally eliminated. At its height, the program was woefully inadequate; at its low point, it was a slap in the face to teachers and students alike.

Now, according to Gotham Schools, Teacher's Choice is making a comeback. The City Council is going to give NYC teachers a whopping $40 a year to supply our classrooms. So if you have 100 students a year, as I typically have, you will receive 40 cents per child.

I spent more than that on candy for my students for the last day of school.

The total spent on this failed program will be 3.75 million. Compare that to the 900 million that the city spent on computer contractors last year. Obviously, what this city cares about is making sure that the pockets of business people are lined with cash, while teachers' pockets remain empty. 

Here's what I plan to do with the money, and I urge you to do the same. Buy a ream of paper, a box of envelopes, some mailing labels, and 40 stamps. Then write a letter to Mayor4Life telling him how insulting it is that he refuses to support public schools with proper supplies. Print 40 copies and 40 mailing labels, and send one copy of the letter to City Hall every week starting in September and every week for the 40 weeks of the school year. If every teacher did this, we could dump 75,000 letters on the mayor's desk every week for a year.

I can't think of a better way to thank him.

The Incredible Shrinking Teacher's Choice

I've heard from a few teachers who've argued that the $110 dollars we are getting from Teacher's Choice is better than nothing. I'd just like to say--no it isn't. It's far worse than nothing. Let me explain.

TC has been a political tool used against teachers for 25 years. Its threatened elimination has been used against us as a bargaining tool in contract negotiations. The existence of this program gives the city an out when it comes to purchasing adequate supplies for teachers and students alike.

Even at its highest level of $260, TC was wholly inadequate for supplying a classroom. Now, at $110, it is an insult. For most teachers, it works out to less than a dollar per student. Yet that paltry sum is supposed to supply all our needs for an entire school year.

Due to budget cuts over the last several years, schools have dramatically cut supply purchases. Many schools have little or no copy paper. Getting something approved for photocopying takes longer than handwriting all the worksheets yourself because schools want to discourage use of the copier. Most teachers I know buy a case or two of paper every year, not to mention printer ink. Add on to that all the supplies we often buy for students who do not have the means to buy all the composition books and folders we require, and even $260 is shot before Columbus Day, let alone a measly $110.

Administrators sometimes issue mandates that teachers have to pay for. For instance, we have to keep folders of student work for each child. A quick check of Staples reveals these folders cost $14 per 100. Then, of course, you have to keep conference binders the size of Pittsburgh for each class. Chart paper is $25 per pad. That border paper for your bulletin board may grow on trees but your local teacher store charges for it nonetheless. Books that you need for read-alouds? Your dime.

So what's the solution? I say we take a page out of Sarah Palin's playbook and say "Thanks, but no thanks" to Teacher's Choice. (Sorry to mention Sarah again, but I love how it brings out the crazies.) Mulgrew should take a stand and tell Bloomberg to shove his $110 insult and demand that the city's public schools be adequately supplied. Most citizens have no idea that teachers get less supply money than the cost of the average pair of sneakers worn by students.

As for me, I have vowed not to spend more than the $110 under any circumstances. That means frayed border paper, recycled folders, and going all old-school by writing notes on the chalkboard rather than chart paper. That way, when I have to buy composition books and pens for those students who can't afford them, I can still say yes. That's a hell of a lot more important than making my bulletin boards look nice.

Requiem for a Bad Program

Teacher's Choice is dead, my friends. And I am here not to praise TC, but to bury it.

It was a tragically flawed program from the get-go. Even at its highest point, when classroom teachers were given $260 a year to spend, it was woefully inadequate. Think about it. A high school or middle school teacher with 150 students received less than two dollars per student, and that was when the program was at its highest.

Since then, it has been whittled down to a paltry $110, or less than a buck a kid per year for many teachers. With that money, teachers were told to do miracles. It was supposed to buy enough chart paper to last a year (at about $20 for a pad of 40 sheets, that was an impossibility). Need copies? Admins would tell you to go to Staples for them, or to buy ink and paper for your own printer, and charge it up to TC. Most of us were required to purchase "portfolios" (i.e., legal size file folders) for our classes, at about $25 a box. By the time we were done spending that $110, it often came closer to $1000, at least for me.

You can bet that employees at Bloomberg, Inc. are swimming in paper clips and sticky notes. His Mayorship wouldn't dream of making his other employees buy their own supplies. He treats them like professionals. Teachers? Well, who the hell cares about teachers? If we love kids so much, we'll skip that vacation we planned in order to buy our poverty-stricken students those oh-so-important composition books.

In this current budget, which gives $900 million to computer contractors, not a cent could be spared for supplies for teachers, so the program was cut. That should have been the end of it. But Mulgrew decided to make the following statement: “Our members always dig into their own pockets for the supplies their students need; next year, while the city carries over a multi-billion dollar surplus and millionaires get a tax break, teachers will have to dig even deeper.”

Come again? We have to dig into our own pockets? Why? Why isn't Mulgrew screaming from the mountaintops that if Bloomberg wants results, he has to at least supply us with #2 pencils for all the additional testing our kids will be doing.

In fact, Mulgrew should be out there telling teachers not to spend a dime--not one thin dime--of our own money on school supplies. At a time when Mayor4Life has denied us the 4% raise that he gave other unions, and has chosen instead to freeze our salaries for the last two years without a single sit down at the negotiating table...at a time when he threatened to lay off 4100 of us and settled for 2600 jobs that will not be coming back...at a time when he has tried to hack away at seniority, tenure, pension, and health care benefits...at a time when CityTime has stolen 600 million dollars from this city and the mayor applauded the job they did...now Mulgrew sets up the expectation that teachers should spend more on supplies out of our own pockets? Is he out of his mind?

Teacher's Choice is dead, and good riddance to bad rubbish, say I. But if we, as a union, step up and spend our own money because the "education mayor" is too cheap to give us the basics we need to get the job done, we will be expected to do this every year.

