Ignoring Race is Convenient

Dear Convenience,

I am tired of seeing you around. You have become the unspoken excuse for stalling progress on racial and educational justice. Convenience you have an outsized influence on how we view and respect each other as human beings.

It is you, Convenience, that thinks all lives matter. It is also easy to say you don’t see the color of someone’s skin. Are you so confident to think you know what it is like to walk in the shoes of people of color? Where is your humility? The color of someone’s skin does matter. You can only speak from your own skin, not others. I’m a white male. I shouldn’t expect my experience to trump the lived experiences of anyone other than myself. 

It is you Convenience that is interrupted when Black Lives Matter’s efforts to call attention to racial disparities are done at the wrong times and places. Non-violent responses to violence in our communities are necessary. When do you think about racial inequality if it weren’t for a freeway being blocked, protests held at Mall of America, the airport and the state fair, or demanding justice for Jamar Clark? You need to be reminded that your life is so privileged that you complain about a delayed drive home, shopping trip, or entrance into the state fair over the inconveniences of African Americans. 

Convenience might visit you if you don’t fear hearing the name of the latest young person killed on the news. I fear hearing the name because it might be one my students that I pour my heart and soul into to succeed in a system that doesn’t stand up and with them. Yet Convenience you don’t visit the neighborhoods and families experiencing inequality. You are insulated from the conversations of race in our schools, homes, and justice system. Convenience you don’t concern yourself with this fear because you don’t experience the same struggles. Convenience you assume that you understand the system and criticize your fellow human beings actions trying to change what is wrong. 

It is Convenience that measures students with a battery of standardized tests. But Convenience you don’t get spreadsheets that measure the loss of art, gym, social studies, recess, and lunch time. Convenience you are given a higher priority than students. Competition based on test scores requires students to fail in order to protect Convenience’s place. It is convenient to ignore these tests are racially biased towards white students. Where are the policies for allowing young students to play and socialize to form social skills? Where are the policies that require art and music for students to unleash their creativity? They become inconvenient add ons when tests rule over our classrooms for the convenience of shaming public schools instead of supporting them. Convenience you have stolen that from too many children. Capitalistic competition has been misapplied to education. Don’t think you have the ability to change our education system based on boiling children down to numbers when it is profit margins of Pearson that perpetuate the narrative that children of color are the problem when, in fact, it is you Convenience. 

White parents would you accept that your white student deserved to be tasered because s/he walked away from the school liaison officer? This happened outside my own classroom to a student of color who struggled, but improved in my class the year before. It isn’t a question of whether or not this student did something right or wrong, but if he would have been treated differently if he was White. Convenience you are too pervasive. You are even in the halls of our schools.

I’m heartbroken the lessons of Dr. Martin Luther King are forgotten. Convenience I’m glad you haven’t visited me lately. I’m better off witnessing and standing up with my students advocating for their equality under the law. I’m proud when students stage a walk out or a sit in. I invite my colleagues and white community members to reject Convenience and confront the illusion that race doesn’t matter. If race didn’t matter then people wouldn’t protest and disrupt Convenience. Black lives do matter. Stop repeating your statements of “I don’t see race.” Distance yourself from Convenience. Stand with our students and neighbors for a future that is just.

Convenience you are no longer welcome. 

Truly,

Alex Hoselton 

Click this link to sign up for email reminders when I post a new blog entry! http://tinyurl.com/qfakdgd 

The Value of Voice

The guiding principal behind education reform is competition. Schools, teachers, and students become metrics to determine successes and failures. Standardized tests are at the center of measuring students and teachers alike. I believe students should not feel like winners or losers in the game of school. We educate and mentor students to bolster them, not identify losers. We educate to help build a just future for all students, not test scores that represent little educational value.

It is easy to assume people against changes based on competition think our education system is hunky dory. If teachers speak against particular edreforms, we are cast as uncaring teachers protecting our jobs in the drama of high stakes testing. That truly isn’t the case. We teach because we care. Even if you’re an E4E member, charter school teacher, or career public school teacher it isn’t fair to discount the passion we have for our students and teaching by stating or insinuating these individuals don’t believe the students we teach matter. That is not my intent. It is offensive and I hope no one is offended, but if you are not reading my blog as an expression of passion for teaching and learning. Educators are not millionaires, but our actions and voices count more and are not heard nearly enough. 

Educators 4 Excellence attempts to co-opt our voices for the agenda of edreforms that are not good for students.

Everyone should draw a line that states what you stand for and be proud of who stands behind you. Education groups must do the same. If you claim to be a bottom up organization, then your mission and funding comes from the members. Don’t hide the facts. How can Educators 4 Excellence claim to be grass roots and take large sums of money from foundations with explicitly stated goals to change our profession?

