Unsent Letters: Take It to the Top

Superintendent Garcia:

Given the size of the public relations office and its well-compensated staff, it's unfortunate that you don't run your comments past them before speaking to the media.

Because when you tell schools slated to lose almost 50% of their teachers that the skip order you want "won't tilt the Earth on its orbit", those schools are disgusted with you, your lack of concern for their students, and your blatant disregard for the actual, on-the-ground implications of protecting intern credentialed teachers over fully-credentialed teachers with experience.


Which is, by the way, a key point.  The "special skills and competencies" of some fifty-eight protected teachers do not include a real, renewable California teaching credential.   I'd say that puts kind of a low bar on whatever it is that sets "zone" schools apart from equally-challenged schools in other neighborhoods.

Let's face it.  Union-busting is all the rage with soon-to-retire and retired Superintendents looking for lucrative speaking gigs in the future.  And if you can union-bust in the name of the children, even better!

The problem is that you're going to knock the Earth off its orbit entirely at some schools that have bigger challenges than some of the arbitrary zone sites.  And that it's hard to argue you have an elite and highly-trained, heavily-recruited teaching force at these arbitrary sites when some of them have credentials that are only controversially designated acceptable under NCLB.

Actually, maybe it's better that the PR office didn't catch you before you called the Chronicle.  It's always good to know how little we schools matter for the top brass in our District.

Unsent Letters

Dear Mikey One Percent,

Frankly?  I doubt you attended Kindergarten with forty three of your peers.  And I know - I know, with absolute certainty - that when it comes to academic performance, that Kindergarten class didn't get the results that my students meet by the end of August.  (Things have changed since you went to Kindergarten, dude, and it's not just the terrible union teachers and their tiny little classes.  The standards are years higher, too.)

But as always, I have to tell you that if you intend to double my students and my pay, I want to see you do it first.  Mikey, it might sound like a generous offer, but compare it to your income, and think hard about this offer.  (It's worth remembering that while, say, $125,000 may sound like an awesome amount of money for a teacher, the people proposing it make more than ten times as much.  And their pensions, insurance and so on are better than teachers', too.)

Given my typical class load, the forty four students you'll have will present some serious classroom issues, Mike.  At least six will have IEPs upon Kindergarten entry.  Eighteen to twenty will be on the young side - late October and November birthdays.  Thirty will not speak English, so start planning those ELD lessons now.

Four children will be in foster care; at least six more will be in kinship placements.  Two will be homeless; almost all of the rest will live in decrepit, violent and under-resourced public housing.  Eighteen will have witnessed or been personally involved in serious violence.  Twelve will have chronic asthma or other major health problems.

Forty three of them will qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and half will face food insecurity at home.  Twenty five will live in homes where no adult is able to find work.  Start stocking up on the snacks and school supplies, Mike: you'll need to use that excellent salary to supplement what your school and your families can't afford.

Based on your breezy comments, despite the challenges, you'll have no trouble ensuring all forty four read fluently by the end of the year.  They'll whip through their fifty sight words spelling test in five minutes before finishing twenty addition and subtraction problems.  Then they'll write a five sentence story before making a map of their neighborhood and creating a Venn diagram to compare insects and isopods.

And then you'll have the credibility you need to lecture me about school success, ineffective teachers and the good old days of fifty kids to a room.

Until then: shut up.

Not So Cordially,

E. Rat

Is AB114 an insult to teachers already laid off?

No.


It means that fewer of those of us still employed join you.


I am not a giant fan of the current system of teacher layoffs, because at least for some districts (including SFUSD), it unquestionably impacts high-needs schools more.  Furthermore, I think teacher layoffs are stupid, full stop.  Smaller class sizes work.  Laid off teachers have experience.  Experience is important.  And somehow districts who lay off teachers end up hiring uncredentialed newbies to replace them.


Nor does it impact rehiring.


Besides, anything that has school boards and deformers that riled up can't be that bad.  Sure, it sends them into their brooding, union-hating pits.  But so does everything else.  Let's quote Lance Izumi, who apparently found his union-label pajamas too scratchy years back:


“This is shocking,” said Lance Izumi, Koret Senior Fellow in Education Studies at the Pacific Research Institute, CalWatchdog’s parent think tank. “It’s obvious that unions do not care for the kids at all if they are willing to shorten the school year. This is about protecting teachers’ jobs, whether they deserve it or not.”


That's right.  If you think 40:1 classrooms are worse than a shorter school year, you are scum.  Mr. Izumi does not consider the possibility that teachers might think both of these are bad, and he seems unaware that teachers take pay cuts when school years get shorter.


It's an excellent deformer soundbite, though.  He gets in a "bad teachers" crack, even.

Izumi said that many other states are going in the opposite direction, and implementing more school choice opportunities and teacher evaluation processes, while “California is regressing into 19th century union vogue.”


Yeah, it's true that many states, stuck in an ugly scramble for federal education money, are putting untested and unreliable "effectiveness" schemes in place.  And many school districts are being further defunded by "school choice" scams.  How this is a positive he doesn't explain.  Moreover, he doesn't have an equivalent contradiction to his Naughty California Wobbly Teachers proposition - unless the overall framing is "Unions hate children, hate teaching and are basically giant fascist juggernauts holding knives to the throats of valiant, underfunded, loving education reformers."