Instead, we need to say no. No more money from our pockets while Bloomberg spends 900 million on "contractors" or pays millions of our tax dollars to Rupert Murdoch and Joel Klein in no bid contracts. Nuh uh. No way. I'll live without chalk and chart paper. But I can't live with the idea that the billionaires are feasting on our tax dollars while we have to go begging for rubber bands.

Screw Teacher's Choice! Amazing New Funding Source Discovered!

Already spent your paltry $110 bucks from Teacher's Choice? Never fear! As always, Mr. Talk has the answer.

As you know, this blog and others have been urging you to boycott DonorsChoose for their shameless support of the film Waiting for Superman. They offered a five dollar bribe to anyone who pledged to see that POS movie, which could be donated to a teacher project of your choosing.

Now they've upped the ante. They are offering $15 for a ticket stub to WFS up to a maximum of four per person. Think about that a minute. The movie is donating more per ticket than the tickets themselves cost! Either they should be Waiting for an Accountant, or some big hedge fund people are dropping big bucks in the hopes that people will see this film.

So here's what you can do. Organize your own SuperStub party. Find out when WFS is playing at your local theater, and get all your friends and family members to show up at the theater when the movie lets out. Then ask people to donate their stubs to help support your local school (i.e., you). If you bring 20 people and each collects 4 stubs, you can earn $1200 in one fell swoop by having them donate all that swag to you! And the best part of it is that you don't even have to see the movie!

Of course, all this assumes that 80 people will show up to see this drek film at a single showing, which is unlikely. Still, whatever you may earn from this, you'll have the pleasure of knowing that you picked the pocket of an ed deformer, and you can't get that kind of satisfaction at your local teacher supply store.

Teacher's Choice Takes a Shave

If you haven't gotten your email from Michael Mulgrew yet telling us how he "saved" the teacher's choice program, I'll save you the trouble. The amount you will get as a teacher has taken a shave, and is now down to $110.

I know a lot of teachers love this program, but I have always hated it. The city has threatened to take it away from us almost every year, and it has gone from a stipend of $260 to $150 to $110 in the last few years. Next year the city plans to give teachers 25 cent off coupons at Walmart.

The program itself is an insult. You can bet that at Bloomberg LP the employees don't have to go begging for paper clips, but that is good enough for NYC teachers. Rather than raise the taxes for the hedge fund managers he loves so much, Mayor4Life is forcing teachers to reach into their own pockets once again while denying us the pattern raise to which we are entitled.

If you were thinking about using Donors Choose to get you those paper clips, don't forget that they are taking money from the film Waiting for Superman, the anti-teacher diatribe that touts the charter schools those hedge fund billionaires love so much. You should join the boycott against Donors Choose, as 33 other highly intelligent and incredibly good looking teachers already have.

BTW--Mulgrew tells us in his email that it is the school's responsibility to supply you with the basics like copy paper and books, and if they don't you should let your chapter leader know. That way, the CL can complain to the principal who will fire you within two years to make sure you don't complain about supplies anymore.

Ramblings

Sorry for not posting more regularly. Sometimes summer is the worst time. Other projects are going on and blogging sometimes takes a back seat. Still, there are a few things of note I wanted to mention.

Unbeknownst to me (mostly because I stopped reading the Pravda-like NY Teacher), Teacher's Choice was restored. For once, the UFT decided not to go ridiculously overboard in announcing they'd gotten something back that they had lost. If you read this blog regularly, you know how I feel about Teacher's Choice. Schools should have supplies, period. For this year, my principal has basically said that due to budget cuts, we shouldn't ask for copies of anything. They have no paper and can't afford any. This is insane.

The UFT did go overboard in announcing that they had "preserved" 55/22 (did anyone know it was on the table? I sure didn't) and got back our two days before Labor Day that they gave away in 2005. Of course, they gave away some of our upcoming raise for it, as well as agreeing to lower fixed annuity rates in the TDA from 8.25 to 7%. I calculated that this little agreement will cost me about $15000 over the next five years based upon the amount I have in TDA and lost salary. So the ten days I save will cost me $1500 each. Thanks, Randi!

There was a spirited debate over at NYC Educator about PCs vs Macs. I pointed out that Macs are PCs, and it's really a question of which OS you want to use. Personally, I refuse to pay a $500 or more premium for the privilege of using OS X on a Mac. Windows Vista works beautifully, and everyone who complains about it should just get over it already. It never crashes, it runs probably 50 times more software titles than the Mac, I can upgrade the computer myself, and I have never had a virus or a firewall breach in the last 15 years. I only bring up the discussion here because there were 20 responses to the post. I wish people would get as fired up about Bloomberg vs Thompson as they do PC vs Mac.

I'm now on the blog roll at Gotham Schools. I think this means I made the big time.

If Michael Mulgrew wants to make a splash, he will come out TODAY and state that tenure is absolutely off the table under any and all circumstances. And unlike Randi, he should mean it.

James Eterno is running for UFT president. He absolutely has my vote. And this kind of topic is the one that needs tons of discussion, no offence to PCs and Macs.

Mr. Talk Predicts: Your Guide To 2013

As many of you are aware, I have an uncanny knack of predicting the future of the NYC public schools. I don't wear this fortune teller's hat because it's a babe magnet, you know.

We have an interesting year ahead of us, with a contract to be negotiated, evaluation talks, an outgoing mayor, a union election, and more. Here are some of my prognostications for the new year:

Despite the fact that "Waiting for Superman" failed to influence anyone and "Won't Back Down" earned less money than I currently have in my couch cushions, the reformers will once again try to use entertainment to sway public opinion. Reformers will pick a new genre, as documentaries and fictional movies have failed to click. To that end, StudentsFirst will present "Rhee-formers on Ice", an entertainment extravaganza starring Michelle Rhee as the Ice Queen, who will skate a bloody figure 8 into a senior teacher's chest in the finale. Kevin Johnson will co-star as the uncle no one will let near their children.

