Education Week - May 14, 2014 - 11

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N.Y. Teachers' Union Pickets
Advocacy-Group Meeting
| TEACHER BEAT | American Federation of Teachers President Randi
Weingarten joined officials from the New York State United Teachers
this month to protest a retreat hosted by Education Reform Now,
an advocacy group supporting charter schools, tougher teacher
evaluations, and the Common Core State Standards.
Ern is the nonprofit, 501(c)3 and (c)4 wing of Democrats for
Education Reform, a political action committee that seeks to elect
politicians receptive to its ideas.
Nysut is painting the meeting, which ran through May 6, as
another example of hedge-fund folks and millionaires trying to profit
from public schools.
Forget the photo-ops and megaphone speeches occasioned by this
protest: This is yet another reflection of the rapid proliferation of
new centers of power in education policymaking-one that has been
increasingly in conflict with teachers' unions. The collision of these
forces has dominated headlines and policy debates for the last four
years and seems likely to continue.
Nysut, interestingly enough, has been dealing with some internal
squabbling over these issues. A recently executed (and rare) overthrow
of its president, Richard Iannuzzi, was partly caught up in power
dynamics with other New York unions over how much support to lend
to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, and how forcefully to push back on
so-called education reform priorities.
Pop-Tart Guns Now Permitted
In Fla. Schools, But No Real Guns
| RULES FOR ENGAGEMENT | Florida lawmakers finished the 2014
legislative session after approving a law that bans schools from
punishing students for chewing Pop-Tarts into imaginary guns, and
after failing to pass another bill that would have allowed some trained
and screened employees to carry guns in schools.
The so-called "Pop-Tart bill" actually covers a broader range of
actions that may have been previously banned under some school zerotolerance
policies.
Actions that are now allowed include "brandishing a partially
consumed pastry or other food item to simulate a firearm or weapon"
and "using a finger or hand to simulate a firearm or weapon." If the
legislation sounds kind of silly to you, that's because it should, said
some Florida lawmakers, who said overzealous school leaders were
disciplining students for such offenses.
Pop-Tarts have actually played a pretty prominent role in the
rollback of zero-tolerance policies around the country. Frequently cited
in support of Maryland's new state school discipline policy is a two-day
suspension issued to an 8-year-old Anne Arundel County boy last
year after he chewed a pastry into the shape of a gun at school. A local
Republican group later gifted the boy with a lifetime membership to
the National Rifle Association.
A bill that would have allowed some people to carry real guns in
schools passed in the Florida House but failed in the Senate.
Amid Outcry, Cable Channel Cancels
'Bad Teachers' Documentary Series
| EDUCATION AND THE MEDIA | One of the Discovery cable TV channels
has canceled "Bad Teachers," a documentary series highlighting
educators who had illicit sexual relationships with their students, after
just one episode aired.
The cancellation was welcomed by the national teachers' unions and
may have come about in part from pressure from teachers.
"Bad Teachers" was meant to be only a three-episode series featuring
real-life teachers involved in sex crimes, running on the Investigation
Discovery channel.
The episode of "Bad Teachers" that aired April 22 was titled
"Teacher's Pet." It featured an Alabama high school teacher who
underwent gastric-bypass surgery and "experienced a renewed selfconfidence,"
according to a press release. "Not long after the procedure,
she seduced a 17-year-old student, and they soon engaged in a
dangerous and illicit sexual affair," it says.
After the first episode aired, complaints from teachers rolled in on
Twitter and elsewhere.
"Just cancelled both my .@Discovery and .@DiscoveryID channels! I
am beyond disgusted w/ #badteachers program!" said one tweet.
"Stop bashing teachers, 99.99% are good!" said another.
But it seems apparent that executives of Discovery Communications Inc.
also heard from the company's own education unit, Discovery Education,
which provides curricular materials to schools based on the cable
company's many lines of programming. A week after the episode aired, the
company announced that "Bad Teachers" was being canceled. -MARK WALSH
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT AT HARVARD
Improving Schools:
The Art of
Leadership
JUNE 22-28
Leading 21st
Century High
Schools
JUNE 23-27
National Institute
for Urban School
Leaders
JULY 14-19
-STEPHEN SAWCHUK
Professional development awaits you.
mrofs
-EVIE BLAD
For a complete list of 2014 programs, visit
www.gse.harvard.edu/ppe/transform
EDUCATION WEEK | May 14, 2014 | www.edweek.org | 11
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Education Week - May 14, 2014

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