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Fwd: Repeal NCLB, Letter to Hollister Teachers

Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 00:24:15 -0800
To: ca-resisters@interversity.org
From: Rich Gibson <rgibson@pipeline.com>
Subject: Re: [ca-resisters] Repeal NCLB, Letter to Hollister Teachers
That's right, George. Facts are facts and you, NEA, and facts have nearly nothing in common.
However, having erred in the past, I am quite willing to entertain the idea that I am ignorant. Let's see how dumb I can get:
Keep in mind, George, that I used to work for NEA affiliates. I saw the inside. I trained NEA staff. I led school strikes, led building school building seizures in the midst of contract battles, went to jail for enforcing NEA picket lines, bargained NEA contracts, organized locals from scratch, fought off the Teamsters in Florida NEA. I have many friends on NEA and state affiliate staff all over the US.
With six other people, I helped organize what is now the largest local in the UAW. I taught labor relations at Wayne State in Detroit. Still, I can live with your idea that I may be ignorant. I have made many mistakes over the years.
Your comment that I am may be dishonest flies in the face of the facts and is unacceptable. Indeed, your incessant procuring for the official line of the NEA is open to question, as to your own interests.
Reg Weaver is indeed paid $450,000 a year. Actually, it is a little more, but in 2004 poor Reg only made a total of $445, 869 placing him about 12th among the labor bosses, behind the presidents of mobbed up unions like the UFCW and the ILU. 
http://labornotes.org/node/513
Those who want to try to traverse the US Department of Labor www site can give it a try. I'll accept Labor Notes' facts for now. Keep in mind that NEA and all public sector unions fight like crazy to not disclose their expenses and salaries, etc., to the Department of Labor, as private sector unions must. So, if you check, you will see that only about 12 NEA state affiliates file LM2 disclosure forms, thus keeping the salaries out of view of members. Moreover, NEA is rife with stories about how to collect funds without having to appear to collect funds.
George, some staff in NEA can easily live on their expense accounts, and bank their paychecks.
I'd love to see Reg Weaver's expense vouchers, especially his meal vouchers. Wouldn't you? Maybe as a local leader he'll pass them along to you. After all, we both paid for them, didn't we?
For his fat pay, Weaver travels around the US in lovely suits, stumbling over his own press releases which he seems unable to memorize, mis-leading school workers, and now, hustling for the AFL-CIO. http://www.pipeline.com/%7Ergibson2/SubstanceMarch2006.htm
On top of his salary, Weaver, while on the road, stays at spots like the San Diego Hotel Del Coronado, where George W. Bush stays. Is that how you think a leader of a union --which represents people who must live in trailer parks because of their low pay-- should live?
NEA did in fact take out full page ads in the NY Times in conjunction with the AFT and the Business Roundtable and the US Chambers of Commerce and others demanding the regimented curricula that became the NCLB.
NEA, AFT, and their partners on the Business Roundtable and the Chambers of Commerce may tinker with NCLB, but they will do nothing at all to disrupt the severe regimentation of daily life in schools via scripted curricula and high-stakes exams. A nation promising the world perpetual war is going to make peculiar demands on schools, >>> eh?
Nor will NEA actually organize any workplaces around the concept that should drive unionism: employees and bosses have contradictory interests. Nor will NEA unite all school workers with parents and students, as the latter don't pay the dues that keep Weaver bulbous. What could be more dishonest, or stupid, than that?
Disorganizing people fits perfectly with the NEA vision of "New Unionism," the unity of government, labor, and big business in the national interest," abandoning the most basic reason people join unions, that is, the competing interests between workers and bosses.
Here is the previous NEA president, Bob Chase, explaining his view of New Unionism http://www.nea.org/columns/bc961124.html, promoting the pact that the UAW made at Saturn Corporation, what the UAW calls "Partners In Production."
Since Chase's speech, The UAW lost nearly a million members and did nothing at all but smash the job actions of their own members, a logical result of the policy of New Unionism which, in fact, rightly represents the unity of interests of union bosses and corporate bosses--against the work force. 
http://clogic.eserver.org/2006/gibson.html
A logical extension of New Unionism, that is, corporate unionism, is the work that the AFT leadership, and NEA leadership to a somewhat lesser extent, do with the National Endowment for Democracy and, now, the affiliated National Democracy Institute. NED is a CIA front, working all over the world to demolish indigenous workers' unions, in the interest of US imperialism. Their latest venture was in Venezuela, but they have been active in places like the Ukraine, behind the bogus Orange Revolution, and recently in Iraq.
Again, why would US unions do this (bear in mind, again, the chief culprit in this is the leadership of the AFT, but NEA is involved and the entire AFL-CIO has been involved in this activity for decades, colluding with groups like the American Institute for Free Labor Development)???
US unions do this, in theory, for the same reason the early AFL was organized; the belief that if you keep some workers out (usually black workers and women in the case of the AFL) those few workers who are "in," will do better. Internationally, this plays out as, "US workers (read union bosses) will do better if other workers do worse." http://www.sourcewatch.org/ index.php?title=National_Endowment_for_Democracy
Part of Reg Weaver's salary, as he surely knows, is rooted in his willingness to collaborate in this kind of work. He is a Labor Aristocrat. Remember, hard earned educator dues pay for Weaver and these overseas adventures. Weaver profits from imperialism, while the rest of us pay the price, as do the real victims as in Venezuela, Iraq, etc. While most of us have far more in common, for example, with teachers in Iraq or Venezuela, than we do with George W. Bush or Hilary Clinton, Weaver recognizes that the people who butter his many loaves of bread are elites in the US, and elsewhere. That makes him an enemy of the mass of people, a traitor in the midst of the school worker force.
NEA is part of the Partnership of 21st Century Skills, a founding member. Good friend of education Bill Gates thinks The P21Skills scheme is great. http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/ ,and NEA president Weaver routinely chows down with the Business Roundtable, even after the BR made fools of the NEA leadership http://www.nea.org/newsreleases/2006/nr060920.html
"Bait and switch"? (from your comment below that the Education Roundtable petition may be some kind of scam). George, the big bait and switch is that education workers are forced to pay dues to the NEA on the grounds that it is a union.
In sum, NEA is not neutral about anything, contrary to your thought. NEA leadership is on the wrong side.
Nobody needs to pay Reg Weaver or Bob Chase to surrender to a boss. We can do that on our own.
Educators, and all workers, need organizations that recognize the fact of class struggle in daily life and which try to really unite people to win the power to build reasonable schools and a just world. Here is one voice among many: www.rougeforum.org
A critical mind is good. It's to your credit that you had "serious doubts," about the Education Roundtable petition before Barbara Kerr and Reg Weaver told you what to do, and an indicator of your state of consciousness that you did nothing until they did. 