The UFT will continue breaking off large chunks of our contract and handing them over, gratis, to the city. Mulgrew will call each of these events a victory, and talk about how glad he is to have a seat at the table, even as he pulls the chair out from under teachers.

Teacher's Choice will survive, but in a new format. Rather than giving each teacher the current whopping $45 a year for classroom supplies, the city will finally increase that amount to $1000 per teacher. Unfortunately, that money will come directly from teacher salaries. Michael Mulgrew will promote this idea because "teachers already spend more than $1000 dollar a year each, on average. Making it official gives us leverage with companies like Staples, who want our business." The UFT will declare this a victory for teachers.


Despite no contract, a sellout evaluation agreement, and a loss of vacation days due to Sandy, Mulgrew will win re-election as UFT president. Only 25% of UFT members will vote. The other 75% will express surprise that there was even an election. This will be the only victory that the UFT will declare in 2013 that will actually be a victory, albeit not for the teachers themselves.

In a surprise move, Anthony Weiner will throw his hat into the mayoral race. He will immediately grab his hat back when he realizes it was the only thing covering his genitals. His campaign slogan, "Go Big with Weiner!" will be a huge hit with bloggers everywhere. The UFT, in keeping with their history of supporting wieners in elections, grants him an endorsement. Weiner will win the election and Mulgrew will declare that his endorsement gave Weiner the momentum he needed to thrust himself to victory, causing the city to come together.

To no one's surprise, this blog will continue making Weiner jokes in 2013.

Mayor Weiner will choose erstwhile Gotham Schools blogger and celebrated E4E asshat Ruben Brosbe as Chancellor. He will cite Ruben's extensive experience at not achieving tenure as a major plus. "None of our three previous chancellors had any real experience in the classroom," Weiner will say. "Brosbe actually taught and failed to achieve tenure, which will inspire future teachers not to expect tenure, either."

Although there will be no new teacher's contract in 2013, it will be a year of innovative deals, such as giving in on teacher evaluations in exchange for a promise of 'economic credit" in the event a contract is ever signed. This will lead to a pinky swear on the Danielson Framework, a cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die ATR agreement, a hand-to-God paperwork reduction agreement, and a swear-on-my-mom's-life no charter school pledge. Mulgrew will hail all these innovations as a victory for the union. In a shocking turn of events, Mayor Bloomberg will reveal that he had his fingers crossed the whole time. Anthony Weiner's "No Take Backs" pledge will turn the tide in his favor and sweep him into the mayor's office.



Some quick predictions to round things out:

• At least one of your admins will be a dick.
• Cathie Black's emails to Bloomberg will finally be released.  The most damaging revelation will be that she referred to the mayor as "Poopsie".
• Reformers will claim that everything they do is for the kids, even if they propose tying students in potato sacks and beating them with ball peen hammers.
• Eva Moskowitz will begin planting flags in the public schools she wants to take over and claiming them for "The Country of Moskovia".
• Evan Stone and Sydney Morris will marry, but only so they can spawn more members for E$E.
• Diane Ravitch will continue to defend public schools and sound educational policy by typing more on her blog and Twitter feed than seems humanly possible. It will be revealed that she also types with her feet.
• Arne Duncan will bring phonics back to schools, but only after he gets tired of everyone pronouncing his name "Arn" instead of "Arnie".
• Mayor Bloomberg will continue to increase class sizes while pushing a law to reduce the size of a "large fries" to whatever can fit in a urine sample cup. 
• The mayor's push to eliminate guns will take up a larger and larger amount of his time. This will result in dramatic improvement in the schools.
• Michael Mulgrew will declare all of the above a victory for teachers.

Add your own predictions to the comments, and happy new year!

Fighting for a pittance

Your $150 Teacher's Choice money is gone. And I say, good riddance.

I thought TC was a joke back when we got $260. It was a bigger joke when the UFT "fought" the city and got us a $110 reduction to the current $150. Now they UFT has fought some more, and we are down to zero.

Maybe it's because I used to work in private industry that I find TC so stupid. I can't think of another single industry where workers are supposed to bring their own supplies. Imagine Doctor's Choice, where physicians would get a small stipend from the hospital and decide whether they buy bandages or sutures, but not both. Hospitals would be sued for malpractice and be rightly fined or closed for such shenanigans. But in schools, it's the norm, and we have to fight to get it.

Heir Apparent to Randi's tarnished crown, Michael Mulgrew, used a chart to show that "“90 percent of our classroom teachers spend more than $100 on classroom needs." I'd sure like to meet the 10% who don't even need a single benjamin a year. The article goes on to state that when we used to get $260 dollars, it cost the city 20 million. What he should have said is that had Klein forced the hiring of ATRs, as he is relucatantly doing now, the city would have saved $40 million a year, giving us enough to cut a check for $780 for TC without costing the city an extra penny.

Instead, what will most likely happen is pretty predicable. The UFT will announce, with much fanfare, that they have managed to restore $75 of TC money through their tough negotiations with the city. Randi will plaster her picture on the front of NY Teacher with her fist in the air and the headline "VICTORY!" In the meantime, you'll be borrowing rubber bands from your brother in law who works at IBM.

What the UFT should do, right now, is start a campaign shaming our mayor for cutting funds to schools. Randi and Mulgrew should shout from the rooftops that no teacher should spend even a single penny on supplies until teachers are given adequate tools to do their jobs, which costs a lot more than $150 a year. They should send district reps in to convince teachers to seal their pocketbooks in protest they way they sent the DRs in to sell us the phony 2005 contract that was more of an anal probe than a legal document. Point out that Bloomberg has already spent more on his power grab of a re-election bid than the entire TC budget for 80,000 teachers.

If we don't start asking, we'll never receive.

