tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53634278456558534942024-03-19T00:33:24.332-07:00Teacher XTeaching is not pouring knowledge into kids' heads. It's supporting students to choose their own values, develop their own skills and forge their own path in life.Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-41844975464744889112020-10-08T07:14:00.005-07:002020-10-08T07:14:47.981-07:00Safe<p> Driving my daughter to school is safe. Driving back home is unsafe. Sitting at a stop light listening to loud Japanese prog house is safe. Sitting at a stop light with my thoughts is unsafe. Left turns are unsafe. <br /><br />When I was working with high school students at a large, underfunded Chicago high school in a neighborhood inundated with "White on everybody else violence", a number of my students in our social justice club had learned from their sister organization a technique (it was either VOYCE or Mikva) which sought to push the conversation about student safety beyond sterile surveys. <br /><br />They unfurled a large piece of butcher paper to reveal a detailed map of our school. They talked a bit about the feelings of being unwelcome and unsafe in the very building they were being asked to be vulnerable enough to learn in. <br /><br />They asked the other students present to take Red, Green and Yellow pencils and mark the places in the building they felt unsafe, safe or sometimes unsafe. They said they were interested in teachers' perceptions as well, but asked us to step aside so this particular map could be exclusive to students' voices and experiences. <br /><br />Parking in the garage is unsafe. Listening to my partner and our shared students talk about empathy on the phone while driving is safe. Pedestrians are safe. Semi-trucks barreling along belching pollutants into our community are unsafe. <br /><br />When all of the students had finished, the students leading the activity appended the map to the wall. We silently contemplated as the map they co-created screamed a furious red. "Ms. C"'s room: green. The school cops' station red. Bathrooms bright red. The first floor hallway yellow. The second floor hallway yellow speckled red. <br /><br />Playing with my kid is safe. Sitting up alone at night is unsafe. <br /><br />I knew that my students felt unsafe in the building. I saw the fights, the students being attacked and arrested by police outside or on the way to school, the police looking in to find a student in a classroom before being met and stopped at the classroom door. <br /><br />I didn't know it was this bad. I tried to imagine how one was expected to learn--to be tested and punished for lack of performance in this context. I searched for any explanation for the behavior of the people who contracted those tests and failed to provide safety to the students. <br /><br />This wasn't the end of the conversation by a long shot. They joined with other students to fight to destroy the school-to-prison-pipeline. And they won a lot--pay for behavior and zero tolerance policies at a nearby charter network, restorative justice policies within the school piloted with the 9th grade class, a change in district-wide policy around discipline, and the beginning of mass student involvement in police and prison abolition movements. Our schools are still not as safe as they must be for students to have equitable chances to learn. Our streets are still occupied by a violent, armed force that has antipathy toward many students. Our communities are still massively unsafe due to corporate pollution and racist pandemic policy. <br /><br />Trying to live when 100% of your self-worth is based on your utility to other is deadly unsafe. Teaching students is safe. Talking about trees with the Sprout is safe. Following students into just action is safe. <br /> <br />Stay safe. Please.</p>Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-41775374445027505932019-10-16T21:03:00.001-07:002019-10-16T21:03:32.618-07:00Which side are you on?<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Today, I returned to my classroom after a week at the bargaining table with Chicago Public Schools representatives and their lawyers. On Tuesday, the board had returned with none of the language they promised to deliver and essentially ended any concrete negotiations. We were on the verge of a strike--the third strike since my group, the Caucus of Rank and File Educators took over the Chicago Teachers Union leadership in 2010.
I was happy to see my students and they had lots of questions about how the bargaining went and what came next.
I wrote two sentences on the board:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A) All people have a human right to an equitable education.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">B) It is too expensive to ensure that everyone has access to an equitable education. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">After reminding my students the nature of "equitable" rather than "equal", they discussed the two statements in their table groups. After five minutes every group preferred the first statement, and most groups had already jumped to discussing examples of inequity in their own school lives. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I asked them whether the need for equity in this case was similar to everyone wanting an expensive car or extra spending money and they protested emphasizing that "education is not a thing you want, it's something you need to have a good life. We should all have it."</span></span></div>
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So, I asked them, what do you say to someone who says, "There's just not enough money to do that"? They said, "This is what's most important so that's where we should spend our money as a city." From there, we looked up and wrote on the board the Chicago Public Schools total budget:</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">$7,700,000,000 </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">(I miswrote one of the numbers, but this is the accurate number)</span></div>
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They were pissed. The money is there. Why isn't it used on what it should be? </div>
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We talked about the four options that the students had:</div>
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1) <b>Ignore the strike.</b> Rest, play and come back once it's concluded. </div>
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2) <b>Support the board.</b> Speak loudly about the need to end the strike and defer to the city leadership. </div>
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3) <b>Support the union</b>. Come to the picket line and voice and demonstrate solidarity with the educators in the hopes that we will win. </div>
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4) <b>Support yourselves. </b>Decide together what issues you see in your schools and use this opportunity to fight for them. They may overlap or not with the union's issues. In some cases, they may oppose the educators issues. </div>
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Some students began listing issues they cared about and I took notes on the board. "Sports", "Health and Safety at school", "Materials", "Access to a gym and other facilities" (We are in a shared building where the other school's principal limits access to the two gyms in the building meaning many of our students have to take two of three Physical Education classes in a classroom space.), and "less crowded classrooms" (their class has 34 sixth graders in it).</div>
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We compared the students' priorities to the educators' priorities and found a lot of overlap. I told them they we had written ours based on the principle of equity that they had chosen at the beginning of class. </div>
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We talked about equity as something that in our neighborhood, we have always had to fight for. (I reminded some of them that the major high school campus in our neighborhood was only built after a long <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2005-02-27-0502270311-story.html">hunger strike by mothers and grandmothers in the neighborhood </a>and <a href="http://www.lawndalenews.com/2012/08/cps-we-want-answers/">survived due to student protests</a>)</div>
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They wrote up their plans for the coming strike and shared with their groups. Some students planned to catch up on sleep and game; some made plans to join picket lines and downtown marches and others planned to head to the library to learn more. We dismissed and walking into the unknown, wondering when we would see each other again.</div>
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These struggles may see very familiar to many; but also utterly foreign to others. A simple read of the comments on local education articles (NEVER READ THE COMMENTS ;)) shows a deep divide between CPS students, their families, CPS educators and the more conservative readers whose own experiences are quite different. </div>
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In these cases, sometimes it's useful to envision (we often use these exercises to prepare for writing in our classrooms):</div>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Imagine for a moment a far away land in a far away time where children of color and of the impoverished are educated under an entirely separate school code than everyone else in the principality. Youth fear the onset of beautiful summer weather because it brings more shootings and more police violence. They sip from lead contaminated water while government officials deny the contamination risk. A beautiful child with disabilities lies lifeless at the bottom of a school pool after the school officials ignore his and thousands of other students’ federal rights to services under their Individualized Education Plan. Neighborhood schools are closed and defunded and they learn in squalid conditions where the leaders sign rich contracts with private firms who let rat and pest populations breed and spread rather than spending their ill-gotten gains on students’ safety. The leaders constantly cut positions and refuse to put together an effective substitute system, meaning that many students lack a consistent educator and others learn in overcrowded classrooms. When a student is injured or has an urgent medical need, they have to hope that it is that one day at the one time per week that a certified nurse is in the building. The previous mayor led a “war on literacy” that removed libraries from nearly every black school and most Latinx schools in the city while truncating public library hours and staffing. Through struggle, the people have secured an extra billion dollars in resources for the schools--an investment that is a tiny, fleeting flame of hope that flickers and dies in the face of a city and school leadership that is already directing those riches elsewhere. </span></div>
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This place you are imagining is our beloved Chicago. You are visualizing the beautiful schools where I have taught thousands of students and will send my own daughter the moment she reaches the age she can enroll (she missed by 2 weeks this year). Chicago’s new Mayor Lori Lightfoot was elected to lead our city with a billion new dollars from the State of Illinois and promises to end the machine’s oppressive, inequitable education system. She entered office with the platform and resources to accomplish this change. And yet, five months later, we are living on the verge of a huge municipal strike led not only by Chicago Teachers Union educators, but also SEIU special education assistants and security guards, and Park District employees. It is a battle not just for fair salaries and access to affordable benefits, but it is a fight against the deep inequities that plague our system.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Returning from teacher training in Japan to start a new teaching career in Chicago, I learned a great deal from my students and the veteran black teachers in the buildings. As they emphasized that merely surviving an unequal system was not enough; only equity would suffice, it echoed my own upbringing in some ways. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I was about to turn seven, I remember listening to some of my father’s Irish Rebel Songs. I loved them so much that I would sit with my ear to the speaker and sing along at the top of my lungs. He asked me what I thought about them, and I asked, “It doesn’t say, but don’t they all die at the end?” “Yes, they definitely do.” “Why would they fight if they knew that they were almost certainly going to lose and die?”
He told me that “Our ancestors dreamed of a day where a child of a child of a child of theirs would be born into a free Ireland. That dream kept us fighting and it’s not just an Irish dream, it’s a dream that belongs to all of us.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Later my mother would say something similar about why our ancestors endured constant abuse, deportation, Chinese exclusion and prejudice to keep returning to the U.S. over generations until we could forge documents to stay. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">As we come together tomorrow and every day forward until Chicago's political leadership meets our demands for equity, I would ask people consider two questions:
1) Do our children and students deserve what other students mere miles away receive automatically? Are our children as worthy of respect, love and support?