I don't fault E4E for seeking large sums of money from wealthy people. It is congruent with their mission and the wealthy funders’ goals. If you read my last blog post, you saw the E4E pledge. I don’t think this is a question about whether or not money influences E4E. That assumes their mission from the start was truly rooted in teachers voices. You won’t find who funds them on their website; you won’t see in their news feed when they receive giant donations. Why not? It seems brag worthy E4E received $3,000,000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. You might conclude that information contradicts their grassroots image. 

	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	total
Gates		947,941		3,000,695		3,948,636
Walton			156,602		825,000 (pg 33)	990,602
Broad				100,000* (pg 124)		100,000
Arnold foundation			500,000			500,000
Peter and Lucia Buck Foundation				$150,000	$200,000	350,000
Mcknight Foundatin			50,000	200,000 (scroll down)		250,000
IRS 990 Forms Filed	339,031	1,926,028	1,297,548	5,135,182	Not Publicly Available Yet	6,139,238
			57.9% Gates, Walton, and Broad	At least 70.5% funds from foundations	8,697,789	Total Donations:6,139,238

*Broad does not share the exact dollar amount donated to its grantees. Therefore, a final number can not be determined other than a minimum of $100,000 because E4E is listed in the $100,000 to $100,000,000 grantee category. 

Sources

Only private non-profits are legally required to disclose who funds them. So I can only include foundations who donated on their websites. I learned about E4E’s financials by looking at their IRS 990 forms on guidstar.org. 

In the words of the foundations

The Walton Family Foundation of Wal-Mart fame, is dedicated to competition in its mission. They believe in their mission and are quite explicit about it.

“As part of the Walton Family Foundation K-12 Education Program, we invest in organizations and programs that empower parents to choose among high-performing schools and insert competition into public education.  The Public Charter Startup Grant program supports the creation of public charters by providing grants to school developers as they launch new schools.”

The question to me becomes why would Walton donate nearly a million dollars to E4E? The answer is the Walton foundation believes E4E furthers their mission. See E4E’s pledge to see how much competition is explicitly cited in using standardized tests.  

The Gates foundations gave E4E nearly $4,000,000. Why? Bill Gates believes that competition will further student outcomes. It doesn’t take long to enter “charter” into the foundations grant search to see multi-million dollars contributions. Standardized test scores are at the center of demonstrating a schools “success.” That is competition. 

There is another reason why Gates’s supports E4E. On his blog he writes “…teachers don’t have enough say in education. One of the things we’re trying to do at our foundation is to help teachers get that support they’re looking for.” Gates is referring to E4E. At the same time, teachers have their union. If you are not active in your union, you are not participating in the conversation and actions that bolster our students learning. Advocating for change within your union to improve education is the most effective way to make immediate impact. Teachers negotiate contracts, E4E does not. Want a better behavior policy that doesn’t unfairly suspend or expel students of color, advocate within your union.

Finally, Gates committed $335 million to promoting teacher effectiveness. The network of schools targeted were a part of the Measures of Effective Teaching three year study. Yup they used VAM (See my previous blog post about this failures of VAM). E4E wants teachers to be paid based on test scores and other factors not mentioned or explained. Within E4E and the report its difficult assess teacher performance because of drastic differences in schools.

The last of the big three is the Broad Foundation. The foundations in the table above also fit the competition profile as well. For the sake of brevity, going into detail about each of their competition based ideas would be redundant and boring. I am including Broad in the analysis because they are so influential in promoting competition in education. They gave at least $100,000 to E4E. However, it is important to note that in Broad foundation board reports testifies to competition and education reform. In their 2009/2010 board report stated:

“The election of President Barack Obama and his appointment of Arne Duncan, former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, as the U.S. Secretary of Education, marked the pinnacle of hope for our work in education reform. In many ways, we feel the stars have finally aligned.

With an agenda that echoes our decade of investments—charter schools, performance pay for teachers, accountability, expanded learning time, and national standards—the Obama administration is poised to cultivate and bring to fruition the seeds we and other reformers have planted.”

In the Broad foundation report for 2013/104 (pg. 59) they are explicit by explaining what E4E stands for:

“E4E has three major functions: help educators learn about public-policy issues related to education reform; create a network of like-minded educators; and mobilize this network of educators to take action and assume leadership roles in their schools, districts and unions.”

Broad spends a lot of money on its superintendent academy to promote its edreform platforms. Further the same agenda by funding E4E to get teachers to buy the rhetoric and edreforms become easier to get.

The Money

Divide the total donations by Gates, Walton, and Broad by the total income listed on E4E’s Form 990s since founded in 2010 and you get 57.9%. If you include the other foundations I found that publicly shared their donations to E4E their total researchable income is 70.5%. This is not very grassroots. 

That starkly contradicts the 80% of E4E’s funds coming from local foundations and donations told to my colleague by an E4E organizer at this year’s Minneapolis Public Schools New Teacher Orientation. The only foundation with any geographic proximity that donated to them was the McKnight Foundation (3M). Yes they are located in the Twin Cities, but they give world wide. $250,000 was donated to E4E explicitly to support operating expenses. McKnight and E4E are not local for all intents and purposes when its comes to education. E4E origins are in New York City founded by Teach for America corps members. 

