NEA publicly asks for Arne Duncan’s head, but privately asks for a cut of the high-stakes testing pie

By Brad McQueen

The National Education Association (NEA), at its July 4^th convention, asked for the resignation of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan for his failed education reform agenda, Common Core, and its focus on high-stakes testing while recently obtained emails reveal it is simultaneously trying to extend the union’s role and influence in the creation of those same high-stakes Common Core tests, PARCC and Smarter Balanced.

The 3.2 million strong educators union adopted resolution #23 which not only mentions Arne Duncan’s focus on high-stakes testing, but also blasts him for “continuing to promote policies and decisions that undermine public schools and colleges, the teaching education professionals, and education unions.”

The full text of resolution #23 is as follows:

“The NEA Representative Assembly joins other educators and parents in calling for the resignation of U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan for the Department’s failed education agenda focused on more high-stakes testing, grading and pitting public school students against each other based on test scores, and for continuing to promote policies and decisions that undermine public schools and colleges, the teaching education professionals, and education unions.”

Okay, let’s cut through all the double talk. First, we’ll go over what’s really bothering teacher unions across the country, like the NEA, and then we’ll go over the internal email that really goes to the core of their true agenda.

Let’s be clear, the teacher unions’ customers are their dues paying customer-teachers. They do not represent the needs of, nor do they advocate for the kids in the classroom unless it also helps their teacher-customers’ goals.

Notice that NEA’s resolution #23 above doesn’t focus on the needs of the kids in the classroom in their call for Arne Duncan’s resignation, rather they list slights against teachers and their unions, mentioning “students” almost as an afterthought in support of their argument.

The last straw for the teacher unions was Arne Duncan’s support, wrapped in a bouquet of “equity” bloviation, of the decision to end teacher tenure in California in the Vergara v. California case recently.

Vergara v. California was a suit brought by nine students to defeat the practice of tenure which guarantees permanent employment for teachers after a brief probationary period and makes it next to impossible to get rid of underperforming or poorly behaving teachers. Tenure also follows the “last-in-first-out” (LIFO) policy during layoffs which uses only the teachers’ length of employment, rather than performance, to determine which teachers will be laid off.

Teacher unions love tenure, where bad teachers are protected along with their rising salaries from which their union dues are continually deducted. Oh yeah, and there are little humans in the classroom as well called students stuck with the bad teachers protected by tenure.

When we talk about tenure it’s not just the college professors, it’s the elementary teachers, middle school and high school teachers who are covered in many states. Teachers get a one year contract every year, isn’t that tenure enough? What other career guarantees you job protection, not to mention summers off and close to a month of paid holidays off during the school year. Ah yes, tenure is quite the racket, thank you teacher unions.

Maybe for once I agree with Arne Duncan, minus all the equity blah, blah, blah nonsense of course.

The next reason the teacher unions, like the NEA, are angry with Arne Duncan is because Common Core attaches student scores and other data to the teacher as part of the teacher’s evaluation, which will also have an impact on the teacher’s salaries.

Let’s look at the case of New York.

Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), and one the most progressive state legislatures in the country, “paused” for two years, but did not end, the full implementation of the Common Core requirements in their state recently.

New York had been the Common Core’s loudest cheerleader since receiving over $700 million from the feds back in 2010 to implement the Common Core machine in their state, and they were also to be a model for the rest of the nation by creating their very own version of the Common Core test.

After New York students failed miserably on their Common Core-aligned test last school year, the statewide teachers’ union withdrew its support of the Common Core standards and testing. They did this not because of its effect on students, but because of its effect on teachers and possibly their union-dues-deducted salaries.

Notice that the teacher unions did not call for the end of Common Core in their state, rather they just want it “paused” so that teachers’ pay, with union dues deducted, will not be affected by the new teacher evaluation system that connects student scores to teacher salaries. The unions seemed to be okay with Common Core standards, tests, and NSA-like data suctioning systems being inflicted on the students of New York for the last several years until that infliction threatened their teacher-customer’s bottom line.

The NEA also echoed New York’s disappointment with the “botched implementation” of Common Core, but not the Common Core itself. It then suggested how to improve the implementation of the Common Core with the NEA as a central advisory agent of course.

