Left Forum Proposal: Leftists Teachers Discuss Public Education
Chair: Alan Singer, Hofstra University
Presenters:
Pablo Muriel (BDCA High School, Bronx, NY) – Supporting Organic Intellectuals
through Activism and Literacy
Justin Williams (Uniondale High School, Uniondale, NY) - Cutting the School to Prison
Pipeline
Jessica Cartusciello (Island Trees High School, Levittown, NY) – The Impact of
Mandated Teacher Evaluations on Teachers and Students
Alan Singer (Hofstra University) - Reclaiming the Teachers’ Unions
Commentators:
Michael Pezone, High School for Law Enforcement, Queens, NY
Eustace Thompson, Hofstra University, former administrator, Uniondale Schools
Felicia Hirata, Baruch-CUNY, former Principal, Forest Hills High School
Pablo Muriel is a high school teacher in the Bronx and a doctoral student in the Literacy
program at Hofstra University. His pedagogy and research start with challenges posed by
Paulo Freire and Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci argued that the absence of working-class
organic intellectuals perpetuates socio-political attitudes and that social change requires
the working-class and poor become conscious of their position in society, develop their
own new hegemonic ideas, and work to change conditions for all. As a leftist teacher,
Pablo is committed to supporting the development of working-class organic intellectuals
with a commitment to social transformation. However, as Freire (1968) points out, the
purpose of schools is to assure the social status quo. Teachers are in essence the organic
intellectuals of the ruling class and schools function as gate keeping institutions. Pablo’s
pedagogy is organized to address this paradox. His goal is to promote student activism
and critical literacy through political discourse and by encouraging students to translate
their ideas into action. One tactic is to have students emerge as writers and thinkers by
responding to online political blogs.
Justin Williams works with high-needs and academically challenged students in a
suburban minority community and is a doctoral student at Hofstra University in
administration and leadership. Many of his students are targeted for failure by society
through “zero tolerance” policies in schools. The United States imprisons a larger
percentage of its Black population than South Africa did at the height of Apartheid. In
Washington DC, three-fourths of the young African American men are arrested at some
point in their lives. More than seven million children have a family member who has
passed through the prison system. The explosion in the prison population and
increasingly harsh punishment in schools has had a devastating impact on Black children
and the Black community. Families are separated, lives are uncertain, older siblings are
stopped and frisked by police, and children experience harassment starting at a young age
and become resentful of authority figures whether they are teachers or police officers. A
major concern in Williams’ pedagogy is cutting the school to prison pipeline, which he
believes has been accelerated by the rapid introduction of the national common core
standards. In his doctoral research at Hofstra University he is examining an expanded
concept of technical education that he believes can successfully cut the pipeline.
Based on her doctoral research conducted while a student at Hofstra University, Jessica
Cartusciello (Island Trees High School, Levittown, NY) will discuss the impact of
mandated teacher evaluations on teachers and students. Race to the Top increased
national interest in teacher effectiveness. The U.S.D.O.E. encouraged using student
growth data by removing legal barriers to connecting student achievement data and
teacher evaluations in any states competing for the federal Race to the Top funds.
According to Burris & Welner (2011) there is no evidence that evaluation systems that
incorporate student test scores generate increases in student achievement. Student test
scores have not been found to be a strong predictor of the quality of teaching as measured
by other instruments or approaches. There have been no formal studies examining the
connection between educator evaluation systems that use students’ test score data and
learning outcomes. It is impossible to judge the effectiveness of this type of evaluation.
Value-added measures of teacher effectiveness are at the heart of the national movement
to evaluate, promote, compensate, and dismiss teachers based at least in part on their
students’ test scores. Some policymakers have supported the use of value-added measures
in order to make an effort to quantify teacher effectiveness in an objective manner.
However, may ineffective teachers may actually have strong value-added scores
depending on their students. The system provides an incentive for teachers to teach those
students who are high-achieving because higher growth scores are correlated with those
children labeled as high-achieving. Value-added models of teacher effectiveness do not
yield reliable ratings of teachers; different statistical models offer different effectiveness
scores. Other factors include: school factors such as class size and resources, home and
community supports or challenges, individual student needs such as abilities and health,
peer culture and achievement, prior teachers and schooling, differential summer learning
loss, and the specific tests used to obtain scores (Darling-Hammond, et al. 2011).
Alan Singer is a retired New York City high school teacher, a Huffington Post blogger,
and a teacher educator at Hofstra University. He documents serious undemocratic
elements in the way the AFT and NEA choose leaders and establish policies. Most of the
UFT Executive Board and union officers in New York City are elected at-large. This
means that all members of the union, including retirees, vote for each position. In the
2013 union election, more than half of the votes cast for union officers came from
retirees, which meant the union leadership effectively represents them rather than
working teachers. Since representation at the AFT national convention where national
union elections take place is proportional and New York City is the largest local by far,
union officials elected by New York City retirees control this national teachers’ union.
The role played by retirees tends to keeps entrenched leadership in power and contributes
to more conservative union policies. This leadership’s commitment to the sanctity of
union contracts at all costs and its unwillingness to challenge even unfair labor laws is a
major reason for its weaknesses. It has become risk-adverse. The unions are so
constrained by their unwillingness to strike that their largest function has become
defending teachers who feel they were treated unfairly by supervisors, even when other
teachers and union members in the building know the real problem is that the aggrieved
teacher is not competent. Whatever its benefit or lack of benefit for union members and
their students, this system has worked well for union leaders. The Unity Caucus, a
political part within the union, has controlled most union offices since the early 1960s.
National AFT President Randi Weingarten earns over $400,000 a year with an expense
account that brings her remuneration to almost $500,000. New York City local President
earns about $250,000 a year with an even more generous expense account. National
Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel earns over $360,000. In 2011, his
salary, stipends, and other paid expenses were $460,060.