The C Word

There are some words you just don't say in polite company, and tops among them is the C word. For some reason, that word, above all others, has achieved taboo status. I really don't know why. The word may sound a little gruff because it starts with a hard C and ends with a T, but hey...we're all adults here so let's lay it on the line. There's no good reason why the C word shouldn't be discussed. I mean, a lot of people have one, and those that don't have one want one, so we should just stop beating about the bush and start using it again. I'll start the ball rolling by saying that I haven't had any in a long, long time. Almost a year.

I'm talking, of course, about a Contract. Get your mind out of the gutter.

We have been without this particular C word since October 2009 when our last contract expired. Somewhat eerily, you just don't hear the word from Unity minions anymore. I rarely read NY Teacher because it's like Pravda, except everyone in the Soviet Union knows that Pravda is full of S word, while most teachers still believe in NY Teacher. Still, I perused the online version of the paper the other day and the C word was curiously absent, as if it had been kidnapped.

Pardon me, but I thought the primary purpose of the union was to define and defend the rights of teachers and to codify them in a contract. You'd never know that by looking at the UFT website. Reading that, you'd have to conclude that the union's mission was to boost Race to the Top, or announce the annual reduction of Teacher's Choice funds. But nothing on the site would lead you to conclude that forcing the city to sit down and negotiate a contract for teachers was anywhere near the top of the union's to-do list.

Let's not assume that the union has been doing nothing for the last year. Far from it. They have supported Race to the Top, which expands charters and promotes school closings. They have embraced a lift to the charter school cap. They have tied teacher evaluations to test scores even as those scores were shown to be largely illusory. They have agreed to an expedited firing process based on those scores.

But Mulgrew didn't give these things away for nothing. No-sir-ee. In return, we went from the pattern raise of 4%, to a reduction to 2%, all the way down to a raise of 0%. Now that is some fancy negotiating.

So maybe we should be happy that there's been no talk of the C word. Who knows what Mulgrew will agree to when C word talks really heat up. Waterboarding teachers based on value added? Teachers being forced to donate $110 per student to fund "Student's Choice"? A new 37.5/37.5 plan, where we give up 37.5 days of our summer to teach test prep in addition the the 37.5 minutes we spend at the end of each school day?

Or maybe Muglrew will surprise us and pull a great contract out of his A word. That's what my chapter leader believes; he thinks that the Mayor owes that to the union and that Mulgrew's largesse to the city was a tit for tat agreement that will lead to a fair contract. To which I can only say, he is out of his F word-ing mind.

Mr. Talk Tells the Future

In this city, telling the future of teachers is more like reading the writing on the wall. But still, in the spirit of being able to say I told you so when this all happens, here are some predictions for the near future:

Tier 5 is coming to NY teachers before you know what hits you. After negotiating the 25/55 that was really a 25/57, and not getting it done until years after they said they would, the city and UFT will eliminate it and jump on the tier 5 bandwagon that the state has embraced. Good luck, young teachers! You'll now get to pay 3% of your salary in perpetuity for the honor of retiring 7 years later than me. The city will blackmail the UFT into accepting this with the threat of layoffs, and Randi will trumpet the new tier as a major victory.

The new charter school that pays teachers $125,000 a year, and which currently has only 8 teachers chosen from a pool of 600, will become a "model" of how to do things in the city, despite the fact that there aren't 600 candidates for every 8 jobs in the city and that the city will never agree to pay teachers anywhere near $125,000. Mayor Bloomberg will use this school as a way to "prove" that only teacher quality matters, and not class size. He will, accordingly, raise class size but fail to do anything to attract teachers to NYC. Teachers will be roundly criticized when this experiment fails. Tenure will be severely eroded or eliminated in an attempt to emulate that one tiny charter school. Randi will hail this as a major victory.

The currently unfunded Teacher's Choice program, which gave teachers neither enough money nor enough choice, will be replaced by a new initiative called the Supplies Aplenty Program. Under the SAP. teachers will be required to buy all their own supplies for their entire careers, but the total will be pensionable for the new Tier 5 program. Due to the elimination of tenure, however, no teacher will ever receive their pension. Randi will be pictured on the front page of New York Teacher, a Mussolini like tilt to her head and a fistful of rubber bands thrust in the air, with the headline declaring "VICTORY!"

Mayor Bloomberg will win his third term along with mostly unchanged mayoral control of schools. He will fire Joel Klein as schools chancellor and hire Caroline Kennedy, who will be essentially the same with a much more attractive exterior. Bloomy will groom Caroline to be the next mayor of New York following his third, or possibly fourth, term (even I can't predict that one) on the theory that only the filthy rich deserve to be mayor. Regardless of whether it's Caroline in 2013 or 2017, Randi will hail her election as a major victory for teachers.

Pissed Off Teacher will rock the house in her prom dress. Randi will not hail this as a major victory for teachers, but will begin showing up in red everywhere she goes. Teachers will hail this as a major turn-off.

At least one administrator at your school will continue to be a dick. (OK, that was easy).

UPDATE: POed really did rock the house, so I am 1 for 5 so far. The other predictions are just a matter of time.

This is the Stip-End

You're psyched because you just landed that dream job at Bloomberg, LLC--the one you spent all your college years hoping to snag. You're given a corner office and put directly in charge of 35 employees. Life is good. Your first assignment is to get your employees to work on a report on Widget, Inc. You figure it's a snap. You plan out exactly what you want each employee to do, and you set them to work. They do a great job. Your planning is paying off.

Mr. Bloomberg stops by himself to see how you're doing. "How's the report coming?" he asks.

"Great!" you reply. I'll have it on your desk tomorrow morning."

"I knew I could count on you," says Mike. "By the way, I'll need a copy of what each employee has done. Put their work in file folders, collated and stapled.

"Yes, sir. Where is the copy machine?"

"Right there, down the hall."

You collect your employees' work, and trot down the hall. The copier is out of paper. You laugh at the silliness of it all. This would have to happen on the first day.

"Mr. Bloomberg, sir, where can I get copy paper? The machine is out."

"We don't give copy paper. We have Employee's Choice. EC for short."

You don't remember hearing about this in grad school. "EC?"

