David Feldman is a
public school teacher in Los Angeles.
In early July, both national
teacher unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education
Association, held their annual conventions. Neither Pres. Obama nor Education
Secretary Arne Duncan were invited to speak. This was significant, since Obama
had spoken at the two previous NEA conventions and union members generally
supported the president during his 2008 campaign.
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Many teacher union activists worked
hard to elect Obama, despite his pledges of support for charter schools and
linking teacher pay with the results of standardized test scores. Still, the
ferocity with which the Obama administration has undertaken its union-bashing
education agenda has taken many by surprise, and the leadership of the AFT and
NEA did not invite Obama or Duncan due to fears that they would be booed off
the stage. This was quite shocking, since Democratic presidents and their
appointed education secretaries have been mainstays of both NEA and AFT annual
conventions.
Many teachers at the NEA
convention called on Duncan to resign. Dissatisfaction with Obama has grown,
and many union leaders are grumbling that Duncan is the most hostile education
secretary ever. Duncan was previously the self-proclaimed “CEO” of Chicago
schools and was responsible for shutting down 70 public schools and firing
6,000 teachers while he was superintendent there.
Even organizations usually
friendly to the Obama administration, such as the NAACP and the National Urban
League, have expressed opposition to the administration’s public education
agenda. The current attacks on public education echo the attacks on all public
services that benefit the working class. At the NEA convention, the union stunningly
passed a motion of no-confidence in the Obama administration and its education
agenda ironically titled “Race to the Top.”
The education unions have
reacted to Race to the Top in different ways. While the NEA has an official
national position opposing the reforms, many state unions within the larger
national body have gotten involved in the so-called reforms dictated by Race to
the Top. For instance, unions in Delaware, Illinois, Ohio and Rhode Island
lifted the cap on charter schools and tied teacher pay to meaningless
standardized tests in order that their states could get a piece of the $4.35
billion offered to states to lure them into implementing these union-busting
measures. On the other hand, state NEA unions such as California, New Jersey, Michigan
and Florida were able to secure the votes needed to oppose Race to the Top and
pass the No Confidence Resolution at this summer’s convention.
In contrast, the president of
the AFT, Randi Weingarten, has earned the consternation of many AFT members by
supporting tying teacher evaluations to test scores as long as teachers have
due process rights. Many AFT members are urging Weingarten to oppose Obama’s
measures outright. Weingarten represents the Progressive Caucus of the AFT,
which has held leadership unopposed for 36 years. Now there are several groups
within the union that are pushing for more of a fightback approach. These
groups include BAMN—By Any Means Necessary, and CORE—Council of Rank and File
Educators from Chicago. CORE has successfully taken control of the teacher’s
union in Chicago and even elected a national vice president from within their
ranks, Karen Lewis, who opposes Race to the Top.
Race to the Top spurs local attacks on teachers
The Democrats and Republicans
agree on the necessity of attacking the teacher unions. This has emboldened
reactionary forces at the local level. In Los Angeles, the local newspaper, The
Los Angeles Times, is no stranger to union-hating journalism. The Times claims
to have the formula by which all teachers can be fairly evaluated, the Value
Added Analysis.
Value Added Analysis is supposed
to measure teacher effectiveness by the use of a standardized test. Based on
the score a student receives on a test at the beginning of the year, there is a
projected result of the student’s progress by the end of the school year. The
student takes the same test again, and the difference between the child’s
actual and projected results is the “value” of the teacher. All the students’
scores are put together and averaged out and a teacher’s value added analysis
is determined. That is a simplified description. The Times printed a technical
document explaining value added analysis, but warned readers that they may need
to have a doctorate to understand all the details. The truth is that value
added analysis is completely unproven as a means of evaluating the efficacy of
individual teachers.
A recent report by the U.S.
Department of Education found value added analysis to be unreliable, because
results for one teacher can shift radically from year to year. Using the value
added analysis, a teacher deemed totally ineffective one year can then be one
of the most effective teachers at the same school the next year. Of course,
value added analysis does not take into consideration factors outside the
classroom such as a parent’s lost job or coming to school hungry every day.
The Times is basing this
analysis on data from California Standardized test scores, which are
notoriously unreliable. Standardized test results have been found to primarily
correlate to the socio-economic status of each student. Educators are outraged
that teaching to the test has been killing the joy of learning and teaching for
students and teachers alike. In the standardized test-based world of education reform,
critical thinking is deemed unimportant, as is learning to share or gaining
greater general knowledge about the world.
Despite all this, the LA Times
has pledged that it will print the names of 6,000 third- to fifth-grade
teachers in the newspaper, with their value added analysis scores next to their
names and print the names and scores of teachers from higher grade levels later
in the year. This public shaming of teachers has nothing to do with improving
education. What qualified young person would want to join a profession in which
they could be publicly humiliated? It is about selling papers and pushing
forward an anti-union and anti-worker agenda.
Arne Duncan supports the Times
and this massive invasion of privacy, as does the incoming superintendent of LA
schools, John Deasy, who vows to use value added analysis within weeks of
taking the helm of the Los Angeles Unified School District. States such as
Nevada want to follow LA’s lead. The president of the local teachers union,
United Teachers Los Angeles, has called for a boycott of the LA Times to oppose
these attacks.
Teachers must organize and
build a massive movement in the streets to oppose this criminal demonization of
teachers. Union members should organize the parents of our students, who
understand and respect the hard work that teachers do. We must advocate for
much needed school reforms that empower teachers and retain our union rights
and dignity. If the NEA and AFT were to declare a national march on Washington
for public education, hundreds of thousands of teachers and other education
workers could easily be mobilized. We must fight now; we have nothing to lose
and everything to gain
