Montreal Teachers 4 Change.org

May 17, 2013

MTA Elections 2013: Comparing Presidential Candidates Robert Green and Peter Sutherland

By Robert Green

On his electoral campaign website, MTA presidential candidate Peter Sutherland offers a comparison of the differences between his candidacy and my own. While I will leave readers to judge the merits of Mr Sutherland’s comparison for themselves, I personally found that it did not mention many of the substantial matters upon which Mr Sutherland and I disagree.

In order to offer MTA members a more substantive comparison, please find below a brief summary of some of the key issues that Mr Sutherland omitted.

I hope the members of the MTA will find this to be informative.

For more information on my campaign or to read my electoral statement visit my campaign website http://rgreen.freeshell.org

	Robert Green	Peter Sutherland
On Financial Transparency	Strongly committed to the highest standard of financial transparency. Any member should have the right to scrutinize the way their own money is being spent in as much detail as they wish. This was the standard upheld by the MTA’s previous Treasurer Lydia Landori. This standard should be restored	This year supported a move to deny an MTA member his constitutional right to view the bills from the union’s Visa account.
On Keeping the Members Well Informed	Committed to ensuring that members have all the accurate information they need when it comes time to vote on our contract.	At the time of voting on the current contract, neglected to inform the members that the contract contained a new system for absences which tracks teachers by the minute. Now says he wants to fix this problem. Incorrectly informed the members that the new reductions in class size would be funded by government and would result in a change to the staffing ratios and the hiring of more teachers.
On the Seniority/Recall Process	Supported a motion from the teachers of Lauren Hill (leading up to the last round of local negotiations) demanding that the school board be obliged to account for the many teaching positions it “discovers” over the summer.	Voted against this motion.
On Health & Safety in Schools	Alarmed at the growing number of reports involving poor air quality in Quebec’s schools. Believes the union must be pro-active and do its own independent testing of air quality.	The current MTA executive’s approach to health and safety has been largely complaint-driven. Mr Sutherland has not made any commitments to more proactive measures such as the independent monitoring of air quality in schools.
On Ensuring the Class Size Reductions in the Current Contract are Respected.	Believes the MTA should follow the PTU’s example in filing a grievance on class size.	Has never indicated that the MTA should take any form of action to ensure the class size reductions are respected.
On Working With Others	Ready to work with any other MTA member, even those with opposing views. Believes that a leadership that reflects the diversity of opinions within the membership is more representative and therefore more effective.	Makes it clear in his electoral statement that he is not prepared to work with those who do not share his views. Warns members that a divided executive will ‘cease to be effective’.
On How to Achieve Our Goals	Believes it is important to begin by working directly with the school board in good faith. Believes it is also important for a union to have an effective media strategy that can expose problems publicly when greater pressure is needed.	Believes media work is “not going to change anything” and that problems can be resolved by working directly with the school board
On the President’s Pay	Believes the MTA must never again pay its president nearly twice what the average teacher makes Electoral statement promises not to accept a penny more in pay than would be received as a teacher	Has made no indication that he would change the MTA’s pay-scale.

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May 16, 2013

CJAD Teacher Panel Discusses Grade Inflation, Student Stress and Problems with Quebec’s Curriculum

Teachers Catharine Hogan and Robert Green discuss grade inflation, student stress and the problems with Quebec’s curriculum with James Mennie of the Montreal Gazette, sitting in for CJAD’s Tommy Schnurmacher:

Click here to listen

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Tags: Bill 88, Curriculum, Grade inflation, Montreal Teachers Association (MTA), Quebec

May 15, 2013

Victory in Seattle as Teachers Win Battle in Standardized Test Boycott

By Jon Queally | Published May 14, 2013 by Common Dreams

Seattle teachers who took a strong and public stance by refusing to administer a “flawed” but mandatory standardized test earlier this school year are celebrating a victory after an announcement by the school district saying the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test will not be given to high school students next year.

“Finally, educators’ voices have been acknowledged,” said teacher Jesse Hagopian, who teaches history at Garfield High School in Seattle where the boycott movement began. “This is a great moment in the movement for quality assessment.”

“The teachers at Garfield are overwhelmed with joy,” Hagopian said. “I think this is a real vindication of the movement that was started at Garfield High School by teachers but was quickly joined by parents and students at our school, and around the city, and really around the country.”

