Don't Underestimate a Teacher's Professional Pride

For most of my career at Fordham, I had excellent student evaluations. Students commented favorably on the content of my courses, the atmosphere I created in stimulating discussion, my openness to different points of view. That began to change 3 or 4 years ago. I got mediocre ratings from two courses I offered on Bronx Food at the Gastronomical University of Italy, and weaker ratings on several of the courses I was giving at Fordham. Several student comments hit home. Though most praised my enthusiasm and use of music and film to supplement readings and lectures, a few students said I had gotten too full of myself and was not really listening to what students were saying when they spoke in class.

At first, I thought this was sour grapes on the part of students who had gotten poor grades, but by this time last year, I realized that the complaints had been repeated often enough that they had to represent something real. So beginning last spring, I started to rethink how I approached class discussion. I began to speak less, listen more, and reduce the amount of time I devoted to telling stories based on my experience while encouraging students to connect to the material by sharing their experience. I also began to put the class into a circle formation to make discussion easier earlier in the semester

I sensed in my classes that things were a little different, and that discussions were more open and honest, but wasn't sure until yesterday when I say my student evaluations. They were the best I had received in 4 years numerically, but also had a different tone in the substantive section. Students felt THEIR voices were really being heard. No matter what point of view they had expressed.

I share this with you to make a point about evaluating teachers. Given my position as a tenured full professor at the tail end of my career- student evaluations have no impact on my professional status. I cannot be promoted further. I have stopped applying for merit increments. And I cannot be penalized,much less terminated, based on their content.
But I took those evaluations very seriously and changed the way I was teaching to respond to problems they revealed.

Why? Professional pride.

And am I alone in this feeling. No! I suspect a good many teachers are deeply committed to providing the best possible experience to their students and respond constructively to evaluations that are substantive without having a hammer held over them.
Also, and this may even be more important, no one was evaluating me based on how my students performed on class exams. My students were asked their opinions about me and the course on a wide variety of criteria.

The lesson here is that maybe it is time to trust teachers more. To encourage them to self-correct and improve their teaching out of pride, not fear. And to give them the respect of treating them as true professionals

Is that too much to ask?

7 Problems with the Charter School Model for Achieving Education Equity

The Charter School Model for achieving education equity, as applied in cities ranging from New Orleans, to Chicago, to Camden, to Memphis, to Buffalo and Washington DC,
involves several problematic features:

1. It is built upon an alliance with, and ultimately dependence on, the very economic elites whose policies have led to rapidly growing inequality in income and wealth in the last 30 years.

2. It discards the hope of democratic control of schools by parents, students and teachers and the transformation of schools into true community institutions open to all people in the neighborhoods they are located in

3. It destabilizes communities and makes them ripe for gentrification by declaring war on exiting public schools and calling for their closure.

4, It sacrifices longstanding protections of students from arbitrary treatment and abuse which public schools had been bound by,, as well as longstanding protections of teacher due process

5. It reduces instruction to Test Prep and promotes a standardized curriculum that discards community history and undermines longstanding efforts to incorporate culturally appropriate pedagogy that draws upon students traditions and history.
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6. It has led to a massive displacement of veteran teachers, especially teachers of color, that has contributed to a significant shrinking of the middle class in many metropolitan areas

7. It siphons off public resources from the public schools leaving less funding to provide services for an increasingly vulnerable student population.

The Profit Motive Behind "School Reform"

Once you understand how much money there is to be made from dismantling public education, filling schools with tests, and making neighborhoods ripe for gentrification by closing schools and opening charters, you will see why both political parties buy into and promote the School Reform Myth . Not only have the School Reform measures endorsed by both parties failed to reduce gaps in educational achievement and income by race and class, they have magnified those gaps. I defy any economist to show me evidence which shows that the US has become a more egalitarian society since the passage of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. Whether you look at child poverty, income distribution, or wealth gaps by race, the US has experienced the largest redistribution of wealth upward in modern history in the very years School Reform has been at its peak.

We have more children living in poverty, lower wages, and a higher percentage of national income controlled by the top 1 Percent than we did in 2001, or 2008. Yet our elected officials continue to push their toxic mix of National Testing, Charters, and Test Based Accountability as though it were some kind of anti-poverty program rather than a huge opportunity for profit by publishers, software manufacturers, real estate investors and "educational entrepreneurs."

It is time to pull the mask away and see the profound corruption that lies at the heart of dominant School Policies- whether they are pushed by Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Andrew Cuomo, Rahm Emmanuel, Michael Bloomberg or Barack Obama

An Unfolding Charter School Tragedy in Chicago Heights Illinois

In Chicago Heights, IL, public school district 170 is under attack from LEARN Charter School Network.  The charter school proposal and public hearing were not made very public to the community nor parents of students in district 170.  As a parent, I was not notified until the morning of the public hearing, which was held on January 20^th, on a Tuesday, after the MLK state holiday.   Parents, administrators, and teachers were blindsided.  We were able to quickly organize and we filled the auditorium with anti-charter school supporters.  As we learned more and researched, we learned that the charter school is being pushed by a local church, St. Bethel Missionary Baptist Church.  Pastor Lawrence Blackful, who heads the church, has graciously offered to rent St. Bethel’s annexed property, which is an old warehouse, to LEARN Charter Network. 