What’s the big deal?

Many of the foundations in this piece give to many worthy causes that I agree with. Foundations themselves are not evil entities. Bill Gates, please keep giving money to reduce the infant mortality rate. On the other hand, please stop giving money to organizations that splinter our education system into chunks that do not honor the dire needs of our students and families that impact learning such as stable housing and fair living wages. 

The problem to me is simple. To claim that educators don’t have a voice in policy decisions, but you already have a framework for policies E4E at best is a contradiction and at its worst a blatant lie. Furthermore, giving the impression this is a grassroots organization while receiving huge sums of money from foundations who are promoting their likeminded agenda only deepens that dishonesty.

There is no better bang for your buck if you want to infuse competition into education than support E4E. The ability to claim teachers stand for the policies of ending seniority, pay for performance based on standardized tests than have teachers say it for them. I was at a press conference for an education policy proposal and a local edreform proponent lawyer Mike Cerisi told a colleague that teachers don’t want seniority and cited a recent E4E press release stating its 300 plus members in Minneapolis believe this. At the same time, I meet people who signed the pledge but don’t agree with ending seniority. Mr. Cerisi coopted those teachers voices. 

In Conclusion

The problem with competition in education is simple. Students aren’t products. Teachers are motivated by their students’ needs, not standardized tests. Educators 4 Excellence represents the voices of particular wealthy funders. Educators beware E4E is an organization that coopts your voice rather than listening to it. Join me and other advocates for strong public schools (they are not wealthy foundations) to make schools a place of learning instead of testing. The value of your voice is worth more than E4E and it's wealthy foundations.

E4E: Did you hear that?

This is the first post in a short series dedicated to providing a teacher’s perspective on the organization known as Educators For Excellence. The posts in order will focus on their message, show who supports the organization, and hopefully record a audio discussion with a person from E4E.

I’m going to do the politically correct qualifier and be nice before I share my thoughts. E4E members who take the pledge stating they support the organizations core values are not stupid or bad teachers, they have a different perspective. There are issues from time to time, I agree with them like revamping behavior policies that negatively impact students of color. I think of them like so many colleagues; they are attempting to change the world for the better. However, I disagree with them on numerous issues that motivated me to share what I have learned. I’m not convinced participating in their agenda is good for our profession or students. E4E has billionaire donors to support their efforts. I have a blog. Try not to be offended because I’m sharing my opinion. E4E’s voice is loud and well funded. I’m just doing something small to disagree. After all, we do live in a democracy predicated on debating ideas. 

If you are a new educator to Minneapolis Public Schools working at Jefferson, Lucy Laney, Bethune, City View, or any school with a lot of new teachers, you likely have already received a second email from E4E looking to get coffee with you. I know because new teachers have been emailing me. Keep it up please! Share this post with your new colleagues.

The blog post officially begins now…

When you read that an organization “…works to ensure that the voices of classroom teachers are included in the decisions that affect our profession and our students,” what do you think? As a teacher, how can you be against including the voices of teachers? This quotation comes from the mission statement of Educators For Excellence. There is much more to unpack from this carefully crafted, almost seductive, and coded mission statement geared towards new teachers.

E4E uses a widely known tactic to politicos experienced in messaging (marketing in politics). It is called dog whistle politics. Language sharp enough to get the attention of the target audience, but vague enough to defend when confronted about it. Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich in 2012 called President Obama a “food stamp president.” Gingrich received the attention of conservative white voters, but defended himself against charges he was conjuring using it infer Obama stood for “lazy people.” E4E routinely uses this strategy on their website. Marketing matters when you are competing for attention. I think that is why they spent $284,665 on media communications in 2013.

Who hears the whistle?

Their target audience is new teachers.  There are so few decisions new teachers get to make about their profession. So choosing the word decisions possesses a sense of empowerment. E4E doesn’t target all teachers; they can point to a few experienced teachers, but their message and tactics indicate new educators are their focus. They host lunches at schools, against the rules by the way, with concentrations of younger teachers. Why not at schools with more experienced staff? They don’t buy it. I have been teaching seven years, I don’t qualify as new, but I could have easily been swayed by their marketing if I didn’t start teaching two years before E4E was founded. Heck just the word Excellence in their name is dog whistle. 

New teachers are probationary, work extremely hard (because that is what you have to do in this profession), are social justice minded, and don’t get paid what they deserve. By the way, you don’t have to be a new teacher to be social justice minded. Teaching is social justice work. Many of my colleagues are strong advocates for social justice changes for our students and their families because we see the impact of inequality in our schools. Decision makers could be district bureaucrats, politicians and/or teachers unions whom they may feel the least connected. Literally it could be everyone, especially if you are so busy working you don’t eat lunch with colleagues and become isolated in your room. New teachers see my first post to help you with this issue. An organization that seeks you out as a young professional is appealing. That is the beauty of coded dog whistle language, sharp, but vague at the same time. You will be empowered with the ability to influence decision makers. 

