DOE's M5 Blizzard

As Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein began their public relations offensive against the so-called "work rules" in the UFT contract this fall, the Department of Education bureaucracy issued a blizzard of rules and regulations on how New York City public school teachers should perform every detail of our jobs. From the coach who admonished a teacher - in front of her class - not to praise students, to the administrator who directed that the color ‘red’ could not be used on bulletin boards because it was "too aggressive," the guardians of educational conformity and compliance issued directive after directive. By the week before the Christmas vacation, a pile of these rulings was several times thicker than the contract. We at HS call it M5: A Morass of Mindless Micro-Managing Mandates.

From the very first micro-managing mandate, the UFT forcefully announced its intention to defend the professional integrity and autonomy of New York City public school teachers. "We believe that kids learn best when teachers and the mayor work together, when our input is solicited and when our expertise is valued. Sadly, it appears that this mayor has a very different vision - dictate, fiat, and top-down control," UFT President Randi Weingarten said. "This administration does not want a dialogue; it wants silence. But the voices of teachers will be heard."

In the high schools, the most outlandish micro-managing prescriptions came from regions where the superintendents and local instructional superintendents know next to nothing about high school pedagogy and curricula. They tried to cover their ignorance with rigid, one-size-fits-all-prescriptions based on elementary school models. A common high school mandate was that all subject area teachers use "only" the workshop model in all of their classes, despite a public avowal by Chancellor Klein that this form of lesson was mandated only for 9th grade ELA and math classes. Under the direct orders of a regional superintendent, even physical education teachers at one high school found them-selves directed to use this particular format "in every lesson on every day." In another region, LISes issued memos announcing that the workshop model of instruction was "mandatory" in all content areas.

Long checklists for supervisory observations and observation reports were issued, often insisting upon the application of elementary grade literacy instruction techniques for high school classes. At one high school, the observation checklist for science classes included a detailed breakdown of how to accord points to determine the teacher’s rating, right down to the number of points for teaching a workshop model mini-lesson of only 10 minutes. And what was missing? Oh, just the subject matter: science.

Out of an inability to engage in a professional discussion on the substance of teaching and learning, the denizens of Tweed and the regional offices have become obsessed with the material artifacts of education, such as classroom bulletin boards and the organization of classroom furniture. One AP Science issued a memorandum to his department which declared that the seating arrangement of every science class must be a ‘U’ shape. "This seating arrangement is not negotiable," he concluded, "and non-compliance to this practice will be subject to disciplinary action."

The term "non-negotiable" appears often throughout these various directives. It is Tweed-speak for "I don’t have the slightest educational justification for what I just ordered you to do, so I refuse to discuss it." A page-long list of "instructional non-negotiables" circulated by one region included such items as an "uninformed (sic) curriculum."

Nowhere in this blizzard of mandates is there any hint that it is the skill, the expertise and the experience of the teacher that makes the most significant difference in a young person’s education, or any clue that meaningful professional exchanges between a teacher and a supervisor would take the form of educational conversations and dialogue about teaching and learning in the classroom. Such conversations and dialogue would require that both parties have a command of the professional knowledge of teaching high school students and subject matter, and this command is clearly lacking on the superintendent’s side in all-too-many cases. This observation has led us to formulate the HS Iron Law of Micro-Management: the less the supervisor knows about teaching high school students and subject matter, the greater the micro-managing mandates and the imposition of one-size-fits-all prescriptions.

UFT Vice President for Academic High Schools Frank Volpicella says that it is essential, for the professional dignity and integrity of high school teaching, that UFT school chapters continually raise the issue of micro-management that obstructs sound education. "Raise the issue at every monthly consultation meeting with your principal, demand meetings with the LIS and the superintendent, file for professional conciliation [Article 24 of the collective bargaining agreement], grieve violations of Article 8E which mandate a particular lesson plan format. Be creative in finding ways to publicize the negative effects of micro-management. Until it stops, our message must be: Let teachers teach, and let students learn."