2) Which side are you on?</span></span><br />
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Our story is not unique; it is part of a struggle raging in every city, every community. As our battle in Chicago takes center stage, we ask that you lift us up and join us. As you kindle the same battles in your own cities and communities, we ask that you reach out and we will join you in solidarity.<br /><br />
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Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-57833330710543640582015-06-12T15:44:00.001-07:002015-06-12T15:44:09.887-07:00When Teacher Evaluation is Driven by Bigoted TestingSo today, on the last possible day to administer my End of Year REACH performance task (the test used to check how much I taught students and used to assign me a portion of my rating), I pushed aside our incredible sexual education curriculum to give one of my seventh grade classes the test.<br />
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Of course, I was already pretty skeptical of this assessment after last year's fiasco where the 7th grade library test had an extremely racist question in which the test designers made up fictional anti-immigration African American and Latina and forced students to choose one to support.<br />
http://www.wbez.org/news/critics-blast-cps-immigration-test-question-offensive-inaccurate-110232<br />
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This was today's test:<br />
https://dochub.com/xianfranzingerbarrett/aXyzER/social-science_grade-7_student_eoy14-15?pg=6<br />
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It featured the exact transgender rights principle that I had taught earlier in the week: "People have the right to express their own gender identity and choose how they are addressed". Only the test modeled the bigoted approach:<br />
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We do not know why Charley Parkhurst chose to live her life as a man, because we have no records of</div>
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interviews w</div>
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ith her. <span style="line-height: 1;">We do not know why Charley Parkhurst chose to live her life as a man, because we have no records of</span></div>
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interviews w</div>
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ith her. <span style="line-height: 1;">We do not know why Charley Parkhurst chose to live her life as a man, because we have no records of</span></div>
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interviews w</div>
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ith her. </div>
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We do not know why Charley Parkhurst chose to live her life as a man, because we have no records of</div>
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interviews w</div>
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ith her. </div>
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We do not know why Charley Parkhurst chose to live her life as a man, because we have no records of</div>
<div class="dh-page-text" style="-webkit-user-select: auto; background-color: white; bottom: 681.209150326797px; box-sizing: border-box; color: transparent; cursor: text; font-family: g_font_2; font-size: 18px; left: 88.2352941176471px; line-height: 1; padding: 0px; position: absolute; unicode-bidi: bidi-override;">
interviews w</div>
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ith her. </div>
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<i>We do not know why Charley Parkhurst chose to live her life as a man, because we have no records of interviews with her.</i></div>
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<br />In fact, the title of the piece was printed on the top of every page:<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtMLyiQ6JnwAGZ3CZ9_UB5j_y5sF4EY0ShyphenhyphenrGYMnhjdrMvckzzr13ZdBqdJgLqE-BRCiH7CPpEpsdwwFgaTuub5l77J6A7g_ir3j6DEwM8MejJK8Z0Ct703V0rwzSaPKIZk5wIEuMNq0k/s1600/Banner+Trans.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="45" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtMLyiQ6JnwAGZ3CZ9_UB5j_y5sF4EY0ShyphenhyphenrGYMnhjdrMvckzzr13ZdBqdJgLqE-BRCiH7CPpEpsdwwFgaTuub5l77J6A7g_ir3j6DEwM8MejJK8Z0Ct703V0rwzSaPKIZk5wIEuMNq0k/s400/Banner+Trans.png" width="400" /></a>I was pretty pissed. We've had discussions all week about identity, sexuality and gender, and it took considerable work to create a safe space where students were respectful of the concepts and each other's identification. Now I was administering a test--with my own job rating on the line--which directly violated those concepts.<br /><br />One of my students raised their hand. "Why does it keep calling 'he' as 'she'"? I said, "Why do you ask?" "It seems like this test doesn't respect Charley's choice."<br /><br />I said, "That's a great point. You can write that into your answer if you'd like."</div>
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The outcomes were incredible. The seventh graders were confused by the conflict of a test enforcing a transphobic narrative and what they knew was fair and right, and this what they came up with in response to the transphobic essay prompt, "Based on teh documents above (A-D), what are the reasons Charley Parker <sic> lived her life as a man? Be sure to explain your thinking and use evidence from 304 sources to support your answer."<br /><br /><i>DC (first crossed out all of the female pronouns and wrote in male ones to respect Charley's choices)<br />No one can be for sure about this since he hasn't been interviewed. I would say it was by choice and under his circumstances, it would seem relevant. It states in document A that "Another Charley Parkhurst story is that he was the first 'woman' to vote in Colifornia". This might be a reason why he made the transition by his choice. </i></sic></div>
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<br />MG: <i>The reason Charley Parker changed his gender was because he was a runaway and found his identity in being a male. Both documents A and C have information stating that Charley had family problems and decided to leave home. It also states that Charley loved his life as a male because he had a very important job and was very good at it without being judged by his gender. </i><br /><br />EA:<br /><i>Charlie Parker (copying the wrong name from the question title) lived his life as a man for a couple of reasons. One of them was because he ran away from the orphanage. Another one was because he enjoyed driving and learning about horses.<br /><br />JV: Charley Parker lived her life as a man because in Document A, it says that she voted so she was a guy. Also in Document C, Holiday said, "You are just the man I want". So Charley wanted to be a man and also because it was a good choice for her. </i></div>
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Some of the other students just referred to the subject by his chosen name Charley Parkhurst over and over again to avoid using the incorrect pronouns proscribed by the test. </div>
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Others got confused and thought that since the test was using female pronouns, that must have been Charley's choice, and so deduced that Charley must have been born a man but chose to be a woman because they couldn't believe that the testmakers could be that prejudiced. Others just wrote he/she in every sentence. </div>
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Additionally, I had to help them understand how to connect the documents to the questions as due to the identification of the documents and questions with different alphabet letters, it was hard for them to follow. They knew what primary and secondary sources were, but they couldn't navigate the poor design of the test. My recollection was that the Beginning of Year REACH Performance Task was far shorter and easier than this round--which would destroy the integrity of the growth measurement--but it's no longer available online, so I can't remember for sure. </div>
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<br />In the end, they completed the test, we had a good chat and then they went off to the next class leaving me to input the scores for my rating.</div>
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But then the power and water went out at my school and we have no engineering position staffed by the district, so I couldn't put them in anyway. </div>
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Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-6725966903683618262013-07-21T23:19:00.004-07:002013-07-21T23:19:32.963-07:00Yes, I Was Fired and Still We Will Win<div class="MsoNormal">
At 9:11am Friday morning, on a quiet, scripted phone call
from my principal, my teaching career ended. Again. </div>
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<br />Many of you have already read the exact details here: </div>
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<a href="http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/21411000-418/cps-calls-teachers-mom-to-tell-him-hes-getting-laid-off.html">http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/21411000-418/cps-calls-teachers-mom-to-tell-him-hes-getting-laid-off.html</a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRPUcffqDLuD9eM_3AqMUiLBMfACm75LDaRGKAhrddrDdzhuF98WpSzIhNl0865HkcymIyLCg4AbOYbJD7q4qpiOE6BB0G8SjpwDt3_AZMTLBgRdylHcpuj59xAZOXqkKt151R-HA7R7c/s1600/Fired.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRPUcffqDLuD9eM_3AqMUiLBMfACm75LDaRGKAhrddrDdzhuF98WpSzIhNl0865HkcymIyLCg4AbOYbJD7q4qpiOE6BB0G8SjpwDt3_AZMTLBgRdylHcpuj59xAZOXqkKt151R-HA7R7c/s320/Fired.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I hesitate to blog on it, as I could never match the
beautiful words of friends and accomplished bloggers <a href="http://teacherunderconstruction.com/2013/07/20/what-in-the-world-are-you-doing-cps/">Stephanie
Rivera</a> and <a href="http://preaprez.wordpress.com/2013/07/20/30262/">Fred
Klonsky</a>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />In many ways, I feel out of generous love, people have
focused too much on my story and I don’t want to perpetuate that dynamic—there are
some 3,000 other educators who are going through the same. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />But I always teach my students that our voices may not be
the strongest; our writing might not be the most polished; we may be nervous and
stumble; but our experiences are precious and must be heard and we are the only
ones who can make that happen. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />I am deeply thankful to all of you who have reached out in
this time. I am sure it is jarring and sad to watch someone’s life passion torn
away, and it has been immeasurably helpful to have each and every one of you supporting
me. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />Beyond that, I feel so blessed by my community. I feel
fortunate to work with amazing students who communicate directly and frequently
the difference my work makes, a supportive professional group of colleagues and
the warmest community organizers and allies anyone could ask for. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I say all this because I don’t want anyone to feel bad for
me. I want them to start by acknowledging
the beauty that my students and I conspired to build and understanding that it
cannot ever be destroyed; even by an action as cruel as this.<br />
<br />
I would ask each of you to pause to capture in your mind that one teacher or several
that altered the course of your life. Now tear them from the fabric of your experience.
What would it look like? How would you be changed? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />Our city inflicts that sadistic exercise on our impoverished
students of color as a regular occurrence.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t pretend to have been that life changing teacher for
every one or even most of my students, but like my 3,000 colleagues, each of us
was the difference maker for some students.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />And as it happens again and again, the message that the
district sends to our students is clear, “You are uncared for. Even those you
thought loved you dearly have abandoned you, and it’s your own fault.” Again, this is not just a happenstance; it is
a regular matter of practice. When I was let go in 2010, my principal first
told students that I simply left, (He didn’t care about you) and later told
them that “There wasn’t enough interest in Japanese” (You didn’t care enough).
Both were lies—lies that made students feel worse about themselves.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />So this time, I need my students to understand—we did
nothing wrong. We did everything right, and through our honest collaboration we
created many treasures. We spoke for justice when others were silent and we
took consequences to fight for what we knew to be right. Now, as one of those
consequences, I must go on a journey, but it is not out of lack of love. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />This was my best teaching year by far. Better than the year
that I raised the scores the most; better than the year I won that national
teaching award. This year I listened most deeply to the largest portion of my students
and learned to support them in all the right battles: for student voice,
against sexism, homophobia, ableism, and racism, for student/teacher unity and
against the school-to-prison pipeline. The classroom was open and the youth
shared amazing personal stories that I will share-with their consent-in this
space over the next few months. I would
not trade this year away for 100 years as the football star I dreamt I would
become when I was a tiny little 10 year old who didn’t really understand the
physics of Professional Football.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />I know that in the reactions, many people were shocked that
with what I do each day, I could be treated in this fashion. Thank you for your
outrage. But I want to be very clear about your dismay: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />This was not those who run the Chicago Public Schools System
failing in their mission; it was <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB_4Sbt0pRU">them succeeding</a>. While it took me by surprise when I was laid
off in 2010, I had planned for it this time. I was relatively sure I would be
one of the thousands of people who devote their lives to the children of
Chicago who would be mechanically thanked for our service and tossed aside as
if our students didn’t need us anymore, so I made plans in case of this
situation. A former student understood:<br />
<br /><a href="https://twitter.com/Kitty_luvs_Unot"><b><span style="color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Janai Cooks </span></b><span style="color: #999999; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"></span><span style="color: #bbbbbb; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">@</span><span style="color: #999999; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Kitty_luvs_Unot</span></a><a href="https://twitter.com/Kitty_luvs_Unot/status/359005409392066560" title="10:42 AM - 21 Jul 13"><span style="color: #999999; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">19m</span></a> <b>(Japanese/Social
Justice at Julian 2008-2010)</b><br />
<span style="color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Why is the CPS board so scared of </span><a href="https://twitter.com/xianb8"><span style="color: #66b5d2; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">@</span><span style="color: #0084b4; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">xianb8</span></a><span style="color: #333333; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> ? Because that man has got more
heart and drive to actually educate teens & watch us grow !!!!</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />If I had taught what I taught in Mayor Emanuel’s hometown, I
would still be employed. If the children I taught had been rich enough and
white enough, I would have continued to collect my paycheck and accolades and
they would have been affirmed in all of their accomplishments. I am unemployed and my students are without
their teacher today because I chose to teach students of highest need. I chose
to actually address the opportunity gaps in our society, and not in theory but in
reality supporting impoverished young people of color to fight to improve their
own lives and demand to be treated as equals. <br />
<br /><br /><br />
But it was more than worth it. While to many these constant horrible
disparities can cause resignation and hopelessness, what students have taught
me is that while consistent injustice can numb some, they have reached a stage
of consistent righteous struggle beyond where others despair.They have shown me that it's not enough to urge those in power to treat us humanely; if they will not, they must be removed.<br />
<br />
This is exactly what we need at this time. Rather than be models for the
students who are the victims of this injustice, let them be your models. The
deep, consistent social inequities that transport our students from their crib
to the jailhouse door will not be vanquished with a phone call or momentary
righteous indignation. Unlike the white abolitionist that John Brown spoke of
derisively who can be outraged and then quit whenever he wants, this struggle
is our students’ and communities’ daily struggle. And they must and will lead
it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />So I thank you for your anger at my unjust firing, but I
would ask you to reserve the same rage for the educations ruined by arrests on
school grounds, over testing and under resourcing. Get furious at the total indignity of a system that calls a dedicated worker’s momma to inform him of his termination, but get more livid about the teen mothers who get shamed into giving up the education they so desperately want for themselves and their children. Get angry that I didn't get
due process, but get madder about the millions of young people who had to plea
bargain out to a crime they didn't commit or go another day without employment
opportunities or access to health care. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhjxnYLwDxeFfxwVvOaFnnAVjtQxJSV9vvtMPWG3_8cBBzyg_V_rSKZvJ8fVOVLaDaF-lYzUrzi2nzbG4wCZyTwiwF5z0CdPrIw9zsSMOcwWzDcr6AXYlnM0Dw2LN0mphbsAp6y-X2bKc/s1600/Black+life.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhjxnYLwDxeFfxwVvOaFnnAVjtQxJSV9vvtMPWG3_8cBBzyg_V_rSKZvJ8fVOVLaDaF-lYzUrzi2nzbG4wCZyTwiwF5z0CdPrIw9zsSMOcwWzDcr6AXYlnM0Dw2LN0mphbsAp6y-X2bKc/s320/Black+life.jpg" width="213" /></a><br /><br />The depth of the injustice in our society is so deep that it’s
a miracle that many of our young people can see any light at all, and yet they
pursue it with all they have. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />And so we must too. This fight must continue, and it must not end until Rahm Emanuel and those he serves are vanquished from any position of power that they could use to further hurt the children of the City of Chicago.. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />For me, I've decided to that this might be the right time to
step away from the classroom for a moment. I realize looking back that I've
neglected self-care for quite a long time, and do not have the energy to work
with a new group of amazing youth people to build to a new vista. This isn't a permanent state, but with each
heartbreak, we must heal. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />While I won’t be in the classroom, I will be teaching next
year. In our broken city, in this jacked up state of Illinois, in this great
country of ours that seems to have forgotten that education and such things are
basic rights, there are a few people in need of instruction more than my
students. I will take my expertise to teach those failing to run our society.