The Pledge

If influence and empowerment is the cornerstone of their mission statement, what decisions will they agree with? Look no further than their pledge. Yes there is a statement you must support to become an E4E member. As you read the bolded words, ask yourself the question “What does this mean? Bolded words are the dog whistle language. To be fair, myself and colleagues have met people who attended their happy hours and lunches with E4E that didn’t really pay attention to the pledge. For example, they see at the top “A higher starting salary.” How bad can an organization like that be? Without knowing a few of things I am writing about, how would you know? Here is where it gets interesting to me.

In the pledge to become a member you must agree to support:
1) “An even handed performance-based pay structure to reward excellent teachers.”

2) “Evaluating teachers through a holist and equitable system that incorporates value-added student achievement data as one component of effectiveness.”

3) “Eliminating the practice of ‘Last In, First Out’ for teacher layoffs. (no dog whistle language)

4) “Giving students and parents more opportunity to choose great schools.”

I’m a very laid back guy. But here is my reaction on evaluating and paying teachers using value added modeling (VAM). I am so sick of people who are not career educators and sideline philosophers thinking the art of teaching can be boiled down to a friggin number! Okay… Back to being laid back. Even if test scores are high, standardized tests don’t promote critical thinking.  So we shouldn’t be using them as policy making metrics or teacher pay. I don’t think paying teachers more without the added benefit of students becoming critical thinkers is…well not smart. If it isn’t making students better prepared to to think meaningfully, then it isn’t meaningful. Items one and two above in the pledge are interlinked. Pay teachers based on unreliable data? In that system, who in their right mind will teach in tough schools without narrowing curriculum to test prep?  Standardized tests suck too much money and time that should be spent on supporting our struggling learners to become critical thinkers, not rank teachers because they dedicate their lives to the students who need us most. Here is an excerpt from The Huffington Post in February 2015 on VAM:

“An April 2014 statement on VAMs by the American Statistical Association noted that they "typically measure correlation, not causation," and that effects "attributed to a teacher may actually be caused by other factors that are not captured in the model." The ASA added, "VAM scores themselves have large standard errors, even when calculated using several years of data. These large standard errors make rankings [of teachers] unstable, even under the best scenarios for modeling.” Read the whole article here.

In my humble opinion, student achievement reflects how well we take care of people living in our society. A teacher is one team member helping to prepare and take care of students. We do the best we can for the students we have in our classrooms, no question. It is true that the biggest impact on a student at school is the teacher. Just like the biggest influence over students at home are parents. The biggest influence over your bus ride is the bus driver, but do you blame him or her for traffic? No. The best education policies are ones that impact students lives at home and school like stable housing and reasonable class sizes. Support raising the minimum wage. More than fifty percent of American students are now on free or reduced lunch. Sixty five percent of MPS students are in this situation. I do think education is a part of the solution to overcome the vicious cycle of poverty, but it is naive to think education alone will do it for all students. Unfortunately, the largest indicator of student success is parental income. Stable jobs and livable wages are not the norm for a majority of our students. VAM has nothing to do with that. VAM is a tool to sort teachers, and not a solution to fix problems inside or outside the classroom.

Little known fact, teachers don’t want bad teachers in their profession either. It injures the vast majority of us doing a good job. Last in, first out is a common state law that is the default if districts don’t negotiate a process to handle layoffs, not the only policy. New teachers to MPS, you should also know that we have growing enrollment. We are starting to face shortages of teachers, the threat of mass pink slips is not in your future. If you’re a bad teacher, we have a process for getting rid of you negotiated by our union with the district. I bet you didn’t see that coming. Yet E4E agrees, as an organization, with the very conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) known for drafting model bills for legislators to pass in their states. You might know some of ALEC’s key accomplishments like Right to Work shown to lower wages and the anti-immigration policy popularly known as SB1070 that perpetuates racial profiling infamous in Arizona. The only difference, ALEC doesn’t say how to do it in their model legislation, but in a world run by E4E would have VAM used to help determine your effectiveness as exemplified in Washington D.C. under Michelle Rhee’s program (page 2 first and second full paragraphs). 

Read the pledge yourself. 

For number four on the E4E pledge list above, the wording “great schools” is so vague, it can only be dog whistle language. What they really mean are charter schools. The choice of schools is quite large already in Minneapolis. School choice is the language used to indicate competition. I have routinely welcomed students from charter schools after October 1, the funding cut off date and that allows charters to keep state money. Also, weeks before standardized testing, charter schools are known to counsel students out and then return to public schools to save precious standardized test scores. Furthermore, charters do not have a proven track record of outperforming public schools. Only 17% of charters do as well or better than public schools. The highest achieving charter schools are typically very white and affluent. The allure of school choice permeates the education landscape. It even trickles down to students. 

