NY's education dept wants $5 million to recruit new teachers while laying off 8,500.

[madfloridian]

This is a travesty, a joke, a mind-boggling situation. It is being allowed to happen under a Democratic administration, and that is to our shame.

And wait until you see who founded the group that will profit from the recruitment.

From the New York Daily News:

Education Department wants $5M for teacher recruiters, despite layoffs

The city may lay off 8,500 teachers, but education officials still want approval for a contract of up to $5 million a year to recruit even more teachers.

The agency's Panel for Educational Policy will vote later this month on the hefty contract, but already critics are questioning the need to spend money to recruit during a time of layoffs.

"We should put a freeze on any spending related to new hiring. We should not even be going through the expense of negotiating a contract now," said Patrick Sullivan, the panel's Manhattan representative.

Since 2000, the New Teacher Project has contracted with the city to recruit New York City Teaching Fellows. For this school year, the group received $2.8 million for recruiting 705 teachers.

Guess who founded the New Teacher Project.

From Wiki:

The New Teacher Project

The New Teacher Project (TNTP) is a United States non-profit organization founded by Michelle Rhee.

The New Teacher Project (TNTP) is a national nonprofit dedicated to closing the achievement gap by ensuring that high-need students get outstanding teachers. Founded by teachers in 1997, TNTP partners with school districts and states to implement scalable responses to their most acute teacher quality challenges. Since its inception, TNTP has trained or hired approximately 37,000 teachers, benefiting an estimated 5.9 million students nationwide. It has established more than 75 programs and initiatives in 31 states and published four seminal studies on urban teacher hiring and school staffing.

Michelle Rhee is the very well-paid head of the DC school system. She earns a lot of money and lays off a lot of teachers, some of the layoffs being questioned by the court now.

Here is a list of the client districts of TNTP. It would be interesting to compare how much money this "non=profit" gets from those districts, and just how many teachers were laid off in order to pay a company to hire more teachers.

Recruiting teachers from private companies and paying a fee for it while experienced teachers are being laid off. Stunning.

This is being allowed to happen because there is no party in opposition to the privatization of education. It is an outrage.

[havocmom]

1. Privatization of education = corporations own your kids' minds

for their whole lives.

Making kids into ants, one community/one industry at a time.

Must be stopped.

[madfloridian]

3. Paying private companies to hire teachers while laying off teachers.

It should be stopped, but there is no opposition.

[havocmom]

10. No opposition because those in office do what corporations tell them to do

and they don't do what corporations do not want done.

It is corporate take-over of the education of the next generations. They already destroyed workers' rights, and are better than half way through destroying any sort of power professionals have in their employment. (look how many doctors are out of private practice and are now just corporate clinic employees)

The pols are owned by the corporations, govern FOR the corporations and now they will let education be governed by the corporations.

Glad I am old and not long for this life. People are just cogs in the machine now. Nations are just cogs in the machine now.

[n.michigan]

20. Mad- the opposition is us! Democrats? Sick. Out with all incumbants!

I came across this too, not long ago and I realized that you were quite correct- this is a ten year plan. Somebody has a plan!

[madfloridian]

21. We have to be the opposition...

but too many think it is being disloyal to this administration. It isn't, and we need to get out of frame of mind.

:hi:

[n.michigan]

22. You will not be surprised- a submission draft critique on RTTBottom by TNTP

This is what I came across a while back when I looked up criticism of the rat-race. Then I discovered as did you the time frame and development in their attack. All sold as "founded by teachers." But it is also a think tank providing the kind of controversial data needed by Duncan and Obama to take down public schools. I didn't know it was RHEE. I looked at their website again- heavy with personnel in all states. Big plans to screw with teachers. Here you go- this is what they sent Duncan on RTTBottom and also one other overview:

http://www.tntp.org/files/TNTP_R2T_Comment_Sep09.pdf/ These are the comments for Duncan.

http://www.tntp.org/files/TNTP_InterpretingR2T_2009.pdf This is the analysis of RTTBottom. By the rats.