"An innovation of mine. All our executives get $150 a year to buy supplies."

"$150? I guess I can buy some paper with that," you reply.

"Good man," says Bloomberg, even if you're a woman. "And don't forget, each report needs to be in a folder."

"Where are the folders?"

"They come out of your EC money," said Bloomy. "And don't forget to collate and staple them."

"Where do I get the staples?" you ask, noticing that your 1930s stapler is empty.

"At Staples," snaps Bloomy.

Of course, this scenario has never happened, at least at Bloomberg, LLC. Mayor Mike knows that to run a business effectively, you need to give your employees the tools to get the job done. Unless those employees are teachers. Then you're on your own, except for the paltry $150 Teacher's Choice stipend you get each year. Except it looks like you're not going to get it anymore. TC is not in the city's budget.

TC was always a stupid program. Who ever heard of employees having to buy their own supplies? But that's been the agreement between the UFT and the city for about 20 years. And the union brags about it.

The stipend used to be $250. When it got cut to zero and then restored to $150, the union claimed a major victory. Perhaps this time they'll fight for us again, guaranteeing us a box of chalk and some Crayolas. What a victory that would be!

My Contract Demands

As much as I despise Klein and Bloomberg, you have to give them some credit for knowing how to negotiate. They ask for the moon and the stars, and when they get just the moon, they're pretty happy. The UFT generally begs for scraps from the table like a starving dog.

Take the current negotiations. The city has asked for the right to suspend teachers without cause and without pay, cutting our sick days in half, changing the salary structure, ending seniority by changing the ATR rules, and so on. And the UFT asked for...what? A "substantial" raise? How much is substantial? In these economic times, a lot of people see the 4% the city budgeted for us as as pretty substantial. Even the 2% looks good to people who are out of work.

By now, our UFT leaders should have learned from BloomKlein and put a list of demands on the table that PERB would have to consider in their decision. Here's what I would have asked for:

• Teacher's Choice should be increased to $2o00 per teacher to reflect what teachers actually need to make their classrooms work. In addition, each teacher would receive a copy machine and an unlimited supply of paper and toner.


• A 14% salary increase, which includes the 4% pattern plus 5 per cent for each of the years we took zeros when the city lied about its financial crisis.


• Teachers should retain their 10 sick days per year. In addition, teachers would get two extra days for every documented day they stayed home due to a disease they contracted at schools, such as flu, the common cold, or lice.


• If a teacher has tenure and is made an ATR or placed in the rubber room for incompetence, a principal must pay $10,000 from his own pocket to a charity of the teacher's choosing. If the teacher is found incompetent, the principal who granted the teacher tenure would pay. If the teacher is found competent, the principal who filed charges would pay.


• Randi Weingarten would be officially declared a fluke, and all programs negotiated by her would be declared a do-over.


• Five snow days would be built into the school year. If the days aren't used, school would end a week earlier.


• 37.5 minutes would be reduced to 3.75 minutes.


• Seniority would be strictly enforced, by gunpoint if necessary.


• Teachers would be subject to a new Three Smacks and You're Out rule. Each teacher would be allowed to smack two students of his or her choosing every year, or be allowed to choose a hefty gym teacher to do substitute-smacking. On the third smack, you'd be subject to the same old corporal punishment rules as before. Blood-letting would be strictly forbidden, of course, unless the child was being a real asshole.

Of course, these are just suggestions, the kind of ask-for-the-moon-and-stars type negotiating the city has used so successfully. I'd be willing to give any or all of them up for a contract that paid teachers well and showed us some respect. Well, to be honest, I'd really like at least a one-smack rule, because there's a kid in 815 who's really getting on my nerves. But you know what I mean.

Challenge Accepted

I haven't posted for a while. For those of you who felt this was a refreshing change for the better, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I am back. I was feeling a little overwhelmed with the beginning of a new school year, and I'm sure many of you feel the same. Each year--even the good ones--brings its fair share of challenges. This year there are more than usual for many of us.

I love my school and my students, so I hope this post doesn't come off as petulant rant. Nevertheless, there are many items that all teachers will have to deal with this year, along with the personal ones we are each presented with in our classrooms. For example, Teacher's Choice is gone. I hated that program, because I have always felt insulted that teachers had to buy their own supplies. The lowest office worker at Bloomberg, Inc. is surely given the necessary paper clips and sticky notes, so I had a hard time accepting that teacher's should be forced to go buy their own with the pittance allotted by the city. Now even that pittance is gone.

We also must now deal with Common Core, and untested framework that seems to me to be, to put it in educational terms, stupid. It has uprooted my school's curriculum, which has worked very well thank you, and turned it on its head. No one really knows what to teach or how to teach it, and that one day of PD was mostly spent telling teachers that we'd be accountable for the CC without really telling us what it is. For example, in English, we no longer teach units, because that makes far too much sense. We must now teach to themes, or overarching ideas, or culminating questions, or something like that. No one really knows. All we know is that we have to do it or else.

Speaking of untested frameworks, we also have the infamous Danielson Framework for teacher evaluation, which sounds like a torture device from the Spanish Inquisition. Of course, it's nothing of the sort. Devices from the Inquisition tended to kill you rather quickly, whereas Danielson makes you linger for two years before you can be fired.

On top of all this, we have the ATR fiasco, no contract and no raise for over two years with no end in sight, the constant threat of layoffs, TDR scores that don't reflect reality, bedbugs, PCBs, and dirty oil heating our classrooms.

Personally, I have much larger classes (at least 6 more per class than usual), a bunch of kids who don't speak English, and one boy who may be allergic to me because the last three times he has been in my class he's projectile vomited all over my floor.

The city is basically asking us to teach kids with no supplies, no money, no respect, larger classes, new curriculum, new evaluations, lack of training, and overcrowding.

Well, we're New York City teachers, dammit.

Challenge Accepted.

Schools Open Today, "Chancellor" Announces

In her first major decision as presumptive "chancellor", Cathie Black announced today that despite the blizzard that dumped more than a foot of snow on NYC, public schools would be open today.