Here is an experience I had not long ago. After a campaign event I was driving another volunteer and his kids home. Two of his three kids in the car attended KIPP schools. I asked what it was like going there and the oldest said “It is great! Way better than a public school, they don’t do anything to help kids get into college.” I asked if adults were saying that at school. She said yes. That broke my heart. She had never attended a public school. I then explained to her every high school in Minneapolis has a College and Career Center to help students get job experience, and stay on track for graduation, and help them apply to colleges all starting in 9th grade. We also have AVID in middle and high schools who help future first generation college students. AVID students earn large scholarships to schools like Augsburg College. I then explained my job as a public school teacher is to prepare students for college, if that is their path. I teach to keep doors open, not close them. The veil was lifted. I went on a bit of tangent there, but great schools infers competition with public schools as the enemy. E4E doesn’t to my knowledge recruit much out of the charter schools in Minneapolis, but the dog whistle language isn’t for the charter school teachers. It is for their funders. 

Money Talks

I take issue with presenting E4E as a teacher led organization akin to grassroots or bottom up, when they are not. The three largest foundations who support competition using VAM, charter schools and standardized test scores are the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, Walton Family Foundation, and The Broad Foundation. These organizations give massive amounts of money to organizations like E4E. The next post will go into detail into this. An organizer for E4E told a colleague of mine at the MPS New Teacher Orientation they receive 80% of their funding from local foundations and donations. I calculated E4E’s total history of income from donations, grants, and contributions listed on their IRS Form 990 and then divided the number by how much each of the three foundations above donated to them. By the way non-profits are not required to show who contributes by law, none are listed on E4E’s website or 990. So I researched to find out who is bragging about giving to E4E publicly. This makes it difficult to have an accurate percentage. After doing the basic math of division, I found at least 58% of E4E’s income, contributions, and grants come Gates, Walton, and Broad since they began in 2010. In my next post, you will see a table and links to my sources, all from E4E’s 990s and foundation sources. 

With so much funding from so few organizations, E4E claiming to be grassroots or bottom up is dog whistle worthy. Here is Valerie Strauss’s post on the Answer Sheet Blog on how to spot a fake grass roots education reform organization. 

Recruiting Efforts

I’ll make this section short, this blog post is getting long. E4E has four full time organizers recruiting new members. They are paid very well. MFT 59 has one organizer. E4E outmatches union organizing and marketing with paid staff and available funds by leaps and bounds. These organizers host and pay for drinks at happy hours, take new teachers names off public documents to get your email, get supporters to drop flyers in teachers mailboxes, host lunches at sites, get links on school websites, and pass out flyers on school grounds. The last four break rules in our district. They have received a litany of cease and desist letters to comply with the rules from MFT 59 and our state teachers union Education Minnesota. I witnessed them get kicked out off school grounds by MPS staff (not MFT 59), but they keep doing it anyway. Maybe their leadership just doesn’t tell the organizers they are breaking the rules? Maybe they don’t care?

E4E also advocates members to get involved with the union. More of them are becoming building stewards. I can see them running candidates for elected union leadership positions. Yikes! 

Whenever I have asked questions or shared my opinion about E4E online to leaders within the E4E organization, the go to strategy is an offer to get coffee. I think it has to do with a lack of control over a semi-public conversation. Maybe they don’t want to answer questions like how do you reconcile the fact so much money comes from outside funders and E4E claims to empower the voices of teachers from the ground up? I’m sure I will be asked to get coffee by someone from E4E because of this post. Please don’t. I have more important things to do for my students and my profession than have a conversation that won’t go anywhere. 

Almost done…

In closing, please be aware of the old saying that if something is too good to be true, it is. The language is only a message. It doesn’t state who is standing behind E4E while they are blowing the dog whistle. Don’t be fooled. Social justice work is done by supporting your students and getting involved with efforts that impact our students lives at home and the community. E4E doesn’t spend money on issues that impact income, housing, and racial equity. They spend money on trying to recruit you to support an agenda that belong to wealthy foundations, not our students’ quality of life or critical thinking. When you hear the whistle of E4E calling, ignore it. Inform your colleagues E4E’s appealing message masks a larger truth about its mission. 

Thank you for reading and as always, feel free to share my blog via social media or otherwise. 

Get updated when I post a new entry!

Click this link to sign up! http://tinyurl.com/qfakdgd 

What will it be like next year?

I’m stickin’ with the union? Oh, for sure! 

When students arrive on the first day of school, it is a glaring reminder I get to do my job again. It’s not that I have to do my job again. It is a privilege to be a teacher. I’m thankful that I have a union that advocates for our members on issues that impact our students like class size. Teachers serve our nation in a similar way to the military. Teaching takes courage, few people can do it, and few people understand what we actually do and experience other than our colleagues. However, I am concerned about our profession this time next Fall because of an attempt  to expand the meaning of the word political.

By the time most people read this President Randi Weingarten will have hosted a town hall at Minneapolis Federation of Teachers local 59 by the time this is published. I’m excited she is out talking with educators because we need to reinforce the message unions are here to advance education, not slow it down. What we negotiate in contracts is inherently good for the students. If we don’t stand together, the families and students we honorably serve could be negatively impacted.

