What is a pig in a poke?
- A term dating from the Middle Ages meaning buying something claimed to be a suckling pig in a bag (“poke”) without looking to see what was inside.
- The Stand For Children ballot question called “promoting excellence in public schools.”
Will it actually:
- Turn good teaching into mindless test prep?
- Cause further narrowing of the curriculum?
- Punish teachers of the neediest students and deter teachers from working with these children?
- Drown principals in pointless paperwork?
Nobody knows!
Stand wants to force school districts to take a new teacher evaluation system that does not yet exist and has not been tried in the real world, and use it to decide on layoffs, transfers, and other critical matters. The system is just beginning to be developed, so nobody knows yet how it’s going to work.
But the New York Times reports a similar system in Tennessee has been a disaster, keeping principals tied up with endless paperwork, sending teacher morale into a tailspin and prompting such insanity as measuring music teachers by a school’s writing scores. [“In Tennessee, Following the Rules for
Evaluations Off a Cliff,” Nov. 6.]
Even Mass. Education Secretary Paul Reville, a big fan of a recently approved Massachusetts teacher evaluation system, thinks we need to find out if it works before we use it the way Stand wants. [State House News Service, Aug. 2.]
So why is Stand in a rush?
In a talk in Colorado last summer, Stand CEO Jonah Edelman described how Stand raised big bucks from rich Illinois business people to beat down teachers unions. Then he laid out his strategy for doing the same in other states. In Massachusetts, he said, “It might be, we have a ballot question on the ballot
and we use it as a lever.” [Aspen Ideas Festival web site.]
What is Stand’s real agenda and who’s driving it? Does it have to do with the surge of money coming to Stand from big corporate foundations? What’s really in that ballot question bag?
Jonah Edelman, CEO for Stand for Children, said, “we improve children’s lives NOT by providing direct services to individual children or their families, but by making those services more broadly available and more effective through advocacy…”
So “Stand for Children” aka “Stand for Children Action Fund” aka “Stand for Children Leadership Center” tiptoed into Massachusetts, from Oregon, to increase its bottom line. It is not about providing services to Massachusetts “children” it’s about increasing revenue for the organization and bonus payout for Jonah Edelman, CEO and Leslie Nicholson, Chief of MA State Operations! As Stand for Children IRS 990 for 2010 states “ONE FACTOR AFFECTING THE CEO’S AND CHIEF OF STATE OPERATIONS’ TOTAL COMPENSATION IS THE REVENUES OF THE ORGANIZATION A REVENUE TARGET IS PART OF THESE EMPLOYEES’ ANNUAL GOALS THAT ARE REVIEWED BY THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS IN EVALUATING ANNUAL COMPENSATION AND POTENTIAL BONUS PAYOUTS.”
Stand for Children’s IRS 990’s are posted on their site, but I’d like them to be “transparent” about Benefits & Deferred Compensation and Expense & Account Allowances! Let’s see “the roots” that flower into bonuses!
Contributions and grants at the “not for profit” (not to be confused with “charity”) Stand for Children in 2010 was $10,950,776! That’s a lot of money for “grass roots advocacy” that is not providing direct services to “the children.” However, they do offer their employee’s a competitive salary, “commensurate with experience.” In addition to “Excellent benefits: full health and dental coverage; life insurance, long- and short-term disability and long-term care coverage; 401K with a match plan; flexible spending/benefits plan; holidays and vacation accrual!” WOW! One of the job requirements however “is a demonstrated track record of fundraising success, particularly with individuals, preferably including experience securing six-figure gift!” Sounds like Super Pac to me!
Then, to add insult to injury, the Stand for Children “Board of Advisors” includes officials from Bain Capital, Fidelity Investments, Fisher Lynch Capital, and other major businesses. These people, who all seem to hail from Lexington, are not concerned with an educated population, especially an urban one; they are concerned with providing people to fill low paying service sector jobs!
Stand’s real agenda is to put novice teachers, who cost less, and will leave for the greener pastures of suburban schools in 2-3 years. The suburbs will welcome them with their inner city teaching experience and their Masters Degree’s in a core subject, SPED, and ELL; that they received through BTR, at Boston’s expense for working in the BPS for 3 years!
Upon seeing the 3rd year provisional teachers excessed from the underperforming turnaround school where he worked, a second year provisional teacher opted to escape a year before his commitment to BPS was up. He saw that the jobs offered to these teachers, one was his “mentor” teacher, were at BPS “pilot” schools, which required 95 additional hours uncompensated and required them to sign an “election to work agreement” which gave away their union protections. He said that he didn’t “want to think that this is what teaching is.” BPS helped these 3rd year provisional teachers earn these master’s degrees, but they didn’t want their salary to reflect it!
Stand for Children does not expect or want our urban students to successfully complete college. Failing out of college, and having a large student loan to pay off, will only make a service sector job more attractive. After all, who will serve the latte at the MFA!