Frank Volpicella, Vice President Academic High Schools	Winter 2004
back to HS home	DOE’s M5 Blizzard: A Morass of Mindless Micro-Managing Mandates

	As Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein began their public relations offensive against the so-called "work rules" in the UFT contract this fall, the Department of Education bureaucracy issued a blizzard of rules and regulations on how New York City public school teachers should perform every detail of our jobs. From the coach who admonished a teacher - in front of her class - not to praise students, to the administrator who directed that the color ‘red’ could not be used on bulletin boards because it was "too aggressive," the guardians of educational conformity and compliance issued directive after directive. By the week before the Christmas vacation, a pile of these rulings was several times thicker than the contract. We at HS call it M5: A Morass of Mindless Micro-Managing Mandates. From the very first micro-managing mandate, the UFT forcefully announced its intention to defend the professional integrity and autonomy of New York City public school teachers. "We believe that kids learn best when teachers and the mayor work together, when our input is solicited and when our expertise is valued. Sadly, it appears that this mayor has a very different vision - dictate, fiat, and top-down control," UFT President Randi Weingarten said. "This administration does not want a dialogue; it wants silence. But the voices of teachers will be heard." In the high schools, the most outlandish micro-managing prescriptions came from regions where the superintendents and local instructional superintendents know next to nothing about high school pedagogy and curricula. They tried to cover their ignorance with rigid, one-size-fits-all-prescriptions based on elementary school models. A common high school mandate was that all subject area teachers use "only" the workshop model in all of their classes, despite a public avowal by Chancellor Klein that this form of lesson was mandated only for 9th grade ELA and math classes. Under the direct orders of a regional superintendent, even physical education teachers at one high school found them-selves directed to use this particular format "in every lesson on every day." In another region, LISes issued memos announcing that the workshop model of instruction was "mandatory" in all content areas. Long checklists for supervisory observations and observation reports were issued, often insisting upon the application of elementary grade literacy instruction techniques for high school classes. At one high school, the observation checklist for science classes included a detailed breakdown of how to accord points to determine the teacher’s rating, right down to the number of points for teaching a workshop model mini-lesson of only 10 minutes. And what was missing? Oh, just the subject matter: science. Out of an inability to engage in a professional discussion on the substance of teaching and learning, the denizens of Tweed and the regional offices have become obsessed with the material artifacts of education, such as classroom bulletin boards and the organization of classroom furniture. One AP Science issued a memorandum to his department which declared that the seating arrangement of every science class must be a ‘U’ shape. "This seating arrangement is not negotiable," he concluded, "and non-compliance to this practice will be subject to disciplinary action." The term "non-negotiable" appears often throughout these various directives. It is Tweed-speak for "I don’t have the slightest educational justification for what I just ordered you to do, so I refuse to discuss it." A page-long list of "instructional non-negotiables" circulated by one region included such items as an "uninformed (sic) curriculum." Nowhere in this blizzard of mandates is there any hint that it is the skill, the expertise and the experience of the teacher that makes the most significant difference in a young person’s education, or any clue that meaningful professional exchanges between a teacher and a supervisor would take the form of educational conversations and dialogue about teaching and learning in the classroom. Such conversations and dialogue would require that both parties have a command of the professional knowledge of teaching high school students and subject matter, and this command is clearly lacking on the superintendent’s side in all-too-many cases. This observation has led us to formulate the HS Iron Law of Micro-Management: the less the supervisor knows about teaching high school students and subject matter, the greater the micro-managing mandates and the imposition of one-size-fits-all prescriptions. UFT Vice President for Academic High Schools Frank Volpicella says that it is essential, for the professional dignity and integrity of high school teaching, that UFT school chapters continually raise the issue of micro-management that obstructs sound education. "Raise the issue at every monthly consultation meeting with your principal, demand meetings with the LIS and the superintendent, file for professional conciliation [Article 24 of the collective bargaining agreement], grieve violations of Article 8E which mandate a particular lesson plan format. Be creative in finding ways to publicize the negative effects of micro-management. Until it stops, our message must be: Let teachers teach, and let students learn."