The Case

Our profession is under attack, again. Last year Vegara went after seniority in California. This year it’s a nationwide issue. By June 30, the Supreme Court will decide the case Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association (CTA). 

Rebecca Friedrichs and her co-petitioners, including the Christian Educators Association, represented by The Center for Individual Rights, argue collective bargaining is a political activity. 

These educators did not agree with their union’s activities related to supporting tenure and maintaining their current pension system, among other contentions. So they sued CTA because they did not agree with their union; they contend their First Amendment rights were violated.

This relates to how we fund our union’s work. In twenty six states, if you do not sign up to be a full dues paying member, you still pay “fair share” dues that contribute to collective bargaining, enforcement of contracts, and due process of union members. Since Friedrichs claims that collective bargaining is political, fair share dues should not be compulsory. 

Background

 In 1977, the Supreme Court decided in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education that agency fees (fair share dues) are constitutional as a condition for employment in public sector unions as long as those fees go towards collective bargaining activities that I mentioned above. 

Each union local typically has a Committee on Political Education (COPE). Members of the union choose to contribute to this committee to work on their behalf on political activities. For example, I testified in opposition to a proposed bill that would rank teachers from best to worst in each school using standardized tests and observations. Our legislators need to hear from teachers. That was a political expense. This is how unions comply with the Abood decision today. I’m thankful to my colleagues for allowing me that honor because few politicians, unless they were teachers, know the implications that would have. 

Furthermore, the last relevant test of whether or not the Supreme Court might uphold Abood was in 2014 with Harris v. Quinn. In short, healthcare workers who did not want to join the Service Employee’s International Union because they felt their First Amendment rights were infringed upon, won. In a 5-4 decision, Justice Kennedy, the swing vote on the court, sided with Justice Alito’s opinion where he writes, “‘…preventing nonmembers from free-riding on the union’s efforts’ is rationale ‘generally insufficient to overcome First Amendment objections.’” This decision was a private sector collective bargaining case, but the framework is incredibly similar. 

My Analysis

The question in the title of this post could be a very real question for an uncertain number of teachers June 2016—especially new educators. If the Supreme Court decides in favor Friedrichs, public unions nationwide will be deeply impacted. In my opinion, you must become a full dues paying member to counter act this likely possibility.

I’m a naturally optimistic and suspicious person. I’m optimistic we can inform our colleagues that without our union advocating for fair class sizes, reasonable due process, and reduced standardized testing quality learning is in deeper jeopardy than it is this today. We must be full dues paying members of our union. Don’t be fooled the money you save will outweigh the benefits of lower wages, larger class sizes, smaller pension, and a weaker position to stand up for your students in the future against a principal who doesn’t like you. I am suspicious of the motivation behind Friedrichs. 

It is suspicious that union advocacy is political for public employee unions, but not organizations that act like unions. The Christian Educators Association (CEA), one of the petitioners, pushes a political agenda. At least two of the plaintiffs in Friedrichs are members. The CEA collects fees, offers $2,000,000 in professional liability insurance, and advances a very conservative agenda to include Christian principles such as “Proclaiming God’s Word as the source for wisdom and knowledge” to be a part of public education. The CEA is not a union. They do not negotiate contracts, but push for political changes like merging more religion in public schools. It doesn’t take long to see the list of supporting briefs for Friedrichs come from organizations that are distinctly anti-union as well. No surprise there. 

Friedrichs is about the meaning of the word political and who gets to benefit by framing its implied meaning best. The common use of the word political stretches away from the definitions easily Googled. We use it so frequently it stands to argue nearly everything from office promotions to who won the neighborhood chili cook off could apply to it. What that means is that  if we don’t like a decision, we can call it political. To me, that is what is happening in the Friedrichs  case. They are attempting to enshrine the common misusage of political into the constitution because they do not like collective bargaining.

Fewer full dues paying members makes it more difficult to enforce and negotiate quality contracts. We achieve important changes—some like the word reform—by negotiating contracts such as hiring enough school nurses, social workers, librarians, ELL specialists, art and physical education teachers that provide education students need. Too often people equate contracts to teacher pay, nothing more. The press likes to ignore that and perpetuate the greedy teacher myth. With fewer dues the capacity to enforce those changes is diminished. Is it political to negotiate with a school district for reasonable case loads for special education teachers so students do in fact have the least restrict learning environments as mandated by federal law? 

Finally, Friedrichs is part of a larger narrative trying to convince Americans the people who educate their children are bad for society by invoking the principles we hold dear like free speech and civil rights. We saw the civil rights angle Vegara in California last year. In fact, it’s really about, you guessed it, politics. 

Five Survival Tips for New Teachers to MPS and other important thoughts

Welcome to Minneapolis Public Schools! First year teaching isn’t easy, but stick with it. We are proud to have you. Teachers teach, but we also help each other. Here is my take what might help you. This is what I wish I had known. Of course I think all of it matters, but the topics are in bold to for you to jump around. Disclaimer: I write to express my truth, feel free to agree or disagree.

