It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

He

     Tuesday January 28th, day two of Vergara v California.  The puppet has returned to center stage, prompter at the ready for the entrance of the villain in this farce.  Our fearless and grammar deficient reporter Mark Harris does the (dis)honor still.  It appears he found a proofreader and the spell check.  Curtain up!!

Vergara lawsuit: Deasy testifies on ‘grossly ineffective’ teachers

Posted on January 28, 2014 by Mark Harris

Supt. John Deasy in his second day of testimony

     Under cross-examination today, LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy faced pointed questions from attorneys representing California’s biggest teacher unions and the state in a controversial lawsuit that could turn the practice of teacher tenure on its head.
     At issue in the landmark case,  Vergara vs. California, are five statutes that the nine students bringing the case contend protect ineffective teachers, thereby violating their constitutionally protected right to a quality education.
Under less friendly questioning than earlier in the day, Deasy responded in detail to questions posed by Jim Finberg, attorney for the California Teachers Association (CTA) and the California Federation of Teachers (CFT), who attempted to chip away at the argument that the current tenure and dismissal statutes hurt students, and that removing ineffective teachers is quite possible now.
     WTF to infinity.  Mr. Finberg you're supposed to be supporting teachers.  This line of questioning buys into the BroadDeayGates narrative that there are only ineffective teachers and awesomely wonderful righteous and saintly principals in the LAUSD.  When are you going to get to what is 'ineffective' and what part abuse by principals plays?
Using statistics that showed the number of dismissals in LA Unified rose to 99 in 2011-2012 from 10 in 2009-2010, Deasy’s first full year as superintendent, Finberg suggested that the number of teachers offered tenure during that period decreased, reducing the number of grossly ineffective teachers who receive permanent status.
     WTF to double infinity.  First, why are you agreeing that there are 'grossly ineffective teachers'?  Make JD admit that it's based only upon one person's opinion; the principal.  Second,  UTLA should have offered data showing how many teachers were abused into retirement/resignation in addition during this period. 

Without disputing it, Deasy said the numbers only represented his recommendations to the school board for initiating a dismissal process.

     Now's the time to call bullshit Finberg.  This board does what BroadDeasyGates wants.  ALL OF HIS RECOMMENDATIONS RESULT IN DISMISSAL.  News flash Dear Readers, UTLA has the data on teacher retirement/resignation, teacher jail and the data on us showing selective targeting of senior teachers.  This includes our ages, number of years in service, pay rate (duh), gender, ethnicity etc.  WE WILL WATCH TO SEE IF THEY DO ANYTHING WITH IT.
When Finberg asked Deasy if he agreed that other factors, such as family wealth and poverty, influence the success or failure of a student, Deasy said, “I believe the statistics correlate, but I don’t believe in causality (of poverty).”
     WTF to triple infinity.  Everyone knows that poverty is the main issue not just in the community but in school and community resources.  How could anyone think that correlation and causality are not congruent here?  Anyone such as I, who grew up in a working class lower middle class family and then went to an expensive private college can tell you that as far as education is concerned they are the same.  This is why the Gates,  Broad,  Obama, Rhee and Duncan children go to expensive private schools and then will go on to expensive top tier universities.  Being surrounded by kids from the 'hood is not going to provide them with the intellectual milieu that all parents want for their children.  Setting aside race and class I assert that no parent anywhere wants their kids to be surrounded by other kids whose only exposure to culture is Spongebob and whose travel experience consists of a bus trip to the welfare office.  Will Mr. Deasy's imbecility be allowed to stand without challenge? 

Earlier in the day, under more friendly questioning from Marcellus McRae, representing the students, Deasy told the court that the cost of dismissing a “grossly ineffective teacher” can sometimes reach into the millions of dollars, impacting decisions as to whether to appeal a dismissal or leave a teacher in the classroom.
He also said the time it takes to build a case against an ineffective teacher, however lengthy, results in leaving students with ineffective teachers.