Are they prepared for their lessons?</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />We all continue this beautiful struggle and we will win
because we must. <br />
<br />
And one day I will return to my classroom, and another adventure will begin.</div>
Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com103tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-75249098963404410892013-03-21T21:47:00.000-07:002013-03-21T21:47:24.386-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What will
you do to save the lives of the children of the city of Chicago?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />Today, the Chicago Board of Education announced their plans
to proceed with major school actions against 71 schools. These are not the
least utilized schools, nor the lowest performing by CPS’ own flawed metrics.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is the ultimate insult to nearly twenty thousand
parents, students, educators and community members who came to community
hearings to protest the closings nearly unanimously. They came to demand that
CPS not compromise their children’s potential and now they have been utterly ignored.
Anyone who came to any of the hearings knows that the parents both know far
more about the district than the board employees responsible for the decisions
and deeply oppose these actions. CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett neither attended
the hearings nor listened to the community voices responding with the
proclamation that “everyone understands that we need to close some schools.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The board has made a political decision to help their deep
pocketed allies that will hurt tens of thousands of Chicago students. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And what of that hurt? Let’s put it directly—real talk—if
we, the people of Chicago; the ones who the schools belong to; the ones who
attend, work at and send our own kids to CPS neighborhood schools allow the
board to follow through on this decision, we will lose children; victims of an
absurd system in which an unelected school board plays Hunger Games (much
respect to Joel Rodriguez who coined the comparison and whose children’s school
is slated for closure) with the lives of poor children of color even as they
and many of the decision makers at central office give their own children and
grandchildren highly resourced, stable educations. <br />
<br />
Can you imagine parents from Winnetka having to come to Chicago and beg poor
people of color to “allow” New Trier to stay open? Can you imagine the Lab
School being labeled “underutilized” and closed? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Close your eyes for a moment and envision your own child, or
grandchild. Now add their classmates and other students who go to a school. Now
imagine someone sitting next to you had expressed their intention to press a
button that would hurt a percentage of the children you see, cause another
portion to dropout, and put another portion six feet underground. What would
you be willing to do to stop them from pressing that button? Would you reason with
them? Would you beg? Would you march around? Or would you do more?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, in Chicago, if the kids you are envisioning are rich or
white, the likelihood that you would have to treat this as more than a thought
exercise is very low. After all, this is a nationwide experiment on poor
children of color—“other people’s children”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Our corporate overlords have taken historically under
resourced schools and placed them under constant siege in a barrage of
overtesting, charterization, constant chaos and now is the moment they expect
our neighborhood schools to fall.<br />
<br />
This is unjust. It is disgusting. It is a slow genocide. It is Tuskegee and Jim
Crow, and “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_the_Indian,_Save_the_Man">Kill
the Indian, save the man.”</a> It is the death knell of <u>Brown v. Board</u>
aborted before it could even sniff its potential.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And it must not stand. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What are you willing to do to stop it?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are specific actions we must take to save these young
people’s lives. They may risk your job or your freedom; are our kids’ lives
worth it to you? I must admit, while my heart never wavers on these matters (as
I have shown in action in the past), my mind sometimes questions. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But when it does, I think of a brave young woman. I think of
Vicki Soto, who faced with a mass murderer armed with an automatic weapon, walked
out to almost certain death in order to increase the likelihood of her students
surviving. And I remember what it means to be a teacher. I think of my own
students like Araceli Medrano who snuck into the principal’s conference room to
scrawl on the data board a powerful message, “Reading scores aren’t everything.
Reevaluate the rules you have imposed for next year because students and
teachers agree the atmosphere is ‘suppressive’. ; we have all lost our spirits.
Do not take offense; take action. Listen to those you work for” and then signed
it in her own name with her graduation year. <br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I am ready to protest.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And resist.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And speak truth.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And suffer punishment.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And risk livelihood, profession, personal safety,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And even life.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Rahm Emanuel and his minions—our bosses—are on the verge of
becoming mass murderers. Let’s save their victims—Chicago’s children—but also
let’s save them from themselves and ourselves from being accomplices. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s fight to build a bridge from this dark day to the day
when our schools belong to the only group who could ever actually develop the
school system Chicago’s children deserve—our communities themselves. Whatever
harm and danger that we may encounter together on that journey, let us dance
the desperate dance of justice together.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com83tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-48572770137548728652013-03-16T08:29:00.000-07:002013-03-16T08:29:19.095-07:00Where policy comes from<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOnBtWtaJpnNWcoaTpuSyomHHQkMWtG1P1i9ZvQXRwrqxg3LQ7dheilyepA-3ebBbDE4ps0uxVTptMQUfFkQV-b0Aqw7N7r79piDmErJJZCNW5FLU3N_L6ka2adIb_SbPD-qD5p13lbKo/s1600/Dollhouse+Race+to+the+Top.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOnBtWtaJpnNWcoaTpuSyomHHQkMWtG1P1i9ZvQXRwrqxg3LQ7dheilyepA-3ebBbDE4ps0uxVTptMQUfFkQV-b0Aqw7N7r79piDmErJJZCNW5FLU3N_L6ka2adIb_SbPD-qD5p13lbKo/s320/Dollhouse+Race+to+the+Top.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
If we race and leave childrans behind only then will will know is our childrans learning.Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com57tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-46092267539845741582012-11-06T20:23:00.002-08:002012-11-06T20:57:05.252-08:00Obama's impending victory<div>
First of all, I want to congratulate many of you on your hard work. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
I still hold hope and as critical as I've been, I'm relieved that the election results for this one day seem about as good as they can get for a single election's results. But we need far more--long, life-shaking civic engagement that can really change the landscape of a society.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I hold serious hope that everyone who has assured me that we just needed to come together and ensure Obama's re-election so that we could subsequently switch into accountability mode was not just saying what needed to be said, but really honestly believes that's the next step.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Because with all that hope, I also know one harsh reality: starting tomorrow, all of the corporate influences that sidetracked Hope and Change throughout the first-term will have already had their first second-term conversations with the administration and we will have not.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The other thing that worried me about this cycle was the constant refrain of how bad Romney would make it and that there'd be nothing we could do about it. This assumes that we are at the mercy of people in power and their agenda. If this is the case, we might as well just give up now. We cannot vote our way to the free society we deserve, and there are going to be moments where we have to get mad and active and use civil disobedience to push those in power to act justly. If we do that effectively, we can win over the unjust rule of law.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We will likely need to do that under this administration as well. We must stand for what just and we should expect this administration to oppose us in many areas:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
1. We need to bring people together now and resolve that we will not vote for any candidate that enters the current debate pact to exclude third-party voices. We need to act quickly and decisively to throw corporate money out of politics and grab grassroots control of policymaking in as many areas as possible. Those with power should offer resources to execute our plans, not demand that we accept the plans they impose on us.</div>
<div>
2. We need to draw a line on due process. No President from any party should have license to employ killer robot planes to execute 16 year-old American citizens who have neither committed, nor been accused of any crime. Gibbs' comments on this case--blaming the victim for essentially having a bad dad are crazy and he should have been fired on the spot. </div>
<div>
3. We need serious immigration reform and it should fully acknowledge the vast contributions of immigrants--both documented and undocumented--to the country. It should seek to decriminalize immigrant populations and provide expedient pathways to citizenship rather than the fragmenting of families.</div>
<div>
4. The final margin in the Superintendent race in Indiana and several other Congressional races suggests that Corporate Education Reform dollars only go so far in certainly contexts. They are often beating us soundly in the policy arena, but the general public is neither asking for these policies nor particularly resolute in following this corporate narrative. We need to call out the current administration's disastrous direction on privatizing education and testing the crap out of our kids for what it is: junk science that will pour over a hundred billion dollars into making our students' educations worse.<br />
<div>
</div>
5. We need to look at making public education all the way through college free, accessible and equitably outstanding for all young people. Education should be a right, not a privilege, and we should be able to pursue it regardless of our background without being criminalized or put into veritable debt slavery for large portions of our lives.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
That's just a start, but we need to nail down these commitments today and stay engaged. It is impossible for us to build the free and fair country we envision through a single election day, but we can achieve that lofty goal by applying increased organizing energy to the struggle between these elections.<br />
<br />
Much love.</div>
<div>
x</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com79tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-2549301953179683852012-10-28T20:05:00.000-07:002012-10-28T20:05:00.723-07:00Open Letter to Newark TeachersThe Newark Teachers Union is facing a critical contract vote that was supposed to be Monday, October 28th although the hurricane is pushing back the date. It's a particularly interesting vote in light of the emergence of the NEW (Newark Education Workers) Caucus as a group within the union opposing the contract and the current NTU leadership, along with Randi Weingarten, AFT President and Republican Celebrity Governor Chris Christie supporting it. Hear more about it here: <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/14087/newark_teachers_union_new_caucus_contract_vote_del_grosso_ratification_owen/">http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/14087/newark_teachers_union_new_caucus_contract_vote_del_grosso_ratification_owen/</a><br />
<br />
Unlike the AFT leadership and the annoying head of state of New Jersey, I don't think it's right for me to presume to know what's best for the educators of Newark--they certain can and must figure that out in vibrant, democratic and grassroots fashion.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, it's vital to show support for fellow educators and to remind them that they are not alone in the fight to defend public education, so:<br /><br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">October 28, 2012<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Dear
Newark Teachers:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">You
stand at the crossroads of an immense and democratic decision. Many may try to
make you feel like you are making a horrible mistake if you don’t vote a
certain way, but I want to ensure you that it is far more important to engage
in your profession, union and the policy that governs the daily learning of
your students than to vote one way or another.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">As a
recently returned striking Chicago Teacher, I can tell you that there are
plenty of things worth striking over. It’s worth standing up and saying what
needs to be improved in your working conditions even if a single strike or contract
negotiation cannot address all of them. I cannot think of a time in my teaching
career when I was prouder than standing on the picket line to fight for smaller
class sizes and humane classroom conditions with my fellow educators, students
and parents. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Like in
Chicago, I’m sure there are many challenges in Newark Public Schools, and some
of them are unique to your situation. However, I’m quite sure that we share
many similarities. We work extremely hard. We are under-appreciated We often
put our students and their families ahead of the needs of our own families.