Socialize! Reach out to colleagues with experience. Not in a building with a lot of experienced staff? Contact me and I’ll connect you. You are not required to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. Fill your teacher’s toolbox with tips, tricks, and techniques. You will not be your best teaching self in the first year; experience counts in this profession. Modify lessons you find to fit your students. It goes better if you don’t follow a scripted curriculum. On the flip side, make friends with probationary and experienced teachers. Get together for coffee or drinks. This can be a very lonely profession. You get cooped up in your classroom and could be there all day and not speak with an adult. Make time everyday to have adult time. Find lunch groups, don’t wait to be invited. Just ask can I join you? Don’t know where the lunch groups are? Talk to your school secretary. They seem to know everything, because they do.  

Be a team player, but use your common sense. This has to do with your relationship with the district. You will feel pressure to use Focused Instruction, known as FI, (everyone) or the Reading Horizons Little Books (elementary teachers). The latter is riddled with stereotypes. I’ll hold back my true feelings about FI for another blog post. In short, it is a curriculum model, not the model of curriculum. Use it as a resource for lesson ideas and assessments. Remember you are professionals; relying on your training in curriculum design and strategies can not be substituted. That being said, good teachers beg, borrow, and steal ideas that work for the students in their rooms. Beware of one-size fits all approaches. I have taught seven years and the district has changed curriculum models three times. Just because the district is shilling it, doesn’t mean it is right for your students. Teaching is an art, FI is not.

Know your union. Seriously. Sign up to be a full dues paying member of Minneapolis Federation of Teachers Local 59 and donate two dollars per pay check to the Committee On Political Education (COPE) and Committee of Thirteen. If you did not sign up at New Teacher Orientation, go to https://www.mft59.org/ or drive to 67 8th Ave NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413 and speak with Sherri. COPE works to advance the profession in the political sphere. While Committee of Thirteen works to protect your pension. Trust me, there are a lot of examples of when politicians want to defund our schools, pit teachers against each other, or reduce how much you will have in that retirement account. Your school should have what is known as a building steward. They are elected each fall by you and your colleagues. Stewards attend a monthly meeting held on the last Wednesday of each month to get updates, share concerns, distribute news to their sites, organize teachers at their site, and support teachers going through rough times in their building. An example of this could be if/when you are accused of doing something you didn’t, your steward will be there. When working with adolescents and youth this can happen. Stewards will also know if you are full dues paying member! STEWARDS ARE GREAT! Ask them for news about what they learned at the last union meeting. Attending union meetings at your site. Always remember, the protections we earned in the past are meant to protect you now. Protections like due process do not hold your students back! The union is good.

Classroom management…sign up for ENVoY. It is a part of your Achievement of Tenure process. I think it is required in your second year of teaching these days? It is non-verbal behavioral management that is applicable the very next day in your room. ENVoY is freaky good if you use it consistently. I’m telling you the above-pause-whisper changed my life. The A of T process is not set in stone. Sign up for early when it is offered your first year of teaching. Don’t be fooled by the logic that a good lesson plan is the method for engaged students. It is part of it, but not all of it.

Reflection is easier said than done, but do it! I made mistakes my first year teaching that I would never, I mean ever, do again. I once made sophomores write out for the last ten minutes of class, “I am not a third grader. I can control myself,” because I snapped. This was right before parent conferences as well… I was ashamed of myself. But I reflected, spoke with colleagues, and moved forward. I’m now better equipped to handle thirty nine students in the last hour of the day with ten boys that feed off each others behaviors. That also means you need to specifically set aside time to reflect. Do what works for you; writing, talking, drawing, or sitting quietly thinking what could you have done differently at the end of the day are some ideas. You will not move your teaching forward without thinking about, drum roll please…your teaching! Better yet, reflect with colleagues from your building over coffee! 

Here is the part of this blog post where being a human and teacher converge...mostly.

Race is important. Students are developing racial identity by interacting with people, both white and people of color, teacher or not. As teachers our students racial identity development can’t be ignored. I highly recommend the book “Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” by Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum to learn the nuances of this particularly important, yet all too often ignored topic. Don’t be the educator who mistakes an African American student slapping their scalp as a behavioral tick that requires a special ed evaluation. When in fact it is the only way to itch your head if you have tightly braided hair. Not my story, but a true one still. Even more seriously, we are filters of all information and ultimately decide what students learn about their place in society. Ninety percent of teachers  in the U.S. are white. I’m not going out a limb here by saying it is easy when you are white, like me, to not think about race. We live in a white privileged culture. White people see white people everywhere. We must ask ourselves are my students seeing people who look like them in the curriculum? It is too easy to present a white dominated curriculum in a district with 67% students of color. While we all know, I hope, Columbus didn’t discover North America and indigenous people were there first, repeating that factual error enforces a white dominated narrative and at the same time excludes the culture of indigenous people as something to be discovered, not honored. If you discover people, they are not people in this narrative. It also harms white students by not developing their own racial identity in relation to their non-white peers. Be brave and accept that race matters. The belief that you are colorblind to race with “I don’t see color. I see people.” That actually dismisses their unique experiences that white people don’t have to put up with as an African American as an example. I also suggest The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander to study this further.

