New York City Eye

The 02/04/12 State of the Union Conference & the Stakes for the Future of the UFT

2012-01-31T05:20:00.000-05:00

Teachers are under attack, as never before.
(Scroll to bottom for subway restrictions this Saturday, February 4)
And with the UFT's lethargy and passivity in the face of the attacks, it is on a suicide mission. Lawsuits are insufficient responses to the onslaught. Without intensive education and mobilization of the membership the assaults will succeed in destroying the profession and teachers' unions.We must resist together.So, let's follow the observations at Ed Notes Online. It couldn't be put better:
Public education is under attack!Stand up fight back!

The UFT leadership under Michael Mulgrew supports mayoral control, charter schools and a deal on evaluating teachers based on faulty value-added test scores. And recently, Unity Caucus pushed through a constitutional amendment that will result in an even further reduction of the voice of the classroom teacher in the union.Do you agree?

FEB. 4- STATE OF THE UNION: TIME TO FIGHT BACK
Register at: http://stateoftheunionconference-estw.eventbrite.com/Saturday, February 4th, 201210:00 am to 4:00 pmat The Graduate Center for Worker Education25 Broadway, 7th Floor, the historic Cunard Line Building, SW corner of Morris Street and Broadway, between Rector Street and Bowling Green.New York, NY 10004

By Public Transportation: Take 4, 5 to Bowling Green and cross the street. Other stations in walking distance include the: R [northbound] to Rector Street; 1 to Rector Street; A, C to Fulton Street/Broadway Nassau station to the 4 or 5 train. We are near the Fulton Street Transit Center, in addition to several local and express bus routes, the Staten Island Ferry and PATH train service to New Jersey.

Directions: http://workereducation.org/contact-usFind us on Facebook: State of the Union$10.00 pre-registration$15.00 at the door
Scholarships available upon request.
E-Mail - stateoftheunionfeb4@gmail.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObZ3rdO-T3Ihttp://stateoftheunionconference.eventbrite.com

Are You Concerned With the State of Our Teachers’ Union? “I still support the idea of Mayoral Control. I still believe it is a better system.” – UFT President, Michael Mulgrew, January 19th, 2012 Do you disagree?

“The UFT should never have partnered with DOE and state for RTTT. It was obvious that test scores would become a major factor, despite absence of any support from testing experts and consensus that value added is not ready for prime time. The UFT thought it had negotiated 20%, but even 20% is wrong because there is no scientific basis for 2%, 20%, 40%, or 90%. It's all political, not professional.” –Dr. Diane Ravitch, January 25th, 2012 Do you agree?

“The United Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit on May 18, 2011, seeking to prevent charter school co-location in public school buildings. But UFT President Michael Mulgrew sits on the board of the very organization — New Visions for Public Schools — responsible for opening two charter schools on the Kennedy campus.” –Nikki Dowling, Riverdale Press, January 11th, 2010 Does this disappoint you?

During the delegate assembly on January 18th, 2012, with virtually no democratic discussion among delegates, nor time to bring it back to members, the UFT leadership pushed through an amendment to the UFT Constitution to add to the voting power of the retirees in UFT elections. Did you know about this important change to our union's governance rules? Prior to this amendment, the retiree vote was capped to weigh in at 18,000 votes no matter how many retirees voted. The amendment raises that cap by 30% to 23,500. That number is not that far off from the number of active teachers who actually vote in union wide elections, so retirees basically now control the union. Active rank and file groups have no legal recourse to access retirees during election time (no emails, addresses phone numbers etc) ending any chance of democratic governance in our union by active teachers. Not surprising when President Mulgrew and the UFT leadership still believe in Mayoral Control, even though the majority of parents, young people and educators believe it has been a failed experiment. “If teachers unions are to continue to exist as a meaningful form of workers’ representation, members need to transform them — and fast.” –Lois Weiner, January, 2012

Join rank and file union members and their parent and community allies at The State of the UNION Conference.
Come meet other UFT members who want a new kind of union, while learning about the history and functioning of the UFT in workshops facilitated by rank and file members, union delegates and education activists.

Saturday, February 4th, 2012 10:00 am to 4:00 pm at The Graduate Center for Worker Education 25 Broadway, 7th Floor, SW corner of Morris Street and Broadway, between Rector Street and Bowling Green. New York, NY 10004

By Public Transportation: Take 4, 5 to Bowling Green and cross the street. Other stations in walking distance include the : R, W to Rector Street; J, M, Z to Broad Street; 1 to Rector Street; A, C to Fulton Street/Broadway Nassau station to the 4 or 5 train. We are near the Fulton Street Transit Center, in addition to several local and express bus routes, the Staten Island Ferry and PATH train service to New Jersey.
Directions: http://workereducation.org/contact-us Find us on Facebook: State of the Union $10.00 pre-registration $15.00 at the door Scholarships available upon request. E-Mail - stateoftheunionfeb4@gmail.com
Public education is under attack! Stand up, fight back! As educators we are strongest when our voices are united. That is what a UNION is for. The UNION makes us strong.
For far too long the leadership of our union, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), along with the national American Federation of Teachers (AFT), have been silent, thrown up minimal defenses too little too late, and have even collaborated in the assault on our profession, our students and their families.
It is time to re-imagine our teachers’ union. Imagine. . .
A union with true democracy.
A union where members’ concerns, ideas and opinions form the union identity.
A union that works to educate, organize and mobilize its members in support of public education, our careers as professionals, and our students, their families and communities.
A union that works to end mayoral control and other racist policies that have removed the voice of educators and parents from decision making.
A union that works with individual schools to recruit and train chapter leaders and delegates who share this vision.
A union that supports Chapter Leaders in struggles with administrations and in their work to educate and organize members.

Workshops include:
UFT 101: Introduction to the UFT
What can you do if your principal does not follow the contract.
Organizing 101: parents and teachers working together--a vision for a community oriented teacher union
The UFT past and present
What is social justice unionism?
What happened to Brown vs. Board of Education: resegregation of our schools
The disappearing Black and Latino Teacher and the deprofessionalization of Teaching
What's the 1% want with our schools? (Privatization 101)
Mayoral Control vs. A People's Board of Education
Building your chapter: how do you organize at the school level?
Federal, State and local policy and our schools
What does democracy in our union look like?
Strategy and tactics: after Occupy Wall Street, what’s next for our movement?
Teacher evaluations and transformation schools
Hope to see you there!

SUBWAY RESTRICTIONS, SATURDAY, DUE TO CONSTRUCTION:
Access points to 25 Broadway:
R, northbound (Brooklyn to Manhattan), exit at Rector Street, rear exit from platform, exiting to Morris Street and Rector Street, walk one block east to Broadway
4, 5 to Bowling Green. However, the 5 is running with 20 minutes between trains
1 to Rector Street
J does not run south of Chambers Street on weekends. Change there to take the 4 or the 5 to Bowling Green.

Updated: The Friday Afternoon Massacre, Bullying Bosses, Slow-Killing Stress and Teachers (Especially Those in New York)

2012-01-15T10:40:00.008-05:00

UPDATE: A partial account of the hit-list of the 33 schools to shut-down appears at the bottom of this post. I welcome leads as to the full list.
Friday Afternoon Bronx Massacre: At his Friday the 13th of January speech at the educational complex of the defunct Morris High school, the Bronx, Mayor Michael Bloomberg plans to ATR-ize half the teachers at some 33 turnaround high schools in Fall, 2012. Here is the list in Gotham Schools, from last fall.
The list of the 33 high schools, in all the boroughs except Staten Island, and concentrated in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan; report grades range from C to F.

News items such as this point to the stresses of being a teacher in the current era.
Thanks to democraticunderground.com for this tip from MSNBC
"Your bullying boss may be slowly killing you: 41 percent of American workers having been psychologically harassed at work," Stephanie Pappas, January 12, 2012
An excerpt from the opening:

If you spend your workday avoiding an abusive boss, tiptoeing around co-workers who talk behind your back, or eating lunch alone because you've been ostracized from your cubicle mates, you may be the victim of workplace bullying. New research suggests that you're not alone, especially if you're struggling to cope.

Employees with abusive bosses often deal with the situation in ways that inadvertently make them feel worse, according to a new study published in the International Journal of Stress Management. That's bad news, as research suggests that workplace abuse is linked to stress — and stress is linked to a laundry list of mental and physical ailments, including higher body weight and heart disease.

In at least one extreme case, workplace bullying has even been linked to suicide, much as schoolyard bullying has been linked to a rash of suicides among young people.

Bullying is "a form of abuse which carries tremendous health harm," said Gary Namie, a social psychologist who directs the Workplace Bullying Institute. "That's how you distinguish it from tough management or any of the other cutesy ways people use to diminish it." . . . .
The stress of the bullying may itself lead to bad decision-making, Namie said. A 2009 study in the journal Science found that stressed-out rats fail to adapt to changes in their environment. A portion of the stressed rats' brains, the dorsomedial striatum, actually shrunk compared with that region in relaxed rats. The findings suggest that stress may actually re-wire the brain, creating a decision-making rut. The same may occur in bullied workers, Namie said.

"This is why a person can't make quality decisions," he said. "They can't even consider alternatives. Just like a battered spouse, they don't even perceive alternatives to their situations when they're stressed and depressed and under attack." . . .

Hierarchical organization --sound familiar-- can contribute to the bullying problem

Hierarchical organizations such as the military tend to have higher rates of bullying, Herschcovis said, as do places where the environment is highly competitive.

"Definitely the organizational context contributes," Herschcovis said.

The personality of the bully is often key, with some research suggesting that childhood bullies become bullies as adults, she said. Targets of bullying are often socially anxious, have low self-esteem, or have personality traits such as narcissism, Herschcovis said. "We don't want to blame the victim, but we recognize this more and more as a relationship" between the bully and the target, she said.

Little research has been done on how to deal with abusive bosses or bullying co-workers. In mild cases, where a boss may not realize how their behavior is coming across, direct confrontation might work, Yagil said. One research-based program that seems to have potential is called the Civility, Respect and Engagement at Work project, Herschcovis said. That program has been shown to improve workplace civility, reduce cynicism and improve job satisfaction and trust among employees, she said. The program has employees discuss rudeness and incivility in their workplace and make plans to improve. [ 8 Tactics to Bust the Office Bully ]

For workers experiencing bullying, Herschcovis recommended reporting specific behavior to higher-ups, as well as examining one's own behavior. Sometimes victims inadvertently contribute to the bullying relationship, she said. Namie cautioned that victims should proceed with care, however, as there are no anti-bullying workplace laws on the books in the U.S.

"HR [human resources] has no power or clout to make senior management stop," Namie said. "Without the laws, they're not mandated to make policies, and without the mandate, they don’t know what to do."

Since 2003, 21 states have introduced some version of anti-bullying bills, but none have yet passed. Twelve states have legislation pending in 2012, according to healthyworkplacebill.org.

And see this undated Scholastic.com piece which carries special attention to the particular challenges of teaching in schools in the New York City Department of Education:
"The New School Bullies: It’s not just kids who are pushing each other around. Adults who act like bullies can poison the entire school culture."

“I have witnessed administrators publicly humiliating both older teachers and new ones. The teachers that the administration didn’t like would be made to feel so uncomfortable that even if they had tenure they would want to leave of their own accord,” reports a tenured former teacher who started out as a NYC Teaching Fellow and taught K–6 in a rough-and-tumble school in the South Bronx. (Like several sources in this story, he chose to remain anonymous.)

The following is the clincher of how the DOE via the principal can sink a targeted teacher; will the UFT call the city out on this bias against a teacher? Proponents of merit pay must consider the the gaping holes providing opportunities for administrator bias in setting up a teacher with the weaker students. The teacher evaluation algorithms should, but they probably do not consider whether students have tardiness patterns, poor attendance, a tendency to use the bathroom pass and hang out in the hallway, whether the students refuse to stop talking, whether the administration fails to take away distracting personal electronics. The algorithms might have consideration of the students literacy and numeracy skills. Will the UFT note these factors in the coming tsunami of negative evaluations to weed out the teachers to become ATRs at the 33 schools?