When reminded that schools are closed until 1/3/11 for the holidays, Cathie Black snapped back, "New York City has a long history of keeping schools open despite blizzards. We're not going to let little things like the union contract and school calendars stand in the way of our children's education. It's all about the children. Well, not my children, of course, but you get the idea."

Contacted in his beach cabana in Bermuda for comment, Mayor Bloomberg slammed his coconut shell cocktail down on a table and fumed, "This is another example of teachers trying to do what's best for themselves rather than putting children first. I believe I have full legal authority to open the schools. Do I have mayoral control of the schools or not? If I can appoint a bimbo like Cathie as chancellor, I can open the schools when I want."

UFT president Michael Mulgrew voiced his displeasure with the unilateral decision. "I don't think it's right, but Ms. Black is the new chancellor and I have vowed to work with her despite her utter ignorance of the school system. Besides, the UFT has long fought for smaller class sizes, and I'm urging teachers to look at this as an opportunity to work one on one with kids. Literally."

In keeping with revised tenure rules, which call for new teachers to make "contributions to the school and community", untenured teachers will be called upon to dig out the cars of all the administrators in their respective schools in order to assure a smooth opening.

Asked whether she believes any students will actually show up, Cathie Black responded, "I certainly hope so. I'm looking at this blizzard as a teachable moment. Ooo...I love using education jargon! Anyway, you can bet the janitors at Hearst Publishing will be at work today or on the unemployment line tomorrow. Our students need to learn the harsh realities of the corporate world we are training them for."

To her credit, Ms. Black vowed not to repeat the mistake of her predecessor, Joel Klein, who bungled school bus routes so badly that many young children were stranded in the snow. "Rather than wait for buses that may never come, parents may call their child's school and request a piggy back ride to school for their children. Untenured teachers will be more than happy to oblige, unless they want to remain untenured, if you get my drift."

Michael Mulgrew initially expressed outrage at using new teachers as pack horses, but backed down when told that Ms. Black offered to increase next year's Teacher's Choice allocation by two dollars to a whopping $112 so that piggy backing teachers can buy an extra pair of wooly socks. "In these fiscal times, socks are nothing to sneeze at. This is a major win for the union!" Mulgrew announced.


.

A Trying Year

In a way, this is a gut-wrenching school year for me. It has nothing to do with evaluations, E4E asshats, our puny Teacher's Choice allocations, or any of the other issues you'll frequently hear me moan about on this blog. It has much more to do with the fact that this year, for the first time, I will be eligible to retire.

I know some of you may think this is cause to sing Hosannas, but I am completely ambivalent. Part of me wants to go, and another part wants to stay.

On the plus side, I truly love my school, and my colleagues are great. Even my supervisors are top notch (that's been my experience--the mileage of others may vary). On the minus side, I am tired of the MOSLs and RttT and the thousand other slings and arrows that make teaching such drudgery these days.

My school, along with many others in this city, I am sure, has just spent the last three days administering tests in three subjects so that teachers can be evaluated by them. THREE DAYS of instruction LOST at the very beginning of the year.  In addition to that, all of us will be pulled from our classrooms for an entire day to grade these assessments, so that makes four days lost. None of this has anything to do with the kids--it all has to do with the mania to hold teachers "accountable".

How are we ever going to teach these kids anything if we do nothing but test them?

I'm sure some will claim that I have burned out, but I have not. I could go on teaching indefinitely if not for the massive amounts of meaningless paperwork and testing we have to do. In truth, I want to TEACH, not to be a professional proctor or a data entry collector.

For about the first week of school, I was convinced that this would be my last year. After two PD days filled to the Plimsoll mark with Danielson, MOSL, and IPCs, and a week of baseline essays to administer, I swore this year would be it. And then something happened.

A girl I taught in 6th grade two years ago was crying in my 8th grade class the first day of school this year. I don't know why. I asked her if she was upset at being in my English class again. She look up at me quizzically and her tears stopped. She said, "No, Mr. Talk, of course not. You're my favorite teacher. You've been my favorite teacher since the 6th grade."

I'm still not sure if I should be happy that I can still make a difference in the lives of kids like this girl, or mad at her for giving me a real reason to stay on.

A Farewell to the Grinch

Wishing all of you a happy holiday, here's a traditional Christmas rant that will be far outdated by next year with the advent of a new chancellor. So here's one last posting about Klein, as I wait for the door to hit him as he exits.

The Klein Who Stole Tenure

Every teacher in Schoolville loved tenure a lot,
But the Klein, who worked in Tweed Courthouse, did not.
The Klein hated tenure! He thought it a cancer!
Now please don’t ask why, no one quite knows the answer.
It could be that a teacher once called HIM a dunce,
Or he got pelted with spitballs when he tried teaching once,
But I think the most likely reason of all,
May be that he knows nothing about teaching at all!

But whatever his reason for hating the teachers,
What he hated more, was one of the features,
Of the UFT contract that stood undiminished.
Despite 2005, he still wasn’t finished.
He knew the one hope, to which teachers could cling,
Could be dashed if he could destroy one more thing.
For every three years, despite all his jive,
Some teachers in Schoolville still managed to thrive.
And when they survived, it was tenure they got,
And this twisted the Klein’s BVDs in a knot!

“How COULD they get tenure?” Klein snarled with a sneer.
“After all I’ve thrown at them, why are they still here?
I don’t pay them enough and I make them feel small.
I’ve cut Teacher’s Choice down to nothing at all!
I give them lunch duty and potty patrol,
Sufficient to sear the hardiest soul!
And if that wasn’t enough to anger the staff,
I piled on thirty seven minutes—and a HALF!

They read to the children on germ-ridden rugs!
And share cafeterias with rodent-sized bugs!
Bulletin boards, walkthroughs, unsatisfactory ratings!
TAN notebooks, portfolios, PD unabating!
Acuity! ARIS! And monthly staff meetings!
Only a masochist smiles through such beatings!
Such horrible things! I don’t think I can top them!
Yet still they get tenure! Is there no way to stop them?”