The district’s decision was announced in a letter sent to school administrations throughout the city on Monday and followed on the recommendations of a review panel that looked at the testing regime and determined it was not “effective for high school-age students.”

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Tags: Labour movement, Standardized testing

May 11, 2013

The Chicago Teachers Union: A New Template for Social Justice Unionism?

By Robert Green

This article appears in the Spring 2013 edition of ‘Our Schools / Our Selves’ published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

One of the first major protests I can remember attending was outside of the PQ government’s socioeconomic summit in 1996. I was an undergraduate at Concordia and while I definitely understood that this summit represented a threat to social spending, I had no idea of the extent to which this event would be a turning point in the province’s politics. The summit’s so-called consensus on eliminating Quebec’s deficit in 4 years would usher in the deepest cuts to social spending in the province’s history. I’ll never forget the ominous feeling in the crisp fall air outside the summit as evening set and a large effigy of Lucien Bouchard was lit ablaze by protestors, right in the middle of Boulevard René Lévesque.

Since then I’ve watched over and over again as neoliberal governments, in Quebec and elsewhere, have thwarted the efforts of public sector workers to defend their working conditions and protect the quality of public services.

I began my teaching career at what was unquestionably a low point for union morale amongst Quebec’s teachers. Jean Charest had just legislated the province’s teachers back-to-work with a draconian law that imposed massive sanctions on both teachers and their unions if they continued to strike. The only gains made by teachers in this imposed contract carried a dollar value of roughly the same amount that government had saved in unpaid salaries during the strike. The whole experience understandably left a bitter taste in the mouths of many of my colleagues. In the most recent round of negotiations teachers showed little interest in work action and ultimately voted to accept the contract proposed by government.

Meanwhile in Ontario the McGuinty government recently threatened back-to-work legislation before teachers had even announced any intention to go on strike! The heavy handedness just seems to be getting heavier.

As a public sector employee and as someone who strongly believes in the power and potential of unions to improve the lives of working people, these have not been the easiest of times. But as heavy handed as various neoliberal governments have been in dealing with teachers and other public sector employees, their attacks in no way represent some kind of permanent defeat. The rise of neoliberalism is however cause for a serious rethink about the way that unions operate. It is a challenge that calls on the labour movement to do what it has always done when historical circumstances have warranted; it calls on the labour movement to adapt!

It is for this reason that the recent victory of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is so significant. The CTU found a way to win in a context far worse than that of any teachers unions in Canada. read more »

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Tags: Labour movement, PQ, Provincial contract, Quebec

May 10, 2013

Child poverty rampant in Canadian cities

By Iglika Ivanova | Published May 9, 2013 by Rabble.ca

The story of child poverty in Canada is very much an urban story. One out of every 10 children living in urban areas was poor in 2010, compared to one in 20 children living in non-urban areas. Three-quarters (or 76 per cent) of all poor children in Canada lived in one of the urban centres shown in the chart above.*

Child poverty isn’t a question of jobs: the cities with worst child poverty only had middle-of-the-pack unemployment rates (out of the 19 cities, St. John’s, N.L. was 8th highest and Vancouver, B.C. was 11th highest). Similarly, the cities with the lowest unemployment rates in 2010 (Regina and Quebec) did not score particularly well in terms of child poverty. This is why it’s so important to talk about the living wage in Vancouver and wages in general.

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Tags: Child Poverty

May 9, 2013

If America’s Serious About Appreciating Teachers, Here’s What it Takes

By Jose Vilson | Published May 7, 2013 by good.is

Excerpt:

How do we actually appreciate teachers?

For one, America can start by giving teachers more voice in policy and practice. Our voices in the decision-making process have been nullified or patronized, an attitude reserved for a woman-dominated profession. Teachers shouldn’t just have a seat at the tables currently reserved for wealthy businessmen, technology experts, policy wonks, fresh out-of-the-Ivy-League newbies, and politicians. They should get the opportunity to create the table, creating the consortia, and developing the protocols for how we discuss our profession. Respect for expertise goes a long way towards making teachers feel appreciated.

We can also pay teachers well. We can pay beginning teachers a liveable wage—$45,000—and get third-year teacher salaries up to $65,000 and up, maxing out at $140,000. Of course, we can have other discussions on remuneration, but, as National Board Certified teacher Renee Moore would say, “We shouldn’t be afraid to get paid.”