“The best method of achieving this would be to stack all the poorly behaved children together and place them in those teachers’ classes. This also created a lot of jealousy among teachers, producing a very negative atmosphere, which in turn ended up hurting the children.”

Some schools are, simply, pressure cookers. Students come in with a multitude of issues—language barriers, malnutrition, learning disabilities, lack of educational support at home—and principals and teachers are overwhelmed. It’s no excuse for bullying, but it explains why abuse can happen more often here. . . .
The Trickle-Down Effect
In New York City’s smaller, reconstituted schools, the ranks are filled with eager, young Teaching Fellows or Teach For America members, says a former teacher turned staff developer who works with principals and teachers on classroom management and effective leadership. The principals have been rigorously selected, she says, but “it’s extremely challenging to open a new school, especially one that serves so many children at risk. Most principals have tremendous demands made upon them and not nearly enough support staff or resources. Successful new principals typically work 12-hour days, or even longer, or they start to drown.”

The mad push to find a fix means stress at all levels, the staff developer notes. “There’s a real trickle-down effect. One school in Brooklyn I work with is under tremendous stress. The principal may be removed. She explodes, and teachers feel belittled; they have a sense of unease, a constant feeling that their jobs are on the line. And the superintendent has been bullying [the principal], is on her to improve.”

“These schools are struggling to raise achievement, and everyone feels this crazy pressure,” she continues. “Schools don’t have a lot of time to prove themselves. When I was teaching, I was considered a model teacher, even though my test scores were not great. The tone was very different, that you couldn’t transform kids’ scores overnight. There’s been a huge shift, and you would expect to see a lot more bullying.”

Dave Staiger, a social studies teacher at Phoenix High School in Kalamazoo, Michigan, can attest to this. At a school where he taught previously, “I had an assistant principal who tried to pressure us to cheat on administering a standardized test. The teachers involved were all close and united, and they stood up to her and stopped it. So, like a union, that unity among staff can prevent bullying.”

This begs a question about Katy Independent School District: Is the district reluctant to remove the principal because she is, indeed, improving scores? District spokesman Steve Stanford defended the principal’s actions at Golbow Elementary, telling Houston Chronicle reporter Helen Eriksen in April that “although there has been turnover … there is no evidence that it is having a negative impact on student learning. To the contrary, there is evidence student learning is improving.”

That may be—though critics point to the extra resources this principal has been given—but at what cost? Golbow parent Alana MousaviDin wrote to the Chronicle: “What used to be a fun, loving, and exciting place for our children has since become a disgrace. The atmosphere has become somber, the employees work robotically.... Teachers who are dearly loved, needed, and appreciated are disappearing, and while new teachers are coming in, they are not allowed to teach with the panache and innovation that they are fully capable of. Our children are suffering.”

This begs another set of questions: How often do teachers feel united enough and secure enough to stand up and refuse an administrator? And what do they do when they’ve already stood up, and then been shut down?

Both Sides of the Union Coin
Partly, it depends on where you are. In states with strong teachers unions and a precedent for transparency, you stand a better chance of being heard and supported. But the union brand is no silver bullet. “The union hardly did much,” says the former South Bronx teacher, “but they made you feel like they could.”

Staiger agrees: “Unions and tenure give teachers some but not complete protection from being mistreated by administrators.”

The union did step up—eventually—when special education teacher Kimani Brown was placed in one of New York City’s “rubber rooms” (where disciplined teachers go to await a verdict) after questioning whether his principal, Marian Bowden, at Brooklyn’s MS 393 was following the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and providing adequate services for special-needs students. The United Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit on Brown’s behalf in 2008 and the principal resigned—but not until Brown had languished in a rubber room for a year and a half.

Randi Weingarten, then president of the UFT, said, “This is a clear case of a principal retaliating against an educator who had the nerve to stand up for his students. This principal needs to understand her role should be that of a leader, not a bully or tyrant.”

For school reformers, there is the other side of the union coin. The very protections that unions have in place for teachers can hamstring innovation and make change difficult if not impossible. Surprisingly, they can also create a different sort of bullying.

“At a small Manhattan school where I was working, the principal was perceived as very weak, and a group of teachers got together and tried to bully him,” says the NYC staff developer. “The principal was attempting to change the schedule to make room for a more flexible working environment and professional development. One teacher who didn’t agree with the bullying went against those touting union rules, and they ostracized her.”

“Part of the way to achieve results with new, smaller schools is to extend the school day slightly, ask more of teachers,” she adds. “Some teachers don’t object because there’s an unwritten understanding you’re making a commitment to go above and beyond to make the school work.”

PARTIAL LIST OF THE 33 TURNAROUND MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOLS. Special thanks to astorians.com for posting this. The Times has not posted the turnaround hitlist; the DOE has this scrupulously hidden.
The following is the original turnaround list from 2011. I welcome leads on the remaining schools to bring this number to 33.
02M460 WASHINGTON IRVING HIGH SCHOOL
02M500 UNITY CENTER FOR URBAN TECHNOLOGIES
02M615 CHELSEA CAREER AND TECH ED HS
05M685 BREAD & ROSES INTEGRATED ARTS HIGH SCHOOL
08X405 HERBERT H LEHMAN HIGH SCHOOL
08X530 BANANA KELLY HIGH SCHOOL
09X022 JHS 22 JORDAN L MOTT
09X339 IS 339
09X412 BRONX HIGH SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
10X080 JHS 80 MOSHOLU PARKWAY
10X391 MS 391
10X660 GRACE H DODGE CAREER AND TECH HS
14K126 JOHN ERICSSON MIDDLE SCHOOL 126
14K610 AUTOMOTIVE HIGH SCHOOL
15K136 IS 136 CHARLES O DEWEY
15K429 SCHOOL FOR GLOBAL STUDIES
15K519 COBBLE HILL SCHOOL OF AMERICAN STUDIES
16K455 BOYS & GIRLS HIGH SCHOOL
19K166 JHS 166 GEORGE GERSHWIN
20K505 FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT HIGH SCHOOL
21K540 JOHN DEWEY HIGH SCHOOL
21K620 WILLIAM E GRADY VOCATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
22K495 SHEEPSHEAD BAY HIGH SCHOOL
32K564 BUSHWICK COMM HIGH SCHOOL
24Q455 NEWTOWN HIGH SCHOOL
24Q485 GROVER CLEVELAND HIGH SCHOOL
24Q600 QUEENS VOCATIONAL & TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL
25Q460 FLUSHING HIGH SCHOOL
27Q400 AUGUST MARTIN HIGH SCHOOL
27Q475 RICHMOND HILL HIGH SCHOOL
27Q480 JOHN ADAMS HIGH SCHOOL
30Q445 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT HIGH SCHOOL
30Q450 LONG ISLAND CITY HIGH SCHOOL
Source: "Author Topic: Two of Astorias High Schools are designated to be "transformed" or "restarted"
http://www.astorians.com/community/index.php?topic=21435.0
Another inventory, courtesy Leonie Haimson:
Breaking this down further, there are 13 schools proposed for conversion from Transformation to Turnaround.
Bronx:Banana Kelly High SchoolHerbert H. Lehman High SchoolJ.H.S. 22 Jordan L. MottM.S. 391 Angelo Patri Middle SchoolBrooklyn:Cobble Hill School of American StudiesFranklin D. Roosevelt High SchoolJohn Ericsson Middle School 126School for Global StudiesWilliam E. Grady Vocational High SchoolQueens:Flushing High SchoolLong Island City High SchoolWilliam Cullen Bryant High SchoolFourteen Restart model schools would convert to the Turnaround model. Those schools would continue relationships with their education partnership organizations (E.P.O.); the partnerships are formed to provide help to schoo l administrators to improve academic performance. The 14 schools are:Bronx:Bronx High School of BusinessJ.H.S. 80 Mosholu Parkway
Brooklyn:Automotive High SchoolBushwick Community High SchoolI.S. 136 Charles O. DeweyJ.H.S. 166 George GershwinJohn Dewey High SchoolSheepshead Bay High School
Manhattan:Bread and Roses Integrated Arts High School
Queens:August Martin High SchoolGrover Cleveland High SchoolJohn Adams High SchoolNewtown High SchoolRichmond Hill High School
That’s only 27 low-performing schools. How did the city get to 33? It added six more persistently low-achieving schools to the Turnaround model:
Bronx:Alfred E. Smith Career and Technical High SchoolFordham Leadership AcademyJ.H.S. 142 John Philip Sousa
Brooklyn:W. H. Maxwell Career and Technical High School
Manhattan:Harlem Renaissance High SchoolHigh School of Graphic Communication Arts
Two schools, Washington Irving High School in Manhattan and Grace Dodge Career and Technical High School in the Bronx, were taken off the improvement list earlier this school year and put on the list to be outright closed.
And these four struggling schools will continue with the Transformation model because the city says they show signs of progress:
Brooklyn:Boys and Girls High School
Manhattan:Chelsea Career and Technical Education High SchoolUnity Center for Urban Technologies
Queens:Queens Vocational and Technical High School
Lastly, four charter schools — three of them in the same network — have had their charters revoked or not renewed, and will close. The charters are:Peninsula Preparatory Academy Charter School in Rockaway, QueensWilliamsburg Charter High School in BrooklynBelieve Northside Charter High School in Greenpoint, BrooklynBelieve Southside Charter School in Greenpoint, Brooklyn
The Williamsburg and two Greenpoint charters are all in the Believe network overseen by the same group of people, and the city and state’s actions means that charter network has been shut down.
Have questions about the breakdown or the process? Ask and we will try to get answers.
Elbert Chu is a student at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and a SchoolBook intern. Follow him on Twitter @elbertchu.

Why is the DOE Eager for Classroom Photos of Our School-children?

2012-01-14T11:25:00.007-05:00

Just what is the New York City Department of Education doing soliciting photographing rights of students?
In the days before Bloomberg Education Inc., the Board of Education days, children were only occasionally used as backdrops by politicians. But now, one might argue that the NYC DOE is pimping the schoolkids to be used for a continuing stream of children promo pieces trumpeting the glory of the work of "the education mayor."
The children's images are being used on the DOE's website. To what purpose do the images serve? Of course, to manipulate emotions to make people feel support for mayor Michael Bloomberg's destructive policies.
The above photo permission release form has been issued in schools this year. But why the sudden urgency to ramp up the number of photos of kids at school? The mayor's approval rating in the education area has sunk to a low of 34 percent, lower than his overall rating of 45 percent: See the September 6, 2011 New York Times story, "New Yorkers Say Mayor Has Not Improved Schools."
And additional bad press for the mayor's standing and legacy has been the recent news that the middle class students have stagnated or fallen: See last week in the New York Daily News, January 8, 2012, "No improvement in test scores for middle-income kids during Bloomberg years: Sharp decline in 8th-grade reading results compared to other cities; math scores stagnate."
Parents should refuse to cooperate with the promotion transmission belt for mayor Bloomberg's self-promotion.
(Here is the Spanish version of the parent's release form.)

Stressful Teaching Climate Driving Away Teacher Applicants

2012-01-07T10:01:00.009-05:00

No surprise:

The news is replete with stories of worsening stresses on teachers and intimidating working conditions: for example, the increasing focus on teaching as test prep, and reading through the lines that standardized test cheating scandals could reflect wide patterns of administrators' creating conditions that foster cheating out of desperation. From Atlanta came a story that a teacher had to crawl under a table at a faculty meeting because her test scores were low: " . . . at Fain Elementary School, the principal forced a teacher to crawl under a table in a faculty meeting because that teacher’s students’ test scores were low."
Add the media trend of teacher-blaming, and more college students will recognize that teaching is a low-status profession, whose instability does not make it a reliable career path.
(Thanks to Chaz for the above cartoon.)

So no surprise that we see these stories:
From Murfreesboro [Tennessee] Post, January 3, 2012: "Teacher evaluation system to be evaluated"

The evaluations are adding to teachers' already high stress level, [George] Fitzhugh [a member of the Tennessee House Education Committee] said, causing early retirement of some valued educators and possibly even turning away potential excellent teachers.

"I know from talking to administrators at colleges that they've had sort of a dip in their enrollment," he said. "One particular president indicated to me that he thought it had to do with some of those folks who wanted to go into the education field and were having second thoughts."