Most of all, we are under attack by the same corporate forces that seek to
blame us for the problems they've created in our public school system and use
that as an opportunity to divide us. They intend to take full control of the
resources of our schools.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">They are
spending billions of dollars to sell us policies that studies tell us will hurt
our students:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">Districts
controlled by the richest of the rich who do not send their own kids to the schools
we teach in</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">Evaluations
dictated by the employer and predicated on inaccurate high stakes tests not
intended for this purpose</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">Charter
and turnaround schools that contextually underperform their counterparts</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">Multi-tiered
employment that will cast us as unequal based on when we were hired</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">Merit
pay</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">A
continued erosion of our voice into the conditions of our own profession.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">Extended
work hours without the necessary resources or adding more employees so that we
are stretched more thinly</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">Destruction
of our retirement plans, so once we’ve given our all to students, we get
nothing in return</span></li>
</ol>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">You’ll
recognize many of these corporate goals in the contract you are being asked to
vote on. You’ll also recognize them as policies that serve a corporate purpose
but in no way help your instruction. Now you are faced with a decision to make:
“Would voting for this contract help or hinder my teaching and the quality of life
for my students and my own family?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">It is a
shame it has come to this—I, like many of you, wish I lived in a time where I
could just close my classroom door and be an awesome teacher to my students—but
it’s also an opportunity. Heroic battles are not waged and won by superhuman
heroes, but by every day people inspired to do what they never thought
themselves capable of.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">So go
forth and vote what you feel to be best for students, but look beyond that too.
The fight for our profession, the public school system and our very American
democracy is at hand. The bigger question is not whether or not Newark teachers
should accept this contract. It is whether we as educators will continue to
allow the super-rich to fund and push separate and unequal education or we will
force them to step aside so with our parents and students voices combine we can
shape our schools and classrooms in the ways we know to be best.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Be
courageous, and stand up for what you know to be right. This is a glorious
teaching moment, and you are just the educator to shine in it!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Xian Barrett</span>, Law and Chicago History Teacher, Gage Park
High School, Chicago Public Schools<br />
2009-2010 U.S.
Department of Education Classroom Teaching Ambassador Fellow<br />
VIVA Teacher Leader<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-58497208919020458552012-10-06T16:10:00.001-07:002012-10-06T16:18:45.430-07:00"Real parents"<br />
The director of Education Reform Now which is a differently named part of Democrats for Education Reform, Ms. Nieves Huffman recently wrote an article on Catalyst: "<a href="http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/news/2012/10/05/20482/real-parents-have-been-standing?page=1">Real Parents Have Been Standing Up</a>" to respond to a<a href="http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/news/2012/10/01/20467/will-real-parents-please-stand"> thoughtful piece</a> from Wendy Katten, director of Raise Your Hand for Public Education.<br />
<br />
I'll try to avoid snark until the last paragraph as I respect that we can have reasonable discussions within our differences about educational policy. We can be polite. We can be respectful. That is, until the last paragraph, then we get to treat each other and all bets are off.<br />
<br />
I think Ms. Nieves Huffman's story illustrates exactly why CPS should be expected to adhere to state law and common decency into major facilities decisions. I would include attendance boundary changes.<br />
<br />
What she describes is exactly why hedge fund managers should not dictate policy in Chicago; parents and students should and educators should be supported to implement that policy. It sounds like Ms. Huffman-Nieves agrees in her emphasis on the need for parents and key stakeholders (like students and educators) to be involved in the process.<br />
<br />
I expect that she will stand by that conviction and testify with us at future Board meetings, run expensive television ads and use her thoughtful, Broad reaching voice to contest CPS' atrociously bad school facilities process which has been excoriated by a honorable state panel of educators, community organizations and educators.<br />
<br />
Furthermore, I hope that she will reconsider using an illegally obtained list of parents' private contact information to spam parents to watch a non-veiled piece of corporate funded propaganda that is rapidly emerging as one of the worst movies of all time. (<a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/worstopenings.htm?page=WRSTOPN25&sort=opening&order=ASC&p=.htm">#1 Worst Box Office Showing of the Last 30 years.</a>)<br />
<br />
I would not to presume to know better for her and her funders' organization than she does, but given her stated goals, I would advise the convening of some non-hedge fund connected parents who don't have the means to choose selective schools (charter or otherwise) and ask them where the ample dollars they have ought to be spent.<br />
<br />
After all, that would be democratic parent voice, which would deliver better decision-making and may have helped avert the strike in the first place.<br />
<br />
Finally, in reference to the titles of the pieces, I'd say that Huffman doesn't really address the key issue here at all: There's a difference between an independently formed advocacy group that builds itself from the ground up and a well financed organization that obtained its money and chose its positions before it spoke to its first grassroots parent voice. "Selected voice" is not the same as "grassroots voice" and is infinitely less useful for creating good policy. If I can find 200 parents to take $1000 to make their kids smoke cigarettes, that doesn't count as a grassroots parent advocacy group for child smoking, it's just me being a terrible person.<br />
<br />
Xian Barrett<br />
Prime Minister, Chicago Barretts for Billionaires Not Getting to Run Rabbit Proof Fence Experiments on Other People's Children<br />
<br />
Postscript: What I hope is not lost in the playful sniping is that we do have an obligation to fight for true democratic voice. I know that may sound presumptuous, but I'm not saying that I have the right to define what is "true" voice. I think that everyone has a pretty good understanding that the law that lets billionaires buy elections and run constant and misleading ads through groups like DFER does not promote a fair marketplace of ideas. On the other hand, Raise Your Hand's labor of love has brought together people across communities and led to the development of new ideas that with advocacy and implementation will lead to a better education for Chicago students.<br />
<br />
Why should we care? Because I believe that when we push aside these money groups and really get the voices of those who experience the daily indignities of our school system, that's when we'll finally have the opportunity to reform our schools for the betterment of kids, not moneyed folks.<br />
<br />Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com35tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-77658385337823326442012-09-19T05:05:00.000-07:002012-09-19T05:05:05.413-07:00Coming HomeIn a few minutes, like 3.8 million other educators nationwide, I will enter my classroom to teach a handful of the 55 million students in our country's education system. Our motives and focus will be the same--to deliver the best future for the students we teach.<br />
<br />
For the last week and a half, that mission hasn't changed, but for 25,000 Chicago educators, we chose a more unconventional route to fight for that mission--we went on strike. We decide that the Chicago Public Schools Board of Education had treated our students and ourselves so poorly, that the most prudent way to earn the best future for the students we teach was to leave our classrooms.<br />
<br />
Looking at the <a href="http://www.ctunet.com/blog/text/Contract_Highlights_2012_09_18.pdf">final outcomes</a>, and how far the Board moved, I'm proud to say we accomplished what we sacrificed and set out to do. Make no mistake--our students, their families and we sacrificed a great deal for this. After all, the only people still getting money to put food on the table through this were the CPS higher-ups and the Mayor; even as they stonewalled our student centered asks.<br />
<br />
I also feel some disappointment. My classroom still won't have air conditioning. Our class sizes situation is incrementally improved, but it will still be a major issue. We may have a slightly less test centered culture, but we are still facing a tsunami of corporate profits and test-based child abuse.<br />
<br />
But that disappointment doesn't lead to discouragement. We stood proudly, we fought, and we won for our students. It is not a final victory or a resolution. We must continue to fight tomorrow and every day after that. We will just be doing so from our classrooms instead of from a picket line.<br />
<br />
I hope we've shown that to our millions of colleagues who followed the strike closely and sent their support. I hope we've taught the country that billionaires not only don't have all the answers to the challenges of public education, but lack the basic knowledge and stake in the game to do much more than pad their pockets at our children's expense.<br />
<br />
We must teach well in our classrooms, but as the leaders of the educational arena, we have a far greater calling. We must work with our communities, hear their needs, desires and grievances and develop a better education system by and of the communities we serve. We must lock out corporate voice and control--to be sure, if businesses want to help with best of motives and ample resources, they are welcome--but they must not set the agenda.<br />
<br />
We are the leaders we have been waiting for. Let's create a vision for a better school system, and let's fight like hell to make it reality.<br />
<br />
Thank you and much love to all of you. I can't wait to see where our paths cross.Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com50tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-55853750295433265182012-09-17T06:16:00.000-07:002012-09-17T06:16:53.339-07:00A student addresses Rahm's dismissal of air conditioning as a real issue<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; line-height: 18.88888931274414px;">The following <a href="https://www.facebook.com/rahmemanuel/posts/10151208817210049">student comment on Facebook</a> has 16,304 likes:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; line-height: 18.88888931274414px;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; line-height: 18.88888931274414px;">Hi, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, I am a student at Lincoln Park High School, and my father is an employee of the Cook County Jail. You stated yesterday in your news conference that air conditioning in schools is not an important factor in negotiations, but at my fathers job when a temperature reaches a certain degree for the detainees they must get relief or it is inhumane. Are you saying that detainees should have better conditions then CPS students and faculty? I know this cannot be a deciding factor in the contract so lets bring out the real issues at hand and take control of a situation and lead by example and by the mayor you were elected to be!</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; line-height: 18.88888931274414px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; line-height: 18.88888931274414px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333969116211px; line-height: 18.88888931274414px;">P.S. You should really be in on all meetings pertaining to the negotiations!</span>
</i><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 18.866666793823242px;">If the billionaires and millionaires running our city can't listen to the teachers, please let them listen to the students. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 18.866666793823242px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 18.866666793823242px;"><br /></span></span>Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com639tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-25433883976492774982012-09-17T06:02:00.004-07:002012-09-17T06:02:45.387-07:00Contingency centers: A view from the inside<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
In many ways, our strike in Chicago is about differing view
of public education. The Mayor has always pushed two tiered education between
open enrollment neighborhood schools, and selective charter and test-to-get-in
schools. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One product of the strike has been that the board has had an
opportunity to demonstrate their vision of education as they set up <a href="http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/15065774-418/cps-contingency-half-day-programs-were-open-the-first-day-of-the-strike.html">“contingency
centers”</a> for students while schools were out of session. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Media coverage of the inside of the contingency centers has
been quite sparse. I spoke yesterday with one of the people forced by central
office to cross the picket line to staff a contingency center who outlined the
conditions inside:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i>There
are 15-25 students daily at the school. Some of the students present are
children of board employees working at the site. The others are a mixture of
elementary and high school students, some from the school and some from
surrounding schools. There are dozens of board employees, so many sit in the
cafeteria. There really isn’t substantive work to be done. People want to do
work, but this is a waste of time and resources. There are way more people than
needed. When we found out about the contingency centers, some of us were at
least excited to be working with kids, but many were dreading it because they
aren’t used to working with students.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i>We
were told to address any student questions about the strike by saying, “The
teachers have a right to strike and both sides are working for a solution” and
to leave it at that. We saw it as a teachable moment, but we were told that we
couldn’t say anything else. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i>So
I would hope for several things moving forward: A more strategic, thoughtful
deployment of staff. Also, I want a resolution where teachers get what they
need. Most importantly, I hope that it raises questions both within CPS and
nationally about the privatization of education and the inequities of the
conditions that students are learning under. These questions have always been
important to me. I hope through the strike we can address them. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
These disparities are highlighted further when look at the
contingency centers from the outside as our students’ learning conditions had transitioned
from a mayoral afterthought to a mayoral political bargaining chip. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Trying to break the strike, Emanuel and his education team
stocked these locations with many of the very resources we were demanding on the
picket line. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In our schools, students collapse of heat stroke as they
struggle to focus in 96 degree classrooms. Jean Claude-Brizard announced that
all contingency centers would have AC.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In our schools, students deal with a lack of supplies and
broken clocks in every room and when we complain, nothing happens. Brizard addressed this in his contingency
plans (albeit by asking replacement supervisors to bring their own). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In our schools, students are not guaranteed any class size
limits, and if class sizes begin to approach reasonable numbers, the board will
quickly cut teachers even as late as 4 weeks into the year, plunging students’
schedules into chaos. At the contingency centers, Brizard promised at worst a
25 to 1 ratio, and many have more adults assigned than students.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In many of our schools, cafeterias sometimes run out of food
and students are not allowed to bring in outside food. At the contingency
centers, Brizard made a point to promise enough food for all students who
attended.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Finally, to get to our schools, many students have to pay
their own transportation. Low income students often qualify for reduced fares,
but even that process can be complex. Often students will miss a day or two a
week as their bus fare has run out or someone in the family has used it for
something else. The Mayor granted students free CTA rides all week during the
strike. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If we received the supports that the contingency centers
receive every day, we never would have had to strike. Our city leadership is clear—students’ welfare
is important when people are watching, but not when they are quietly trying to
get their education.</div>
Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com37tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-72263220710585112162012-09-17T06:01:00.000-07:002012-09-17T06:12:52.917-07:00Strike week 2: Democracy takes time, but it's the opposite of what's hurting our kids<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Last week, <a href="http://chiteacherx.blogspot.com/2012/09/why-im-striking-jcb.html">I
outlined some of the many reasons why we as Chicago teachers were fed up and
ready to go on strike</a>. More than just the strike, I wanted to highlight how
students are injured by the daily conditions that our district inflicts upon
them. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When students experience horrible conditions in school, it inflicts
more than an initial hurt, it undermines their faith in the educational system.