Let's not give him that framing assumption for free, shall we?


I hereby make the same offer to Lance I made to Dick Armey years ago (sadly, he never took it up!  I sent a whole position paper and everything!):  Lance!  Come do my job for a year.  I'll do yours.  We can trade salaries or not, your call.  Then you tell me how much I hate children, okay?

Search Keywords: AB114 and Currently Laid-Off Employees

There is nothing in AB114 that would compel districts to hire back teachers currently laid off.  If you are a currently employed teacher, you cannot be laid off this year.  This is NOT because of the heralded 15 March/15 May process, but because AB114 closed the late window that allows teacher layoffs over the summer given falling school budgets and a completed state budget.

AB114 does require districts to budget for the year as if revenues will meet (very optimistic) projections.  So if a district has teachers currently laid off, based on budget decisions made using a low-end estimate, they could (hey, should even) rescind layoffs.  But they are not required to do so and I would suspect recissions will not begin until very close to the beginning of the school year, if at all.

And that's that.

I am checked out of my classroom (after an all-day Sunday adventure in stuff-moving, stuff-cleaning and stuff-trashing)!  I swear, next year I'm showing a video on the last day of school, not doing Child Pollock and other fun stuff.

...That said, for unknown reasons, we had several parents tour this week.  Early in the week, my classroom had Paper People remnants and various art activities out.  Not to mention an enormous coop of chickens.  By the last drop by, two hours before school got out for the year, it was a disaster zone of take-home backpacks, tear-downs, and craft explosions.  And an enormous coop of chickens.  I had paint in my hair from the action painting, so you can imagine what the kids looked like.  I do not think this makes a good impression, but really: on the last day of school, maybe don't tour.

At 4:30 on Friday, all 6 remaining pink slips at my site were rescinded!

I remembered to pass out everything I needed to and give away things I wanted to get rid of (like Moon Sand, the world's messiest substance.  That stuff leaves glitter in...well, in the dust.)!

I adopted out all my chicks!

I restrained myself from accepting an offer to raise my pet chicken Egghead for my retrieval in August!

I am registered for the Special Education PD in August!  (This means I'm skipping my site PD, and man, am I so happy about that.  Not that I'm tired with my site, just that what with the high-needs school endless teacher churn it ends up being more or less the same PD over and over and over and over and over and over and...well, I have ADHD.)

I am taking an Adderall Holiday!  Providing I survive the Doom Sleepy, that is.

I am leaving for New York tomorrow!

In other news, I got a couple of really nice letters from parents and/or students.  I made plans with my Resident to do a massive classroom purge next week.  This will mean that all the shelf-papering I did is for naught, but will mean I have more space to store stuff.

I have five active projects up at Donors Choose and a sixth (about the Science of Jackson Pollock) in progress.  I am thinking about linking them here, although that would be the end of my "anonymity".

I had some awesome conversations the last week of school.

CHILD (to child): You're evil.
"EVIL" CHILD: HA HA.  Yes, I am.
E. Rat: No.  Let's not call each other 'evil'.
"EVIL" CHILD: But I AM evil.  Listen: (laughs maniacally).
CHILD: What does 'evil' mean?
NEW CHILD: Devils are evil.
E. Rat: Um.  Well, I guess evil means that you do bad things that hurt others...
CHILD: So it means bad?
NEW CHILD: Devils are bad.
E. Rat: Yes, but also that you do bad things because they are bad and you want to hurt others, and that makes you happy. (Resolves to check a dictionary later).  So calling someone evil is serious.
"EVIL" CHILD: That's why they laugh like this (laughs maniacally).
ADDITIONAL CHILD: But what about the minions?
E. Rat: What?
ADDITIONAL CHILD: The MINIONS!  Are they evil, too?
ANOTHER CHILD: Can YOU do an evil laugh?

...this went on for awhile.  I recounted this to someone later and that person suggested that the idea of "minions" might come from a movie.  I have no idea.

CHILD, HOLDING CHICK: Do chickens make chicken?
E. Rat: Can you explain that a little more?
CHILD: Like, do they make fried chicken?
E. Rat: Yes.
CHILD: WILL THIS CHICKEN MAKE FRIED CHICKEN?
E. Rat: (Assists child in loosening sudden death grip on chick).
CHILD: WILL THIS CHICKEN MAKE FRIED CHICKEN?
E. Rat: Um, this chicken is too little.
CHILD: Oh, okay.

I'm just not so fast on my feet after the Promograduation insanity, you see.

Doomsday May Revise

...and a whole week of fun times before it!

Having taught in financial climates adequate (2001 with a lot of II/USP money), bad (2002-3), worse (2004-5) and gruesome, yet predictably more gruesome each year (2005 - on), I am surprised that this year's May Revise may actually present a budget so bad that some school districts will get over the whole "find a way through" nonsense.