The three Rs are relationships, relationships, and you won’t be surprised when I say relationships. Don’t fool yourself, you will not be a friend to students; you will be a caring adult. Know something special about each student, but I suggest you target the students who are least prepared to learn first. They can confide their troubles to you, and you will support them. This will not happen if you are not intentional. Asking students their favorite band on a worksheet isn’t relationship building. It comes from genuine human to human interaction. Relationships between students matters as well. Group projects and partner work are not community building techniques. Time spent on knowing your students and students knowing each other is time well spent. 

Authority does not come from your position as the teacher. Your power to control a classroom comes from setting up norms and values and most importantly picking your battles. Every behavior that offends your sensibilities is not a direct insult. In my first year of teaching, I measured how much students respected me by how few or many drawings were on the desks. Upon further investigation, I actually had students who liked art. Once I incorporated more drawing as formative assessments and assignments using political cartoons and so on there were fewer drawings on the desks. I remember a student telling me his dad was arrested and didn’t know when he would be home. He and his little brother didn’t have their mom around. Only drunk or high neighbors were walking in and out of their apartment. He would not have confided this to me without a relationship. As a mandated reporter, all teachers are, I reported it to the social worker and this student was angry at me. However, when we are the caring adults we must do our job. He forgave me in a few weeks and things were never better. He knew I cared about him. 

Age is a factor. If you are fresh out of college or gifted with enduring youthful features this might eat away at you. Colleagues, parents, and students might take unnecessary issue with your birthdate. Many times they won’t realize how offended you might feel. While long call subbing at South High School I revealed my age to a student because he asked. Why not tell him? He had a sibling older than me. Therefore, he didn’t need to listen to me anymore. That broke my heart. It was six years later before I revealed how old I was to students again. Every year at the parent picnic, a parent assumes I am a senior in high school and I wear my ID badge folks. How should you handle it? Sometimes I play it up with a playful AARP joke. Get it? Senior and AARP? I used to say I haven’t taught four years yet so I can’t be a senior teacher. Make your response sound like you took it as a compliment and let them know. At parent conferences, I get the "you look so young" comment at least once, although way more when I first started. A mother kept bringing up my age, not in a demeaning way, but I needed to move the conference along. So I told her something along the lines of,“Working with students keeps you young, but after four and half years of training I’m better prepared to teach better than a your average twenty-two year old.” 

Yup. I’m going to do it. Don’t bring up your age with colleagues, if you can help it. Someone sent a staff wide email asking who had served longest in the building after a well respected colleague retired. Someone wrote a date. I replied all that I was born in 1985. Well that didn’t go over well. I think it made colleagues who have served our school a long time feel…extremely experienced (note I did not say old). Never say old…oops.

Setting up your classroom tips and techniques. Here is where I’m lost for the elementary teachers, sorry. I’m not going to pretend to know how to set up an elementary classroom. For middle and high school teachers out there keep reading. First, set up your document camera as close to the front and middle of the room as possible. This is a nice gadget to put assignments under the camera and it gets projected. I have used it to handwrite instructions in my class notebook (that students can reference later if absent) all the way to showing off exemplary student work. Your teaching zone in the front of the room is the key to this though. Always give instruction from the same space. You could even put an X on the ground using tape. Students will know you are ready to begin class or it is time to listen up when you stand there. If you are standing far away from your Smart Board (projection screen) while using the document camera it splits their attention, not a good thing. Second, set up the desks that makes the most sense for your teaching style. Don’t put them in rows if you are going to do a lot of small group work. It makes getting the room in order before the bell rings a nightmare. There is always an exception and solutions! Begin the year in rows, establish community, culture of learning, and then change it up. I rarely keep the same seating arrangement for too long. It is good to spice things up when necessary. Third and lastly, routine and placement of classroom resources needs to be predictable. Don’t move the weekly calendar, turn in basket, pencil sharpener, art supplies, bathroom pass, and no name assignments around the room. I suggest the weekly calendar at the front of the room near your teaching space to easily reference it. Pencil sharper and turn in basket in the back of the room. If they are in the front, you will be giving instructions and a student will get up in the middle of it and sharpen their pencil or turn in a late assignment distracting students and you. Fourth, display student work. When you choose a particular assignment to display, put them all up. Even show the ones that aren’t so great. Put it on a side wall, not the back. This way you can reference particular students’ work for what they did right and show you care in a small, but when used wisely, powerful, unexpected way. Even if a student who has trouble pay attention to details puts a compass on their map, it is still worth mentioning to the class.