AS REPORTED IN CommonWealth on Thursday, last weekend the Massachusetts Teachers Association decided to reject a resolution congratulating the 2017 National Teacher of the Year, Sydney Chaffee from Codman Academy, right here in Massachusetts.
Usually the Massachusetts Teacher of the Year is celebrated by the MTA and given the chance to talk to their fellow educators at the union’s annual convention. And Sydney is the very first National Teacher of the Year to be selected from Massachusetts in the entire history of the award — dating back to 1952. But this year, not even a tip of the hat.
Why not celebrate this clearly exemplary teacher and sing her praises to the rafters?
Because Sydney is public enemy number one in the eyes of the MTA — a public charter school teacher.
To admit Sydney is a quality educator making a difference for children in her classroom and is an example to be celebrated would be an admission that maybe years of disparaging and discrediting public charter school teachers simply because the MTA disagrees with the existence of charter schools was wrong. It might run the risk of even validating the very existence of charters.
This is nasty, ridiculous, and bullying behavior. If my five-year-old behaved this way, I’d put his butt right into time out.
Here’s a message from parents — you know, the people with the most skin in the game: Enough is enough.
Parents don’t care about your turf wars. We don’t care about “political complications” that make collaboration “impossible.” We want a great education for our children — and our children have a constitutional right in Massachusetts to access it. Call the building a district school, a magnet, a pilot, a charter — we don’t care. We want great teachers and great curriculum to open the minds of our children, and we want proof that you’re fulfilling the promises you’ve made to provide them with a foundation of knowledge that prepares them for the future.
We’re not interested in your excuses about how some kids are “impossible to teach.” The data proves that charter schools in our urban areas are able to eliminate the achievement gaps for children regardless of their socioeconomic circumstances. Talk to them, share ideas ,and work together to figure out what they are doing to reach our children and start doing it. Now.
Former MTA president Paul Toner responded to the controversy around Sydney’s snub with a simple statement: “Sydney is a teacher, not a politician. We should respect all of our teachers.”
Our kids are not politicians either. And they’re also not pawns in contract negotiations. They’re our flesh and blood, our heart and soul and the future of Massachusetts and our nation.
Parents don’t have time to waste. Every minute that we bicker about who is “running the show” when it comes to education is another minute my child is losing from having equitable access to a high quality education. And there’s no place for me to go to get that time back once it’s gone.
When my child graduates and is forced to take two years of remedial courses in a community college before being ready to take a college level course is a union president going to stop by my house and explain that we just couldn’t get it done because it meant that district schools might have to collaborate with charters? Will they explain that a school down the street that has unlocked the secret to getting Latino boys like him to really engage in the classroom wasn’t allow to share what works because the people running his school were afraid that someone else might get credit for the idea?
The bottom line is pretty simple for families in Massachusetts — and I spend my days talking to thousands of them who are members of Massachusetts Parents United across the Commonwealth. Our education system is not your political playground. Nor is its primary function to be an employment agency for adults. It’s about our children and working together to figure out what works best for them.
When it comes to recognizing Sydney, this is a teachable moment for all of our children and they are watching. I choose to believe that the majority of Massachusetts teachers are better than this and don’t agree with the leader of their union — and don’t buy into the idea that teaching at a different type of public school makes you less of a teacher. The teachers that I know believe that simply being a union teacher doesn’t make you better or more qualified. Whoever has the best ideas, teaching skills, and commitment to children — we need them. We want them.
Stop it. Mom has had just about enough of this behavior.
Keri Rodrigues Lorenzo is executive director of Massachusetts Parents United, a grassroots organization with 5,000 members working to build safer neighborhoods, stable homes, and equitable access to high quality education for every child in the Commonwealth. She was Massachusetts state director of Families for Excellent Schools, the main organization that funded the pro-charter school side on Question 2, the state ballot question last fall to raise the charter school cap.
CommonWealth Voices is sponsored by The Boston Foundation.
The Boston Foundation is deeply committed to civic leadership, and essential to our work is the exchange of informed opinions. We are proud to partner on a platform that engages such a broad range of demographic and ideological viewpoints.