More to the point, we need to assure that teachers have a wage that keeps them satisfied with their jobs and unafraid to try best practices, akin to doctors and lawyers as they move up in their professions. Having a union assures that teachers get equitable salaries regardless of sex, race, or religion, and we can use a healthy mix of old and new solutions to ensure equitable payment for educators.

Lastly, we can improve working conditions for all schools. Instead of investing monies towards bigger central office staff and SmartBoards, we can work on improving our school buildings. We need to make them look friendlier and less like prisons. We can make school lunches healthier, and provide students with recess and the arts more often. We can reduce the constant need for standardized diagnostic testing that requires special programs and seating arrangements that take away from, not promote, classroom learning. Also, as education advocate Patrick J. Sullivan would say, our strategy for improving schools can’t be “open-close-open-close.” Sustaining these ecosystems takes much more thoughtfulness than we currently invest.

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Tags: Salary, Teacher burn-out

May 7, 2013

High stakes, no prep: These tests are designed to fail

By Katrina vanden Heuvel | Published April 30 by The Washington Post

Let’s face it – nobody likes taking tests. Exams, by nature, elicit a certain amount of anxiety. Tension. Maybe even fear.

But New York’s high-stakes standardized tests, given to all public school students, have rattled way more than a few nerves. Enough students have actually thrown up on their tests that schools are reportedly circulating procedures on how to handle vomit-covered tests.

One Long Island superintendent told the Wall Street Journal that some kids did, indeed, get sick on their tests. One student went to the bathroom and wouldn’t come out. Many dissolved into tears. Others simply refused to take the test.

It’s no wonder that parents, educators and even students are spearheading a small but growing revolution to opt out of standardized tests. From Seattle to Pennsylvania, more and more students across the country are boycotting tests that many say are increasing stress, narrowing curriculum and, at worst, leading to the kind of cheating exposed in the recent Atlanta Public Schools scandal.

The opt-out movement is a symptom of a broader problem. At their best, assessments should track whether students have learned the material they’ve been taught — and give students the chance to show off what they know. Test results should provide a clear view of where students are struggling so that teachers can help them improve.

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Tags: Standardized testing

May 5, 2013

Keeping the Members in the Dark: On the MTA’s Growing Culture of Secrecy

By Robert Green,

Over the last several years a growing number of Canadians have been expressing concern about what has been deemed as the Harper government’s “war on science”. By de-funding or dismantling such things as the long-form census and the federal government’s experimental lakes area, the Harper government is effectively ensuring that information that might cause citizens to question its political agenda never sees the light of day. This tendency of those in power to attempt to hide information that might reflect poorly on them is the very reason why constitutional guarantees of government transparency are so highly valued in democratic societies.

Members of the Montreal Teachers Association might be surprised to learn that a similar tendency towards growing secrecy has been developing within their own union.

Recently it has come to light that the MTA was in April 2012 found to have acted in gross negligence by Quebec’s Labour Relations Commission in its representation of two MTA members that sought to grieve the fact that they had been denied contracts that were subsequently given to teachers without proper qualifications. Though the grievance had been filed, it was rejected not because the case lacked merit but rather because the MTA had not filed the grievance within the 4 month limit prescribed by the collective agreement. In its ruling on the complaint against the MTA the Labour Relations Commission stated “in the present case, the Commission considers that failure of the Association to file the complaint within the time specified in the collective agreement, combined with the consequences of it on the plaintiffs, constitutes gross negligence.” The Commission ordered the MTA to pay all of the legal expenses incurred by these 2 teachers.

While members of the MTA should be concerned that their union’s leadership has been found by an independent body to have been grossly negligent in its representation of 2 MTA members, of greater concern is the fact that this was never reported to the membership! Despite the fact that the ruling involved a financial award that will ultimately be paid by the members, the current leadership of the MTA apparently did not feel that this was relevent information for the members to know. read more »

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Tags: Montreal Teachers Association (MTA)

May 3, 2013

Teaching has become a precarious profession, symposium hears

By Janet Bagnall | Published May 3, 2013 by the Montreal Gazette

Excerpt:

In Quebec, about 55,000 teachers have permanent positions; 20,000 are on short-term contracts; 16,000 are called in as needed to do replacement work or other tasks. There is a high turnover of teachers in the province, Tardif said.