And then he got an idea.
The Klein got a terrible, awful idea.
“I think,” the Klein chuckled, “I can end this whole mess,
If I can finagle support from the press!
But I’ll need an accomplice as heartless as me!”
So he called up his old bulldog pal from DC.
And together the Klein saddled up with the Rhee,
And declared war on tenure with malevolent glee.

Rhee’s taught for 2 years, and Klein less than one,
But has that stopped this duo? No, they’ve hardly begun!
Armed with three years of classroom experience between them.
They’ve set upon teachers, hell bent to demean them.
With data most spurious and a press most incurious,
The Klein and the Rhee hope to make parents furious,
So they’ll call for tenure to come to an end!
Are we going to allow this to happen, my friend?

I wish I could tell you the Klein’s heart has grown,
Or the Rhee’s tiny ticker was not made of stone,
Or the laughter of children would melt their exteriors,
Or the voters would finally boot their posteriors.
But unless the teachers in Schoolville take action,
And finally begin voicing their dissatisfaction,
The Kleins and the Rhees will most surely banish
Our tenure, and the last of our rights will just vanish.

.

Mr. Talk Nails It Again!

You know, sometimes I scare myself when I don my swami hat to make predictions, and not just because it lowers my apparent IQ by forty points. It seems I am right an uncanny number of times (Mrs. Talk would take issue with that, of course--perhaps with a rolling pin). Still, there’s no gainsaying the fact that I correctly predicted that there would be no layoffs in 2010. Some called me crazy (Mrs. Talk would agree on that one), but the fact remains that layoffs were averted. I also correctly called the ever diminishing Teacher’s Choice allotment, and my prediction that at least one of your admins would be a dick is beyond question.

Nevertheless, it came as a shock even to me when I basically nailed the resignation of “Chancellor” Cathie Black. When she first took office, I predicted that she would be out by April 1, and I only missed the mark by six days.

One question remains unanswered about this surprise announcement. First of all, did Cathie resign, or was she fired? I’d say fired, because Dennis Walcott’s appointment came just moments after her meeting with Bloomberg, so apparently he had this move in mind for a while. Of course, it is also possible that Mayor4Life conducted the same exhaustive search for Black’s replacement that he did for Black herself, by which I mean Walcott happened to be in the room at the time.

Another question that hangs in the air is: Why now? Sure, Cathie’s poll numbers hit a new low last week, but she’s never exactly been Justin Bieber. I think the truth is that Black was brought in to be the corporate chainsaw who would oversee the massive layoffs that would have occurred had Bloomie gotten his way on eliminating seniority. Now that Bloomberg's plan to end "LIFO" is dead, Cathie is out.

I’m sure the burning question in your mind is—What can we expect from Dennis Walcott? And what does Mr. Talk have to say about it? Here are my predictions:

Walcott is African American, so I expect he and Bloomie will take one more shot at LIFO. They’ll send Walcott out to black neighborhoods to claim that laying off new teachers will disproportionately affect their neighborhoods.

Once that fails, Walcott will announce some miraculous savings he has found/cuts he can make/wallet he has found in the street, and call off layoffs for 2011. Walcott then appears to be a hero and Bloomie is off the hook and doesn’t have to fire precious newbie teachers like Ruben Brosbe.

Other than that, absolutely nothing will change. Bloomie will still be rich. You will still end up buying your own staples and construction paper. One of your admins will continue to be a dick.

And so it goes.

The Klein Who Stole Tenure

Every teacher in Schoolville loved tenure a lot,

But the Klein, who worked in Tweed Courthouse, did not.

The Klein hated tenure! He thought it a cancer!

Now please don’t ask why, no one quite knows the answer.

It could be that a teacher once called HIM a dunce,

Or he got pelted with spitballs when he tried teaching once,

But I think the most likely reason of all,

May be that he knows nothing about teaching at all!

But whatever his reason for hating the teachers,

What he hated more, was one of the features,

Of the UFT contract that stood undiminished.

Despite 2005, he still wasn’t finished.

He knew the one hope, to which teachers could cling,

Could be dashed if he could destroy one more thing.

For every three years, despite all his jive,

Some teachers in Schoolville still managed to thrive.

And when they survived, it was tenure they got,

And this twisted the Klein’s BVDs in a knot!

“How COULD they get tenure?” Klein snarled with a sneer.

“After all I’ve thrown at them, why are they still here?

I don’t pay them enough and I make them feel small.

I’ve cut Teacher’s Choice down to nothing at all!

I give them lunch duty and potty patrol,

Sufficient to sear the hardiest soul!

And if that wasn’t enough to anger the staff,

I piled on thirty seven minutes—and a HALF!

They read to the children on germ-ridden rugs!

And share cafeterias with rodent-sized bugs!

Bulletin boards, walkthroughs, unsatisfactory ratings!

TAN notebooks, portfolios, PD unabating!

Acuity! ARIS! And monthly staff meetings!

Only a masochist smiles through such beatings!

Such horrible things! I don’t think I can top them!

Yet still they get tenure! Is there no way to stop them?”

And then he got an idea.

The Klein got a terrible, awful idea.

“I think,” the Klein chuckled, “I can end this whole mess,

If I can finagle support from the press!

But I’ll need an accomplice as heartless as me!”

So he called up his old bulldog pal from DC.

And together the Klein saddled up with the Rhee,

And declared war on tenure with malevolent glee.

Rhee’s taught for 2 years, and Klein less than one,

But has that stopped this duo? No, they’ve hardly begun!

Armed with three years of classroom experience between them.

They’ve set upon teachers, hell bent to demean them.

With data most spurious and a press most incurious,

The Klein and the Rhee hope to make parents furious,

So they’ll call for tenure to come to an end!

Are we going to allow this to happen, my friend?