From the Los Angeles Times, April 3, 2011:

National University, a nonprofit, multi-campus school that offers mainly online credential classes, reports that enrollment in its teacher training courses has dropped about 30% since 2006. The school's monthlong class terms make it vulnerable to headlines; education dean Carl Beyer said he noticed a small uptick in enrollment in the fall, followed by a decline as word spread of state budget cutbacks.

End of 2011 health & NYC schools reflections: exercise & PCBs

2011-12-30T11:03:00.012-05:00

Important notes for the end of the year:

1) The New York City Department of Education is still shamefully neglecting proper physical education / exercise with its students.
Note what the state law requires and contrast this with the reality. A small minority of students are getting the exercise that they need.
Back in October Comptroller John Liu (the excellent one that --convenient for Mayor Michael Bloomberg-- was thoroughly assailed in the press, particularly "The New York Post").
Here is how the New York Times "Schoolbook" story ("Does your school meet the state's requirements for physical education?") opened:

An audit by Comptroller John C. Liu found that many New York City schools do not provide physical education classes, or do not provide them as often as they should, despite alarming obesity rates among school-aged children and a state requirement that all students get some level of structured exercise every week.

The state requires that physical education classes be held every day for kindergarten to 3rd grade, for at least 120 minutes a week; three times a week for grades 4 to 6, also for a minimum of 120 minutes; and at least 90 minutes a week for grades 7 and 8.

The Times piece includes numerous comments. Noteworthy is the one that says that charter schools are big culprits in denying proper exercise. We should also note that a similar problem arises when schools share or co-locate with other ones. The competition between schools for gym access means that students lose out from proper gym time.

[Truthfully, New York City schools have done a poor job of attending to children's health for quite some time. See this June 2003 report by then Assembly member Scott Stringer (now Manhattan Borough President), "FAILING GRADE: HEALTH EDUCATION IN NYC SCHOOLS: An Analysis of K-8 Health Education in New York City's Public School System."]

* * *
2) Circulating these days is a Christine Quinn (City Council speaker) letter announcing legislation to address the PCB [Polychlorinated biphenyl] problem in public schools.
While it is admirable to fight this scourge that harms the health of students, teachers and other staff, it is gallingly disingenuous that Speaker Quinn is addressing this issue now. For this matter has been in the news at least two years now, with neighborhood media (newspapers) taking the lead on this issue, and the United Federation of Teachers' (UFT) taking a too-quiet campaign on this issue.

--Disingenuous because Quinn has stood 100% loyal to Bloomberg for 10 years, amidst moments such as his minimizing the danger of PCBs in schools: as in this Feb. 25, '11 NY1 story, "Mayor: School PCBs Pose No Imminent Health Threat", as referenced by Perdido Street on Feburary 26.

Bloomberg added the city's former health commissioner, Tom Frieden, says a lunchroom staple [a tuna fish sandwich] is more toxic than the schools' lights.

Note this sad December 29, 2011 NY Daily News story from a toxic Bronx school:
"Teacher from toxic Bronx school to sue after losing her baby to birth defect
Nancy Tomassi's school, PS 51, was laden with carcinogen trichloroethylene"

* * *
--By the way, our "progressive" mayor-to-be (Quinn) has stalled up New York City's Living Wage bill: "Labor Gives Quinn Cover as De Blasio Tries to Make an Issue of Her Living-Wage Delay," as reported by Dana Rubinstein in Capital New York, December 19, 2011.
The 12/19 Capital New York story reports that the New York City Council has passed two bills on PCB testing in city schools.
(See also Rubinstein's November 23, 2011 CNY story, "Perched Between Her Members and Her Patrons, Quinn Edits the 'Living-Wage' Bill in Public".)

1/12/12 New Bronx Chap: Coalition for Public Education/Coalicion por La Educacion Publica (CPE-CEP)

2011-12-24T19:02:00.004-05:00

New Bronx Chapter forming in mid-January:
Saturday, January 14, 2012, 12 Noon to 4 PM:
Coalition for Public Education/Coalicion por La Educacion Publica (CPE)
at the Clay Avenue Tenants' Community Center
1195 Clay Avenue (corner of 168th Street), Bronx, NY
D train to 167th Street or 4 train to 169th Street, or BX 35 bus to 168th Street and Webster Avenue.
Open to all: Parents, Educators, Students, Community leaders and Activists.

To UFT: Denounce Police Presence at Public Ed. Meetings

2011-12-22T05:45:00.006-05:00

Thank you, Ed Notes, for this crucial piece re the growing police presence at Panel for Education Policy meetings.

He wrote on the mayor's actions of creating an intimidating police force at meetings, a deeply undemocratic step. This harkens to some of the uglier moments of American history, Mitchell Palmer's raids, the Joseph McCarthy era.
Shame on the corporate media for not writing editorials denouncing this (by now, they must be reading the blogs and should know full well what is happening with the NYPD at the PEP meetings), and ditto for the United Federation of Teachers. (actually, I place this trend as appearing earlier than the Washington Irving PEP: at the Seward Park PEP very early in the 2011-2012 year with the same kind of police force in the building and additionally ominously, posted at the street corners adjacent to the entrances to Seward Park HS.)

I wrote a piece yesterday about the police presence at the PEP - and put together a short video focusing on that aspect.
NYC Police Turn Ugly Since Occupy Movement Began

And then this came across today -

Washington Irving HS Protest - Monitored by Large (15) Police Presence

A peaceful gathering of teachers was watched by riot police and regular police and 2 white shirts from across the street. - Teacher report

Now, there weren’t many police in riot helmets. Maybe 3 or 4, plus another 15 police (including two White Shirts) milling around. When I arrived there were two NYPD squad cars, two vans, and three mopeds. You might say to yourself, as someone responded to me on Twitter, Hey man, 3 or 4 riot-helmeted cops with their hands in their pockets, looking bored, isn’t such a big deal. Well, you’re wrong. It’s absolutely a big deal. Not because the police were going to beat up anybody, or arrest anybody, but simply because 50 teachers protesting the closing of their school do not deserve to be treated like potential rioters — even by 3 police officers. -----Political media

The above is from two separate reports. Note my [EdNotes] last post (NYC Police Turn Ugly Since Occupy Movement Began) on the growing police state (with video) from Bloomberg's private army - the NYCPD. I pointed to the growing threat education-based protests are facing. After all, Bloomberg's legacy is steeped in the schools and the growing opposition movement will be met with increasing monitoring.

We have been doing Fight Back Friday events for a few years in front of schools. But to send 15 cops with 2 white shirt supervisors?

Here's an idea: Let's do these in front of 50 schools on the same day and see how they handle it. Or maybe 1500 schools one day.

I noted in the video below a few UFT officials. They should be concerned at the presence of 15 police at a rally of 50 people.

DEMAND THE UFT LODGE A FORMAL COMPLAINT ON WASTE OF TAX PAYER MONEY IN A TIME WHERE CLASS SIZE ARE RISING ON WASTED POLICE PRESENCE AT PEACEFUL EXPRESSIONS OF PROTEST.

Here is a report with video from a teacher who is at another school in the building:

The Department of Education (=Bloomberg) announced the closure of Washington Irving High School. The school, the teachers, the parents, the students and the community who knows and cares about this school fight back!

A peaceful gathering of teachers was watched by 3 riot police and about 10 regular police and 2 white shirts from across the street. What's the message? Figure!

The video sums it up beautifully. There is some inspirational testimony by one parent in this video. Great testimony by teachers as well. Feel free to watch and share!

http://vimeo.com/34010240

And another from reporter John Knefel.

http://www.thefastertimes.com/politicalmedia/2011/12/20/teachers-protest-closing-hs-nypd-don-riot-helmets/
POLITICAL MEDIA
Teachers Protest, NYPD Officers Don Riot Helmets
John Knefel
DECEMBER 20, 2011JOHN KNEFEL
This morning I attended an event at Washington Irving High School, in Manhattan’s Gramercy neighborhood, to protest the proposed closing of the school. Gregg Lundahl, the United Federation of Teachers chapter leader at Irving, lead teachers and students in chants that highlighted the increased income inequality that results from closing public high schools. The 50 or so participants marched up the block on sleepy Irving Street, then down the block, staying on the sidewalk the entire time. And across the street, the NYPD put on their riot helmets.
Now, there weren’t many police in riot helmets. Maybe 3 or 4, plus another 15 police (including two White Shirts) milling around. When I arrived there were two NYPD squad cars, two vans, and three mopeds. You might say to yourself, as someone responded to me on Twitter, Hey man, 3 or 4 riot-helmeted cops with their hands in their pockets, looking bored, isn’t such a big deal. Well, you’re wrong. It’s absolutely a big deal. Not because the police were going to beat up anybody, or arrest anybody, but simply because 50 teachers protesting the closing of their school do not deserve to be treated like potential rioters — even by 3 police officers.
Police departments across the country are becoming increasingly militarized. Security contractors devise new methods of coercion against protesters constantly. As a result, confrontations between peaceful activists and cops often resemble paramilitary-style raids rather than restrained police action — most obviously in the way police have dislodged Occupy encampments nationwide. The aggressive theater that the PDs engage in is meant in no uncertain terms to intimidate anyone with the gall to raise their voice in dissent. Speak up and you will be kettled, pepper sprayed, jailed, beaten with truncheons, or simply advanced on by a phalanx of heavily armored stormtroopers. This morning’s action only serves to illustrate how deeply embedded the militarized reaction to all forms of protest is in the NYPD.
Why were there police there at all? Honestly, does anyone believe that one or two officers is an insufficient force to observe 50 teachers assembled, as is their right, outside their high school? It’s completely beside the point that the officers were bored, and that there were no confrontations. Or maybe it’s not. Maybe the lazy, uneventful, automatic militarized response is what I find so distasteful. The teachers I spoke with after the event were mildly concerned, but not seriously, about the police presence. They seemed to be bewildered by it more than anything else. But an activist and journalist who writes under the name Dicey Troop and I were more incredulous. Bloomberg’s army has become omnipresent for anyone participating in OWS, but their presence at Washington Irving was almost comically disproportionate.
Organizers of the event are calling for a massive public showing on January 31st at 6:30 at Brooklyn Tech to defend Washington Irving against the city’s proposed shut-down. According to information circulated this morning, 6% of the students at Manhattan’s high-need schools (of which Irving is a part) are special needs. At Bloomberg’s new Manhattan schools, the percentage is much lower, between .5-1%, according to the flier.
Bloomberg’s New York City is a city of increasingly privatized education, and an increasingly militarized response to all forms of protest. We would do well to remember his legacy accurately.

In the NYC DOE we are seeing a blatant swindle, government used for private agenda, private gain.
[See also, this post at CounterPunch of a political arrest of a photographer by Bloomberg's de facto private political police:
"37 Hours in Lock Up: Snatched For Photographing Michael Bloomberg’s Cops"
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/19/snatched-for-photographing-michael-bloombergs-cops/
Photo is of arrest of arrest of Stanley Rogouski.]

Parent Involvement, Obesity Diets: Insensitivity Behind Blaming Impoverished Parents

2011-12-18T12:55:00.001-05:00

A recent blogpost made re-think the criticisms I have had of "uninvolved parents".

Modeducation, blogger Michael Dunn, a San Francisco Bay, California area educator, has written on how the notion of parent involvement make a few class-based assumptions.

I insert below Modeducation's post which misleadingly takes its post title from New York Times' Thomas Friedman's ideas: "Stop Blaming Teachers When It’s the Parents’ Fault!", but in the post Modeducation is actually making a good argument against parent-blaming. After this, I draw the parallels with the issues surrounding food choices and the obesity epidemic. Parents are blamed while there is silence about toxic food pushers win battles to push their junk in school lunchrooms. Undergirding both issues is the toxic factor of poverty. Sadly, poverty permeates many of the issues impacting on education, yet discussion of the poverty factor --or any way to ameliorate poverty or class disparity-- remains off the table.

[In November 23, 2011's] New York Times, Thomas Friedman had an op-ed ["How About Better Parents" {sic}] that seems to bash the Ed Deformers and tell them to get off of teachers’ backs. However, rather than placing the blame for the achievement gap and other problems with public education where it belongs—on the defunding of schools and growing poverty among children—he places the blame on parents, as if they merely need to behave better and become more effective parents.

