This evening the New York City Department of Education released a letter explaining new “Teacher Data Reports”

The reports will link the teachers who taught a child with that child’s standardized test scores. The initial group of reports will be for 4th through 8th grade teachers, but the DoE intends (and the UFT consents) to reports being generated for all of us.

Readers of this blog knew that this was coming. You read it three weeks ago, you read it over the summer, you even read it last fall.

The UFT’s response has been to attempt to block the use of the data for tenure decisions. They got an agreement to that effect last winter. And now we, all teachers in NYC, will be getting a letter in the next day or two, jointly signed by Randi Weingarten and Bloomberg’s chancellor saying, among other things:

We wish to be clear on one point: the Teacher Data Reports are not to be used for evaluation purposes. That is, they won’t be used in tenure determinations or the annual rating process.

Follow up to DoE saying no campaign buttons. My post here. Gotham Schools post here.

This e-mail raises an important issue. If you are in a school where the principal instructs your to “de-button,” you should do so, inform your Chapter Leader, who should inform the District Rep. We don’t need teachers and other UFT members getting written up for insubordination while UFT Central is trying to solve this through negotiations (or court)

When the parking stuff was coming to a boil I wasn’t blogging. But it’s still fresh, still worth commenting.

NYC teachers last year could apply for and receive little parking ‘placards,’ cards that sat in our windshield, allowing us to park in designated DoE parking spots. There were many more placards distributed than actual spaces.

This year Bloomberg attacked permits for loads of agencies, and rolled back designated spots. The City and the UFT reached an agreement whereby the number of spaces was untouched, but the number of permits was reduced to match the number of spaces. (other agencies actually lost spots)

Problem I: tens of thousands of teachers had placards, and will no longer. Why does it matter? If there wer no spots, why whould anyone care? In some schools the spots were first come, first serve. In others, the extra placards would be sort of a ‘bonus’ if someone was sick, or out. In other cases the placard came into play when the teacher had to attend an afternoon meeting (or athletic event, or training) at another school. Arrive after 3, and the early birds were already on the way home, space now available.

I used my card about 5 times a year, in exactly those circumstances. Multiply that by 10,000 teachers. And my 5 times is probably a low number. A small benefit, cost the city nothing, and thousands of us had it, and lost it.

Problem II: the agreement let the chapter leader and the principal allocate the placards. We know better than that. Or we should. Many of our chapters are too weak to stand up against principals. We needed a citywide agreement that laid down an implementation plan, and perhaps allowed schools to modify it. I happened to be out this weekend with about ten teachers from a bunch of different boroughs, different grade levels, this weekend. Not one of them was in a school where the agreement was implemented. The closest I heard was principals taking cards for themselves, their APs, their F-status cronies, and then letting the chapter dole out the remainder.

So watch this picture: 7:30, teachers circling blocks, students lining up for a 7:45 class, teachers looking for spots, while empty spaces wait for a part-timer or an AP to fill at 9 AM. Beautiful.

Problem III: I sense far too little awareness of Problems I and II. Randi told the exec board two weeks ago that we won our maximum position. The UFT descriptions of the changes make it sound like a victory. Ten thousand teachers lost something, and I am not sure that downtown understands why we are upset. That’s a problem.

The part of the deal that gives chapters a say could be made much better by working on strengthening our chapters, strengthening our union from the bottom up. I don’t hear objections to doing this sort of work, but I see little action….

Finally, the placards themselves. They used to cost the city nothing, but they were an (albeit small) but symbolically important economic benefit to many of us. We should, though we won’t, reopen this. We should make sure that no school is completely shut out (so that there are at least cards for teachers or even admins when they need to attend meetings elsewhere, where public transport is not practical.

And that’s the last bit. I am a big fan of public transport. I use it, where it is practical. The tyrrany of the upper east side rich poking at middle class schlubs who need to drive is infuriating.  Meeting in Manhattan? Of course I jump on the train. Meeting on the other side of the Bronx? What, are you kidding?

…we should start with the two days in August.