As with Obamacare, the union opposition to the Common Core is tenuous at best and can evaporate with a special exemption granted by Common Core Central Command.

The unions will say that they are against “high-stakes” testing, when in reality they are against their member teachers being held accountable for student learning as judged by those test scores.

The NEA has been a vocal supporter of the Common Core since its inception in 2010 especially when it appeared that the union would have significant influence in the final product.

The NEA shows its private/public schizophrenia as one of its personalities criticizes high-stakes testing, yet its other personality seeks to place its members onto committees to help shape the Common Core/PARCC test.

In the following email, obtained by the AZ Daily Independent, we discover that PARCC is creating a special “boot camp” to get these union members up to speed on the test creation process and place them in work groups in an attempt to maintain union support. These union teachers will also be involved in creating “support materials” like workshops to not only possibly expand union membership but to get other teachers on board with the Common Core test (edited for brevity):
______________________________________________________________________________

From: Laura Slover <lslover@parcconline.org>
Date: January 21, 2014 at 7:42:15 PM MST
To: (PARCC state leads and Superintendents of Instruction)
Subject: PARCC/AFT/NEA Partnership

As you know, 2014 is shaping up to be an exciting year for PARCC. Along with the official launch of PARCC, Inc. and the upcoming Field Test, we have the opportunity to partner with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA) to expand the consortium’s group of educators involved in the item review process and the development of instructional supports that will provide additional materials and resources to classroom teachers. The Helmsley Charitable Trust has generously agreed to support this work through spring 2015…

The PARCC, AFT(American Federation of Teachers), and NEA partnership will allow the unions to recruit 36 of their best local educators each to be trained by PARCC and sit alongside existing item reviewers to ensure the quality of the assessments truly reflects the Common Core State Standards. These educators will be trained in an upcoming “item review boot camp” that will take place from February 7-9 in Arlington, Virginia.

AFT and NEA both reported overwhelming response to and excitement about this project from their members…All of these teachers are new to the item review process, so we see this as an opportunity to not only expand our relationship with AFT and NEA, but also continue to build our capacity to provide a quality item review process.

We see this project as a stepping-stone for many other great partnerships that PARCC will form over the coming years with other national organizations.

Laura
______________________________________________________________________________

The Helmsley Charitable Trust granted $1.6 million to both Common Core testing consortia, the PARCC and Smarter Balanced test groups, to “engage” unions in the test creating process by paying for hundreds of union teachers to be trained at testing “boot camps”. The Helmsley Charitable trust’s press release also proclaims that, “the grant also supports teacher-to-teacher training and other communications to the broader audience of union members…”, or increase union membership.

So is the NEA against high stakes testing, or is it just for high stakes testing where it plays a part? Who knows, I guess it depends on which of its personalities you ask.

The NEA didn’t spend all their time at their recent convention asking for Arne Duncan’s resignation, they also passed numerous other very important resolutions.

Resolution #24 sets aside $38,000 to be used for a public relations campaign to try and persuade taxpayers that their tenure scheme is not such a bad thing. Good luck.

Resolution #9 finally mentions children! Not U.S. children, silly rabbit, rather they propose that the invasion of illegal immigrant kids crossing our borders, “be given the support, shelter, protection, and education our children are entitled”. So treat them as “our” children and give them the education that our children are entitled to.

Resolution #15 is my favorite. It recommends that all schools have a “lactation support” program in place so that students and teachers can bond with each other and their children in private “express milk” stations. I wonder if they passed that by Michelle Obama’s school lunch program agents.

So for now, the NEA is for breast feeding, illegal kids being treated like our own and supporting tenure while they are against Arne Duncan and they seek his resignation. No word just yet if the NEA is asking for President Obama’s resignation as Arne Duncan is merely implementing the provisions of Common Core and supporting the dropping of tenure on behalf of his boss.

I guess it really depends on which day you ask them and if you ask them in public or in a private email.

Brad McQueen is a former Common Core insider and current public school teacher in Tucson, Arizona and is the author of the anti-Common Core book “The Cult of Common Core”. Connect with Brad at cultofcommoncore@gmail.com