“In a Montreal high school, in a single year Grade 10 students will be taught math by five or six different teachers. And in underprivileged neighbourhoods, the teacher turnover is very intense.”

Teachers want out, Tardif said. He cited studies showing that half of Quebec teachers have thought of leaving the profession. Twenty-one per cent have already taken time off. According to Quebec Education Department figures, one in four teachers who does not have a permanent position is thinking of leaving in the next five years.

Teaching has become a precarious profession, Tardif said.

“This increasing precarity and the worsening conditions of the work of teaching and the rate of school failure are two sides of the same coin.”

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Tags: Quebec, Teacher burn-out

May 1, 2013

No Rich Child Left Behind

By SEAN F. REARDON | Published April 27, 2013 by the New York Times

Here’s a fact that may not surprise you: the children of the rich perform better in school, on average, than children from middle-class or poor families. Students growing up in richer families have better grades and higher standardized test scores, on average, than poorer students; they also have higher rates of participation in extracurricular activities and school leadership positions, higher graduation rates and higher rates of college enrollment and completion.

Whether you think it deeply unjust, lamentable but inevitable, or obvious and unproblematic, this is hardly news. It is true in most societies and has been true in the United States for at least as long as we have thought to ask the question and had sufficient data to verify the answer.

What is news is that in the United States over the last few decades these differences in educational success between high- and lower-income students have grown substantially.

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Tags: Income achievement gap

April 30, 2013

On QPAT’s Perks and Pension Plans: An Open Letter to QPAT President Richard Goldfinch

By Jim Wilson,

QPAT’s Provincial Council provides you with the opportunity to address issues, some of which I raised in an earlier open letter. I was pleased to see the Liaison provided an updated history of QPAT/PAPT. Why are the English Catholic teachers [PACT] completely omitted from the QPAT story?

Maybe it is an opportunity for you to explain Lombard’s pension deals. What job was he supposedly offered, that in order to retain him, QPAT were, paradoxically, “obliged” to allow him to ‘retire’, so he could collect both his salary and pension, and give him an additional RRSP ‘sweetener’. However, the mystery deepens when Lombard, whilst on leave of absence as a teacher, and working for PAPT/QPAT, managed to change his teacher pension plan to the administrators’ plan. I do not recall this ever been on any union agenda, it must have been an oversight by a president!!! CARRA regulations have changed, preventing administrators from double–dipping, doesn’t QPAT and Lombard need to follow the CARRA rules too?

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Tags: Grade inflation, Quebec Provincial Association of Teachers (QPAT)

April 29, 2013

The Coming Revolution in Public Education

Why the current wave of reforms, with its heavy emphasis on standardized tests, may actually be harming students

By John Tierney | Published April 25 2013 by Salon.com

It’s always hard to tell for sure exactly when a revolution starts. Is it when a few discontented people gather in a room to discuss how the ruling regime might be opposed? Is it when first shots are fired? When a critical mass forms and the opposition acquires sufficient weight to have a chance of prevailing? I’m not an expert on revolutions, but even I can see that a new one is taking shape in American K-12 public education.

The dominant regime for the past decade or more has been what is sometimes called accountability-based reform or, by many of its critics, “corporate education reform.” The reforms consist of various initiatives aimed at (among other things): improving schools and educational outcomes by using standardized tests to measure what students are learning; holding schools and teachers accountable (through school closures and teachers’ pay) when their students are “lagging” on those standardized assessments; controlling classroom instruction and increasing the rigor of school curricula by pushing all states to adopt the same challenging standards via a “Common Core;” and using market-like competitive pressures (through the spread of charter schools and educational voucher programs) to provide public schools with incentives to improve.*

Critics of the contemporary reform regime argue that these initiatives, though seemingly sensible in their original framing, are motivated by interests other than educational improvement and are causing genuine harm to American students and public schools. Here are some of the criticisms: the reforms have self-interest and profit motives, not educational improvement, as their basis; corporate interests are reaping huge benefits from these reform initiatives and spending millions of dollars lobbying to keep those benefits flowing; three big foundations (Gates, Broad, and Walton Family) are funding much of the backing for the corporate reforms and are spending billions to market and sell reforms that don’t work; ancillary goals of these reforms are to bust teacher unions, disempower educators, and reduce spending on public schools; standardized testing is enormously expensive in terms both of public expenditures and the diversion of instruction time to test prep; over a third of charter schools deliver “significantly worse” results for students than the traditional public schools from which they were diverted; and, finally, that these reforms have produced few benefits and have actually caused harm, especially to kids in disadvantaged areas and communities of color. (On that last overall point, see this scathing new report from the Economic Policy Institute.)