Keri Rodrigues Lorenzo’s LinkedIn profile shows previous affiliations with…Democrats for Education Reform…the Political Action Committee (PAC) behind the ballot question for more charter schools and don’t forget her former boss, DER’s Liam Kerr was quoted in yesterday’s CommonWealth article about this same nonsense. Lorenzo’s Linkedin profile also shows past association with Families for Excellent Schools another big money group behind Question 2. So what does CommonWealth have going on here? The ultimate echo chamber? It’s all about charter schools, Democrats for Education Reform, bashing public school teachers and not one word about how the State of Massachusetts is underfunding local public schools in special education, low income and English language learners. How do CommonWealth’s editors sleep at night?
Well, who picks the National Teacher of the Year?
The selection committee includes both the AFT and NEA, the teacher’s unions.
The MTA is the Massachusetts part of the NEA, it’s the same union.
That’s who picked the National Teacher of the Year.
See: http://www.ccsso.org/ntoy/About_the_Program.html
Facts matter — here is the entire list, taken directly from the CCSSO website:
“The National Selection Committee is represented by these esteemed organizations:
American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE)
American Association of School Administrators (AASA)
American Federation of Teachers (AFT)
Association for Childhood Education International (ACEI)
Association for Middle Level Education
ASCD
Association of Teacher Educators (ATE)
Educators Rising
National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)
National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP)
National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP)
National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE)
National Education Association (NEA )
National PTA
National School Boards Association (NSBA)
National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA)
The Business Roundtable
Previous National Teacher of the Year”
See: http://www.ccsso.org/ntoy/About_the_Program.html
So what? How is this even a story? In fact, how is it a story and worth the space for a guest commentary? If you’re willing to look things up then how about looking up the Foundation Budget Review Commission’s report released in 2015 finding the Foundation Budget…the mechanism distributing aid to local public schools…needs fixing and fully funding? Don’t forget to read the conclusion: “We encourage the legislature to make the work of the Commission recurring, on some regular interval of years as was originally envisioned by the 1993 Act…We hope that, with the assistance of such a reconvened commission, the legislature will be in a position to act expeditiously on any new fiscal needs or implementation challenges that have arisen in the interim, or new strategies that permit more efficient and effective use of funds. Noting the challenges and frustrations faced by this Commission as the result of a lack of dedicated and funded staff, we strongly recommend that dedicated and timely funding be provided to any future Commission to allow a rigorous review of available data to make decisions that are in best long term interests of the Commonwealth both fiscally and educationally.” Do you realize what that means? You’d have to look up the Massachusetts 1993 Education Reform Act…the one nearly everyone agrees changed the course of public education in this state…to understand the enormity of that statement. The Act spells out exactly how the Foundation Budget Review Commission is supposed to work:
“Not later than July first, nineteen hundred and ninety-four, and every three years thereafter, the governor shall appoint a foundation budget review commission to review the way in which foundation budgets are calculated and to make recommendations to the general court regarding such changes in the formula as may be appropriate…The department shall furnish reasonable staff and other support for the work of the commission.” While the law required a Foundation Budget Review Commission be set up on a three year schedule, it wasn’t. For 22 years the Foundation Budget was ignored by governors and by the state legislature to the point local public schools are underfunded in special education, low income and English language learners. And while you’re at it why don’t you look up how the 1993 Education Reform Act came about? The governor and state legislature didn’t come up with that law out of the blue. It took a court case filed in 1978 on behalf of students in property poor municipalities and 15 years of it going through the court system before the governor and state legislature passed the law then 7 more years before the state legislature fully funded it. So in 2000 the governor and state legislature met their obligation to local public schools that was first identified back in 1978. I have some other reading suggestions but let’s start with that.
It’s newsworthy because the MTA is essentially stabbing “National” in the back, and unions aren’t supposed to do that. The decision was made not only by two unions but other organizations whose membership is largely unionized — remember that (nationally) most principals and professors are themselves members of a union (usually a NEA local).
Hence it’s newsworthy that the MTA is refusing to recognize the legitimacy of a decision made by a bunch of other union people, including it’s own “National”, the NEA. How is that different from crossing a picket line? How, exactly, is this different?
Now if you want to talk about Ed Reform, the “grand bargain” was mpre money for more accountability. Most of the money was provided, while the accountability has been chipped away year-after-year. As the accountability is now essentially nil, why are we still paying more than twice what we once did for K-12 education?