Actually, I am kind of hopeful that they will: that some districts will have the courage to say no, to refuse to present the state with a budget, to call for system-wide strikes and basically demand that California fund its responsibilities.  Let's face it: the state is used to grumbling and lawsuits followed by massive cuts and somehow limping through.

We need to draw the line.  It is not okay that some districts are back to 31:1 AM/PM Kindergarten with one teacher, no aides and no supplies.  It is not okay that basic aid districts will still manage to keep their "essentials" - art and music and labs and computers - while I eagerly await the day that the solution to the plumbing problem in the boys' room near my classroom is not "keep the door open all the time".

It is not okay that I can look forward to an ever-increasing class of kids who have not had adequate nutrition, medical care or preschool.  It is not okay that that half of those kids will have experienced major trauma, five will be homeless and four will have diagnosed learning differences.  It is not okay that I will be expected to ameliorate all of the above while buying all materials beyond pencils and integrating technology using two computers that are 15 years old and cannot load the local newspaper, let alone Google Maps.

I do not anticipate that SFUSD will be one of these districts, given that Beyond the Talk is a lot of talk about systems and MAPs and Redesigns and Overcoming the Historic Power of Demographics.  The District can't even get itself behind the symbolic action of, say, having its top brass take some solidarity pay cuts.  So I don't think we can expect any actual challenging of institutional racism.  I'm sure there will be some good rhetoric around how California won't fund SFUSD, leaving it with no choice but to sacrifice its neediest.

Unfortunately, the buck doesn't stop with California.  We need to have the moral courage to take responsibility for the actions we take - or that we fail to take.  What SFUSD chooses to do is not constrained by the choices it claims to have.  If this is a state of emergency, then the conditions demand extraordinary action.

Hard-working teachers putting that extraordinary effort in every day can look forward to a meaningless Day of the Teacher resolution and a rather more concrete pink slip.

That says a lot about how Beyond the Talk we're really willing to go.

Today is Kindergarten Day! Yay!

Hooray!  For once, the rain has stopped in time for a field trip.  Of course, since it's a picnic with our buddy class, even yesterday's rain is unfortunate.  We'll have to squash a bit on the benches.

This article on basic aid districts' finances (vs. revenue limit districts') gets at the vast inequity in school funding that feeds the ability of the haves to ignore the have nots.  It also features the basic aid districts' lament - their funding has taken a bigger dollar-per-student hit than revenue limits'.  In the last days of Gray Davis, when he threatened the inequity, you heard this a lot.

Of course, when you have three times as much to start with, a bigger dollar cut has less impact.  That can't be forgotten.  If the Governor presents an all-cuts budget that does not push state cash to basic aid districts down to the actual basic aid level, I predict a future one woman march in Sacramento.

In other news, it appears that this coming year may not yet be the worst for SFUSD finances.  I hope that we stop saying "This next one has to be the worst!  It has to get better!" because it's so depressing when the next budget cycle comes.

Happily, it looks like I will probably get a Donors Choose grant wrapped up pretty soon, so I should have construction paper next year.

Today was the first day back.  As often happens after the Spring Break, when I saw my kids arriving I was a little perplexed: how did they all grow six inches and seventeen sight words overnight?  One of the best things about this job is how very obvious a child's development is at this age.  It is an very exciting process in which to take part - really, quite an honor, too.

I then went to the all union rally, which was equally perplexing: how is it that Jamie Dimon is making hundreds of millions of dollars for squandering billions?  Why does GE get a tax break but I can't get a bottle of finger paint for my classroom?  Again, it is a wonderful thing to be part of a rally and enjoy union fellowship: community and collaboration are important.  Regardless, this was more than a little depressing.

(NOT depressing: Wearing awesome find Armani dress to protest.  AND ALSO NOT DEPRESSING: Rally of adequate size that I received text messages from non-union friends asking, "Are you at the BofA building?  Where?"  YAY WORKER SOLIDARITY.)

So I came home and got my solo adventure summer mini break New York flight and hotel done.  I have not gone away for purposes unrelated to work or family/friend commitments in a long time.  AND NOW I AM.

Additionally, I am going right after school gets out: more incentive to get out of my room within 48 hours of the end of the year rather than spending two or three days shifting stuff from one cabinet to another.

Let's remember the Late Layoff Window.

The whole 15 March/15 May layoff thing is not entirely true, you know.  I mean, it makes its appearance in  every story about the catastrophic budget cuts awaiting us (possibly $1000 per pupil now).  But that doesn't make it true.

The Ed Code (44955.5) allows late layoffs within five days' of the state's budget being passed and 15 August...if per-pupil funding doesn't get at least a 2% increase (or, as I like to call it, "annually").

I don't know what exactly they mean by "state's budget".  Does that mean a complete budget, balanced and everything?  Or would the half-budget we have now suffice?  If the state has to have a complete and total budget, I think we can assume that it would be hard-pressed to have one by 15 August.

Still, this is a real possibility.  This 2009 Chronicle blog post reports that the late window may have never been used, but I think that's out of date now (I'm pretty sure they were used later that year.  Last year the budget was so late I don't think the window opened).