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Tags: No Child Left Behind, Standardized testing

April 27, 2013

Political pressures are inflating students’ marks

By Robert Green

A slightly edited version of this Op-ed appeared in the April 25 edition of the Montreal Gazette

Should the grades students receive on their report cards be the product of the professional judgment of those trained in pedagogy and the evaluation of learning or the product of the public relations needs of schools, school boards and the education ministry (MELS)? While most Quebecers would surely prefer to leave the evaluation of learning to the trained professionals, the reality is that since the 2008 passing of Bill 88 report cards are increasingly subject to the corrupting influences of political interests.

This is because Bill 88 makes success rates for schools and school boards all important. The bill obliges both schools and school boards to sign contracts committing them to make measured improvements in specific areas, such as math or literacy scores. The problem for principals and school board administrators is that they are being asked to achieve these goals in a context of ongoing budget cuts. Those with ambition must find creative ways to meet their goals.

The inevitable result is pressure being put on teachers to inflate their marks, or even worse, marks being changed by administrators without the teacher’s consent. The Federation Autonome de L’Enseignment, one of Quebec’s large teacher federations has recently reported this to be a growing problem amongst its members.

Changing the marks given by teachers also happens at the ministry level with secondary four and five courses through two processes ‘moderation’ and ‘conversion’. Ostensibly ‘moderation’ is to address discrepancies between class marks and marks on standardized provincial exams while ‘conversion’ is to address problems with exams deemed to be unfair or invalid in some way. However, the end result is that these two processes grant MELS the ability to fix success rates wherever it wishes, irrespective of the professional judgment of teachers.

In both cases, the perception of the vast majority of teachers is that all this is about lowering standards to meet goals rather than addressing the fundamental problems having to do with under-funding and a provincial curriculum that has never had the support of teachers.

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Tags: Bill 88, Curriculum, Education funding, Grade inflation, Quebec

April 25, 2013

How One Group Held a ‘Play-In’ to Promote Appropriate Early Childhood Education

By Michelle Gunderson | Published by The Network for Public Education

Michelle Gunderson, Early Childhood Committee Chairperson of the Chicago Teachers Union explains how a group of parents, children, and educators held a ‘Play-In’ in the front hallway of the Board of Education of the Chicago Public Schools as a way of promoting appropriate curricula in the early grades. You can also read Michelle’s letter to Arne Duncan regarding the Play-In.

On April 17th parents, children, and educators gathered in the front hallway of the Board of Education of the Chicago Public Schools for a Play-In. Participants brought blankets to create play centers on the floor with legos, play dough, art projects, puzzles, games, music – and much laughter and a sense of joy. This painted the picture for our community of what an early childhood classroom should look like.

Our youngest children’s classrooms in Chicago have become increasingly focused on testing and developmentally inappropriate academic practice. Children need play. It is how they learn. It is how they thrive.

Our Play-In had a strong message – less tests, more play.

When taking action on any issue we need to analyze whether the action unites us, makes us stronger, and gives us power. We also need to design actions on a continuum so that people can find a comfort level in which they can enter a movement. Not everyone is willing to protest in the streets or get arrested the first time they enter a cause. Our Play-In helped build unity in which approximately 100 people participated, and was an action that everyone was comfortable entering. It is hard to make an informed argument against play. Our cause was just.

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Tags: Labour movement

April 20, 2013

The Causes And Consequences Of Grade Inflation

By Enrico Uva,

Grade inflation is common. It knows no borders, occurring in public and private schools, at the elementary level and in Ivy League universities. It is a serious problem, and yet I have rarely heard a frank and open discussion about the matter. Here’s an insider’s look at both the consequences and causes.

A- The Consequences Of Grade Inflation

1. Within elementary and high schools, grade inflation leads to improper placement of students. Kids who have so far displayed only mediocre ability end up in difficult science and mathematics classes. Eventually they get turned off and some develop long lasting hangups towards science, whereas if they had been placed in a more appropriate level, they would have stumbled less and learned more, and they still would have been able to eventually enroll in more rigorous courses.
read more »

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Tags: Grade inflation

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