They are useless, a waste of time, pull us in 5 days earlier (break goes from 68 to 63 days, except for summer school from 30 to 25).

In New York City, teachers already work until June 26, later than most districts, and later than any other that I know of. But until 2005, at least we had Labor Day.

The 2005 NYC teachers contract was a disaster. Negotiated away rights and time in return for cash. Bit by bit we are getting a grip on how much damage was done.

We made progress recently on not being able to grieve letters in files. If a letter is written to enforce or discipline for something that violates the contract, the underlying violation may be grieved, and the letter removed (happened on an attendance issue). That’s a little back. Unfortunately, the biggest loss was the threat of the grievance, which stopped many letters from ever being written.

Open Market transfers are horrible. Many positions are filled privately, then posted. I don’t know how many people have been unjustly suspended without pay, but we know they exist. The longer day.

And the longer year. Pointless. Mean. Insulting. Useless.

Breaks the Labor Day weekend away from the rest of the Summer. It wasn’t the biggest give back in 2005, but it is symbolically one of the ugliest. And it affects every single teacher. We should put rolling these days back right at the top of our list of demands for next year, and not back away from it.

And for those who whine “JD, when will you stop fighting 2005? It is past.” I answer “I will keep fighting it until the damage is undone.”

Article 6C of the UFT contract with the Board of Education (it still says ‘Board’) establishes the school year:

All teachers shall report to their schools to begin work on the Thursday preceding Labor Day for a professional day, and will also have a professional day on the Friday preceding Labor Day… Part of the time on the days before Labor Day will be allotted to classroom preparation…

I got an e-mail today describing a change in how parking permits will be given to teachers.

Read this:

Dear JONATHAN,

…. The deal that the union and the city reached yesterday ensures that all on-street and off-street parking spots for schools have been preserved and presents an opportunity for an increase in the number of spots.

Teacher parking has always been a problem in New York City. There has never been enough. In the past, the Department of Education has sought to address this problem by increasing the number of permits without increasing the number of actual spots. This has created problems for neighborhoods and educators. Although I would rather the city not change the process right now, the agreement the UFT reached with the city continues the number of available spots and more closely aligns the number of placards with the number of spots. This brings the decision on who gets the placards to the school level where it belongs…

[OK - that part that I bolded, I think that's the loss - jd]

Under the agreement, the number of permits available to a school will be limited to the number of available spaces currently designated for parking by DOE personnel. The principal and chapter leader in each school will decide the distribution of these on-street and off-street placards, whether through assignment to individual people, pooling of placards for use each day (which could be on a first-come, first-serve basis), or some combination of those two methods. …

Now, all sorts of technical issues come to mind. But leave them aside for now. Did thousands of us just lose our parking permits?

The topic of charter schools has been coming up a lot. The majority of schools in New Orleans are charters, and that is where the United Teachers of New Orleans (UTNO) has had the least success to this point in organizing, where much of their effort is currently directed.

(As an aside, UTNO is the AFT affiliate here, and the “United” comes from their history - the teachers unions in New Orleans were segregated until UTNO joined Black teachers and white teachers into a single union, and I’ll double check the dates, but I seem to recall, less than 40 years ago.)

Anyhow, charters are a constant topic. Also, the volunteers, from New York, Philly, Chicago - all places where charters are issues.

But get this: the active people outside of New York think that charters are a problem, are used to break or weaken the union, etc, except, they keep saying, in New York, where you guys have good relations with charters, have organized the charters, etc.

Now, I know the UFT has two charter schools, and has organized several more. But aren’t the majority of charter schools in New York non-union? Didn’t the UFT’s (director? coordinator? I don’t know his title) of charter schools, Jonathan Gyurko, indicate support of the right rather than the need to organize charter schools in NYC?

Somehow AFT members out of New York have been given some awfully funny impressions. That should be fixed.

There are over 60 charter schools in NYC, including the UFT charter schools in Brooklyn, and the new Green Dot/Bronx charter school in the Bronx. Of those, about 50 are non-union.