And given just how bad things are going to be, barring amazing budget dodges - maybe some of Speaker Perez's plans will be easier to enact since the budget only needs a majority vote this year - I think we better not assume there will be no late window RIFs.

...Or for that matter, late resignations.  I don't care what happens in November locally or statewide to provide school funding: we have almost three months of school year before then to suffer through.  And it will be suffering.  High needs schools, as always, will get the worst of it: more teacher layoffs, no cash-rich PTA to spackle over the gaping holes, more students feeling the outside-the-classroom impacts of the massive safety net cuts (you go to work with an infected abscess in your mouth and see how well you do, now that we've cut dental benefits for poor children) on the state level.

And we can look forward to federal cuts, too.  Nothing like a little starvation to ensure bad learning outcomes, and the food stamp cuts the Rethuglican* Congress is proposing will make malnutrition easier.

Given that, who wants to teach?  There is a huge emotional component to the work, but it shouldn't be ministering.  The situation we are in makes it missionary work, not education.  Teachers have lives outside the classroom; while their students so desperately need their emotional energy they have less left for their families and friends.  That's unfair to everyone and unsustainable for educators.

I have a science proposal on Donors Choose that is about to expire not fully funded.  I think I had better start writing some for pencils, socks and toothbrushes so I'm ready for when it does.

*Seriously.  If you do bad things to the neediest people - and unambiguously, that Congress does - you are a thug.  I am tired of civil behavior glossing over the real, brutal impacts of the budget cuts being demanded for economically imaginary reasons.

The Good, The Bad, The Irritating

GOOD.

• Going to the "Balenciaga and Spain" exhibit this week with another stylish Kindergarten teacher.
• Jeremy's Sweeps sale brought this Armani salvage dress I'd been admiring since November to my home.  It's a little big, which makes it just right for Kindergarten wearing.
• On break!  I'm going in one day to work and feed the snails and once to feed the snails and that's it.
• At long last, I am clearing my closet and divvying up the rejects.
• It seems reasonably likely that I will get another Resident Teacher next year.  I really think it's a neat program for teacher training and I love having a second adult in my room all the time.

BAD.

• Still at 7 of 15 classroom teachers laid off.
• What with the state budget and the all-talk-and-hand-wringing attitude toward equity in SFUSD, it's hard to imagine that changing.
• Because I got very sick and actually had to leave school to go to the doctor, I still have two conferences to do.

IRRITATING.

• I read my District email and in my SFUSD News Blast there were some platitudinous, Hallmarky sentiments from our Superintendent.  These were along the lines of "Even though we laid off half your staff and told you to come up with a budget that provides a generous twelve cents a child, y'all need to focus on meeting our goals of access, achievement and accountability.  It is just not Beyond the Talk to talk about all the stuff you're cutting and all your colleagues who are leaving."

...which, you know, is a lot easier a sentiment to talk about than to have, and one easier to have if you're not actually laid off and, frankly, make more than four of those laid off teachers do combined yet have taken no pay cut beyond furlough days.  It's also easier to stand up for those important values if I will be doing all the actual standing while you blame the state funding situation.  And it's a whole lot easier not to think about the people who might not be there if they don't comprise half the teaching staff of your site.

• I filled out my survey about the 4 March PD.  Even though my actual name is on it, I tried to be honest, although I ended up putting in a lot of "don't knows".  (Also, the questions were kind of...I dunno, they were more about "Do you understand that we are doing inclusion and you better like it" than "Was the presenter good?  Do you feel we are ready for the important work of moving toward a services model?  What do you need to be ready for that model?" Of course, maybe these questions are only of primary importance to K-6-9 teachers this year.)  
• Since I read the big report when it was released, I did not learn a lot of new facts.  Since someone at my school sits on the committee for this redesign, I generally can have all my questions answered right away.  Yet I have no idea how this will work out next year, and the parking lot questions I submitted have not been answered.

...this worries me because I am getting the feeling that, barring an incredible amount of work over the summer, the rollout is going to be pretty atrocious.  Again, it's easy to have a plan for an overdue redesign and it's a lot harder to live out that plan, particularly in a budget scenario like the one we've got.

I may be feeling this especially hard this week because I have had a lot of interaction with various service providers over the last couple of months.  Some have been awesome.  For instance, I filed a PT screen and heard from the screener the day she received it.  The screener also said she'd be happy to provide suggestions on activities and/or modifications in general: YAY!  Some have been teeth-grinding.  I feel like SFUSD's over-identification of poor children of color has among some providers led to a refusal to do any screening of poor children of color, even when a room full of professionals and the child's parents agree that despite the child's remarkable gifts, we are struggling to provide the experiences that will allow the child to learn.  I still think that screening - or just observing and providing suggestions - would cut down on over-identification while helping all children excel.  Yet more than once I've had the experience of asking for advice/observation and being given the strong sense that asking for help means that I am abdicating my responsibility for going Beyond the Talk.

And I'm not alone in that sense.  The attitude that educators are getting is toxic.  It inspires educators to avoid asking for help.  The children struggle, the educators struggle.  No one is happy.  No one is supported.