Why should students continue to come to school each day and give their best
when the institution itself regularly attacks their basic human dignity? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Beyond raising
consciousness of these issues, I had hoped it would also send a message to our
district and city leadership that instead of accusing teachers of hurting
students by striking, they could simply address the issues most vitally
threatening our students’ educations, and we could see a quick resolution to
the strike. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Instead, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has <a href="http://www.suntimes.com/news/cityhall/15130042-418/lessons-rahm-can-learn.html">laughed
off the classroom conditions saying, “It’s 71 degrees outside, we don’t go on
strike for air conditioning.”</a> Of course, the Mayor doesn’t have to go on
strike for AC, his office has it, and it wasn’t 71 degrees when summer school
was getting canceled this year. More than that, it wasn’t his kids who were
getting picked up by ambulance after succumbing to heat exhaustion, as happened
in a neighboring classroom to mine on Tuesday, September 4. If it had been one of his kids, I sure wouldn’t
have mocked the situation; I would have fought to get it addressed. I’m a
teacher, not a mayor, so I see what they view as “other people’s children” as
my own. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Yesterday, the Mayor added insult to injury by announcing his
intentions to file an injunction on the strike yesterday on two criteria: that
the strike is illegal, and that the strike endangers children. So Emanuel has
not only failed to address our initial concerns for our students, but has made
the claim that we are hurting our students into a court case.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Make no mistake—the Mayor’s own poor policies are what are
endangering Chicago students not just during the strike but every single day in
our city. I empathize deeply with students and parents who are dealing with the
challenge of missing school temporarily until the days are made up. However,
the quality of the 180 days they will be in school and their safety commuting
to and from school and in their neighborhoods is even more important. I’ve lost
5 students straight from my classrooms to city violence. They were killed
commuting to and from school, standing on their porches, or walking home from a
friends’ house. The mayor wouldn’t stand
for this for his own children.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
I worry some that through this strike, it will take some
time to rebuild trust. Our students don’t trust the school system, and the fact
that we chose to strike, <a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2012/09/celena_rodriguez_a_students_pe.html">many
of them understand</a>, but some will be upset. I only hope that when they see
why we stood up and what we were fighting for, they will understand.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think it may be harder today as many expected us to return
to school this morning. The issue is that it doesn’t ever get this bad in a
democratic system. Chicago’s top-down educational system run by people who don’t
send their kids to the schools they govern is what helps create these inhumane
conditions. While it will take longer for the educators of the city to review the
proposed contract we’ve fought for, we cannot simply accept what is being
handed to us by our strong, capable leadership.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Democracy takes time. It is messy. But it is just and it
creates freedom for those who inhabit it. As epic blogger Fred Klonsky writes <a href="http://preaprez.wordpress.com/2012/09/16/democracy-breaks-out-in-chicago/">here</a>, we don’t live in a democracy and it may confuse and confound those running Chicago when they run into one, but we
can at least create one in our union. I am eager to get back to school, but I
unceasingly yearn for a democratic, empowering education system for our
students, and I’m thankful that we are modeling those principles within our union. </div>
Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-63375259367713881552012-09-13T04:24:00.001-07:002012-09-13T04:24:57.742-07:00CNN: My view: From the picket linesCNN has posted my latest piece this morning.<br /><br />It deals with the transition from anger at the injustice to shared struggle as the community and national teaching family have come together to support us.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/13/my-view-from-the-picket-lines/">At the start of day one, I felt angry and alone. On day two, I feel like our city and nation have wrapped themselves around educators, and I am ready for the next day of fighting for the schools Chicago and the nation's students deserve.</a><br />
<a href="http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/13/my-view-from-the-picket-lines/"><br /></a>
<a href="http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/13/my-view-from-the-picket-lines/">See you on the picket line.</a><br />
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-right: 20px; margin-top: 12px; padding: 0px 0px 7px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-80529576320843322112012-09-11T06:59:00.001-07:002012-09-11T06:59:13.410-07:00GratitudeSunday night, anxious about the oncoming strike, I spent ten minutes of my time with my small voice to write a short piece about why I was striking. I sent it out via twitter and facebook, and let it go for the night.<br />
<br />
The response was overwhelming. First teachers, then parents and students, and finally the mainstream media reached out.<br />
<br />
Today, I am filled with hope. I didn't conceive it, but I am proud to be part of this international movement to save public education. Let's maintain these connections, organize in our own communities and take back our education system.<br />
<br />
To this end, I'd suggest a couple of actions:<br />
1) Bring together parents, students and educators with equal voice.<br />
2) Develop our own vision of what education should be.<br />
3) Demand community control of policy and implementation of our shared vision.<br />
<br />
As a starting point, I'd suggest that we agree on some basic ideas:<br />
1) Public education means every single young person gets the supports they need to take ownership of and advance their education.<br />
2) Parents and students have a right to determine what they want from their schools.<br />
3) Teachers have a right to determine how to best fulfill parent and student vision with our professional expertise.<br />
<br />
For too long, we've waited for the rich and powerful to improve our schools. They have no interest or motivation to do so. We are the ones we've been waiting for. Let's build the schools our students deserve.<br />
<br />
Wearing red day 2 on the picket line.<br />
<br />Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-48657699033370851162012-09-09T20:07:00.000-07:002012-09-09T20:08:31.151-07:00Why I'm striking, JCB<br />
<br />
CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard is on record saying both that CTU leadership is deciding whether or not to strike, and that “everyone knows that a strike would only hurt our kids.”<br />
<br />
I just wanted to educate my boss a little on the history of Chicago, as he is relatively new to the area. Chicago is founded on the hard daily struggle of working people. It is the birth of the labor movement—not a movement just for wages and benefits, but a movement that stopped child labor so that each of the kids in CPS schools could attend school instead of working. It was a movement that stopped the practice of working conditions so unsafe that consumers were eating the actual workers who fell into the mix while they were making hot dogs. It was a movement that fought so that workers could have some tiny measure of time with our families rather than spending all waking hours working for the enrichment of their bosses.<br />
<br />
But even more importantly, I wanted to educate Mr. Brizard about what it means to “help or hurt our kids”.<br />
When you make me cram 30-50 kids in my classroom with no air conditioning so that temperatures hit 96 degrees, that hurts our kids.<br />
<br />
When you lock down our schools with metal detectors and arrest brothers for play fighting in the halls, that hurts our kids.<br />
<br />
When you take 18-25 days out of the school year for high stakes testing that is not even scientifically applicable for many of our students, that hurts our kids.<br />
<br />
When you spend millions on your pet programs, but there’s no money for school level repairs, so the roof leaks on my students at their desks when it rains, that hurts our kids.<br />
<br />
When you unilaterally institute a longer school day, insult us by calling it a “full school day” and then provide no implementation support, throwing our schools into chaos, that hurts our kids.<br />
<br />
When you support Mayor Emanuel’s TIF program in diverting hundreds of millions of dollars of school funds into to the pockets of wealthy developers like billionaire member of your school board, Penny Pritzker so she can build more hotels, that not only hurts kids, but somebody should be going to jail.<br />
<br />
When you close and turnaround schools disrupting thousands of kids’ lives and educations and often plunging them into violence and have no data to support your practice, that hurts our kids.<br />
<br />
When you leave thousands of kids in classrooms with no teacher for weeks and months on end due to central office bureaucracy trumping basic needs of students, that not only hurts our kids, it basically ruins the whole idea of why we have a district at all.<br />
<br />
When you, rather than bargain on any of this stuff set up fake school centers staffed by positively motived Central Office staff, many of whom are terribly pissed to be pressed into veritable scabitude when they know you are wrong, and you equip them with a manual that tells them things like, “communicate with words”, that not only hurts our kids, but it suggests you have no idea how to run a system with their welfare in mind.<br />
<br />
When you do enough of this, it makes me wonder if you really see our students as “our kids” or “other people’s children”.<br />
And at that moment, I am willing to sacrifice an awful lot to protect the students I serve every day. I am not hurting our kids by striking, I’m striking to restore some semblance of reasonable care for students to this system. I’m doing to tell you, “No, YOU are the one hurting our children, and you need to STOP because what you are doing is wrong, and you are robbing students of their educational opportunities.<br />
<br />
I ask anyone who does remotely care about the kids we teach and learn from and triumph and cheer and cry and grow with., to stand with us and fight for a better future for our kids.<br />
<br />
See you on the picket line, my friend.<br />
Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com434tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-73549411684912205732012-07-18T14:26:00.001-07:002012-07-18T14:26:21.365-07:00Finding Fact: This report illustrates a simple fact--we must end corporate control of the school system<br />
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It’s time for us to draw a line in the sand: Chicago
educators won’t be satisfied simply with more money that will contribute to the
decline of the district finances. We must demand to be compensated fairly, but
also that the district redirect its priorities back to the classroom and away
from poorly thoughtful out political shenanigans. The current conflict has
illustrated the path to this solution—the CPS current leadership cannot and
will not ever place “children first” and so more than a favorable contract, we
need a board elected and overseen by the communities whose children actually
attend Chicago Public Schools.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Today, a fact-finding panel tasked with reporting on a small
portion of the issues involved in the on-going battle between the Chicago
Teachers Union and the Chicago Public Schools appointed board and leadership
will issue a report on its findings. The report recommended approximately 18.2%
more teacher compensation to pay for the mayor’s proposed “Longest School Day”.</div>
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The <a href="http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/13830981-418/mayor-chicago-cant-afford-to-give-teachers-182-percent-pay-raise.html">mayor
responded</a> by once again trotting out his tired talking points that CPS has
the shortest school day and year in the country. It’s not only false, at the
high school level, it’s not really close. Furthermore, <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/06/25/number-of-the-week-u-s-teachers-hours-among-worlds-longest/">American
teachers devote far more instructional time</a> and <a href="http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Organizing-a-school/Time-in-school-How-does-the-US-compare">students
receive similar instructional hours</a> relative to the other countries
corporate education reforms often compare us unfavorably towards. </div>
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<br /></div>
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This fact-finding report that the mayor, city and district
governance are tearing apart is actually a report that they themselves demanded
through millions of dollars of lobbying of the state legislature. </div>
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<br /></div>
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It appears that CPS will continue to emphasize their
inability to pay for basic instructional costs in the district and CTU wasn’t
really interested in the fact-finding at all in the first place as CTU’s key
issues such as class size and length of school day and year were not subject to
either the fact finding process or required to be part of the negotiations due
to state laws pushed through by CPS.</div>
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<br /></div>
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CPS will ask for either no major pay increase or massive
layoffs.</div>
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<br /></div>
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CTU would be wise to redirect the conversation to teachers’
priorities—humane learning conditions for the students we teach each day. We
should emphasize that CPS’ interpretation of the budget—that salaries and
pensions are bankrupting the system is categorically false—those portions of
the budget are at an all-time low. The budget crunch has been triggered by
financial mismanagement in a system that is designed to keep educators and
community as far away from management as possible. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The more I watch the process, the more I’m sure that we have
no choice but to strike. This isn’t a question of money (which we could
negotiate to a middle point). It’s a question of difference in philosophy. CPS
believes that it should have unilateral control over all teaching and learning
issues. It believes that privatization and the increasing diversion of funds
from neighborhood schools and classroom level resources to magic bullet
programs, turnarounds and charter schools as in its best interests. It’s not
interested in providing a teacher for each classroom on the first day of each
school year.</div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b>The fact finding
process reinforces this notion. </b>It demonstrates that <b>even when CPS gets exactly what they want</b>—a high threshold for
strike, the ability to unilaterally impose many working conditions, a neutral
fact-finding condition, they still cannot even be motivated to come up with a remotely
thoughtful budget or proposals that will allow the independent arbiter any path
out of the conflict. The solutions put forth that overworked, overstressed
people to work more for no compensation or for students to face inhumane class
sizes are nothing that anyone with a care for students could possibly endorse.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Since 1995, the district’s operation has revolved around a
simple question, “What is in the best interest of the Mayor and his cronies?” </div>
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<br /></div>
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We must return the operating question to be “What is in the
best interests of the students?” </div>
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Let me make this clear. <b>I
don’t want more money.</b> <b>I don’t need
to work more hours. </b>I accounted for my school related hours three years ago
and found that I worked between 80-100 hours each week. I cannot extended my
day and continue to serve my students in the exemplary fashion I demand of
myself. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I want the Chicago Public Schools to bargain in good faith
not only with the CTU and us, its members, but with students, parents and
communities to the benefit of kids.</div>
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<br /></div>
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We will not negotiate for with those who would terrorize our
kids, and we will compromise nothing when it comes to the best interests of
their children. </div>
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<br /></div>
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In that spirit, we must redouble our efforts to remove the
appoint governance structures that have poisoned our schools and our city. We
must be prepared to do damage to our own families and risk our livelihoods to
fight the board. We must be the barrier between our students and those who
would injure them and our entire city. </div>
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<br /></div>Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-22671585288466023522012-07-11T12:58:00.003-07:002012-07-11T13:00:19.514-07:00CPS FY 2013 budget quick look<br />
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Understanding the budget:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So you’ve just had the 212 page Chicago Public Schools
budget dumped on you and you want to do your civic duty in understanding and
commenting on it in the 3 hours before the horribly scheduled public hearings! You can find the budget here:<br />
<a href="http://www.cps.edu/About_CPS/Financial_information/Pages/Financialinformation.aspx">http://www.cps.edu/About_CPS/Financial_information/Pages/Financialinformation.aspx</a>
<br />
<br /></div>
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<b>Why is this
important?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Due to poor management of taxpayer dollars, CPS manufactures
its own budget crisis every year. This results in worse educational supports
for the vast majority of students while privatizing options continue to be
increasingly supported. There is no scientific justification for these
priorities; rather it is a strategy for manufactured crisis to force policy
rather than the best interests of students driving policy and resource allocation.