“Here’s what some new studies are also showing,” he tells us. “We need better parents. Parents more focused on their children’s education can also make a huge difference in a student’s achievement.”

There are several problems with this proposal. First, it conflates correlation with causation. Parents who are more involved in their children’s education tend to be more affluent. There is plenty of data correlating affluence with higher academic achievement. So is it affluence or parental involvement or both?

Secondly, can parents simply be taught, encouraged or forced to be more involved in their children’s education or is this a product of their class backgrounds? And what does parental involvement even mean?

Plenty of studies indeed show that parents who read often to young children and who use larger and more complex vocabularies with their kids end up with kids who have significantly larger vocabularies and pre-literacy skills by the time they are ready for kindergarten, creating an achievement gap before children have even started school. Affluent parents are also more likely to have the time and education to do this with their children. A parent who works two or three jobs or who is barely literate is not going to read to their children or use complex language with them.

Affluent parents are also more likely to be able to make it to after school and evening meetings, open houses and community events. They are more likely to understand how the system works and have the self-confidence (or self-entitlement) necessary to navigate the system, advocate for their children and challenge perceived injustices or inadequacies in their children’s schools and classrooms.

Schools are essentially middle class institutions that have mores, norms and expectations similar to those in middle class families. Middle class children, therefore, come to school with the “cultural capital” necessary to succeed, whereas lower income kids often must learn this culture from scratch.

In short, Friedman is correct that parental involvement is important and parents who do, or who learn to, participate in their children’s education are more likely to see their kids succeed academically. However, his op-ed piece implies that there is something wrong with parents who are not involved with their kids’ education, when in reality it is often not their faults. Furthermore, whether you are blaming teachers or parents, you are still missing the point: the most significant influence on academic achievement is a child’s socioeconomic background. So long as we continue to ignore poverty, as long as we accept a society in which a few have all the wealth and a large minority is desperately poor, neither better teaching, no better parenting, is going to close the achievement gap or ensure that all children succeed academically.

* * *
Now, let us look at parallels with the issue of class, diet and the twins of obesity and diabetes.
A school professional, cash-strapped and a single parent reacted to the news of the government authorities that took custody of a 200-pound Cleveland Heights, Ohio son from his parents, on the charge of medical neglect. She put the issue as this: she supports her son on her own, she pays rent, car insurance, gas fuel for her car, apartment utilities. Only so much is left for food, and with that limited budget, there are few options. So, she is left with just so much to spend. She said she doesn't want a guilt trip for just a couple of times satisfying his son's taste-buds.
Plus, the columnists and bureaucrats who scold the parents surely are not familiar with the staple stores in blue collar neighborhoods: convenience stores, whether the corner store in cities or the gas stations-cum-food-marts. These places specialize in canned or ready-to-eat foods. Blue collar parents cannot find arugula or organic strawberries or other pesticide-free treats. Trader Joe's stores, the middle class alternative to Whole Foods or Fairway Supermarket, do not appear in blue collar minority neighborhoods.

Plus, who are pundits or bureaucrats to scold parents when school lunches cater to sweet tastes with carbohydrate and additive-heavy pizza or burgers. And has anyone noticed that the oranges offered in school cafeterias are the cheapest looking products, more frequently the low barrel "juicing oranges" rather than the navel oranges?
Plus, why are we ignoring the power of the junk food players that push french fries and the like are prevailing over the Barack Obama administration? See Dina ElBoghdady's November 15, 2011 article "Obama administration loses effort to make school lunches healthier" in the Washington Post. (The Department of Agriculture's improved guidelines got nixed by industry-influenced Congresspeople.)
Plus, who are those people to lecture parents when mayoral control mayors such as New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg supplant physical education classes with programs overloaded with block-programming doubling up of English and math, along with the competition for gymnasium access when Bloomberg or [Corey] Booker-type mayors make public schools compete with multiple charter schools into their buildings with "co-locations?"
[Another Washington Post article quoted experts that suggest that confiscating or sequestering a child away from parents can contribute to unhealthy stress on the child and its mental development:

“Children at that age are very susceptible to high levels of stress, that’s a biological fact... the neural networks that are developing most rapidly at that time tend to be most susceptible to the biology of stress,” Dr. Robert Anda told me.
Anda is a co-investigator of an ongoing study funded by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention called the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study. It tracks how childhood trauma can impact the brain and have far-reaching effects. Anda is not suggesting that Zofia [Leszczynski] suffered trauma, but he makes clear that removing any child from a parent at that age has to be considered carefully.

Shoplifting... does anyone see the poverty factor here?]
It is a cruel irony that the government took the son from the parents with the charge of medical neglect. Poverty fuels the condition of poor food options; but parents and children are victims; and by the way, know-it-alls blame the parents.

N.J. "is Roiling Over Charter Schools": Wave of Student, Parent Teacher Fight-Backs

2011-12-09T18:02:00.012-05:00

No, it is not just New York City parents, students and teachers protesting at Panel for Educational Policy that oppose charter schools.

A wave of push-back against the imposition of charter schools is taking place across New Jersey. This time the fight-back is in middle class or upper-middle class suburbs.

Rutgers Prof speaks and organizes against charters
(From Princeton.Patch.com:)

Julia Sass Rubin, a founding member of Save Our Schools NJ, says public schools are being undermined.

“This is happening across the country,” said Rubin, during a visit to the Lawrence branch of the Mercer County Library on Wednesday. “It’s a national phenomenon.”

Rubin is an associate professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. Her talk was hosted by the Lawrence chapter of the League of Women Voters.

Rubin's talk, "Keeping Public Schools Public," covered the state of education in the Garden State and how Save Our Schools NJ is working to strengthen public school systems.

Save our Schools NJ is grassroots campaign that advocates for equal access to high-quality public education and for reform of state charter school law, including a local vote to allow charter schools to open in a community.

“Local communities should have a say if they want a charter school,” Rubin said.

Schools districts throughout the state – including Princeton, South Brunswick, East Brunswick, New Brunswick and Highland Park – have taken steps to oppose charter schools they oppose.

“Busloads of suburbanites are supposed to have an Occupy DOE [Department of Education] on Dec. 16,” Rubin said. “The state is roiling over charter schools.”

The organization also has an issue with the the lottery system for charter school enrollment. Rubin said most disadvantaged families don’t have the resources to get the necessary information about charter enrollment, so charter schools end with mostly affluent children.

No community clamour for charters; no community say in imposition of charters; activist group pushes "opt-out" bill.
also from Princeton.Patch.com, December 9, 2011:

Save Our Schools NJ has proposed the Opt-Out Lottery Bill, which would require charter schools to automatically include everyone in their communities that qualify and give families the option to opt-out if they do not want to be considered for enrollment. The bill is designed to level the field for parents who don’t have easy access to information or are restricted by language barriers.

Rubin expects action on the opt-out legislation and other proposed bills will come soon. “This has become a headache for the administration,” she said. “There will be something done with the bills.”

Save Our Schools NJ wants to maintain the current school funding formula and opposes to school vouchers. She compared the current voucher bill, the Opportunity Scholarship Act, to money laundering.

“If you give me a dollar and I give that dollar back, have you actually given me a dollar?” Rubin asked. Although vouchers prevent money being taken away from public school funds it negatively creates new subsidy streams for private schools, Rubin said.

Rubin also wants to stop additional segregation in schools. According to Rubin, there are 500 heavily segregated school systems in the state and the ones that are mixed are being targeted by charter schools.

“We want to see suburban children going to urban schools and vice versa,” Rubin said. “It’s good to mix it up.”

Several members of the audience agreed there is a need for more school integration.

Retired teacher Lloyd Fredericks, who taught at a high school in Newark, said the state has forgotten the benefits of being a melting pot. He added that without public schools there is no nation.

Teaneck protest parallels NYC struggle against closing schools for charter schools
From the Record, December 7, 2011:
"Crowd rallies against proposed virtual charter school in Teaneck"

TEANECK —
School officials and police estimated about 200 people turned out at 3:30 p.m. for an event scheduled to last several hours. Students waved signs declaring “Don’t bleed our good public schools” and “Local $$ for Teaneck Scholars.”

Speakers took the microphone to call for a local vote on charter approvals throughout the state and to criticize the proposal for a full-time cyber charter — all while student drummers pounded to bolster the applause.

“This virtual charter will do much more harm than good,” declared Lev Herskovitz, 18. “In our society today we rely on technology far too often and this is not a case where it should be dominantly present. Classrooms are where the real learning takes place.”

Organizers of the Garden State Virtual Charter say it will draw only a few students, and therefore a small amount of funding, from Teaneck; most of its initial group of 1,000 in grades K-12 will come from across New Jersey, they say.

District officials balked, however, when they received a letter from the state Department of Education suggesting they set aside $15.4 million for the charter. State officials have said that figure was meant only as a budgeting tool, but Teaneck filed a legal petition Tuesday asking the state to rescind the letter and delay approving any virtual charters until New Jersey legislates a fair, manageable way to fund them. The Office of Administrative Law has not yet scheduled a hearing.

Home districts pay 90 percent of their per-pupil costs for students who attend charters from their towns.

Jason Flynn, a founder of the proposed charter, said in a release Tuesday that his group would push ahead. The charter “will bring state of the art digital technology to deliver a high quality, highly personalized education to our students who … are not succeeding in a traditional classroom setting,” he said in release. He could not be reached Wednesday.

The Teaneck Board of Education has stated it does not oppose charters, virtual charters or virtual learning; it’s against a process that requires officials to set school budgets before they can estimate how many students will head to charters.

Speak Up Highland Park handed out flyers in Teaneck inviting people to “Occupy” the Education Department in Trenton on Dec. 16 at 11 a.m. to call for a local voice in charter approvals.

In Highland Park, the District refused a charter three times, the charter is shoved at the district a fourth time
From the Daily Record, November 28, 2011:
"Highland Park charter school meeting forum for parents, legislators to discuss issues"

"VIRTUAL LEARNING", PHILANTHROPIST, CORPORATE TIE-INS CITED
The Teaneck charter is a "virtual learning" proposal. Lee Fang at The Nation has written a piece on "How Online Learning Companies Bought America's Schools."

From the Nation piece: commercial learning is a revolving door destination for former New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein and former District of Columbia mayor Adrian Fenty.

Moe’s [investment banker Michael Moe] conference marked a watershed moment in school privatization. His first “Education Innovation Summit,” held last year, attracted about 370 people and fifty-five presenting companies. This year, his conference hosted more than 560 people and 100 companies, and featured luminaries like former DC Mayor Adrian Fenty and former New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein, now an education executive at News Corporation, a recent high-powered entrant into the for-profit education field. Klein is just one of many former school officials to cash out. Fenty now consults for Rosetta Stone, a language company seeking to expand into the growing K-12 market.

As Moe ticked through the various reasons education is the next big “undercapitalized” sector of the economy, like healthcare in the 1990s, he also read through a list of notable venture investment firms that recently completed deals relating to the education-technology sector, including Sequoia and Benchmark Capital. Kleiner Perkins, a major venture capital firm and one of the first to back Amazon.com and Google, is now investing in education technology, Moe noted.

See what can happen with representative democracy, instead of total mayoral control: Newark advisory board rejects a charter school proposal:
NJN News, April 7, 2011:

It’s been a tumultuous time in Newark since the controversial school overhaul plan was leaked to the press in February. It calls for consolidating some schools and co-locating others – both of which would free up space for charter schools, and creating new traditional public schools. In a surprising move, Newark’s School Advisory Board rejected the latter proposal.

In New Jersey we thus see a parallel to the New York City push-back. Yet, the people have more power, in contrast to the voice-less parents in New York City under mayoral control.

Long Island Principals Show Autonomy, Protest Teacher Evaluations

2011-12-07T04:03:00.003-05:00

Long Island principals are fewer in number than those in New York City.

Yet, Long Island principals signing a petition protesting New York State expectations for basing teacher evaluations on student test scores vastly outnumber the New York City principals making the same protests.