...and don't even get me started on RtI.  I am of the strong opinion (it's the ADHD) that little modifications should be widely available to all people, and that children benefit from knowing when they need a fidget/a deep breath or that they need a pencil grip/noise-canceling headphones to succeed.  So the idea of RtI seems great.  But a lot of RtI actually requires supplies, and while I did sew my own weighted stuffed animals and bought my own special pencils and HWT magna boards, I can't spend all of my money this way.  (It cuts down on my New York vacation pin money, and quite honestly a little souvenir from the Met isn't going to cut it.  I'm thinking dress.)

A quick scan at the numbers

...suggests that I won't have to worry too much about reading people ripping on my school (about which they know nothing).  SFUSD has some enrollment statistics out, and I'm going to guess based on my read of these that the people who will not be happy to have been assigned our school are not also the kind of people to complain about same on the internet.


If the offers match the population we enroll, our school will remain fairly diverse but continue in its general direction (more Latino and Asian children, fewer African American children).  (Our school has been diverse but in flux for a number of years, and diversity should be understood to mean "few if any white children".)

In this we are not common, and I will be interested to see what the new assignment system does for district-wide school diversity.  There are some stunning numbers in the data release - 78% of offers at Grattan, for instance, are to white children.  (This would tend to suggest that the idea that the nefarious and secret discriminatory quota policies of SFUSD will finally die, but I both digress and doubt it.)

In other news, I think we must have won the Layoff Sweepstakes but SFUSD doesn't seem as inclined to let us have the data on that this year.  (Perhaps because we disseminated it so widely.  You should've seen Eric Mar!  I thought his eyes would pop out of his head.)  In between noting that there are solutions to inequitable layoffs that don't involve overturning unions or turning to education deform, I managed to get my crafty layoff posters up this week.  So now we turn up the noise.

I mean, like to 11.  That's the problem with laying off all the young things: they can still organize and get loud AND show up to teach tomorrow.

Simply, SFUSD cannot claim to be going "Beyond the Talk" if they are willing to lay off nearly half of our staff.  How many elementary classroom teachers got pink-slipped?  Less than fifty.  There are what, eighty elementary schools in the District?  And my school gets seven of those?  It's not about seniority: it's about equal opportunity.

The district's courage should not rest entirely in its southeast side teachers - but it does.  Their annual reward for doing a job that the state refuses to fund and the district refuses to value is a pink slip.  What does that say about access and equity?  Given SFUSD's long history of failing poor children of color, there is a pressing need to build relationships and trust.  Boo-hoo-hooing about seniority and legal requirements is fine - but you can't also pretend that you aim to build that trust.

Hence: 11.  Or louder.

So, Those Administrators Got Their Contracts Yet?

Teacher layoff notices went out.  At least 40% of our staff is getting noticed.

I'll go ahead and predict that will put us toward the top of the list of most heavily affected schools.

I'll go one step further and predict that all of those top schools will be located on the southeast side.

It's not even a step to predict that those top southeast side schools would all qualify as "high needs".

Of course, this has no implication for equity and equal opportunity AT ALL.

And by making this an annual course of action, SFUSD does not in any way question its real commitment to radical, "Beyond the Talk" change.

...oh wait.  No, it actually IS inequitable and worsens the systemic problem of high teacher turnover at high needs schools.  And again, we receive annual proof that when it comes to the real tough decisions - the kind that take more than a press release and are unlikely to provide awards to Superintendents - are so far Beyond the Talk that we can't even talk about them (SFUSD Legal said so!  And they've never been wrong, nor has any other lawyer or court ever disagreed...which is why we don't actually need a judicial system.).

I haven't personally received a letter (or communication from the union, which is typically what I get first - I haven't actually picked up or signed for a layoff letter in the last couple of years.  I leave them at the post office to rot sullenly in a miasma of wasted certificated mail fees).  Looking at the numbers, I have to figure I finally have enough seniority to not get laid off until the 60 day window (hee hee).  Of course, if I'm not getting one, then I need devote less time to personal worry and more time to raising Cain for those committed to equity administrators leading our District in these sad times.

In other news, I have created a monster.  I have a student whose name has the same letter twice in order.  One day that kid spelled it with three of the letter and I commented on that, which the child found hilarious.  The student now always spells the name with five of the letter.  We occasionally pronounce it accordingly.   Now that kid's best friend's name, which has its own doubled letter, is growing exponentially too.

We are big into fish printing right now.  The girls who are in after school are mad at me presently.  They snuck away from the program and came in the room to find me testing out a craft project.  Sneaking away from after school to explore The School By Late Afternoon is not allowed, so I sent them out, thereby selfishly hoarding all the good toys and games for myself.  As they see it.

I have an official request to make west African-inspired masks to go with the maracas and tambourines that will accompany our promotion performance.  I need to think on this one for a little bit.

Oh, SERIOUSLY.

Dear My Union Leadership,

While I recognize that official District notification of the Special Board Meeting would have been the right thing for the District to do (and that their failure to do so is offensive to their certificated staff and its collective voice)...

if I knew there was a meeting and by Saturday had already read the agenda, then you could have done the same.  I do not have mystical ESP.  The Superintendent does not update me on his nefarious plans to lay off teachers, yet refuse to share the pain personally.  Human Resources doesn't let me see the memos they send to the administrative officials whose contracts aren't getting renewed until after the teachers are officially out the door.  Etc.