My hope is that this work will motivate the development of a people’s budget
movement in Chicago Public Schools to oppose the current corporate structure.</div>
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<b>9 quick things about
the current budget and then some explanations:<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
1.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span>The district is taking in $5.3 billion in
revenue from local (47.6% of the total), state (34.7%), and national (17.6%) support.
There is an additional .8 % coming from interest income.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
2.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span>Only $4.7 billion (88.8%) of the $5.3 billion even
makes it to the General Operating Fund while 9.3% goes to debt service, much of
it going to clouted banks (assigned by a School Board appointed with bankers
and business people). An additional 1.9% goes to the capital fund for building
and maintaining school facilities. </div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
3.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span>Both the percentage of the budget devoted to
teacher salaries and combined teacher salaries + pensions have declined significantly
since FY2004 (Salaries 48.43%-->37.65%, combined 56.3%-->44.30%). This
year’s projected decline is the highest on record. The growth has been in
charter school tuition (which accounts for a portion, but not the balance of
the decline in teacher salaries), and “other fixed charges” (p. 126-127). In accounts,
Contracts, Equipment, Transportation, and Contingencies are rising this year
(p15)</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
4.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span>The pension payments have stayed steady or
declined while obligations have ballooned. This is natural with any debt that
is not responsibility repaid. The vast majority of the pension “crisis” is
caused by CPS and to a lesser degree, the state, diverting pension funding
toward failed programs like High School Transformation. Accounting for the
simple refusal to pay, they do not make up a major portion of the financial
crisis on their own.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
5.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span>Despite the discussion of $120 million in
additional funds for school level budgeting, the actual outlay to schools has
declined this year (-0.3%). Instead, the Chief Education Officer (15.3%), Chief
Administrative Officer (22.8%), Portfolio (1368.0%) , Talent (35.5%), Law (10.1%)
and Network (31.6%) offices have grown (p13 of the budget)</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
6.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span>Some of the above is explained by the shifting
of responsibilities, but that still represents a shifting of funds away from
school and LSC based oversight to central office oversight.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
7.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span>The Talent Office is still completely unable to
develop a navigatable staffing framework and that results in less competitive
hiring by CPS and improper/inadequate staffing that severely damages students.
So they received more money to oversee.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
8.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span>The grouping of family and community engagement,
LSC relations and governmental affairs suggests a priority on attempting to
lobby and attain buy-in from communities rather than truly collaborative
efforts that are respectful to parent voice.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
9.<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span>The deficit is at least in some part real, but
should be viewed in the context of a CPS finance department that has been
hundreds of millions of dollars off in their deficit projections every single
year.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>What is the budget?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The budget is a document that CPS is mandated to release
each fiscal year to lay out the expected revenue and planned expenditures for
public consumption. It is then voted on by the CPS Board of Education. Since
the Board of Education is non-elected, neither the board nor central office is
required to actually listen to any of public input. Nevertheless, CPS is
legally required release a draft budget in June, hold public hearings and then
the board must pass a final version at the following board meeting. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>If they aren’t
integrated into the process, why have the hearings at all? Why testify at
hearings where people running the system aren’t listening?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
CPS is required by law to have the hearings. They also use
the opportunity to “sell” their budget to the public. I have presented several
years at the hearings. The point is not to move CPS, it’s to build community
knowledge and confidence that we can build our own budget. Two years ago, I
received my termination notice from my teaching position at Julian High School
due to my work supporting student organizing. Even though it was very
difficult, I testified through my tears to ensure the story was told.</div>
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<b>How is the budget
prepared and organized?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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The process for preparing the budget, despite public outcry,
remains almost completely opaque. In examining what is produced in the draft,
it appears that the previous years’ budgets are used as a template with all of
their underlying assumptions. Then new budget priorities are integrated and a
narrative that decries a huge deficit, praises central office for cutting
expenditures, and blames teachers for wanting their promised retirement
contract honored is produced regardless of the current status of the budget.
This results in a budget with the following portions:</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span>Letter from the CEO</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span>General overview that puts the current FY budget
in comparison with the previous years</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span>Rvenue explanation (the money the system is
taking in)</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span>School based budget breakdown (The money at the
school level)</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span>Departmental breakdown </div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span>Pension blaming section</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span>Capital budget</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span>Debt Management</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span>Organizational overview/chart</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span>Explanation of the various funds</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span>Miscellaneous Appendices</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-6666422713115175422012-06-11T04:58:00.001-07:002012-06-11T05:53:07.347-07:00Bullets and Names<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/sV1QqLlpVn0" width="420"></iframe></div>
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Joseph Briggs' name is all over the news today. But nobody knew his name when he was alive. To our society, a poor youth's name is only worth knowing when they are about to be put in the ground.<br />
<br />
They say “Bullets don’t have no names” cause they take "innocent" lives. But they do. They're made to have the names of vibrant, beautiful black and brown children on them. When was the last time you saw a bullet with a Pritzker or Crown’s name on it? </div>
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<br /></div>
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The worst part is that our kids sense that their names’ are on them. They walk outside to go to school or sit on the porch and they know that bullet may be out there waiting for them. And they often feel resigned to the unavoidable nature of it. And why should they waste time and energy in class on the play tools of the elite? If Winnetka was a “shooting gallery” would Tim Cawley (CAO of Chicago Public Schools) just give up and never let his kids leave the house? No, but if it were, the he would use his clout to do something to remedy the situation.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Joseph was a brilliant, clever child. He seemed to have some interest in our World Studies work, but mostly he was trying to keep up on what was going on around the block. I’ll never know if that’s what killed him or what kept him around as long as he was. We had some great conversations and he had days where he had the most brilliant ideas to share. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I wish I remembered them in this muddle of my mind. I think I’ll go through his work tonight. </div>
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<br /></div>
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What I do remember was a sense that his mind was often elsewhere, and while his intent was to excel in school, he was preoccupied with what was going on beyond the four walls of the classroom. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I visited him frequently in the detention room. He was there, but never really for anything too negative—talking over the instruction, disruption class in various ways, occasionally getting into a mild argument with a classmate. He was pretty calm, flashed his brilliant smile, and worked quietly on make-up work he needed to get back on track.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Earlier this semester he checked completely out of school. He had been suspended several times, and one time he didn’t come back. I asked his sister every time we had a chance how he was doing, and she would say, “Well, you know Joseph. He’s trying…” and she would smile, but I could sense some desperation in her voice. <br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I hoped each day I would see him back at school, but he didn’t come back. I wanted to go do a home visit, but there was never time. I mean, not in that way where there is time, but you don’t make it—actually not a minute in the day…I think.</div>
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<br /></div>
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When I heard night before last, I wasn’t even surprised. I just thought, “What has this child done to get shot to pieces on his porch feet away from his family?” </div>
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<br /></div>
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Some of you might attempt to answer that question, but I urge you to stop. He’s done no worse that the robber barons and corrupt “do-gooders” who create the economic, social and educational chaos that our kids inhabit and help craft the devil’s bargains that good young people have to choose on. Joseph opt-out of a education system that didn’t give a shit about his daily struggles and sought to “raise the bar” on his test scores. Two more points on that Explore test wouldn’t have help him before and it sure won’t help him now. Katie Osgood writes better on this than I ever could <a href="http://mskatiesramblings.blogspot.com/2012/06/violence-is-fine-but-low-test-scores.html">here</a>.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I don’t want to teach my kids anymore if teaching means “raising the bar” and wondering if I could have done more when I have to put them in the ground. We lose our kids one at a time and it’s not because we don’t have enough “rigor”. We have too much and it’s getting worse. I remember angrily telling a beloved colleague during another frustrating day of testing (we’ve lost about 20 days of instruction to testing this year) that “we lost some kids today and we don’t even know it.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Joseph knew more than we act like we know. He knew that there was a bullet out there with his name on it, and no amount of racing to the top or “every child can learn” rhetoric was going to save him from it. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I say this not out of fatalism, but out of hope and despair wrapped in the same package. If we empowered these youth, they could take their names off of those bullets, but we are too busy listening to people who feign care for “other people’s” black and brown children. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I loved all of them we’ve lost. Some of them were beautiful, society-changing activists, and others were beautiful, brilliant members of not so beautiful street organizations. And damn those bullets that had Salter, Holt, Daniel, Malcolme, Brown, Briggs, and all the others on them. But damn more the policies that disempower our youth and send those bullets hurtling towards them. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Until the children whose clouted parents run this city have bullets with their names on them, their mommies and daddies will still lock, load and shoot, and ours will keep dropping. </div>
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RIP Joseph. You are loved. </div>Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-71805192013288564622012-01-01T22:58:00.000-08:002012-06-11T09:45:54.982-07:00A Teacher's last lessonOn November 17, Mary Thorson left her students for the last time. She was suspended without pay for allegedly cursing at a student. On Thanksgiving day, she stepped in front of a semi truck. She left a letter in her car describing the conditions she faced at her school, and her stack of disciplinary notices on her bed in her apartment.<br /><br />
<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-teacher-suicide-20120101,0,1207321.story?page=2">http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-teacher-suicide-20120101,0,1207321.story?page=2</a><br />
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From the descriptions in the article, Ms. Thorson poured all of herself into her students, and specifically picked an environment that she knew she could take care of students of highest need. She gave all of herself to the students in ways that most of the society could, but chooses not to. She may have made mistakes. I remember in particular a colleague who I would join frequently as we risked our own safety to break up gang skirmishes in my previous school. When CPS turned around Fenger High School, many of the roughest students were pushed out, some to our school and this led to increased violence at our school. One day, my colleague had a bat out "Lean on Me" style and students were rushing his door to get at some of his students. He hit the door frame with the bat to send a message, and the window in the frame shattered from the vibration, hitting a student who was watching the incident. It was a terrible mistake, but a mistake that many would never have been in the position to make. The student got stitched up and I spoke with her later. She said she was fine and she felt foolish for standing there. I honestly don't know how to process that situation.<br /><br />
What exactly happened to Ms. Thorson, or the severity of the bullying she faced, we may never know. But what she described is common, and it's quite clear the environment she faced based on the district's response to the situation. It's particularly telling that from the article, it doesn't appear she assigned much of her stress if any to the students she taught. That's a gift.<br /><br />
Reading the article, all the school board's statements were about how surprised they were and how it wasn't fair to blame them. You who it's more unfair to? The person who put their life on the line for first their country, then the kids, and was loved by the kids, bullied by admin and then pushed to suicide. That's not ****ing fair. And as for surprise, this situation is in almost every district and more pronounced in districts like Mr. Thorson. While we don't blame the students for the stress involved, the challenges we face each day make the lack of respect from the district even more difficult to handle. Even in my school, where the admin seems excellent, the district mandates are soul crushing.<br />
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I look forward to the blessed time with the students, but I always go to work knowing that I'm probably going to lose students and colleagues--to the stress, to the poor district supports and ultimately to depression, suicide and violence.<br /><br />
In allowing these conditions to continue, in a way we are all responsible. We in fear stay silent and the society in ignorance chooses to not notice the reality and blame the outcomes on those of us who devote our lives to the students in these environments.<br /><br />
The first step is what her colleagues did in sharing their realities and in such a way, celebrating her life and final words: "We must speak up about what's going on!"<br /><br />Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-27007285858922259502011-08-18T12:16:00.001-07:002011-08-18T12:37:18.205-07:00Of endings and beginnings...So another two more writingless years and I'm ready to have a go at it again. Like jumping off bridges, I figure if my <a href="http://classroomsoothe.wordpress.com/">friends</a> <a href="http://mskatiesramblings.blogspot.com/">are</a> <a href="http://failingschools.wordpress.com/">blogging</a> it, I should be too.