The numbers of principals signing the petition:
Long Island 502

Westchester 59

New York City 35

Total principals New York State 756

What can we interpret from this?
In Long Island, principals have greater autonomy, under locally based, with elected representatives running school policy. In New York City, even the principals are running scared, in a system of mayoral control.
And which system sees students better prepared for college?
Which system has students graduating with authentic diplomas?
Not New York City, in which mayoral control has driven a school system into the ground over the last decade.

Source, "More Principals Join Teacher Evaluation Protest" in New York Times "Schoolbook" section. http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2011/12/04/more-principals-join-teacher-evaluation-protest/

Meet an Ohio ATR-parallel -Eking Out Existence, Missing Caring for Dying Mother

2011-12-05T23:12:00.005-05:00

View this video on PBS' "Need to Know."

The 50s-something teacher you see in the video still is a decades-long veteran teacher, laid off by --probably-- the Cleveland city schools.

"Need to Know" follows her. Right after she's laid off she's a sub and tutoring.

Alas, she's back at her old school. The catch: she's working for half the pay.
--SOUND FAMILIAR???? Just like New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg's dream of halving the teaching force, creating ATRs, dismissing veterans.
And she's getting NO benefits.

Apparently, she's in a parallel to F-status. She has to work 60 days straight to get her health insurance back. The "Twilight Zone" nightmare is that, to make it through the 60 days, she has to pass on taking days off to be with her dying mother.

In this Dickensian tragedy, her mother passes away. She gets her health insurance.

This is the hell wrought by Arne Duncan, working in obeisance to Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Dick & Betsy DeVos.

Click here to see "Help Wanted: Revisiting the uncounted millions", by William Brangham on PBS' "Need to Know", broadcast on December 2, 2011, this must see American tragedy/ scandal.

Giant story ignored: Bloomberg @ MIT: I'd 1/2 the Teachers and Increase Class Size

2011-12-02T06:53:00.004-05:00

Another monstrous outrage by our autocratic mayor (Cambridge. MA, 11/29).

Another outrageous stratagem calling for a mass mobilization; WHY DIDN'T UFT'S MULGREW LEAD CHANT ON THIS DURING YESTERDAY'S MARCH?

MISTAKE BY UFT: CHANT-PREVENTING NOISE MAKERS
At yesterday's labor solidarity march alone among unions, the United Federation of Teachers gave out thumb-sized noise makers, whistles without the whistle ball.
A mistake or a cynical attempt to prevent chants from forming.
Kudos to those that did attempt to chant "Save Our Schools" among the din.

The United Federation of Teachers, the New York City teachers union needs to have a coordinated media campaign and mass march against the latest outrages uttered by City-state Prince-Mayor Michael Bloomberg:
Cathie Black, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michael Mulgrew, NYC schools, United Federation of Teachers
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — It’s a jaw-dropping prescription for fixing city schools.
“Professor” Michael Bloomberg said Thursday he would accomplish more with less by slashing the tea ching staff in half — and that’s just the beginning, reports CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer.
He looked like he was from another planet when he dressed as a hippie for a political show, but the mayor’s blueprint for fixing city schools have some asking “what was he smoking?”
“If I had the ability to just design the system and say ex cathedra this is what we’re going to do you would cut the number of teachers in half and weed out all the bad ones,” Bloomberg said.
That’s right. The mayor told people at a Massachusetts Institute of Technology conference it would be far better to run city schools with way fewer people. And, by the way, on the billionaire’s perfect planet that would mean cramming more kids into each classroom.
“And double the class size with a better teacher is a good deal for the students,” Bloomberg said.
Andrea Spencer is dean of the School of Education at Pace University.
“When I heard the statement I was really shocked,” Spencer said. “There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that half of the teachers in any system are ineffective. What there is evidence to support is the fact that larger classes really place detriments in the way of learning.”
But “Professor” Bloomberg is sticking to his views.
“The best thing you can do is put the best teacher you can possibly find and afford in front of the classroom and if you have to have fewer because there’s only a certain number of dollars to go around, I’m in favor of that,” Bloomberg said.
United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew s aid he put the mayor’s latest views on teaching in the same category of his decision to appoint a former magazine editor with no teaching experience to be schools chancellor.
“So the mayor thinks this is a good idea, in high schools to have class size in high schools of 70 kids. Clearly the mayor has never taught,” said United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew.
“And probably the mayor’s having another Cathie Black moment.”
The mayor also said he’s given teachers a 105 percent raise since he took office. Mulgrew said maybe the mayor should have stopped in at a math class while he was at MIT.
In lamenting the quality of teachers, the mayor claimed they come from the bottom 20 percent of their class and not the best schools.

Deafening silence in NYDN op-ed on CUNY and NYC schools failure

2011-11-28T01:56:00.006-05:00

The NY Daily News ran an op-ed piece this weekend on abysmal 28 percent graduation rates in CUNY's community colleges among New York City Department of Education high school graduates.
Yet, there is a deafening silence in Saturday, November 26, 2011's empty editorial.
First, the blame must be laid at our all-potent mayor. He staked his reputation on being an "education mayor." Poor performance in basic English and math skills in entrance exams and poor graduation rates indicate utter failure in the standards in the education system captained by mayoral control Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Where is the front page editorial in the News, Post, Times, as there should be, asking for his resignation for his abject failure on the education issue?
*School closures *Attack on and marginalization of experienced teachers
*Top-down imposed crackpot schemes such as "Everyday Math" or "Impact Math"
*No bid contracts on school texts, curricular packages, software, evaluators, consultants
*Derision of the notion of teaching. Dare not say teaching, say learning
*Top-down imposed scandals such as grouped seating or conference tables as seat set-ups, leaving no room for test security
*Thorough disregard for parent voice or transparency from the disbanding of the Board of Education down to the emasculating and irrelevance of parent voice in Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) at the school level
*Doubling of Math and English and the side-lining of science, social studies, arts, and thus the sidelining of students' having any notion of pleasure in school
*Collective classwork ("cooperative learning," groupwork)
*Growing tolerance for hall-roaming, skipping classes and truancy in general
*Endless test-prep ...what have I left out?

The media should say nothing in this matter, save for a total admission of guilt for their silence during this ten year fiasco.

Second, the essence of this problem comes down to the abrogation of the schools to chart proper scholastic habits among the school-children. Time was, students were expected to respect teachers, have good behavior towards each other, and a decent effort at attendance and classwork.
Accountability ... seems the only people subject to this are teachers, not the media, not the mayor. Not the students or the parents. Click over to Chaz and his column about Credit Recovery, "A Case Study On Why The "Credit Recovery System" And Online Learning Does Not Work In The Real World Of Employment." In life if you are a no-show, you are dropped, not only in work, but also in social relationships. Not so in the parallel universe of attending school in the NYC Department of Education under city-state Prince Michael.
In the regime of JPE, "Just Pass Everybody" what did Bloomberg and his aides and abettors expect?

Here is the shameful (for no context and no criticism of the mayor, who stewarded the development of no standards NYC diplomas) Saturday, November 26, 2011 New York Daily News editorial:

Unable to hack the coursework, students are dropping out from the city's community colleges in droves — clouding their economic futures and that of the city.
The numbers, revealed in a new report from the Center for an Urban Future, are a scathing indictment of the ability of New Yorks public schools to give young men and women the skills they need to succeed.
Nearly four of five high school graduates arrive at CUNYs six community colleges needing remedial coursework in reading, writing, math — or, increasingly, all three. And within six years, the study says, an eye popping 51% have dropped out from what are supposed to be two-year degree-granting institutions.
A mere 28% actually manage to get a degree six years after enrolling at Kingsborough, Queensborough, LaGuardia, Hostos, Bronx or Borough of Manhattan community colleges.
There’s a painful personal price to all this ill preparation. Earnings for a graduate with an associate’s degree in the city average $29,000; with a high school diploma, they’re a mere $17,000.
And work for applicants with less education is getting harder and harder to find. According to the report, the number of jobs requiring more than just high school doubled nationwide between 1973 and 2008, from 28% to 59%. City employers in fields such as transportation, health care and construction told the researchers they are increasingly looking for college credentials.
Fixing the problem would have a huge economic upside for the city. The report estimates that boosting the community college graduation rate 10 percentage points would mean a $28 million jump in economic activity in neighborhoods.
Left with no choice, CUNY has created intensive remediation programs. They help — 27% of those who participated in one such program earned a degree within two years, compared with just 7% of similar students who did not.
But for most, it’s too little, too late. CUNY says the number of “triple-lows” coming through the door — students who cannot handle college-level reading, writing or mathematics — has jumped steeply in the last two years. Meaning that across the board, the public schools are falling down on the job.
Total fail.

Just see the latest on the on-going train-wreck of the NYC school system, recently publicized most at Queens Metro High School (south Rego Park/south Forest Hills) at Ed Notes: http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2011/11/wave-bob-turner-dont-know-much-bout.html.
and http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2011/11/nov-22-queens-metropolitan-hs-update.html.

Update: 1, 2, 3, Many NYC Tahrir Squares as Parent, Student School Revolts in an Arab Spring in the Autumn

2011-11-23T18:54:00.017-05:00

Rebellion is breaking out all over as parents and students are yelling, "No", to New York City Department of Education school chaos. The Occupy Wall Street or Tahrir Square energy is beginning to seep into the parent and student communities in the city's high schools, in quite different boroughs (Bronx, Queens) of New York City. A common thread is scandalous class scheduling that neglects to give students essential classes such as English.
UPDATE: THE QUEENS METRO HS CRISIS AND THE LEADERSHIP ACADEMY BACKSCRIPT (Scroll down.)
(Scroll to the bottom of this post for ignored ATR factor in DOE refusal to hire teachers scandal.)

It is disappointing that these stories for the most are in alternate media (blogs) or minor commercial media (outer borough newspapers). Few of these situations are covered by major media such as the New York Times.

As indicated in one of my blog posts earlier this week, 75 students at Frederick Douglass VI High School in Far Rockaway did not have an English teacher until they refused to attend class until the administration agreed to hire a regular teacher.

Yesterday, November 22, 2011, Ben Chapman authored "Students at Grace Dodge Career & Technical Education High School in the Bronx haven't had an English teacher for months: Kids at F-rated school cut class and 'smoke weed' instead" in the Daily News that Grace Dodge Career and Technical High School in the Bronx lacked English teachers, for a total of ten missing class sections. A total of 300 students lack an English teacher.

An F-rated Bronx high school has failed to provide nearly 300 students with English teachers since the third week of the school year, the Daily News has learned.

For nearly three months, the students at Grace Dodge Career & Technical Education High School have languished in their daily English lessons without regular instructors.

Instead of learning composition and grammar, the kids sleep, socialize or cut class, senior Michelle Sanchez, 17, said.

“We just sit there and stare at each other,” said the frustrated teen. “Kids cut school and smoke weed around the corner. Or they walk around the halls and get into fights.”

The 1,182-student school in the Belmont section of the Bronx has been targeted by the city because of its abysmal performance.

Just 35% of seniors graduated on time last year, and only 1% graduated ready for college.

Teachers at the school were outraged students have gone without English instructors.

“It’s horrendous in here,” said one teacher who wouldn’t give her name.

Education Department spokeswoman Barbara Morgan said the teacher shortage was due to two instructors retiring abruptly in October. That left 10 English class periods without full-time teachers, she said.

Read more from the original Daily News article click here.

Last week the Ed Notes blog published "Growing Scandal at Queens Metro Tech Exposes All the Ills of Bloomberg Ed Deform - Another Leadership Acad Principal Set to Take Fall."

The Queens newspapers have reported more negative news at Forest Hills' Queens Metro High School. The chaos echoes the scheduling disorder that the New York Times did report earlier this month:
November 23, 2011 from the Western Queens Gazette: "Queens Metropolitan H.S. Beset With Scheduling Problems"

For the second time in little over a month, a Queens high school has been revealed as awash in scheduling problems. Queens Metropolitan H.S., 91-30 Metropolitan Ave., Forest Hills, opened in September 2010 with relatively few scheduling problems. This year, some classes lack teachers, no physical education instruction is being imparted and students have yet to receive grades for some of the course work they have completed and handed in, according to parents who attended a meeting of the school’s Parent-Teacher Association on November 15. The situation echoes that of Long Island City H.S., where students have found themselves reporting to different classes with different teachers or spending hours seated in the auditorium and cafeteria, depending on how their schedules change from week to week.