At 06:25 AM 3/22/2007, you wrote:
Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, but sometimes, at least, facts are facts.
NEA leadership did not join the opponents of public education to "force NCLB on the school work force." NEA was neutral, which was cowardly, but which is certainly different from advocacy. NEA is not neutral now and has not been for some time, which is why Bush's first Secretary of Education called us "TERRORISTS," a word with significant implications in the middle of a "War on Terror."
Reg Weaver is not paid $450,000 per year. The union reports spending that much on his compensation and expenses. Most of the money is expenses, primarily for traveling almost daily to union meetings. I think that's what a union leader should do, and I think that creating the implication that he personally profits from that money is either ignorant or dishonest.
If you want to argue that asking union members to do anything "can be seen as a threat," go ahead and argue and leave the judgment to your readers. It is still a fact that Barbara Kerr did not tell union leaders to "forbid" their members to sign the petition. In my opinion such language is inaccurate and inflammatory.
CTA and NEA intend to change the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. That law is now called NCLB, but NCLB is not just the things to which we object. It is the whole law. That is also a fact, and that's why some reactionaries have joined in calls to abolish it - they want to get the federal government out of education. This is not "dancing on the head of a pin." This is a basic question of where we want to end up.
To encourage union members to sign the petition, knowing that we don't want to abolish the ESEA, would be a kind of bait and switch. I think it's too bad that we couldn't have gotten together on the language before the petition was launched, but words do matter. Long before Barbara Kerr or anyone in NEA leadership urged us not to sign the petition, I had serious doubts about the petition for this very reason. 