I wish I could tell you the Klein’s heart has grown,

Or the Rhee’s tiny ticker was not made of stone,

Or the laughter of children would melt their exteriors,

Or the voters would finally boot their posteriors.

But unless the teachers in Schoolville take action,

And finally begin voicing their dissatisfaction,

The Kleins and the Rhees will most surely banish

Our tenure, and the last of our rights will just vanish.

The Grinch Recycled

I'm far too lazy sitting in front of the TV to write a new post about Christmas like the indefatigable NYC Educator and Chaz. So I'll take the easy route and repost something I wrote last year when this blog was brand spanking new. I had about 4 readers when this first appeared, so hopefully it's new to you. Unfortunately, it's still as true as it was a year ago.

The Klein Who Stole Tenure

Every teacher in Schoolville loved tenure a lot,
But the Klein, who worked in Tweed Courthouse, did not.
The Klein hated tenure! He thought it a cancer!
Now please don’t ask why, no one quite knows the answer.
It could be that a teacher once called HIM a dunce,
Or he got pelted with spitballs when he tried teaching once,
But I think the most likely reason of all,
May be that he knows nothing about teaching at all!

But whatever his reason for hating the teachers,
What he hated more, was one of the features,
Of the UFT contract that stood undiminished.
Despite 2005, he still wasn’t finished.
He knew the one hope, to which teachers could cling,
Could be dashed if he could destroy one more thing.
For every three years, despite all his jive,
Some teachers in Schoolville still managed to thrive.
And when they survived, it was tenure they got,
And this twisted the Klein’s BVDs in a knot!

“How COULD they get tenure?” Klein snarled with a sneer.
“After all I’ve thrown at them, why are they still here?
I don’t pay them enough and I make them feel small.
I’ve cut Teacher’s Choice down to nothing at all!
I give them lunch duty and potty patrol,
Sufficient to sear the hardiest soul!
And if that wasn’t enough to anger the staff,
I piled on thirty seven minutes—and a HALF!

They read to the children on germ-ridden rugs!
And share cafeterias with rodent-sized bugs!
Bulletin boards, walkthroughs, unsatisfactory ratings!
TAN notebooks, portfolios, PD unabating!
Acuity! ARIS! And monthly staff meetings!
Only a masochist smiles through such beatings!
Such horrible things! I don’t think I can top them!
Yet still they get tenure! Is there no way to stop them?”

And then he got an idea.
The Klein got a terrible, awful idea.
“I think,” the Klein chuckled, “I can end this whole mess,
If I can finagle support from the press!
But I’ll need an accomplice as heartless as me!”
So he called up his old bulldog pal from DC.
And together the Klein saddled up with the Rhee,
And declared war on tenure with malevolent glee.

Rhee’s taught for 2 years, and Klein less than one,
But has that stopped this duo? No, they’ve hardly begun!
Armed with three years of classroom experience between them.
They’ve set upon teachers, hell bent to demean them.
With data most spurious and a press most incurious,
The Klein and the Rhee hope to make parents furious,
So they’ll call for tenure to come to an end!
Are we going to allow this to happen, my friend?

I wish I could tell you the Klein’s heart has grown,
Or the Rhee’s tiny ticker was not made of stone,
Or the laughter of children would melt their exteriors,
Or the voters would finally boot their posteriors.
But unless the teachers in Schoolville take action,
And finally begin voicing their dissatisfaction,
The Kleins and the Rhees will most surely banish
Our tenure, and the last of our rights will just vanish.

What I Learned In Kindergarten, And What Education Leaders Missed

I've always been a pretty big fan of Robert Fulghum. If you remember, he wrote one of the first essays to go viral on the internet, way back when people emailed such things to each other rather than post them to Facebook. It was called All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten. You can read it here if you've never read it before. Yes, it's sappy and sentimental, but it's oh-so-true.

The premise of the essay is that if we all behaved as we were taught to in kindergarten, the world would be a better place. Here are some examples of things Fulghum exhorted us to do, and how education leaders have failed us.

Share everything.
Almost nothing is shared with teachers. The rich get richer while teachers get laid off. Our billionaire mayor has seen fit to get rid of some of the most poorly paid school workers while offering no-bid contracts to his cronies. Bloomberg has eliminated Teacher's Choice, so teachers will have to dig into their own pockets to supply our kids with materials they need to succeed. Teachers know how to share. Billionaires don't.

Play Fair.
The DOE and UFT agreed--in writing--to keep teachers' TDR scores confidential. The DOE even agreed to side with the UFT in court should it come to that. Instead, they went back on their agreement and are now pushing for the release of the scores. This will unfairly hurt many teachers, but the DOE doesn't care. Bloomberg would like for teachers to be publicly humiliated, but when his deputy mayor was arrested for domestic violence, Bloomie hid that fact from the public. If the deputy mayor had been a teacher, that wouldn't have happened.

Clean up your own mess.
You'd think the DOE would feel obligated to enforce a minimum of cleanliness in schools, but you'd be wrong. The rate of bedbug infestations has tripled in the last year. And instead of stopping the use of dangerous dirty oil in schools, the city decided to spend 70 million dollars on it (but don't worry--that will only last until 2030). To be fair (play fair!), the city is promising to only take ten years to rid school lighting fixtures of cancer causing PCBs.

Don't take things that aren't yours.
NJ Governor Chris Christie would like to solve the state's pension shortfall by shafting teachers and other workers who have contributed their share to the system over the years. He withheld a 3 billion dollar payment that the state owes to the pension fund. That money was not his--it was money that was promised to the pension system through collective bargaining. Christie rationalized this by saying the state can't afford to pay for the things it promised, even though he refused to ask his millionaire and billionaire pals to pay an extra cent. I wonder what Christie's kindergarten teacher would say about that?

Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
There's none of that in the public schools. It's all testing, all the time.

I'm sure I could go on and on, but you get the point. The government in general and educational leaders in particular have forgotten the most basic lessons that they should have internalized long ago. One hopes they at least remember to flush.