     This is just a regular WTF.  Money, no one on this earth has been able to abolish capitalism and teachers need the stuff in order to live. Let's do a little Twilight Zone Math on this argument.  Let's see, spend $250k to $450k (yesterday's testimony) or $1 million (today's testimony) to rid the LAUSD of one teacher multiply by 99 just for the 09-10 school year gives roughly $2.25 to $99mil.  School years 10-11, 11-12, 12-13 and 13-14 saw a huge increase in Sudden Incompetent Teacher Syndrome (SITS) numbers but let's stick with the number 99 and that gives us $225 to $495 mil and we are just coming out of the Greatest Recession since the pleistocene and didn't any one think of maybe offering a buyout?
     Here's the big take away friends,  GatesDeasyBroad's goal is to bankrupt and dismantle the district.  This city and district will naturally cleave into small warring balkanized cantons based upon income and ethnicity and they will generally follow the old 8 subdistricts of the LAUSD.   THIS WILL DESTROY UTLA.  A CAREER TEACHER MIGHT WONDER WHY SO LITTLE IS BEING DONE.
McRae asked Deasy if the high cost of removal has resulted in reaching settlement agreements with ineffective teachers. He answered by saying it’s part of the current cost analysis and sometimes is the most “cost effective way to exit a teacher.”
When questioned whether leaving incompetent teachers in the system harms the morale of the profession, Deasy said: “Morale is absolutely affected,” adding that teachers don’t want to be on teams with incompetent teachers.
     Yes but we just love mean nasty principals!!!  Especially those who don't know how to teach!!!
Deasy also testified that the seniority statute, know as LIFO for “Last in, first out,” which favors seniority when layoffs are required, is harmful to both students and teachers.
He said seniority does not always reflect teacher effectiveness and seniority-based layoffs work against the best interest of students.
“I do not believe it’s in the best interest of students whatsoever,” Deasy said. “I have been very clear at indicating that the decision about who should be in front of students should be the most effective teacher and that this statute prohibits that from being a consideration at all. So by virtue of that, it can’t be good for students.”
When asked whether the seniority statute was necessary to recruit excellent teachers, Deasy said it has, in fact, the opposite effect. This is where it gets good. Teachers find it “unattractive,” he said, to come into a system where job competence is not considered when layoffs are required.  Layoffs in unionized sectors of the economy have always followed LIFO.  Deasy says that teachers don't want to be associated with 'unattractive' people?  Deasy wants a short-term workforce on the one hand and wants to make them think that they are "professionals" who don't want to be associated with the unattractive.  This sounds like the cliques in High School not teaching.   

Deasy returns to the stand tomorrow, presumably to finish his cross-examination. He’ll be followed to the stand by Harvard economist Nadarajan (Raj) Chetty.
  
     Okay dear friends, I got carried away and went through the whole thing but such assholish bloviation has to be challenged somewhere.  The play continues and it may end a tragedy for children, parents and teachers.  



 Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips, Look there, look there!  King Lear

Places Everyone!! Curtain Up!! 

Daleth

    Monday 1-27,  began the great puppet show that will be forever known as Vergara v. California.  This play, the latest in a tendentious and dangerous series, opens with the surly martinet and over actor, Mr. John Deasy, strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage.  The puppet masters have purchased the most shameless shysters available to be his prompters or does he prompt them?  The text copied from L.A. School Report follows, my commentary is in bold.  LASR employs some lame-ass hacks and I will indulge in snark when I feel like it. 

.-.-.-.

From L.A. School Report
Posted on January 27, 2014 by Mark Harris ...
......
The thrust of the students’ case is that five state statutes make it difficult and expensive to remove ineffective teachers from the classroom. In the opening statement for the students, Ted Boutrous argued that every child has a constitutional right to a quality education — a right that has been violated due to the current teacher employment statues (sic.  The PR shill who wrote this meant statutes.  A Freudian slip perhaps. Statues often get covered in bird shit and that's what the author wants to do to teachers.) that he claimed handcuffs (sic again! statutes handcuff.  This fool was never in my kindergarten - such assaults on grammar were kindly corrected. I daresay that he is incompetent and not his teachers.  The impoverished in spirit need someone to blame.) administrators in weeding ineffective teachers out of the classroom. Those statutes involve tenure, seniority and the dismissal process.