At 12:17 AM 3/22/2007 -0800, Rich Gibson wrote:

George,
CTA and the NEA national office are attacking the modest and reasonable petition offered by the Education Roundtable and attacking Susan Ohanian personally. 

To suggest otherwise, as you do, is simply wrong.
What would Kerr or the $450,000 per year NEA president Reg Weaver care if people sign that petition?
They care because they cannot tolerate opposition, and fear it. As unsophisticated and largely unorganized it may be, there is a rising tide of school workers who recognize the connections between the NCLB, war, and capital itself. They hate the NCLB. They are beginning to recognize that it was the leadership of NEA, the AFT, the US Chambers of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, combined as one voice, that forced NCLB on the school work force in the first place. They are also learning that the union leadership is nothing but quislings, traitors, in their midst.
Even small steps toward that realization are dangerous to the top NEA bosses like Kerr and Weaver. And their actions belie your own words. 

Kerr's cowardly comment, which you quote,
"We ask CTA members not to sign this petition.Instead, members are encouraged to write or email their members of Congress and 
support our Positive Agenda for ESEA Reauthorization."
can easily be seen as a threat by union members who have enough experience to have witnessed NEA exercise political control over whose grievances get filed, acted on, taken to arbitration, etc.
This dancing on the head of a pin that suggests that abolishing NCLB will abolish education the ESEA is flatly nonsense. Surely Weaver and Kerr know that, if you do not.
As usual, rather than organizing anything significant in schools, where school worker power lies, NEA and CTA urge people to supplicate themselves before the fully bought class of politicians in D.C., a maneuver that will win nothing at all since Democrats and Republicans are as united on social control via schooling as they are in their absolute commitment to maintain control over the Middle East oil fields. But even if that electoral work did win, what would sustain it, if school workers never get around to organizing for control over the processes and products of their work?
There is a reason NEA and AFT and CTA never get around to that jund of organizing, as such organizing would make the union leaders irrelevant, wipe out those highly-paid jobs, and make it difficult for them to sell out the membership.
Kathy Emery's work in organizing and in writing significant material that is of vital use to all educators stands far above anything that Barbara Kerr or Reg Weaver will ever achieve. 






At 10:45 PM 3/21/2007, you wrote:

 Kathy:
As president of a local teachers association, I can state categorically that neither Barbara Kerr nor any other CTA officer or official has told us to "forbid" our members to sign the petition. The absurdity of such a report should be evident on the face of it, since local union presidents have no way to enforce such a prohibition if we were to decree it. Furthermore, Barbara has no authority to order local presidents to take any such action. We are elected by 
the members of our associations and are answerable to them.
I attended a meeting with Barbara Kerr and several dozen other local union presidents on Monday. As usual, Barbara spoke of the harms caused by the 
so-called No Child Left Behind Act.
So how did this rumor begin? In February, Barbara Kerr wrote to chapter presidents pointing out that NCLB, the so-called "No Child Left Behind Act," is now the official name for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which since 1964 has been a major source of federal funding for public schools. "Dismantling" NCLB means dismantling ESEA. That is inconsistent with the policy we adopted by a sizable majority vote, after extensive debate, at the 2006 Representative Assembly. She concluded by saying, "We ask CTA members not to sign this petition. Instead, members are encouraged to write or email their members of Congress and 
support our Positive Agenda for ESEA Reauthorization."
CTA is supporting NEA's legislative priorities for ESEA reauthorization, 
including.
1. Inclusion of multiple measures in a revised AYP accountability system so 
that AYP is not based solely on standardized test scores.