In closing, I find your outreach initiative kind of amusing when I am not assuming best intentions.  Otherwise it's great.  It just strikes me that you might try to increase your outreach to your own members, particularly those at non-active school sites and those schools with young staffs first.

Cordially,

I remain,

E. Rat

P.S.  Please do continue to stand strong against "collaboration".

Optics Again, Scattered Pondering.

So long-term, I don't think it's such a great idea for SFUSD to claim annually that they are laying off 140 administrators.  They're not; they never are.  This year they have pretty much everyone except Garcia on the list of no-renewals.

Still, every year they non-renew-notice 140 or 168 or 100-odd administrators and mention it to the press.  Then they fail to mention the contracts they offer those people in the end.  I think this feeds the idea that administative offices are hugely bloated; if you are not following closely, SFUSD is losing 100+ administrators a year and always has another 100 that can be cut.  It suggests thousands of out-of-the-classroom jobs that don't exist.

Apparently SFUSD only wants 37 elementary layoffs, which is nice from a class-size perspective.  Schoolwise, not so nice (I think the number must be all of the first year teachers in the District?).  That's at least a third of our classroom staff.  (On the other hand, if that's really all they're doing this will be my first year without a certified mail on or around 15 March since I started working in SFUSD.  Huh.)

I'm wondering if there's going to be another round of letters in June for the 60 day window if the budget proposal and tax vote fail.  Certainly the 1 March meeting should be the only Board vote for March, right?  Running another list at the 8 March meeting would be skeevy.

I have this image of our school site and its highly photogenic, television-ready and quoteable educators as the Beckets to the District's King Henry.   Low layoffs or not, going Beyond the Talk means pushing for critical analysis of our decisions from an equity lens.  We'll be pushing that again this year.

Optics Ho!

In general, I think that SFUSD doesn't get optics.  Not the kind involving the eyes, but the kind covering the public reaction to issues - "how it looks in the press", if you will.  For instance, catering Board meetings might be inexpensive in comparison to the overall budget.  It might even be good policy.  It looks really bad when you have laid off teachers, increased class sizes and demanded contract concessions.

Similarly, one could argue that the salaries paid to Central Office employees keep them in the public sector and are in line with other local school districts.  But when you put them on a list and compare that list to school site professionals' salaries, those arguments look weak.

Still, one area where the District gets it right is their annual meeting to send potential no-contract letters to their highest-paid employees.  They always manage to do this before laying off teachers and will make sure that all District officials solemnly announce the number of Assistant Superintendents, Executive Directors and so on who may not be employed next year when being forced to discuss teacher layoffs.

Pressed on the issue, the District will admit that they have no intention of actually letting these people go (or at least they never have before).  So the purpose is at least partially cosmetic.

I am trying to decide if it is worth the effort to organize a big site visit to next week's Board meeting, since our school will undoubtedly be at or near the top of several lists (Most Teacher Layoffs at a Site by Number!  And Also By Percentage of Classroom Staff!  And Most Heavily Impacted High-Needs Site!).  Doing so means organizing around a depressing and futile topic - it's not like the Board will decline to send the letters, even though the 15 March deadline is not the iron-bound Unbreakable Vow they often claim it is - and too many of the District officials have a bad habit of texting or talking while public comment is being made.  That kind of rudeness makes for grumpy.

Additionally, it would take away valuable time from watching this over and over and over.  Presently my only personal concern around layoffs boils down to how badly my New York pin money would be decimated if I am not under contract come early June.  No job means I probably can't buy any really good souvenirs (by which I mean "dresses purchased at certain retail outlets", not "exhibit catalogs or other such fripperies sold at the Met").

Some things NEVER change.

Preparing for a $19 or a $330 cut per student in funding next year, SFUSD is as usual planning for massive teacher layoffs: 300 to 400, presumably with EduJobs and maybe with retirements counted in already.  This year, my school can actually anticipate more layoff letters; presuming the same plan as last year, the following will definitely be noticed:

• all of 1st grade
• 2/3 of 2nd grade
• all of 3rd grade
• 1/2 of 4th grade
• all of 5th grade

with an additional four notices if they also send layoff letters to teachers with four years' seniority in SFUSD (in which case, they will notice all but three classroom teachers).

Undoubtedly there will be plenty of hand-wringing about how terrible it is that the Superintendent and BoE are required to utterly upend high-needs schools, but they're going to do it anyway and get hinky if anyone suggests that it's their fault.  It's that mean state!

So let me be the first to assure SFUSD that it is, ultimately, their decision.  Going "Beyond the Talk" is a radical action.  Inequitable layoffs are a status quo action.  You can't balance these things out.  Blaming union contracts, seniority, etc. doesn't exonerate you.  The shady self-dealing of the state GOP (I can balance the budget and increase school funding, leaving a three billion dollar reserve: bet you can too!) doesn't exonerate you.  We need to take responsibility for our actions.