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<br />My return post is on a topic near and dear to my heart--getting fired. I've been fired twice in the last years, and the whole thing about it being the most stressful thing besides death of spouse/child (or whatever is the reality if that's just an urban legend) probably has some truth in it. As always, I kind of skated through the situation with a slightly more forced smile on my face, but it didn't entirely agree with me or my constitution.
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<br />The first time I got fired spurred this unsent letter, which I figure might as well go up now. As I re-read it, it strikes me how special the kids felt our program was. I think they were right--it was special as in "beautiful", but not special as in "one-of-a-kind". I think that every teacher has the ability to create a space where students feel safety, freedom and their own limitless potential, and it's a systemic problem that not only throws obstacles to impede that creation, but also teaches us to not even yearn for it.
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priority="69" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="70" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" name="Dark List Accent 6"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="71" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="72" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" name="Colorful List Accent 6"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="73" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="19" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" qformat="true" name="Subtle Emphasis"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="21" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" qformat="true" name="Intense Emphasis"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="31" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" qformat="true" name="Subtle Reference"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="32" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" qformat="true" name="Intense Reference"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="33" semihidden="false" unhidewhenused="false" qformat="true" name="Book Title"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="37" name="Bibliography"> <w:lsdexception locked="false" priority="39" qformat="true" name="TOC Heading"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">September 17, 2010
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Just over a month ago, I stood before many of you as a devoted team player and colleague in the fight for educational improvement in our great country and warned you of my concern that the current wave of educational reform—with all of its positive motives and the vast array of talent devoted to it—would fail as a result of it being appropriated by bad actors to be used as a hammer against educators and communities. I did not know how specifically prescient that would turn out to be.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">On Thursday August 12, I received a letter from Chicago Public Schools. The letter explained that I was “honorably terminated” as of August 31 and the reason cited by the district was “redefinition”.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I would lose all health benefits (actually, we were “generously” afforded an extension of 30 days to our policy as required by state law), seniority, banked sick days and any other privileges of working as a teacher in the Chicago Public Schools.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In four years, I had used a total of four personal days and zero sick days—2 for my grandfather’s funeral, one for my wife’s graduation from medical school, and one to support a couple of students who were speaking at the Board of Education (one of whom many of you know, Shantell Steve).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was to have no due process and no respect for seniority.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I would ask for a brief moment that you place yourselves in that frozen moment. Out of all of it—my years of teaching both in the United States and Japan, the walls of awards that the students have won, the thriving programs (Japanese and Social Justice) that have grown in popularity and expanded over the years of 85 hour weeks and the professional mentoring, the support I had given countless colleagues to keep our community hub that is Julian High School strong through five principals over four years, or the leadership role I had taken with the department in promoting community and educator involvement in educational policy and school improvement—none of it mattered. But ponder that briefly, and then move on. The story of education is not the story of teachers.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">This story is about the 151 students enrolled in my classes depending on me and who they were/are and the millions of students just like them across this nation. I had specifically performed reverse “traditional recruiting” where instead of targeting the honor roll students, I had recruited many of the most challenging students and supported them toward college and encouraged them to—whatever their ideological perspective—express themselves and work with every last drop of their energy for the betterment of our school, community and society. But that didn’t matter either. It didn’t even matter that I had specifically chosen a school most targeted for my skills—the rarest skills of all; a school that was a large urban school with high neighborhood violence, low parental involvement, completely segregated and a high rate of student discontentment with the school. I ran against the crowd to that environment and supported students in building a welcoming environment that made them want to work hard and be in school every day (a couple of values that I was happy to see the President emphasize in his latest speech).</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Despite the fact that the students were told that the classes were cut because “there was not enough interest”, they quickly figured out the truth. They wanted to do something drastic, but I told them that I didn’t want anything done that would hurt them and that they should write for change.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Ja’ Marie James, a Junior wrote the following:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">I miss you Barrett. It’s hard to find our old group. They take our cell phones. They kick us all out after school, except for the band. I miss getting together after school and working for good. I used to be late to school every day, but not anymore.</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">You kept me off the street—When I graduated from 8<sup>th</sup> grade, I wasn’t planning on doing nothing. I planned to hang out with my friends on the block. You offered me a whole bunch of great stuff and I took it. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’m shocked because I look at myself back then and my freshman year, I never would have thought to go to New Orleans and help others.</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">In the 8<sup>th</sup> grade, I said I didn’t want to do none of this. My mom put me in Freshman Connection and when I was in the class and you came into our room and talked about it, and I was joking in the back, “Who is this goofy? I’m not doing this.” But I joined and did the summer work and learned to love helping others. Helping the community.</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Then I went to New Orleans twice. Slept on the floors of churches, built houses during the days. Complained too much and you scolded me. </i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The school did us bogus because you are the only teacher than offers us the whole service learning hours in a few weeks, so we do it and we learn to help others. It’s a way of life. </i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">I never had any idea of doing any of this good.</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">I thank you because I never would of thought of doing any of this. </i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Just because you are gone, doesn’t mean we can’t or won’t do it. I know there will be others like me, and now we have to do it. </i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Khadijah Snyder, a sophomore, <a href="http://www.wbez.org/Content.aspx?audioID=44019">wrote a speech she delivered on the floor of the Board of Education</a> (you can find her at 2:07:40 at the link:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">These teachers really care about the students and our communities. These teachers you laid off at Julian kept the students aware and they made sure that they had what they needed to pass on to the next level. The teachers you fired enjoyed getting up, coming to school to teach. We learned from the teachers and they learned from us. You took away that bond. You took away the teachers who really cared and didn’t give up on us. For example, I go to Julian High School and you took away a teacher that was for social justice and education. His name was Mr. Barrett. He was the only teacher that would come and help us speak our mind about what was right. When we would come down to the Board meeting, people would call him a “troublemaker” because he spoke his mind. I think you fired him because he was a threat and you thought that since you took him away that we were going to stop fighting. But you’re wrong. We are going to keep fighting until you make a change. So be ready this school year. I always hear the saying, “Children are the future.” If we are the future, give us the education and the resources to be that future. But you won’t. Because you don’t want to see us be great. But we will be great and make a difference. </i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">All told, I received correspondence from over 200 students, dozens of parents and hundreds of fellow teachers. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Much of the correspondence was from other teachers or educators who were terminated in similar fashion. In this wave, while the federal supports you generously gave were being squandered on “Culture of Calm” and other unscientific programs, nearly 2000 educators were torn from their students. I spoke to some who are in the process of losing their homes and/or marriages. Others left the district forever. Some are dying of cancer and have lost their healthy benefits entirely.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What we have in common is that we are hurting and we have given every last ounce of our beings to improving urban education in the most challenging environments.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Personally, I realized that I was about to lose the ability to support my own family and was fortunate enough to be offered a permanent position for the interim summer job I was working. But I miss my students every minute I sit in my office wondering why the only way I am allowed to fight for the best possible urban education is sitting at a desk at the Merchandise Mart in downtown Chicago.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I ask you to consider not my situation, but the gaping hole left in every classroom that we have left without an impassioned urban educator. I can off the top of my head name dozens of exactly the caliber of teacher you are looking for who will never teach another student. What do they all say? “It’s never the students (that drive you out).” Some simply got tired of being cut and moved every year. Others got tired of a lack of support. Many got sick of being told that they were the problem as opposed to the failing charter school teachers or the turnaround missionaries (who got fired the next year and left too). Some were TFAs and as is the case, left the profession. A handful of us simply got cut for political reasons, and were placed on the “Do Not Hire” list along with the felons and worse. These are people who decided to sacrifice everything in our lives to be great teachers in the toughest areas and will never be allowed to teach again.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I have treasured my conversations with all of you—the Teaching Ambassador Fellows, our den mother Gillian, and of course, Brad, Peter, Massie, Ann, Jim, Tim, Alberto and Arne—I’ve learned so much. I’ve especially enjoyed hitting the road with Thelma, Dennis, Julie, and all of the area staff. I know the dedication to our nation’s children and our sacred task of education.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But I guess my question is this: How do you intend to improve teacher quality in struggling schools? I have trained dozens of quality urban teachers—many of whom did not come to the system with the all the skills they needed, but were there when they were shown the door—again and again. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The problem is not a lack of quality teachers or quality trainers. The problem is a lack of systemic support and quite frankly a lack of value on anything that constitutes great teaching.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I will close by linking <a href="http://educationnext.org/an-appeal-to-authority/">the article used to screen our replacements at the Academy of Urban School Leadership</a>—one of the programs we chose to highlight at the department.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">One of the most outstanding teachers I know was grilled on it as part of her interview at an AUSL school after she was displaced from a historic neighborhood schools. She got into a heated discussion with the interviewer about the inherent racism of the article and—more importantly—it’s complete bankruptcy insofar as educational best practices. As a powerful, African American female educator who has motivated hundreds of Black and Latina/o youth to success at one of the schools that Renaissance 2010 peppered with violence, she was told that her radical ideas on race did not fit the vision of the school.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">If this is the “Civil Rights Struggle for our generation”, I am horribly grateful that—for at least a short time—I was allowed the honor of training those who will destroy it and lead the “Civil Rights Struggle for the next generation.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But I’m not writing to tell my sad, sad story and attack the plan we’ve got. There is a plan that works and I know the Department is pursuing it in part. </p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">1)<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>We must stop attacking the communities and families that we claim to be working for. We must open honest dialogues like Alberto Retana is doing and we must set the structure to promote such dialogue in every corner of our nation. We must give the bulk of the support and power to the parent, student and education sides of the conversation because those are the elements that in this era that the decision makers are used to shutting down.