[Starry Messenger]

23. Good find.

I always like to look at the Board of Directors for these groups too:

Ms. Kati Haycock (Chair)
Director
The Education Trust

Mr. John D. Arnold
Founder
Centaurus Advisors, LLC

Co-Founder
Arnold Family Foundation

Mr. Chris Bierly

Partner

Bain & Company

Mr. Christopher Cross
Chairman
Cross & Joftus, LLC

Mr. Daniel Keating
Partner
Hogan & Hartson, LLP


Ms. Wendy Kopp
Chief Executive Officer & Founder
Teach For America

Ms. Julie Mikuta
Partner
NewSchools Venture Fund

Dr. C. Kent McGuire
Dean of Education
Temple University

Mr. Frederick M. O'Such
President
The Partners of '63

Dr. John Simpson

Advisor

The Stupski Foundation

Dr. Uri Treisman
Professor of Mathematics & Executive Director, Charles A. Dana Center
The University of Texas at Austin

http://www.tntp.org/aboutus/board_of_directors.html


Be interesting to look up a few of those names. Kopp is a Usual Suspect of course and I see NewSchools Venture Fund has their hand in there too.

[n.michigan]

24. Agree. Can we call for info on these board members-I want to know the Duncan/Obama connection.

Maybe interested DU will help investigate for a worthy cause. I am sure if we check their resumes it will be sheer puffery and probably little educational philosophy for real.

[madfloridian]

2. Sounds similar to Teach for America

Teach for America. A way to replace experienced, higher-salaried teachers?

"On top of failing to make a dent in poverty, Teach for America actually detracts from social justice by hurting real teachers. Teach for America students take low, entrance-level pay while also receiving a government subsidy for their salary in the form of Americorps stipends. Schools lay off teachers and then hire Teach for America teachers to fill positions that real teachers would otherwise be filling. Teach for America teachers are undercutting the wage needs of real teachers and causing them to be laid off as a result.

Imagine this: a well-off college student takes a subsidized teaching position at an impossibly low wage and displaces actual teachers who might already be struggling to get by — all for social justice!

For anyone who has any concern for labor rights, this is extremely abusive. Not undercutting wage demands of often unionized workers is rule number one of how to be a serious social justice advocate."

Where's the outrage?

Where are the Democrats saying this is wrong?

[WinkyDink]

4. The money is for the recruiters, not teachers. Never for the actual teachers.

I must say, though: I worked with many a teacher---some too young to have been taught better in college (i.e., Ed courses and no Lib. Arts); some who wanted to curry favor with Admins; some who wanted to BE Admins---who "bought into" more standardized testing, less teacher-driven lessons, an emphasis on students' teaching each other (Groups! Easels! Role-playing!). Oh, THAT way they would LEARN! And REMEMBER! And then EMPLOY! And then BE EMPLOYED! Because gray matter doesn't matter as much as The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit.

When teachers agreed that passing on their knowledge wasn't a key ingredient of teaching, they wrote the script being enacted in NYC and by Sec. Duncan.

[madfloridian]

5. Like your statement about gray matter...

"Because gray matter doesn't matter as much as The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit."

How true.

[JDPriestly]

6. This is about teachers' pensions and teachers' unions. Nothing else.

[madfloridian]

7. Doing away with pensions...crushing unions.

Pretending teachers are bad in order to do so.

It's a tragedy.

[Overseas]

8. K&R ! //nt

[Dr.Phool]

9. And these assholes wonder why we quit voting for them?

No DLC slime, no Blue Dogs, or New Democrats will ever get my vote again.

Guess who I'm voting for this time. Hint: It ain't Marco Rubio or Kendrick Meek.

[Nikki Stone1]

12. !

!

[madrchsod]

11. the unions have to focus on obama/duncan.......

instead of state legislatures. during the rally in springfield, il the focus was on the state yet not a word about obama/duncan programs of bribing schools for dollars and the approval of private companies to raid public education funds.

[madfloridian]

13. Yes, they need to focus on the proper target.

And in this case whether we like to admit it or not...it is the new administration hurrying things along.

Too many union leaders are tied to the new "reformers".

[Smarmie Doofus]

16. I wonder if the Obamacrats don't actually desire this.

Being attacked by the hated teachers' unions makes him look good to the easily misled and the chronically uninformed. He's an instant "moderate" ; it's a free ticket to "he stands up against the special interests" - ville.

But I agree that it's a national problem that needs to be addressed on the national level.

This is not going to be easy.

[tonysam]

31. As Lois Weiner notes, it's an INTERNATIONAL problem

and it's being spearheaded by neoliberals all over the world who see education and unions as threats to the way "things ought to be."

[proud2BlibKansan]

18. Same here in Kansas

There is a lot of support being drummed up for opposing cuts to school funding. But when I bring up federal policies that are also hurting our kids - - - crickets.

[Catshrink]

14. The goal is to lower teacher salaries & benefits

which are already pitiful given the amount of education and training required.