In New York State, each school gets a “report card” each year, full of data about the school. This year’s is late (maybe by two months). But principals have embargoed versions, and this year’s report cards, when issued, will include teacher turnover rates for each school.

How calculated? Total teachers who don’t return, divided by total teachers in the new school year. It’s about as simple as it gets.

What good is it? It tells us which schools teachers leave. Sure there can be blips (a bunch of teachers get pregnant in the same year, for example), but when we look at several years, we can get a sense of what is going on. Turnover rates of 30, 40, 50% are red flags.

How old? Several years behind. Maybe 2003 - 04, 2004 - 05, and 2005 - 06? I wish I knew for sure.

How can we use them? They will help us target schools that are abusing teachers or otherwise providing lousy work environments. They will inform new teachers about places that are bad to apply. The fact that they are being published may give principals pause before U’ing new teachers without trying to improve them first.

What else? Once teacher turnover numbers are out there, we will need to work to update the data. Two or three year old numbers have limited use in a rapidly changing system.

Well, not yours. Your students. The New York City Department of Education intends to rate you based on your students’ test scores. But getting the data is not as easy as they had hoped. You see, in each school, you can look up what Mr. Hooper’s kids did. But Mr. Hooper is not part of some database - labeling a class “Mr. Hooper” doesn’t link it with his other classes, or with him.

So they want his e-mail. They want it linked to class lists. And they are threatening and bullying and lying to principals and programmers to get it done.

Last year they pushed and cajoled the programmers to link class lists to teacher employee id numbers (through their DoE e-mails), through something called the “Teacher Reference Screen” or “Teacher Reference Table.” They claimed this would help teachers track their kids.  Stop giggling. They forgot we have gradebooks.

But they were serious. The UFT had to fight off their attempt to evaluate teachers using test scores.

But apparently last Fall’s cajoling was insufficient. This summer they sent a new round of demands, this time to principals:

To ensure accurate data for accountability and instructional tools like periodic assessments and ARIS, HSST will now require that you complete the linking of teachers, courses, and students via the “Teacher Reference” screen…  Instructions for completing the process are available …. Please share these instructions with your program chair, data specialist, or school staff member in charge of scheduling in HSST…. If you do not complete this step, you may not be able to finalize your schedule and enter marks or grades in HSST.

Teachers Choice is a NYC Department of Education program that gives each teacher, secretary, etc, a chunk of cash to spend under fairly flexible rules. No budgeting categories, less red tape, just make sure the item belongs to some allowable category, make sure it is for classroom use, and attach the receipts.

Last year’s allocation was TeX Embedding failed!150 per teacher.

Now I’ve always had mixed feelings about Teachers Choice. Shouldn’t schools be buying school supplies if they are needed? I know, I know, things work badly in many schools, including purchasing. But aren’t we just letting them off the hook? They are so lousy at doing what they should, that we will do it for them?

On the other hand, Teachers Choice money is often very useful. And why be such a purist - it is money being put to good use. And isn’t that what really counts?

The text of the notice I received is beneath the fold. — >

Dear JONATHAN,

Even as many City Council program priorities were cut in the final city budget, the Keep the Promises Coalition was successful in salvaging some 60 percent of Teacher’s Choice funds, which had been threatened with elimination.

We wanted you to be among the first to know this year’s amounts.

The Teacher’s Choice allocations are as follows:

• TeX Embedding failed!100 for social workers, school psychologists and guidance counselors;
• TeX Embedding failed!75 for lab specialists.

If you’ve already begun making purchases, you may use receipts that date back to Aug. 1, 2008. The purchasing period ends on March 15, 2009.

Everyone eligible to participate in the Teacher’s Choice program will receive a separate allocation from the DOE in December to cover purchases made anywhere – as long as the purchases are for appropriate educational materials for use in a classroom or other professional assignment.

Remember that unreimbursed spending on school supplies is also tax-deductible.

Sincerely,
LeRoy Barr
UFT Staff Director