      Huh?  How do we know what is an ineffective teacher?  This determination  is made by one person, the principal.  Of course, school administrators are above reproach in their ability to recognize ineffective teachers and it is very easy for them.  BroadDeasyGates gives them a rubric: choose teachers over forty, especially those with seniority,  high on the salary schedule, and close to vesting in lifetime health benefits, then pick them off starting with those you like the least.  The quota seems to be about one per twenty faculty. 

Boutrous (the highly paid shyster lawyer) said the statutes also impose a disproportionate harm on poor and minority students, saying these students are more vulnerable to harm from ineffective teachers whom districts cannot dismiss.

      WTF?  Are there no ineffective teachers in richer neighborhoods?  How can he claim that ineffective teachers are concentrated in poorer neighborhoods of color?  What could explain such an uneven distribution?  Stop calling us minority, we are now the majority.  How do you figure that an ineffective teacher harms us more?  

Anticipating defendants’ arguments, he said the case was not attempt to undermine teachers’ due process rights or an attempt to make teachers a scapegoat for problems like racism and poverty.

     Please Mr. Boutrous, do you have a bridge to sell me?  Your powers of persuasion are so magnificent that I want to believe any wild thing you might say.  You have to have a bridge somewhere.  I hear there is one in Brooklyn.

Defense attorneys — Nimrod Ellis (sic!!! His name is Nimrod Elias.) for the state and James Feinberg for the California Federation of Teachers and the California Teachers Association — argued that the statutes aren’t the problem. Rather, they said, the key issue is poor management by school administrators. Ellis (Elias) suggested that well managed schools are fully capable of getting rid of ineffective teachers. 

     Thin ice my brothers.  Very, very thin ice.  Will our heroes allow the shysters to frame the discussion?  Will they accept the shyster argument that there is a "problem?"  Will they be able to cite the fact that over 90% of ineffective teachers in the LAUSD are over 40 and have decades of experience?
     I love the name Nimrod though. 

Additionally, the defendants contended that the students would be unable to show that the teachers they were assigned were grossly ineffective. Feinberg told the court that there are socio-economic factors outside a teacher’s control, which are responsible for the widening achievement gap. He insisted that declaring laws unconstitutional will not close that gap.

     Our heroes may pull it off yet.

The defense lawyers wrapped up their opening remarks by stating that they welcomed the challenge, but the real policy change must come from the legislature in Sacramento -– and that plaintiffs will not be able to prove that these statutes violate their constitutional rights.

     The ice gets thinner.  Is there a problem?  Is it a good idea to imply that there might be something to their argument? 

Deasy, under friendly questioning from a students’ lawyer, Marcellus McRae, walked the court through current state laws governing the hiring and firing of teachers, student performance markers, rules regarding tenure and the impact they have on the school district.
   
     Now, this is the heart of the matter.  What will GatesBroadDeasy try to prove here?  None of my kindergarteners would dare tell a story and leave out important evidence. "Impact on the school district" implies so much.  UTLA hides the data but the majority, 93% of targeted teachers are experienced.  What happened to suddenly make us have such an impact?  Vulcan-mind-meld-left-wing conspiracy perhaps?

A major focus was the so-called “tenure statute,” which in California enables teachers to gain permanent employment — or tenure — after just 18 months on the job. In his answers, Deasy explained that the process for evaluating a teacher for purposes of tenure actually begins after just 13 months of actual teaching, a period of time he dismissed as too short for such a critical decision.
    
“No way this is sufficient amount of time, in my opinion, to make that critical judgement,” he said. “Not even to make it after two years of work.”

    No tenure after two years of teaching?  Can you say 'at will' and 'right-to-work?  This from a man who taught in a classroom for only six years. 

Deasy said the average cost of dismissing an ineffective teacher, which involves as many as 17 administrative steps, is $250,000 to $450,000, with many cases costing the district a lot more.