</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">2)<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>We must set concrete attainable long-term goals that are meaningful to students and provide them more power to make positive change in their lives and our communities in the here and now. As I told my students, “Don’t listen when you are told, ‘Someday you’ll be a great leader’. We need great leaders now!”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>College is nice, but that’s a checkpoint on the road to success. And real success is a destination that even the very privileged often don’t reach even through their prestigious education. I think of Yuri Kochiyama: “<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"">Our ultimate objective in learning about anything is to try to create and develop a more just society “</span> The students who are least motivated to learn through drill and kill are not “problem students”, they are our next civic leaders. They are critical thinkers who need to be taught that school is exactly where you should be asking the hard questions that our society will benefit from for the rest of their lives. Our current and future Gangster Disciple is not going to be reintegrated into school by retaking the another math fundamental’s class. (S)he’ll be engaged by being given alternative, positive paths to attention, power and security. I know because my students have made that right choice again and again.</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">3)<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>We need to be able to provide honest assessments to students and educators without a fear factor. With the exception of those driven clinically insane by these broken systems (and I mean that literally), I honestly have never met this mythical “unsalvageable teacher” that people claim inhabit our struggling neighborhood schools. I have met a few that were close at the “New Schools” and that’s only because they were so darn condescending and sure of themselves in day 17 of their ephemeral teaching careers. But I learned from every teacher in my building and was fortunate to be trained by venerable, brilliant, African American teachers who knew the community. It was mutual—we energized each other and I pulled a number of people back from burnout. Show me a teacher who is burned out, and I show you one who experienced one too many tough and hollow administrations and one too many years of having to steal paper to print lesson plans. We need to develop systems that humanize and motivate—not vilify and punish. </p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">4)<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>We need to stop thinking we are so much smarter than our students and those who came before us. Fenger High School is the classic example—even after counseling out the most troubled students, that school descended into complete chaos after turnaround. Yet, when the students were transferring over from there to Julian, I could sit down any student and tell </p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">5)<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>Heavily sanction and dismiss those who lie with data. There are certainly some elements who are scared and misunderstand data. But there are many of us who love the possibilities of data and still are horrified that “data” is being cherry-picked and manipulate to push programs that will hurt students. This section could be extremely long and detailed, but in the interests of time, I’d like to provide a few examples: If you select students, it’s intellectually dishonest to compare your rate statistics to a non-selective school. If one claims that “not testing is congruent to not selecting” then they are being intellectually dishonest. If you lose a large portion of your students in a chaotic transition process, you can’t honestly compare new rate stats to old rate stats. Graduation rate is meaningless if you aren’t using the number of students you started out with as for example, <a href="http://www.examiner.com/public-education-in-chicago/the-urban-prep-charter-school-myth-is-yet-another-chicago-public-schools-deception">Urban Prep continues to maintain its 100% college bound rate even as it continues to lose students following graduation</a> as it must “disappear” students to maintain its mythical status. Isn’t the leaving of children behind education’s worst sin?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Of course this list is neither exhaustive, nor thoroughly researched. It is merely a signpost away from the demise of our program that we have all invested so much time in and nearly $100 billion of taxpayer money—a program that must succeed for our students and the future of American education. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">And to me, that means thinking of my students:</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left:37.85pt;mso-add-space: auto;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2"><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>Shantell who thanks to all of you is happily organizing and building the African American student population on a full-ride scholarship to UC-San Diego. </p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:37.85pt;mso-add-space: auto;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2"><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>Kellina who is already planning the 1<sup>st</sup> annual Buena Vista University service trip to the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans (where we have spent our last three Spring Breaks). </p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:37.85pt;mso-add-space: auto;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2"><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>Ja’ Marie who is sitting in her second of two identical Algebra/Trig classes with the same content and instructor since they randomly scheduled her after Japanese III was canceled</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:37.85pt;mso-add-space: auto;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2"><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>Donzell who was thrown out of his home and moved to rural Wisconsin where he is starting his own social justice organization at his new high school</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:37.85pt;mso-add-space: auto;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2"><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>Asia who is currently being held against her will in an isolation classroom for “bad students” (think “The Wire”) with 22 students, one teacher and 3 different gang affiliations despite her strong GPA and support for other students as retaliation for her activism. Oh, with the money we provide Chicago Public Schools.</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:37.85pt;mso-add-space: auto;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2"><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>Her sister Khadijah, whose Biology class has 43 students thanks to the cutting of teachers at the school.</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left:37.85pt;mso-add-space: auto;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2"><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>Brandon, a senior and leader in our citywide champion band who has a near perfect GPA but is in jeopardy of not graduating as he cannot complete his language requirement.</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left:37.85pt;mso-add-space: auto;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2"><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>Tiarra whose school lost teachers because it was “overstaffed” and now finds herself in two classes that have not had an adult in attendance, let alone a teacher since the first day of school.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I know you will hold them and the other millions of beloved children we are working on behalf in your hearts as we move forward. I thank you for your time, energy, brilliance, love and pleasant experience as I bid a tearful “Goodbye” to the profession I love more than anything in the world. ________________</p><p class="MsoNormal">But I suck at goodbyes, so that's not the end of the story.
<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p>Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-41059025470426664382010-03-17T21:37:00.000-07:002010-03-17T21:43:50.450-07:00なぜ? Why teach?I ask not because people haven't thought on this, but because we don't return to it enough. Between all the models and rubrics and student performances and stuff that we complain about because it really does suck, I think we can lose sight of it.<br /><br />I teach because since as long as I can remember, I've been unable to excel at challenges for my own benefit--I've always been more the mom who picks up the car to save her child than the athlete who outruns everyone to glory. I teach because it's the only non-ephemeral human exploit, so I figure it must have some divine significance, or at least some lasting meaning.<br /><br />Most of all, I teach because if I don't there's still going to be 120 kids sitting in my classroom without a teacher to support them, and I know that I'm not going to "save" them and it won't always go well, but their lives and mine will be better for our interactions.<br /><br />Why do you teach?Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com39tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5363427845655853494.post-25111435956862252262010-03-17T20:56:00.000-07:002010-03-17T21:32:43.522-07:00なぜ?Why write this?So I'm going to go another time at this blogging thing. It seems like whenever I'm busy enough to be interesting, I'm too busy to write and when I'm free enough to write, I'm entertaining to nobody in particular.<br /><br />So this time I'm going to do my very best to align and be both boring and not write much.<br /><br />I tend to be rather adapt at deflecting stress. When personal catastrophes occur, I just kind of like, "Meh!" and move on. But lately, I've become convinced that I'm immersed in something pretty important and have started to take on more stress. Just to illustrate, here are a couple of pictures:<br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;" >Before teaching </span> <span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;" >After teaching 5 years:</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg64xyG2MpSTNNyCiRDj9v_NPz0csSpiTP4O0xFzYWk5MGY215-GE7aXsBbWce-nU7wLd05FIZhlW8qBWDFjd_K1tdYSPM9e41CWeWrpFJKd4UA1k6-IkmGSMz8FuIFlP6juYOHu42eJ4I/s1600-h/images.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 119px; height: 159px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg64xyG2MpSTNNyCiRDj9v_NPz0csSpiTP4O0xFzYWk5MGY215-GE7aXsBbWce-nU7wLd05FIZhlW8qBWDFjd_K1tdYSPM9e41CWeWrpFJKd4UA1k6-IkmGSMz8FuIFlP6juYOHu42eJ4I/s320/images.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5449820042348604866" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggoHE5UXiR8-sQMgscbA70GloyLUoVy-b4AfwDsCV8T3RcbncG8LwxKnK5EsG7Tn4oF3y-yuETV6Mr9K4dQmhQfST-ncC9_RLZHm5ISJ3bQ4qGdqprwi8b160vGUP7ZoSCEOqim3B0v-U/s1600-h/72-600-centenarian.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 154px; height: 212px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggoHE5UXiR8-sQMgscbA70GloyLUoVy-b4AfwDsCV8T3RcbncG8LwxKnK5EsG7Tn4oF3y-yuETV6Mr9K4dQmhQfST-ncC9_RLZHm5ISJ3bQ4qGdqprwi8b160vGUP7ZoSCEOqim3B0v-U/s320/72-600-centenarian.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5449820046828182482" border="0" /></a><br />So I figure it might help to reflect and release a bit. Like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocco">Cocco</a> says about singing.<br /><br />I also hope that this will help cure my horrible habit of droning on and on about myself. Maybe if I just drone on and on about myself online, it'll get out of my system. Or at least, I'll get really good at it.<br /><br />If I can connect up with a few other teachers and learn from you all, that wouldn't suck too much. I'm lucky enough to have some incredible colleagues and educator friends (and not many other friends) but I really feel that teachers are special in that we tend to continue to maniacally think about our jobs for every last waking second of our days. That's why it's so horribly upsetting when people are like, "You have so much time off, and short days, and short years, and what is it that you do anyway?" I'm no <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxsOVK4syxU">world class teacher poet</a>, so I tend to just smile and say, "That's a good point, being an investment baker is so much more helpful to the society than whatever it is that I do!" because sarcasm is love.<br /><br />But teachers tend to get together and talk shop endlessly. We get plastered or go exercise or ride the El around town and talk about their students and their principals, and what new lesson they want to teach and how their union sucks and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/24/rhode-island-teachers-fir_n_475234.html">what happened in Rhode Island </a>until we have to go back to school to teach.<br /><br />So, with that in mind, another teacher blog is exactly what the world needs.<br /><br />Finally, our profession is in crisis. Seemingly forever, our society has had next to no respect for the teaching profession, but we haven't really done anything about it. Maybe cause we were too busy to take care of our media image because we were a little absorbed saving kids lives and stuff, and our union leaders were too busy spending expense accounts and stuff.<br /><br />So it's grown and grown and we kind of ignored it when it meant that everyone thought we must have been the dumbest kids in college, and we didn't really say how utterly stupid it was when people tried to equate some horrible desk sleeping teacher with the rest of us (because of course there are no child molesters in other professions) and we didn't bother to explain that we are ill-prepared for the day because we didn't have to time to buy our own paper last night, and it doesn't matter cause the copy machine is broke again and no one seems to care.<br /><br />But now here we are, and everyone who devoted their lives to working with children in the toughest environments in the country is suddenly on the chopping block and we are going to lose our pensions and our kids are going to get turned over to <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&ved=0CBEQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Ftitle%2Ftt0112792%2F&ei=G6yhS42MOIWCNtzXlMcI&usg=AFQjCNGQegU-3cGuYo0LIQDFMw2GCoBPPw&sig2=2FRvL-Htp0s6xJaq0Zwijw">Michelle Pfeiffer</a> who doesn't know a GD from a BD from a VD and is going to explain to them, "<a href="http://www.boystown.org/">Yes, Bitch is a noun</a>."<br /><br />So let's write and share and organize and figure out how to empower these kids because while I didn't get into teaching because I was too dumb to do anything else, I sure are too dumb to fix the entire education system on my own, so let's ask ourselves, "Is our children learning?" And make the answer, "Yes, we cans!"Xian Franzinger Barretthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04173583347641833298noreply@blogger.com8