I do think SFUSD has options other than massive layoffs that still allow them to sign off on a budget (although I am tired of hearing about STATE TAKEOVER from those who would lose their jobs in that case, gotta say!).  Some of them are straightforward: time to make some big cuts at the top at the Central Office.  Frankly, 25% paycuts to all EDs, Senior Directors and Superintendents of every ilk are not too much to demand.  Legal needs to cut down on its use of the unrestricted General Fund, and like the Special Ed redesign, should be forced to account for its legal decisions (SFUSD: Fighting Every Access Ramp Since 1901).  I recognize that Legal is used to being the end all on all law, but I must note that their opinion is just that.  (FYI, Legal?  Your opinion on layoffs and equity?  LAUSD settled.  Because they were going to lose ugly.)

In other news:

• I have an offsite PD thingamajig today, which means that I cannot walk to work and must get on the bus.  BOO.
• As of yesterday afternoon, I was 40% to filling a Donors Choose grant to get a big big fan and a space heater for my classroom.  We have already lost heat twice this year, and 40s classrooms with full-wall window exposures need the heavy artillery in air circulation technology.  Of course, going Beyond the Talk might be construed to mean the District should undertake liveability issues, but I still have lead pipes in my classroom so I suppose not.

Win Some, Lose Some

Serrano II is one of those great moments of American juriprudence in which it is clear that justice may be blind, but if you slip a big enough wad of cash in her toga she'll feel it.

On its grounds that the Constitution neither includes the right to a free, public education nor finds that providing one to some but not all citizens is a 14th Amendment issue, the adequacy lawsuits against the state failed Friday.  They can continue as equity lawsuits, which I hope they do - although that's less useful in SFUSD, I'd say.  With its broad region of schools, some wealthy and others not and all sharing the same property tax base I don't know that an equity argument would go that far.  It could mean a lot for districts in the South Bay, though - San Jose is a patchwork of districts with widely varying tax bases.

On the other hand, Judge Highberger continues to hold that school district certificated contracts cannot be used to block equal opportunity rights.  So LAUSD will be required to protect all teachers' jobs, regardless of seniority, at forty five schools.  At the other 700-odd schools, layoffs must be evenly divided.

While this sets no precedent, I do think it's high time for SFUSD officials and BoE members to stop explaining how the law ties their hands and demands they inequitably lay teachers off because of those terrible union contracts.  It was tiresome last year - when they didn't ignore the point, or claim how they hated what they were doing while still doing it, or throwing themselves behind the august opinion of the District legal office, they really should make some attempt at going Beyond the Talk this year.

That means at the very least being honest about their tied hands.  It requires more than lip service to equity. I imagine that the lay off lists will be the usual anti-equity reading delight, but I hold out the hope that the District is more honest about the decisions it's making.

State Budget Funtimes.

Brown's budget apparently maintains current K-12 funding (except the general fund is smaller, so the 98 MINIMUM is smaller).  He is assuming some temporary taxes are continued, which involves the GOP minority allowing the voters to vote on that and the voters voting affirmatively.

HOWEVER, that's his budget.  So we shouldn't be playing doom times again in SFUSD, which needs to budget based on the Governor's budget.  I predict that they will budget based on doom times, however, because SFUSD is only ever able to balance its budget through layoffs (being absolutely unwilling to consider alternative proposals; where's that report on the alternate budget again?  Or the budget equity report?  Would that be: NOWHERE?).  And while SFUSD will be fully able to do late layoffs (after the 15 March/May deadline) again this year (YES: you can lay off tenured staff legally, and the 15 March/May thing is not the only window), why do that when they can lay those complainy teachers off now?

After all, equity matters only when there are adequate funds for it.  Otherwise, let the same system continue!

I do hope that SFUSD will take some personal responsibility for its decisions in re cuts this year rather than assuming a saint-like posture of blamelessness and rueing the naughty bad state.  It's true the state budget is an annual atrocity.  It is also true that equity requires radical action in the face of atrocity.  Shifting the blame is institutional racism.  There really isn't any way to get around that.

It is link day.

I have issues with KIPP.  If I could get over their issues with student and teacher attrition, I'd still have problems with their boot camp discipline - the kind of discipline that KIPP's overlords would never allow for their own kids, but are fine using on poor children of color.  Were I able to come to terms with the punitive management, the anti-union sentiment would get me, and even if I hadn't been raised by union laborers, I'd have to question the lack of cultural competence and remedial pedagogy that KIPP supports.

In short: not a fan.  I don't buy the hype, I find their rhetoric offensive and their theory of change racist and repugnant.

This is a report on the shenanigans at KIPP Fresno:

Notice to Cure and Correct

Perhaps, like me, you're curious as to what Mr. Tschang is up to these days.  I think I may have seen an update on Schools Matter, but couldn't find it.  However, a quick Google search presents this charter school network blog.  He's a "Regional Superintendent".

I don't believe bad conduct in one job should mean one is doomed for life.  I believe in redemption and righting wrongs.  It's possible that Mr. Tschang no longer believes starving children, cheating on federal programs and state tests, and the humiliation of kids in the name of discipline are acceptable policies.