      This figure gets repeated and repeated.  If they railroad a teacher, write him or her up at every step, and drive him or her to resign/retire then this costs nothing.  If a teacher makes it through this abuse and one year of teacher jail it costs maybe $100,000 (wages and benefits) to pay a teacher to sit while a substitute covers the class.  Do they claim this as part of their cost?  If a teacher then is suspended and appeals to OAH this means that they are spending$250,000 to $450,000 on very expensive outside lawyers to get rid of one ineffective teacher and they are not talking about sexual or physical abuse.  Remember, he's trying to tell us that it costs this to get rid of an "ineffective teacher."  What are these 17 administrative steps?  Will our lawyers make him spell this out?
      Does the district not have lawyers on staff?  I know a teacher who went through this scenario and at his OAH hearing the LAUSD had three highly paid lawyers from O'Melveny and Myers, the most expensive law firm in the city and the most well connected to political power.  My friend's lawyer estimated that the LAUSD's bill for this at about $300k.
   Let's look at this another way.  How many teachers can the LAUSD hire for $250,000?  Somebody send me the numbers but as recall this is enough for three bottom of the salary schedule young, pretty teachers with benefits.  This would reduce class size though Mr. Deasy doesn't believe that class size is ever a factor.  How does the BroadDeasyGates approach help the achievement gap again?
    The district should be made to account for this money.  It seems that this part of it's budget has an endless supply.  Why does UTLA not address this?  What about "our friends" on the school board?
 
He also testified that the current tenure statute doesn’t allow school administers (sic, Markie it's called spellcheck.  Try it sometime.) to adequately assess a teacher’s performance or growth potential. He went on to say that he believes the tenure rules allow for “grossly ineffective teachers” to remain in the classroom.
    
     Huh?  What does belief have to do with this?   Will there be any evidence presented?  Will they try to define "adequately assess a teacher's performance or growth potential?  Such an outstanding opinion making thought leader should have no trouble with this.
 
   Okay let's break this down.

     BroadGates wants Deasy and his minions to be able to tell if a teacher is effective based upon what exactly?   Since most new teachers leave after five years then what is "growth potential?"  
      In "The Takeover Artist," Los Angeles Magazine, posted online 5-12, JD  said of recent college graduates “We have the hottest job pool that you could imagine, and we’re laying people off rather than dipping into it.” This was 2011.  Huh?  WTF?  Did no one at UTLA see this coming?  In 2010-2011 there were 969 rifs then more in 11-12 until by September '13 there were 3900 rif'd teachers who lost their seniority.  UTLA hasn't said much about this. How many of these rif'd teachers are still unemployed?  700 Great White Hope TFAs were hired 13-14 and JD wants to hire 1300 teachers 14-15. UTLA president Warren Fletcher reported that student population served by our members is down 21,000 which translates to 800 fewer teachers this year.  This is Twilight Zone Math, it doesn't add up and we don't hear anything about it from UTLA. 
       Someone help me with this question.  Did Trygstad et al. defend rifd teachers at no charge to them?  If they did, then UTLA must have picked up the tab because TTS don't work for free. At this point did UTLA not think that legal insurance might be a good idea for the rest of us?  So, UTLA through lack of leadership and intelligence left us vulnerable and now has no money to defend Unjustly Jailed Teachers.  This gives insight into UTLA reps' message to all unjustly jailed teachers that we'll never work again and that UTLA has no obligation to defend us.  I'll examine this in a later post. Does this not sound planned?  The kicker is that Warren Fletcher ignores us and quotes Sun Tzu's, The Art of War. Maybe it's actually The Art of Capitulation that he's reading. 
     Can Deasy refer to reliable statistics that show what percentage of teachers are ineffective?  Can someone define this using a reasoned argument?  I mean peer reviewed scientific studies of teacher effectiveness not predetermined pieces such as Gates buys.  Monica Garcia and Vivian Ekchian (head of Personnel) using the Gates stack approach say that one third of teachers are incompetent.  Btw Microsoft dropped this approach recently because they were losing too many valuable people.  This is also straight out of the Nazi play book.  Keep repeating something and people will start to believe it.  What about people who teach for awhile and go into administration?  Are one third of them incompetents?  I find the percentage much higher.