This will be a three step process:

Bust the unions
Fire the teachers
Hire teachers back at an hourly wage

Because you know, teachers are just so important. Right, so important that Arne Duncan won't even talk to experienced teachers about education reform -- the billionaire know best.

[madfloridian]

15. Exactly right

and just about in that order.

[proud2BlibKansan]

17. Fuck Michelle Rhee

and the horse she rode in on.

[conspirator]

19. And guess what teachers corporations are going to hire? H1B's and outsourced from you know where

The profits demand it.

[MichiganVote]

25. Well that's just great America, your 1st grader is now a part of the rich man's dream.

[Starry Messenger]

26. kick!

[cornermouse]

27. Madfloridian, I think if you will research these people you'll find they're

all connected to the conservative think tanks and machines. They had some big dust up around here over a student being educated to work in the welfare system suing the college because she was asked to argue in favor of a gay person in class and refused to do so. You can imagine the kind of social worker she is now.

They brought in a couple of investigators whose names I have forgotten but I looked them both up at the time. One of them was connected to Florida and had either written a book about or ruled in favor of some ultra rightwing boys organization. The other had less of a paper trail but, from what I could see, was also probably ultra conservative. I felt the "investigation" was slanted but nobody in my locale wanted to listen. They were too busy beating up what they saw as "college professor liberals".

[madfloridian]

29. Oh, yes, they have been busy beating up on college professors.

And making sure they are not too liberal. I believe Horowitz and Daniel Pipes of Campus Watch are behind it in great part. They have students watch the professors to see if they can sue them for speaking too liberally. Scary stuff.

Horowitz from 2005

"TALLAHASSEE -- SNIP..."Battling what he calls a "quiet prejudice" against conservative views on university campuses, a Florida lawmaker is proposing a "bill of rights" that some claim is an effort to stifle the academic freedoms the bill seeks to protect.

Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, filed House Bill 837 after he attended a meeting last year in St. Louis where well-known conservative activist David Horowitz railed against liberal biases on campus toward professors and students.

The bill borrows heavily from a template used in similar bills filed nationwide with the help of Horowitz's group, Students for Academic Freedom.

House Bill 837 promises to protect "free inquiry and free speech within the academic community." A portion of the bill says that students should not have their academic freedom "infringed upon by instructors who persistently introduce controversial matter into the classroom that has no relation to the subject of study and serves no legitimate pedagogical purpose." Baxley said that simply means a science professor should stick to that topic and not let any digressions into other matters affect the class...."

"The bill's odds of success are unknown, but they're aided by Baxley's sponsorship. He is the chair of the House's Education Council. And earlier this week, Gov. Jeb Bush said Baxley was one of his closest allies in the Legislature....."END SNIP

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/021205.html

[tonysam]

30. The World Bank is spearheading privatization efforts

It's being done in the third world countries, and it's spreading to the industrialized countries. Most people haven't a clue what is going on.

The World Bank and neoliberals see education for most people as a waste of money. And since it is a waste of money, there is no point paying teachers professional salaries.

[Jefferson23]

28. I am so appreciative of the journal you keep on this issue, but it is

getting to the point where I'm almost afraid to read it.


I emailed my complaints to my elected reps, and will continue to complain. But this kind of activity is so common place
now, that is frightening to me. We, the Democrats, are suppose to be FOR a solid education for all students and supportive
of teachers.


Thank you for your good work.

[madfloridian]

32. You are so right. Our party should be defending public education...

and keeping it that way.

[EFerrari]

33. mf: Juan Gonzalez did a special report on Amy's show this morning

laying out how people make money on charter schools. You probably already know most of this but it might be worth a few minutes:

Juan Gonzalez: Big Banks Making a Bundle On New Construction as Schools Bear the Cost

“Wealthy investors and major banks have been making windfall profits by using a little-known federal tax break to finance new charter-school construction,” Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez write in the New York Daily News. “The program, the New Markets Tax Credit, is so lucrative that a lender who uses it can almost double his money in seven years.”

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/7/juan_gonzalez_big_banks_making_a

Video, transcript at link.

[Jefferson23]

35. That is important info., I missed the show this morning, so thanks. n/t

[madfloridian]

36. Great link...thanks.

Heading to read it now.

[proud2BlibKansan]

37. Excellent piece!

A mystery solved. Thanks for sharing.

[amborin]

34. and NYC's ed chancellor trying to eliminate union seniority rules re: layoffs

( and eliminate the union, itself, of course)

[BrklynLiberal]

38. So new we have the Democrats doing the dirty work for the repukes....

This is horrifying......the privatization of our education system....