The fact that he highlights his KIPP experience with nary a mention of the circumstances that led to his resignation, coupled with his denials and denigrations of those who spoke against him suggest to me that he has not had a change of heart.

You know, it gets tiresome hearing about the innovative innovations at those unfettered and fancy-free charter schools - particularly as they use their extra private money for heavy administrative chains like Achievement First has while I can look forward to my fourth annual pink slip as I total the hundreds of dollars I've spent this year on enabling creative, multimodal learning experiences in my classroom.

But when those innovations are abusive to children, it's appalling.

Budget Apocalypse 2011: The Second Coming of Jerry

Last week, the Governor-Elect had one of his charming little summits in Los Angeles.  This one was on education.  The key takeaways were that we need to stop bothering Jerry so much.  I mean, you'd think he'd run for Governor or something on a platform we were expecting him to keep.

...hey, Jerry?  YOU DID.  So can it.

Anyway, he agreed that education had taken the brunt of the cuts, but that was just too bad and to expect more and more miserable cutting in his next budget.  Also, he wants a passed budget in 60 days upon his entry.  Furthermore, Californians aren't willing to pay for the services they want, so that's just tough for school people.  And everyone else, too: the budget he's apparently planning to propose is going to be a big nightmare.  Sez Jerry.

Dan Walters of the Sac Bee thinks this is all part of Jerry's big plan:

1. Propose a truly miserable budget that cuts all services to the bone, particularly popular ones like education.  (Note to Dan: Dude, in the case of education, we'll be on to the marrow now.)
2. Propose special election for a tax hike.  Campaign for tax hike is "This budget or your money".
3. Get state Congress to pass Doom Budget.
4. Taxes win in special election.
5. Have a new, better budget ready to go.

This seems plausible, if stupid.  Among other things, I have lived through several special elections in California.  The Groper's "Pensions for None, Money for Me" special election went down big (even the one good proposal on it: re-regulating utilities).  The "We Passed a Budget that Counts on You to Raise Taxes on Lower and Middle Income People" special election didn't go over so well either.  Moreover, irritants like Dianne Feinstein claimed that the failure was because Californians don't want to pay taxes.  (I dunno about all Californians, but I explained to Dianne that I'm plenty willing to pay taxes and tax corporations and the wealthy.  I'm just not so cool about regressive taxation.  Dianne wrote back to tell me that she knows everything.  Well, more or less that's what it said.  I write to Dianne with some regularity since she's always doing something miserable, and that's pretty much the response I always get.)

So old Jerry's willing to take a pretty big gamble on the photogenic quality of teachers and schools.  Dan Walters observed that he doesn't think the Dems in the state Congress will be so enthusiastic about passing Jerry's Doom Budget.  That's worth crossing one's fingers, I'd say.

It's not that I disagree in principle: we aren't raising state revenues sufficient to what the state needs, and way too many Californians have drunk the Korporate Kool-Aid and think taxes are bad and government takes money just to roll around in piles of it because services are free and those people are the only ones who get any services and those people don't deserve it anyway.  (Gee, sounds like the big old pile of money Jerry sat on until he got 13 for his pains.)

I do disagree in reality.  I look at the news and I note that business interests are praising Austerity Ireland even as it fails...while Iceland refuses austerity and recovers.  I hear whining Rethuglicans bearing giant scissors against the poor.  The interests that don't really care if our schools have enough money to survive have the cash to spend beating a tax proposal.

I don't know what options the state has to fund schools without some kind of revenues deal, and Prop. 26 (dear CTA, CFT: Next time, TAKE A POSITION) will complicate getting the money together.  On the other hand, Perez and the Dems in the Assembly could probably cook up a good scheme to punt this a few years down the road, and frankly?  A few years from down the road can't be as bad as now.

According to Rachel Norton, this sounds like another $25 - 30 million cut for SFUSD.  So I think we teachers can safely assume that we will have to face down our sad, sad BoE and Superintendent as they explain how it's not their fault and that they are far too spineless to refuse to pass a budget and (possibly) go into receivership (along with every other District in the state that's not already there) because if the state takes over, they lose their jobs it's really bad for the children.*  Also, equity only applies in good budget years.  Oh, and those new administrative officials?  Waaaay more necessary than teachers.

More broadly, to both SFUSD and the state, I think we need to start considering the Power of No, the possibility of civil disobedience and the refusal to play by the rules of Pass the Blame and Share the Burden.

And it goes without saying that we should begin planning our protest outfits and colors.  Traditionally, in local protests where schools select a color to identify their contingent, we're big on pink.  This requires some wardrobe arrangement on my part.

*I don't entirely disagree.  I do think that the tender embrace of the educrats and prostisuits at the state isn't worse for my school than the proposal the Board is likely to vote into action.  I've lived through state audit and Reading First: at least we still had teachers.  And I think it is deeply offensive to lecture teachers and communities about The Children without a. taking responsibility for what you are about to do to those children and b. mentioning that state takeover means the state fires the Superintendent and the Board loses its power.  You don't make self-interest dissipate by not mentioning it.