 |
CAT Tracks for July 10, 2010
STRADDLING THE FENCE |
AFT President Randi Weingarten continues her balancing act...
On the one hand, Weingarten openly criticizes President Obama and the United States Secretary of Education for applauding mass firings of educators.
Weingarten urges her members to fight against the "blame the teacher crowd".
But...
In the next breath, Weingarten calls for her members to embrace the new strategies to reform public education.
THAT, my friends, explains why Randi Weingarten joined DC Diva Michelle Rhee - the poster child of the "blame the teacher" educational reform crowd - on the red carpet at the premier of the anti-teacher movie "Waiting for Superman".
Yes, Randi Weingarten is becoming quite the pinball wizard...touting such administration favorites as "pay for performance", drawing fire from AFT union members and other AFT leaders, and then awkwardly explaining that that was NOT what she meant.
As the incidents and the disclaimers mount, President Weingarten's credibility continues to take a beating.
Methinks she protesteth too loudly.
Methinks President Weingarten speaks with forked tongue.
On the bright side...
Makes me feel better about NEA President Dennis Van Roekel. After a couple of foot-in-mouth incidents, he had the good sense to disappear...leaving the media stage to Weingarten. In short, when Dennis found himself in a hole of his own making...he put down his shovel. Randi? Well, she's shoveling like her hair's on fire!
Open advice to AFT President Randi Weingarten:
Dust off your history books.
Open to the events leading up to World War II.
Read about the policy of appeasement.
Take notes...on how successful the policy was.
Winning friends and influencing enemies is a tricky business. The end result is most often the strengthening of your enemies at the expense of your friends, your base.
Good luck, Randi...you'll need it!
We'll all need it...
From the seattlepi.com website...
Teacher union chief raps Obama at national convention
Says innovation key, but 'blame the teacher' crowd not productive
By FIONA COHEN
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten told her members meeting in Seattle on Thursday that the past two years have been "tougher than I've ever seen," with shrinking school budgets combined with increasing initiatives to punish teachers whose students don't succeed.
She urged her audience to fight against what she called the "blame the teacher crowd" by embracing new strategies to reform public education.
She called it "Fighting Smart": "searching for solutions we believe will work, even if those solutions force us to think outside the box or initially make us feel uncomfortable."
She spoke to more than 2,700 delegates gathered at the Washington State Trade and Convention Center. The loudest applause of the morning when she talked about her feelings of betrayal by the Obama administration.
"I never thought I'd see a Democratic president, whom we helped elect, and his education secretary applaud the mass firing of 89 teachers and staff in Central Falls, R.I., when not a single one of the teachers ever received an unsatisfactory evaluation."
Earlier, there were boos from the audience, when AFT Secretary-Treasurer Antonia Cortese mentioned Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
The AFT had invited both President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden to speak at the convention, which has hosted presidents and vice presidents in previous years. Neither accepted nor sent a video.
Among those who accepted invitations: Bill Gates, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, Gov. Chris Gregoire, Sen. Maria Cantwell and Sen. Patty Murray.
Gates, who is scheduled to be at the convention on Saturday afternoon, is not a constant ally of AFT views. For example, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has a long record of funding charter schools, many of which exclude unions.
But the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is among the private backers of the AFT Innovation Fund, which is funding projects to improve public education.
"The AFT has never shied away from controversy. The real issue is we have to engage with people," Weingarten said.
Weingarten said she supported evaluating teachers' performance and intervening when necessary, but that evaluations had to be more nuanced and detailed than simply looking at standardized test results.
"A real teacher-development and -evaluation system involves rigorous reviews by trained expert and peer evaluators, based on professional teaching standards, best practices and student learning."
She also said that administrators those responsible for creating the conditions in classrooms, should also be held accountable. For example, in areas where teacher turnover is high, administrators should be held responsible.
Fiona Cohen is a Seattle-based freelance writer.
SPECIAL TO SEATTLEPI.COM