And while we are at it, please explain why the Boston Schools are paying $90K/year to teachers who aren’t teaching…. Teachers who reportedly aren’t certified to teach anything the city needs taught….
There are a lot of really good teachers not making $90K/year, not even half of that, and the NEA wants to defend this?????
Out of the five paragraphs you wrote, two paragraphs were spent on the very same nonsense CommonWealth chose to devote an article then even more space for a guest commentary on; two more paragraphs were on Boston public schools (not sure why you threw that in) and a grand total of less than one paragraph on the funding issue on which you didn’t offer any substance. So what’s going on with you? Did you get distracted by CommonWealth’s efforts to showcase nonsense? Why don’t you look up the history of the state’s public school funding? It’s on the Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education: “The State Constitutional Mandate for Education: The McDuffy and Hancock Decisions.” It’s perhaps a five minute read. While it’s impossible for me to figure out where you’re coming from since you blocked all your previous comments I am more than happy to have my comments open and available for you to know where I’m coming from. For the record, I’m a grandmother of a two year old who will be going to an underfunded, under resourced public school unless the state legislature acts to fix and fully fund its responsibilities under the 1993 Education Reform Act. I’m also a grand aunt to two nieces and a nephew who will be attending an underfunded, under resourced public school unless the state legislature acts to fix and fully fund its responsibilities under the 1993 Education Reform Act. For Pete’s sake, the state legislature’s first order of business this legislative session was to vote itself a raise then vote to overturn the Governor’s veto of that raise. What about the K-12 education of this state’s taxpayers’ children? When do they become a priority?
|/dev/null
You’re trying to equate a motion made by one person and voted down at a meeting by more than 1000 attendees to the fact CommonWealth, and now you, fail to even acknowledge the existence of the Foundation Budget Review Commission’s report identifying a shortfall in state funding for more than 900,000 students in Massachusetts. That’s absurd.
|/dev/null
And |/dev/null the Foundation Budget Review Commission as well.
At one point, Belchertown had both the state’s lowest per-student expenditure and the state’s highest MCAS scores.
To what do you attribute that?
By the way, the Belchertown School Committee was among the school committees voting to oppose Question 2…against more charter schools and Belchertown’s voters cast their ballots overwhelmingly and decisively against Question 2: 6082 to 2194. Charter schools are draining more than $500,000 in funding from Belchertown’s public schools this year. Since you didn’t write in what year Belchertown had “the state’s lowest per-student expenditure,” I went on the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s website to look up the per pupil expenditures in Belchertown from 2005 to 2015 and Belchertown didn’t show up as the lowest per-student expenditure in any of those years. Did you get your Belchertown fact from Democrats for Education Reform? If so, it’s time to find a new source.
when I attended the Democratic Convention in Worcester I approached the DFER table; there were 3 young people — perhaps hired for the day? I asked them why they needed the work so badly they would take a day’s pay from the “dark money” of the DFER. I also note that some of the DFER personnel have resumes at Mass Inc. If “dark money” is going to fund these projects, then I am not interested in supporting any like Mass Inc. or Parents United, or anything funded by Walton Foundation etc. Walton bought up a whole university department in Arkansas just to put out “studies” and “reports” and research on vouchers and ESAs. I hope the general public is aware — this is like the big tobacco fiasco — we obviously didn’t learn about what is phony to sell a product — especially a harmful product
you make it look like a hierarchy of the Catholic Church or some other arrangement of “National”. Other than the Department of Education which has some control over what funds are granted to a state, there is no hierarchy — loosely coupled institutions — not a medieval arrangement as you seem to envision. Professional associations of varying groups are not “National” like the government in Russia or China.
if this is the same Ed Cutting… then I am done reading anything that he writes in comments. “Dr. Ed Cutting says:
Exactly how many women have been raped on the so-called “rape trail” in the past 20 years? My understanding is that it is a number somewhere between none and NONE.”
Now, if someone is using his name and stealing his identity then that is a different story…. I do appreciate this week that NPR /WBUR finally cut off a commenter who was making anti-semitic comments about Bernie. They just shut off the phone call so maybe we are coming back to some sensibility about what is common civility?