In an opinion piece in yesterday’s Daily News, Randi Weingarten outlined the AFT’s priorities for education reform: establishing effective collaboration between educators and policy makers, finding fairer ways to evaluate teachers, and setting up community schools in those districts that would benefit most from them. She also put out a call to those who would rather attack teacher unions than work to improve education.
I have spent over a decade trying to improve and strengthen public education in New York City. It has been a labor of love and an honor. Last week, I stepped down as president of the United Federation of Teachers. In my new role as president of the American Federation of Teachers, the UFT’s national parent, I will be working with our leaders and members around the country — including my hometown — to put in place the programs, policies and innovative ideas that should help ensure that all of our children receive the education each of us would want for our own children.
This is the work that a strong, forward-looking union does and should be doing: working to promote proven programs and promising ideas that are good for kids and fair to teachers. What we should not be doing is spending time, energy and resources responding to attacks that serve only to demonize teachers and their unions.
Read the rest here.
1 Comment:
1 Phyllis C. Murray
· Aug 4, 2009 at 3:16 pm
“In the absence of a well thought out, well-rounded and consistently applied evaluation system, many districts resort to their default position: heavy reliance on student test scores to judge teachers. Effective evaluation involves regular professional development, frequent observations, appropriate support and help if a teacher is struggling, and a fair and fast system to counsel out those teachers who do not improve after being provided that help. “Randi Weingarten ,AFT President
Since the teacher evaluation system is flawed, the thought of merit pay for teachers is absurd. Surely the idea of merit pay must have been hatched by persons with a corporate mind set, isolated in a fiefdom, and housed away from the humble masses they attempted to lord over. Perhaps these educrats have never entered or spent any meaningful time in an inner city public school; nor have they sent their children to any pauperized public schools i.e. schools which are crumbling before their eyes. Sadly,the state of the art prisons,unlike our impoverished inner city schools, serve as reminders of where bureaucrats have invested American taxpayers’ dollars for over a century.
It would serve our nation well, to invest in the human potential of its most vulnerable citizens: our youth. Certainly, ensuring that youngsters have a solid educational foundation should take precedence over a prison system which only ensures that the poor will eventually become as Dr. King predicted, “socially and economically useless.”
Our schools must offer a beacon of hope to future generations: the hope that ” liberty, justice and the pursuit of happiness” will prevail as citizens seek the kind of education that enables them to advance up the economic ladder out of their economically “disadvantaged”neighborhoods.
Since our teachers are trained to teach, teachers know what children need. And as professionals they know how to meet a child’s needs. They must find out where the child is academically and then craft a program which will meet these needs and make these dreams a reality. For children with special needs, the task is a little more arduous. However, given the skills and abilities of the special educators; the resources and support of the administrators; the care and concern of parents, even that journey can be completed, successfully.
Unfortunately, there are many circumstances which under- mind the efforts of educators in public schools. First, educators are not treated like professionals. Second, the needed resources and resource persons are often missing in public schools. Third, test taking skills and teaching to the test have become a daily priority. Fourth, inner city youth are not treated as innocents. Therefore, the public schools may even serve as a prerequisite for the later incarceration of youth whenever the school to prison pipeline is allowed to become a reality for far too many of our inner city youth.
There is no merit in merit pay. The educational playing field is not level because the resources are withheld. And unlike crafting a product for a corporate entity, teachers are working with human souls and attempting to create an environment where learning can take place. Yet teachers are held accountable for everything…even though the variables are great. Therefore, I agree with Randi Weingarten:”no longer should “accountability” be focused on teachers alone. Everyone involved in education – teachers, administrators, parents, students, elected officials and community leaders – must be held accountable for student and school improvement. ”
Knowing this, the phrase “merit pay” should be removed from the lexicon of educrats, bureaucrats, and the loose lips of their followers. There is no merit in merit pay.
Phyllis C. Murray
Chapter Leader