Principal Marci Levy-McGuire declared that she is working feverishly to straighten out the scheduling mess affecting the school’s 650 ninth and tenth grade students. Some parents were less than convinced. Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley, whose two sons attend the school, expressed dissatisfaction with the efforts to correct the scheduling errors at a sparsely attended Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) meeting November 17. At that meeting, it was noted that the school lacks a science teacher, classes are taught by rotating substitutes and students who registered for elective courses sit in the auditorium instead, some for as long as three hours.

City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said he had heard of the problem at Metropolitan H.S. only a few weeks ago. His daughter, DeJeanne Walcott, is a physical education teacher at the school, but “shop talk” does not come up within the confines of the Walcott family home, the elder Walcott said. He attributed the school’s scheduling problem to “rapid enrollment growth”.

According to “Ed Notes”, a blog “providing information on current ed issues, organizing activities around fighting for public education in NYC and beyond and exposing the motives behind the education deformers”; “The pressure since the story broke about [Crowley’s] children at the school and the Chancellor’s daughter proved too much for the DOE and the network and Tweed types swarmed the building. They allegedly completed student programs and there is a special plan to disseminate it with scripted statements read by each teacher to their students explaining why the programs had to be changed again…The program rollout will not take effect until after Thanksgiving. There will be three days where administration will answer parent questions after school. Next Tuesday (November 29) is [a] PTA meeting where much of this will be announced.”

The Queens Chronicle reported a similar story today (November 23): "Parents livid over schedule ‘disaster’: Say students at Metropolitan High School go hours without classes."
A key quote:

Walcott said he, as well as Senior Deputy Chancellor Shael Polakow-Suransky, only found out about the issues at Metropolitan a couple weeks ago, despite the fact that Walcott’s daughter is a physical education teacher at the school.
“We try not to mix our respective lives as far as education is concerned because she is her own person and teacher,” Walcott said at the meeting.

[Really? We are well into the third month of the 2011-2012 year and Chancellor Walcott has not found occasion to ask his daughter, "How was your day?"???]
ANOTHER PATRICK SULLIVAN ON THE PEP?
The Panel for Education Policy, the mayoral appointee dominated panel that replaced the Board of Education is largely a rubber stamp for Mayor Michael Bloomberg's prerogatives. Patrick Sullivan (appointee of Manhattan President Scott Stringer) has been a frequent dissenting voice on the panel. Queens appointee Dmytro Fedkowskyj made statements that suggest that he might be moving in the Sullivan direction of independence:

“I made it quite clear during the PEP meeting that the lack of a proactive interest by the DOE has harmed the school community and that policy should change going forward when inexperienced leaders take on new responsibilities. What occurred at the Metropolitan High School and at Long Island City High School is clearly unacceptable.”

NY1's story Monday night (Nov. 21) on the Queens Metro HS disaster.

The Daily News' story, Friday, November 18 on Queens Metro's scheduling problems.

Sadly, the New York Times's article on the Queens Metro mess is a snippet, merely parroting the DOE line that "help is on its way." No parent or student quotes or interviews --just the DOE's #2, Shael Polakow-Suransky, and that quote was in the context of the now-old news Long Island City scheduling woes.

CLOSURE RAMPAGE HITS PRE-HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL SCHOOLS, UPRISINGS REACH THOSE TARGETED SCHOOLS
On Tuesday, November 22 parents, students and area elected representatives held a protest demonstration on the Tweed Courthouse steps of the NYC Department of Education.
This example from a Crown Heights, Brooklyn school is a characteristic sample of the woes that beset schools targeted for closure:
"'The Crown' (PS 161) was a top-performing school just two years ago, with nearly all of its students passing the state’s ELA exam. But the City then cut more than $700,000 and nine educators and other staff members, sending scores into a tailspin." (From Norm's Notes, "Schools Under Attack by DOE Fight Back: Parents, Elected Officials Representing 15 Schools Targeted for Closure to Continue Season of Protests With Rally at DOE HQ, Targeted middle and high schools serve almost entirely low-income Black and Latino families, lost tens-of-millions to budget cuts over past 3 years, Many schools represented were founded, moved or co-located by Bloomberg Administration; most house large numbers of high-needs students", 11/22/11)
Full list of schools participating in last Tuesday's rally: -PS 181, Jamaica, -PS 298, Brownsville, -General Chappie James Elementary and Middle Schools, Brownsville, -PS 19, Williamsburg, -Juan Morel Campos Secondary School, Williamsburg, -PS 137, Lower East Side, -PS 256, Bedford-Stuyvesant, -PS 22, Crown Heights, -PS 161, Crown Heights, -Frederick Douglass Academy II, Harlem, -IS 171, Cypress Hills, -Samuel Gompers High School, Bronx, -Cypress Hills Collegiate Prep, Cypress Hills, -JHS 296, Bushwick, -MS 587, Crown Heights

QUEENS METRO HS CRISIS APPARENTLY REACHES INTO FALL, 2010
Parent letter, which appeared in Norm's Notes, "Teacher/Parent Outrage at Queens Metro HS as DOE Ignored Problem - HS Supt Juan Mendez on Hot Seat - Network Too," (Nov. 17, 2011):

Thank you for taking the time to speak with my husband John Sadowski earlier today regarding Queens Metropolitan High School. Our son is currently a tenth grader. As you know QMHS opened its doors for the first time in September of 2010 and unfortunately this school has been a disaster since Day 1. Many parents tried to be patient, with the understanding it was a new school and it would need time to work things out. Month by month things progressively got worse. By the end of the school year parents were frustrated. We could only hope that the administration would work over the summer understanding where they went wrong and begin to improve. We found out on day one in September 2011 that we were sadly mistaken.

On the first day of school Sept 2011 the student schedules were not yet ready. My child did not receive a schedule until day 3 or 4. Some parents have told me that there child had to wait longer. What soon followed after this was schedule change after schedule change. On October 31st my son received his ninth schedule change. On some of those schedules he had five or six blank spaces and nowhere to go during those times. On one of the schedule changes he was not given a lunch period. Some parents have told me that their children still have blank spaces and they are pulling their children from the school during those times. Teachers and parents have told me that hallways and stairways are crowded with students with no place to go. One schedule my son had was filled with obvious errors. He repeatly went to the main office to report these errors and he was finally directed to the Guidance Counselor. The Guidance Counselor told my son to “find someone with a similar schedule and then just follow that student’s schedule. I was horrified to learn that this was the schools response. I later found out from other parents that their children were told the same thing. On October 28th I was at the school and Vice Principal Lambert called me and my son over. She asked my son what schedule he following, because they could not find him the past week or so. I find this very alarming!!!! He is following the schedule the school provided and they can not find him???? What if he was hurt in the halls, would no one know? Ms. Lambert answered this with a shrug of the shoulders and a roll of the eyes. On November 15th Principal Levy-Mcguire acknowledged that they schedules are still not correct and does not expect to have them resolved until sometime in December.

SUPERVISOR QUALIFICATIONS SUBTEXT TO ABOVE: The Board of Education before being supplanted in 2002 by the Department of Education did have some problems. But basic things like student scheduling were handled competently. Why then and not now? School administrators had teaching experience and came up through the ranks. They acquired their supervisor licenses by attending classes at NYC area colleges. City schools chancellors had proper supervisor licensure. Today, it is a Keystone Kops merry-go-round carnival of reinventing the wheel; supervisors often have no education experience or proper supervisor qualifications. They instead have been fast-tracked into power by the NYCDOE's "Leadership Academies." Now, there are some fair and compassionate supervisor products of the Academies, but a disproportionate number of supervisors come out with a cavalier attitude as we see with Levy-Mcguire.

LATE NOVEMBER QUEENS METRO NEWS
The EdNotes blog reports that

It's too bad Turner was at Queens Metro on a Sunday.(November 20) If he had been there on a school day he would have found that the free enterprise school system instigated by WalBlackBloomKlein offers up fairly brand new school where kids had no regular schedules, were left in a gym "class" – taught by Chancellor Walcott's daughter no less - where they didn't get gym, a physics class "taught" by an unqualified special ed teacher, and no chemistry at all after the teacher quit in October. The principal actually did have an idea for a school that on paper seemed to offer a lot of good ideas. The only problem was that she was a grad of the Leadership Academy, the Tweed training ground for future principals ¬without a clue – with many people coming from Turner's vaunted "free enterprise" system without knowledge on how to organize or run a school. Of course, after Walcott and his minions ignored the problem for months - especial knocks to Queens HS Superintendent Juan Mendez (who was so arrogant at the Beach Channel school closing hearing last year) and network leader Gillian Smith – they finally responded – once the story hit the press.

CRITICAL ATR FACTOR SUBTEXT IGNORED
A critical point in any of these discussions of rotating substitutes from week to week is that the so-called "substitutes" that are coming and going are actually absent teacher reserve ("ATR") teachers. These are teachers that have lost their regular positions when the DOE has closed down schools and broken apart schools into smaller units. At best, one-half of the teachers in the former school are placed in the new smaller schools.

(Back to the gap of teacher positions.) Yet, while ATRs are placed as substitutes in the gaps of English or science teacher positions, the DOE has placed them in the positions, willy-nilly, paying no regard to whether the license of the ATR temporarily filling the vacancy actually matches the subject of the teacher vacancy.
The dirty secret is that there are over one thousand absent teacher reserve teachers in the "ATR pool." Potentially there are a few hundred or at least several score of experienced English teachers in the ATR pool that can fill the vacancies at Frederick Douglass VI or Grace Dodge. The same can be said for the science vacancies and potential science teacher assignees to Queens Metro.

So, why won't the city place these ATRs into the vacancies? The principals have limited budgets. They have a budgetary incentive to hire novice teachers. The experienced teachers go unhired. (It was not always this way. Bloomberg's DOE instituted this school-unit accounting in 2005 when it created the ATR fiasco. It is curious that the United Federation of Teachers ever went along with this.)

But let us return to the details of these teacher vacancy sagas. The Western Queens Gazette neglected to cite several vital nuggets from the Ed Notes post it cited. Ed Notes wrote, "Breaking: The principal “can’t find” a physics teacher so she is using a special ed teacher to teach physics with packets prepared by another physics teacher. Parents don’t know this." Ed Notes went on to mention that physical education students are actually missing on actual phys ed lessons. With the DOE neglecting to hire experienced science teachers from the ATR pool and the DOE allowing phys ed teachers to teach the complex subject of physics one cannot help but wonder, could the DOE (Tweed, the principals, the assistant principals) be refusing to hire science teachers out of spite? (In all of this scheduling neglect, is it any wonder that "Audit Finds City’s Schools Short on Physical Education," as the New York Times reported a city comptroller John Liu audit of physical education in today's NYC Department of Education?)

UPDATE with tidbit from NYC Educator:
She or he has great list of inconsistencies of interest to those who care about teacher hiring, teacher placement and budgetary decisions in general, like no money for the Teachers Choice program (teachers routinely spend $100s each year; Teachers Choice would cut teachers' costs with a $125 or 150 check made out to the teacher for costs). NYC E pointed out that it was eliminated while the city has money to add new teachers to the rolls.

Qns HS Students' Occupy-type Protest & Need for Parents & Students to Mobilize

2011-11-20T23:18:00.011-05:00

On their front page today The Daily News ran a story on how students at Frederick Douglass VI High School co-located with Far Rockaway High School protested and got an administration pledge to get an English teacher.

Here's the synopsis with some decoding:
75 students did not have an English teacher. Instead, they had rotating substitutes that changed every week. Translation: the students had different absent teacher reserve (ATR) teachers every week.

"English class at Frederick Douglass Academy in Queens hasn't had a regular teacher in three months" told how parents called 311 and how the city gave them the brush off.

Well, of course the city or the Department of Education gave the parents the brush-off. The city is being spiteful. It is not interested in hiring an ATR. One can get a qualified, experienced English teacher in the form of an ATR. The ATR pool remains at 1,126; there must be some English teachers in that pool. But, no, they city is too spiteful to hire a qualified, experienced teacher.