2. Use of growth models to measure changes in student performance.
Allow every state to implement a transparent growth model methodology that recognizes continuous improvement for all students, grants schools credit for improving student achievement at all points on the achievement scale (for example, credit for schools that move students from below basic to basic or from proficient to advanced), and for improving student achievement over time. Such systems could track individual student performance or cohort performance.
The Federal government should not designate the specifics of such a system, but should grant states flexibility to develop growth models, subject to state peer review and review by an independent expert body, such as the National Council on Measurement in Education, the American Psychological Association, the American Educational Research Association, or the Joint Committee on Testing 
  Practice.
Data from growth models in an accountability system should be used exclusively to improve instructional and curriculum decisions and professional development 
  for educators.
3. Shift AYP from a system that labels and penalizes schools to one that rewards 
success.
A school that falls short in just one or two criteria would be required to develop and implement a targeted improvement plan for the specific subgroup 
      of students.
If a parent exercises his or her rights to have their children opt out of taking required tests under state law, then eliminate any associated 
      penalties against schools and districts.
Provide supports and assistance for schools, including financial support and technical assistance, with assistance targeted to those schools and 
      districts most in need of improvement.
Allow districts in need of improvement to be approved as supplemental 
      service providers.
Target both Supplemental Educational Services and public school choice to 
      students in the particular subgroups that do not make AYP.
Provide a separate funding stream for public school choice and supplemental educational services requirements so funding for these programs does not 
      divert funds from classroom services.
Improve the quality of SES services by allowing school districts to monitor provider quality, ensure that SES providers serve both students with disabilities and ELL students, and require that they be fully covered by 
      federal civil rights laws.
4. Provide additional common-sense flexibility for assessing and counting test 
scores from both students with disabilities and ELL students.
Allow the IEP teams to determine the appropriate assessment and standards (regular, alternate, or modified) that the assessment should be based on for each child; remove the current arbitrary 1 percent and 2 percent 
      limits.
For newly arrived immigrant ELL students, for whom native language assessments in the required core content subjects are not available, extend to three years the period of time before their test scores are included in 
      AYP.
5. Add a separately funded class size reduction program with class size limits of 15 to improve student learning, with priority given to high poverty schools and 
which could be phased in over time.
6. Increase flexibility for meeting the "highly qualified" teacher requirements, including teachers of multiple subjects, special education and 
rural educators.
Deem fully licensed/certified special education teachers as highly 
      qualified.

      Recognize social studies as a core academic subject.
Expand current flexibility provided for rural education teachers.
7. Advance teacher quality at the highest poverty schools by providing funding to attract and retain quality teachers and improved teaching and learning 
conditions.
When Abraham Lincoln was urged to replace George McClellan as commanding general of the Army of the Potomac, he asked who his visitor would name instead. "Anybody," was the reply. That, Lincoln said, was the crux of the problem. "Anybody will do for you, but I must have somebody." The same thing is true of federal education law. "Dismantling" NCLB is not enough. We must propose something. The debate now should be about what best to propose. Harold Berlak's suggestion of a Family and Student Testing Protection Act is a good start, but in my opinion federal policy on education must also include all the positive elements that will enable ESEA once again to promote student achievement, 
especially for disadvantaged students.
To view NEA's comprehensive Positive Agenda for ESEA Reauthorization, go to: 

http://www.nea.org/lac/esea/images/posagenda.pdf


At 12:58 PM 3/19/2007 -0700, Kathy Emery wrote:
The educatorroundtable petition is an excellent organizing tool. organizing teachers in your school to sign it will lead to direct confrontation with the state's union leadership. Barbara Kerr has apparently told CTA union presidents to forbid their union members from signing the petition -- this is the kind of position you want to unmask when organizing. such a ridiculous response reveals how the highest union leadership has been coopted -- making the powers that be and their tools respond in this way is the beginning of 
  radicalizing teachers to rethink their positions.
  kathy




George Sheridan

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