I find this disturbing. First, LEARN Charter only recruited parents from St. Bethel church.  They have been presenting information and passing out flyers about their super school to all the church parishioners.  LEARN did not reach out to all parents in the community, only a specific demographic.  I, believe that LEARN is manipulating those parents and church goers they targeted with the idea their charter school is superior to public school district 170.  If LEARN wants to open a public charter school, why didn’t they communicate and recruit all parents of all races?  The education they offer is not superior, I read the proposal twice.  They are not doing anything different or unique.  I also have a problem that a church will profit from the rent and find this a conflict of interest. Why is LEARN working with a church and potentially paying them rent money with public school tax dollars?  Isn’t there a separation of church and state?  The conversion of a warehouse into school will cost district 170, at least, $5 million for the first year alone.

LEARN Charter will only accept 250 students out of   3,300 students that currently attend public school district 170.  This financial hit alone will cripple the public school system.  They will lose teachers and support staff.  The students will lose music, art, after school sports, and other extracurricular activities.  How can this be acceptable for the majority?  The parents and the teachers that care are beside themselves with questions and concerns about the legitimacy and logic of this proposal. 

The school board will vote on February 13^th, 2015.  I hope the school board votes NO.  However, at the public hearing, LEARN Charter school threatened the school board and told them, even if you vote NO, we will appeal this.

The appeal is what frightens me.  The newly elected governor of Illinois, Bruce Rauner, donated a large sum of money to LEARN Charter School Network last year.  He also appoints the committee of nine that vote on the appeal.  The nine are appointed, I am concerned they do not represent the public and will vote in favor of the charter school.    This to me does not seem fair or democratic.

The concerned parents and community members are community activists and have little experience fighting in politics. 

We are not unwilling to fight, educate others, and become active.

We just do not know how!   How do we fight an appeal in Illinois?

Thank you,

Jill Krysinski

Golden Apple '13

Instructor of Biology and Environmental Science

708-755-1122   x2175

In Defense of "Whiteness Courses"- At Arizona State or Fordham

Not only do I think the content of such a course is legitimate, but I address the "politics of whiteness" in my own undergraduate and graduate courses in African American History. "Whiteness studies" is a growing field in academia, and my own book "White Boy: A Memoir" has been used as a text in several such courses one of which was offered at Princeton University by the former president of the Organization of American Historians , Nell Irvin Painter. My students and I actually sponsored a "Whiteness Conference" at Fordham several years ago that attracted more than 350 people inside and outside of the University

What makes "whiteness" a legitimate field of study is that throughout American history, huge advantages were given to people who were defined as "white"- but the definitions of who was "white" changed over time, as well as the advantages attached to the designation. Not only were Jews and Italians not always classified as "white" when they first came to the US, but large numbers of light skinned African Americans moved to different parts of the country and became "white" in the years before the Civil Rights movement led to the reduction in some of the advantages of "whiteness" and the disabilities attached to being "non white."

Anyone who thinks this is not a subject worthy of study has not spent much time examining race in American history

I would love to offer a course on Whiteness at Fordham, if I could find time to fit it in my schedule. I'll bet the class will fill quickly

As for the Fox news attack, it is exactly what you would expect when anyone in the media decides to critique a college course which they are not actually attending or participating in. You cannot assess how open a class is to varying points of view unless you hear the lectures, participate in class discussions and do the readings.

Time to Make it "Personal" for Those Undermining Public Education

At this difficult moment, everyone's contribution to the defense of public education is welcome. This movement has a lot of unsung heroes, working hard every day, and I would be the last person to minimize what they are doing. What I am saying, based on my own studies of history, is that for the defense of public education to succeed, given the power of the forces arrayed against , some people have to ramp up the pressure by adding much more disruptive and confrontational tactics to help get the movement's message across and let those who implement abusive policies know that there is no where for them to hide. Our movement is now on the defensive everywhere in the country. The more we take the offensive, the better chance we have of succeeding. The War on Public Education has become very "personal" for those on the receiving end of these policies- teachers, students and families. It should become personal for those formulating and implementing them.

Fighting Cuomo From the Top Down

I would like to see the principals of the highest rated schools in New York State, and the superintendents of the highest performing districts, publicly state that they will refuse to cooperate with Andrew Cuomo's education program, especially its ridiculous protocols for teacher evaluation, because it will demoralize their teachers and undermine the quality of the education they provide. And then dare Cuomo to come after them.

Faculty at the nation's top colleges took such action when the US Department of Education tried to force universities to follow an assessment plan that would have the US controlling and monitoring what took place in every college classroom. So many faculty members at Fordham, and other schools like it, said they would refuse to do this that the US DOE ended up backing off, and coming up with something far less burdensome, which has yet to be implemented.