Students at Frederick Douglass Academy VI High School don't have English teachers and protested in front of the school.
Seniors at a struggling Queens high school have gone the first three months of the school year with no English teacher, the Daily News has learned.
About 75 students at Frederick Douglass Academy VI in Far Rockaway have been warehoused in a bunk class with a different substitute each week and no coherent lesson plan, they say.
For weeks, students begged administrators at the C-rated school for a steady instructor, but their request was denied — until Friday, when they protested and refused to go to class until their demands were met.
“We deserve to have a proper English teacher, not just a bunch of subs,” said senior Dominique Boatwright, 17, of Far Rockaway.

Another egregious fact is that part of the problem was that the students were being "educated" by a computer program called iLearn. Quite unsettling is the news that this school is but one of 160 city schools that use automated education from the iZone initiative that uses such programs. This program is being used in Far Rockaway, a largely minority community. One wonders whether computer-driven education supplants accredited teachers in schools in whiter, middle class neighborhoods.

Education officials said that the school — where 27% of students graduated ready for college last year — is part of a citywide online learning initiative called the iZone.

Computer-based classes are a key component of the iZone program, which is used by more than 160 schools around the city.

But students said that they still need a teacher who’s familiar with the course work, even if they’re using computers to deliver instruction.

The fedup teens decided to take matters into their own hands and stage a protest outside the school on Friday morning to demand a teacher for their English classes.

Senior class president Shamia Heyliger of Far Rockaway organized the rally, which began at 7 a.m., before classes were scheduled to begin.

“We needed to get the message across that we need a teacher,” said Heyliger, who has a 93 average and wants to be a lawyer.

The spunky teen used Facebook to spread word about the rally, and about 40 kids turned out before class for the protest.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/english-class-frederick-douglass-academy-queens-a-regular-teacher-months-article-1.980188#ixzz1eKdg0zXh

Hats off to the students for refusing to go to class until they were given a proper teacher. This calamity of the spiteful city/ Department of Education shows the need for parents and student to organize and push the city to act in ways that respond to community's needs.

Kelly's Absent Police Reserve? Shades of Things to Come for Teachers Under a Kelly Administration?

2011-11-19T07:55:00.007-05:00

Factors that send teachers into the Absent Teacher Reserve are said to include age, salary and sometimes, principals' dispositions (nice way of saying preference or bias).

Apparently, the last factor has a strong parallel in the parallel universe of New York Police Department (NYPD) professional limbo: thousands of police are in a demoted, limbo status for an interminable period. What has got them there? --Partial clearance from accusations or charges of wrongful behavior, and from one phrase, "out of favor," we can surmise that it means, falling out of favor with supervisors or not quite fitting in or playing along with the institutional culture of a particular unit.

It is interesting, the media has wide-spread indignation and immediate presumptions of guilt regarding teachers in a similar status: assignment to Teacher Reassignment Centers (TRCs) or rubber rooms or Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR). Yet, here we have a quite parallel phenomenon in the police department and no copy-cat articles by other media organizations after the article, "Ray Kelly's Gulag", hit the sidewalk Village Voice bins this Wednesday. Where are the front page articles in the New York Post?

Speaking of hypocrisy and double-standards, this brings to mind the four year free pass that one Mychael Willon, and educrat with a public lewdness conviction (Kansas, 1989) (and see this post also for reference) got from the New York City Department of Education. The DOE never looked into his past but instead allowed him hired him from 2005 to 2009, for one period, to monitor all levels of education personnel in the very cushy job of LIS (Instructional Superintendent) in the Bronx's District 9 and later, the Director of the Principal Candidate Pool. He then went on to become a chief officer at a DOE vendor that contracts to provide supplemental tutoring to NYCDOE students. Aside from his infraction at the Wichita bookstore, he distorted his credential on his DOE application, misrepresenting his dubious doctorate from a diploma mill. Needless to say, infractions on this last matter alone would get a sub-superintendent DOE employee into very deep water. Interestingly, this story only got traction at a New York City oriented blog.

Aside from an interesting look into the background of assignment to the Police Department's dumping ground or long-term desk duty, this article brings up the profound degree to which NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly micromanages the assignment of officers' files and assignment to long-term desk duty. (The key phrase is more of a mouthful than just "desk duty." It is: "do not transfer without PC approval.") Commissioner Kelly's monitoring has no limits of enthusiasm, for example, he apparently goes to headquarters on weekends to look into the files.
This picayune enthusiasm does not bode well for teachers, should he become mayor.
One can be sure that he will have the opportunity to stroll into Tweed Department of Education headquarters on his slow weekends and pore into files. And one cannot put it past him that he might have the will to choose to make lives hell, particularly to go after the activist teachers, and more specifically the ones at rallies around Foley Square or NYPD HQ.

Here is the lead page of the article by Graham:
(Disclaimer: there are indeed some bad apples in NYPD limbo or APR status, e.g., such as some of those officers involved in the killing of Amadou Diallo. Some others in the limbo status we can surmise are there, not fro misdeeds, but from rubbing some supervisor the wrong way. The latter do not deserve to suffer professional limbo. Again, speaking of media hypocrisy, how is it that officers responsible from Diallo's death are still on the force and suffer no endless media campaign, when the standards are harsher for teachers???)

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly keeps a secret list of police officers who cannot be transferred without his specific approval. The list, which the Voice obtained from an NYPD employee, is part of a 23-page spreadsheet that contains the names of 2,300 officers, their ranks, their ID numbers, old units, new units, and coded descriptions of thousands of personnel decisions throughout the past several years. Strangely, the document isn't marked with any police insignia or command titles.

In all, according to the list, Kelly banned transfers without his specific approval for at least 96 police officers over the past several years and rejected pending transfers for at least 59 more, which overrules his subordinates. He also transferred 228 officers to VIPER, where cops sit and stare at video screens to monitor crime in public housing—a unit seen as a dumping ground for those in trouble or out of favor, where careers can languish for years. Hundreds more names on the list are of officers "transferred for cause," or sent to another command for some transgression, which could be anything from serious misconduct to irritating a commander.

Most of the officers who made the list don't know that the commissioner essentially froze their careers in place, in what some department insiders say is Kelly's version of the city's notorious former "rubber room" system for teachers awaiting adjudication of their cases, where they were asked to sit indefinitely in classrooms away from students. Others call the list Kelly's "gulag," a way of punishing officers without forcing them to retire or quit.

Once a name goes on the list, it doesn't come off, even after years have passed and an officer has been brought back into the fold—a circumstance that someone likened to being forced to wear a scarlet letter for the duration of his or her career. In its stark, clipped language, the secret spreadsheet offers a rare insight into how the department is run by Kelly, who will soon become the city's longest-serving police commissioner. It also might give an indication of how he would run the city if he runs for and is elected mayor.

Most importantly, the list confirms Kelly's reputation as a micromanager who reviews just about every transfer that takes place in the largest police department in the country.

Paul Browne, a police spokesman, did not respond to Voice requests for a discussion of the spreadsheet.

Ray Kelly has a big job, overseeing 40,000 employees and a multibillion-dollar budget larger than that of at least five states. But he is apparently also involved in many decisions that used to be delegated to subordinates.

To put it in context, prior to Kelly, police commissioners did not bother with low-level, routine transfers.

"In the old days, the police commissioner didn't get involved in that," says a former Kelly staffer. "The borough commanders would call each other and say, 'I need to move a guy,' or, 'I need a guy from Precinct X.' Kelly centralized all of that."

Insiders attribute Kelly's involvement in these decisions to the behavior of his predecessor, Bernard Kerik, who, over Kelly's objections, promoted a large number of his NYPD cronies during his last days in office.

The source says that he often saw Kelly come into his 14th-floor office at One Police Plaza on Sunday afternoons to pore over transfer requests and related documents.

That's a different image than the one Kelly himself has been promoting lately as his department is hit with a series of corruption cases. Kelly has put these problems down to a "few bad apples," as if there were things going sour in his department that he was unaware of.

Murray Weiss, a respected longtime police reporter now writing for DNAinfo, recently noted that the "bad apple approach may deflect a troublesome story, but it has insidious shortcomings. It sends the message that the NYPD is a closed society that will protect its own."

The spreadsheet illustrates, however, that Kelly is even more hands-on than he lets on with individual police officers he considers problematic in some way. In this story, we have looked at some of the many decisions Kelly has made that are indicated in the spreadsheet. In some cases, we do not have a complete set of facts or history to explain Kelly's decisions. For that reason, the Voice is withholding some names that appear on the list.

One of the officers designated "do not transfer without PC approval" is James Albertelli, who was indicted in 2005 on bribery and coercion charges when he was assigned to the 13th Precinct in Manhattan.

But in 2006, he was acquitted of all charges, and Patrolmen's Benevolent Association boss Patrick Lynch called it a "politically motivated case." "With nothing more than a bogus complaint and no evidence, the DA's office charged two honorable police officers in a successful attempt to generate pre-election publicity," Lynch said.

And then, in January 2008, Albertelli was transferred to the 111th Precinct with the notation "Don't move again without PC approval."

Was that failed indictment enough to plant the scarlet letter on Albertelli for the rest of his career? Did he get in trouble for something else?

Read the entire article at the Village Voice at this link.

Real NYC Teacher Attendance at 11/17 Defend OWS Rally?

2011-11-17T07:01:00.002-05:00

One of the most important nights of the semester in the teacher's calendar is Parent-Teacher night.

What were the United Federation of Teachers (New York City), and UFT President Michael Mulgrew thinking when it scheduled a major rally for Occupy Wall Street at a time that overlaps with what will be parent-teacher night for many grades? Couldn't they have scheduled the rally for next week, when this major scheduling conflict would not be an issue?

Participation for a large segment of teachers (and for OWS-supporting parents) will be lower with a rally time of 5:00 PM, Thursday, November 17,
at Foley Square (one block north of Chambers Street and the Municipal Building.
If you are not a teacher or parent in one of the affected categories,
BE THERE! (Subway directions in NYC Education Activism box at right.)

Sparks at UFT DA Over New Evaluations -- Danielson in the News -- the Truth Behind the Efficacy of High-Stakes Tests

2011-11-06T05:32:00.002-05:00

Sparks flew last month at the United Federation of Teachers Delegate Assembly over the issue of teacher evaluations. Bryant High School (Queens) Chapter Leader Sam Lazarus called for voting against a resolution endorsing the use of Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Learning, arguing that the application of Danielson at his school has meant that nearly two-thirds of the teachers evaluated under the new system were rated sub-standard, setting them up for termination under 3020-a proceedings. And from the pattern of which teachers have been stuffed into the Absent Teacher Reserve ("ATR") --older, experienced, and expensive teachers, we can imagine which teachers will tend to be found ineffective. (So, Voila!, with accommodating to Governor Mario Cuomo's call for tougher teacher evaluation systems, the older-teacher elimination goals behind Mayor Michael Bloomberg's objective of ending Last In First Out --or LIFO-- would be accomplished.) For more on the DA see Ed Notes and ICEUFT Blog.

2011 seems to be a good year for Danielson: a great number of news reports dated in 2011 on implementation or purchasing of her (and Teachscape's, a collaborating entity) systems.
An interesting pattern is that the names of school systems that are recently publicized as using Teachscape are urban school systems that are facing budgetary crises, actual or threatened teacher layoffs, yet millions of dollars are available to spend on the deploying (the industry's word) Teachscape video evaluation system.
Danielson's evaluation methods have moved beyond her pilot approach introduced in 1996 to walkthroughs for use in a new edition of the "Teachscape" video analysis system.

A report appearing to be a press release indicates that Teachscape software (Teachscape Reflect 360-Degree Video Analysis System) using Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Learning is already being used in New York City schools:
"NYC Schools Deploy New Teacher Observation Tools"
and
http://www.epicos.com/Portal/Main/Home/Pages/ItemDetails.aspx?wIaopCxX2Y8G8sI4fMM9Br3kag3WiwlBeSBdwKJPYazi9V6KSm%2Bk/A%3D%3D

Overwhelmingly the NJ locations where the Danielson system is being introduced are urban districts.

*And like many new developments, there is a money trail: links to familiar foundation and institution names, from Teachscape's own PR press release: Teachscape's partners include Kogeto, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Stanford University, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Charlotte Danielson to help shape its vision, its products, and its strategies. --http://www.epicos.com/Portal/Main/Home/Pages/ItemDetails.aspx?wIaopCxX2Y8G8sI4fMM9Br3kag3WiwlBeSBdwKJPYazi9V6KSm%2Bk/A%3D%3D

(And for a take from a different angle: a satiric animation video but making serious statements about the interlinking of investors, foundation philanthropy and money for video evaluation software in the face of limited funds for classroom essentials: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpmQZ5MXs8c&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL12864A4208592D9E)

WHAT STUDIES REALLY SHOW ABOUT THE EFFICACY OF INCENTIVE PROGRAMS IN CHANGING STUDENT TEST SCORES:
As writer Valerie Strauss said at "the Washington Post" in "Report: Test-based incentives don’t produce real student achievement:"

Incentive programs for schools, teachers and students aimed at raising standardized test scores are largely unproductive in generating increased student achievement, according to a new report researched by an expert panel of the National Research Council.

The report [by Michael Hout and Stuart W. Elliott, "Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education"] said that standardized tests commonly used in schools to measure student performance — including high school exit exams and tests in various grades mandated by former president Bush’s No Child Left Behind law — “fall short of providing a complete measure of desired educational outcomes in many ways,” according to a summary of the lengthy document.

The report, together with a number of other studies [summarized by Diane Ravitch] released in the past year, effectively serve as a warning to policymakers in states that are moving to implement laws, with support from the Obama administration, to make teacher and principal evaluation largely dependent on increases in students’ standardized test scores.

The practice doesn’t bring about the kind of student achievement policymakers say is necessary for the United States to compete with the highest-performing countries, according to the 17-member Committee on Incentives and Test-Based Accountability convened by the National Research Council, which is the research arm of the National Academies (including the National Academy of Sciences, the National Council of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine).

The panelists — who include experts in assessment, education law and the sciences — examined over the past decade 15 incentive programs, which are designed to link rewards or sanctions for schools, students and teachers to students’ test results. The programs studied included high-school exit exams and those that give teachers incentives (such as bonus pay) for improved test scores.

The panel studied the effects of incentives, not by tracking changes in scores on high-stakes tests connected to incentive programs, but by looking at the results of “low-stakes” tests, such as the well-regarded National Assessment of Educational Progress, which aren’t linked to the incentives and are taken by the same cohorts of students.

The researchers concluded that the effects of incentive programs tend to be “small and . . . effectively zero for a number” of such programs.

Gains that were detected were concentrated in elementary grade mathematics and “are small in comparison with the improvement the nation hopes to achieve,” according to the summary.

The researchers concluded not only that incentive programs have not raised student achievement in the United States to the level achieved in the highest-performing countries but also that incentives/sanctions can give a false view of exactly how well students are doing. (The U.S. reform movement doesn’t follow the same principles that have been adopted by the other countries policymakers often cite. You can read an analysis of that by educator Linda Darling-Hammond here.)

Strauss closed by critiquing the efficacy of "value-added" evaluations because they ignore the effects of factors of social ills (outside the school) upon student learning:

Other studies in the past year have also cast doubt on the effectiveness and reliability of the value-added method of teacher/principal evaluation, which takes student test scores and puts them into a formula that is supposed to factor out other influences and determine the “value” a teacher has brought to a student’s learning.

The method often ignores outside-school factors that can influence how a child does on a test, including lack of sleep, hunger and illness, but even formulas that are said to take these into account are not especially reliable, some experts have said.

Will Autocratic NYC Mayoral Power Mean 100s of Homeless Deaths This Winter? & Calls for Indep. Police Oversight

2011-11-05T09:19:00.007-04:00

We hear much about the ill effects of autocratic mayoral control upon public education. The details are too numerous to account here. Just see Ed Notes Online or the latest ATR farce details at NYCATR.

The latest outrage and testament to the crazed policy decisions of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's being drunk with power is the following plan by New York, to insist that single homeless persons prove that they are homeless (Yes, this is real, not GBN from another NYC blog):
From various New York news outlets, this from WNBC-TV:
"Analysis: The City Demands the Homeless Prove It"
(a photo caption)

A sign of a man panhandling for money is displayed on the streets of Manhattan October 26, 2009 in New York City. In a recently released report by the advocacy group Coalition for the Homeless it was revealed that the numbers of homeless people using New York City shelters each night has reached an all time high. Since Mayor Michael Bloomberg took office eight years ago there has been a 45 percent increase in shelter use with over 39,000 homeless people, including 10,000 homeless families, checking in to city shelters every evening. The group also said that 2009 has turned out to be 'the worst on record for New York City homelessness since the Great Depression. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

and the text of the news story, including some hard hitting comments:
IT COMES DOWN TO SAVING MONEY:

New York has a tradition of caring for its most vulnerable people. That’s why it’s shocking to hear that homeless single people will have to prove they are truly homeless to get into a shelter.

My colleague, Melissa Russo, reports that the city’s Department of Homeless Services plans to save $4 million a year by cracking down on those who are unable to show they have no other option but going to a homeless shelter. I have covered the homeless crisis in New York for 32 years -- and this latest development is outrageous.

It was back in 1979 that a young, idealistic lawyer named Robert Hayes brought a lawsuit in behalf of all homeless men in New York. He filed it in the name of a man named Robert Callahan. On a cold winter night, Hayes introduced me to Callahan, who was sleeping on a bench in a park in Kips Bay. Callahan said: “I want a home.”

The State Supreme Court ultimately ruled that everyone had a constitutional right to shelter. It was a landmark decision for New York and the nation.

Over the years various bureaucrats have nibbled away at the essence of that decision. Now, the city’s Homeless Commissioner Seth Diamond, says: “People who have alternatives are not homeless. If they have a brother or a sister who can house them, that’s where they should go.”

This sets the city up as the ultimate judge of whether or not someone is actually homeless. It’s an astonishing turn in a history in which New York stands out as a place where compassion, not the dollar sign, rules.

As winter approaches, is compassion out of style? In this city, the Callahan case should be enshrined as a standard for charity and decency. It’s hard to accept that this is no longer the case. When the first person freezes to death on the streets, will the bureaucracy change its mind? Are we going to try to force relatives to take in homeless people? What provision in the Constitution or the law entitles City Hall to do that?

Mary Brosnahan of the Coalition for the Homeless told me: “This new policy is unconscionable. Just as winter approaches and Thanksgiving, we are putting the most vulnerable people at severe risk. People will die if this policy goes unchallenged.”

And the coalition intends to challenge it. Meanwhile, at last reports, there are a record 39,000 homeless people in New York, including single adults and families.

People have written to NBC New York about this development. Richele Lewis wrote: “The option of sleeping on someone’s floor is not considered adequate housing although it is better than having to sleep on the subway or in a park…”

And an e-mail from Eva Clark: “It’s hard to sleep on someone’s floor, especially if they really don’t wish you there and wish you get out and go somewhere and get lost and don’t come back.”

As Thanksgiving and Christmas approach, I’m inclined to believe that compassion is not out of style. In the scriptures are the words: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Mother Teresa said: “At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done. We will be judged by ‘I was hungry and you gave me to eat, I was naked and you clothed me, I was homeless and you took me in.'"

* * *
NYPD AND CALLS FOR INDEPENDENT OVERSIGHT
(I have to move on, so here are quick parts --maybe I'll be able to clean up later.)
Alisa Chang (I spelt it properly, as compared to WNYC which botched her first name on the website) reported, "Police Misconduct Cases Draw Calls For Greater NYPD Oversight," on Friday, November 4, afternoon.
the lede:

With recent reports of misconduct within the New York City Police Department mounting, criminal justice experts are calling for greater oversight of the department.

A new study by the Citizens Crime Commission, an independent non-profit organization that focuses on criminal justice reform, shows that major cities other than New York are more aggressive in monitoring their police departments.

Richard Aborn, president of the Commission, said New York City should follow examples set by Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

"They have, what I think, are the gold standards of oversight," said Aborn during an interview on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show on Friday. "They are independent of the department, they are transparent , they have compulsory power, meaning they have subpoena power, and they are permanent. And the NYPD doesn't have any of that."

Recently, 16 police officers were indicted in the Bronx as a result a ticket-fixing investigation; seven New York City narcotics investigators were convicted of planting drugs on people; eight current and former police officers were indicted for smuggling guns; an officer in Staten Island was charged with making a false arrest; and three officers were convicted of robbing a perfume warehouse.

Click to the article's link above for the full WNYC story.

NYS Education Department Database on Test Cheating Cases --Surprise, Surprise!

2011-10-31T23:47:00.008-04:00

Gawwwwlllly, Mr. Condon!

New York State has had hundreds of test cheating cases, yet only a handful are determined "substantiated."

On October 31, 2011, "The New York Times" uploaded a database that contained the status of allegations of test cheating or tampering, in connection with a story referring to "ballooning" allegations of test tampering under the tenure of New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.

As the Times and the Daily News reported this summer, the Bloomberg administration was hardly interesting in finding or uncovering instances of reporting, as noted, when it discontinued the use of erasure analysis on city-administered tests.

Click here to access New York State's database on alleged dhearship.

Quite a large number of cases are still open. A roughly even proportion of the high school (Regents exams) cases from the 2006-2007 school-year remain open.

Cellphones in Class; NYT Site Demands Facebook Link For Commenters

2011-10-29T03:13:00.005-04:00

Here is a common-sense reaction to the cellphone in class issue:

If in a past generation a student had a transistor radio to her ear in a classroom
a teacher would ask that the student put it away.
Yes, it could provide stimulating music or up-to-the-minute news,
but it would hijack the student's attention.

If in a past generation a student had a copy of Mad Magazine or Rolling Stone in a classroom
a teacher would ask that the student put it away.
Yes, it could provide a thoughtful, satirical view, or it would have muckraking news,
but it would hijack the student's attention.

There is a time and a place for fun and leisure. Will the permissive parents or commenters remember that they accommodated distraction when the school report card results or Regents results come in?
Real teachers know that electronic gadgets can provide a terrible distraction. Yet, many people are suspending logic by arguing for their accommodation.

* * *
A COMPLAINT AGAINST THE TIMES
Why must you insist on people signing in with Facebook? Cannot the Times comprehend that the site could be hacked and school authorities could see commenting teachers' identities?
Plenty of sites, commercial and non-commercial, have comments pages with a relatively small percentage of inappropriate comments. Why can they not allow for securely anonymous comments / posts by teachers that do not want their career deep-sixed by slip-ups in Facebook?

Just a few years ago ''The Business Insider'' ran a story, "How to Hack Facebook."

NYPD Officers Rally for Accused Ticket-Fixing Cops at Courthouse, Sup's Faked Job Placement Nos.

2011-10-28T16:45:00.007-04:00

The Njavascript:void(0).Y. Daily News reports that New York Police Department officers rallied today at the Bronx Courthouse.
(reports elsewhere report a crowd of at least 500)
The beginning of Kevin Deutch, Bob Kappstatter and Larry Mcshane's article posted online:

The cop at the center of the massive ticket-fixing scandal was held Friday on $500,000 cash bail after his arraignment in a Bronx courtroom packed with furious police officers.

Officer Jose Ramos of the 40th Precinct was the only one of the 16 accused cops not to make bail after their court appearances in the worst NYPD scandal in two decades.

Ramos' lawyer denounced the proceeding as a "media circus" and blasted the high bail after a hearing with even higher tension.

"This isn't a $500,000 case," said attorney John Sandleitner. "He's charged with nonsense for the most part."

SCANDAL PUTS THOUSANDS OF CRIMINAL CASES IN JEOPARDY

Ramos, suspected of ties to a drug dealer, was caught on wiretaps discussing ticket-fixing after cops received a tip about the 17-year police veteran. He faces charges of attempted grand larceny, attempted robbery and attempted heroin possession.

Ramos was arrested Thursday night while leaving a parent-teacher conference at his stepchild's Inwood school. His wife was nabbed at their home on a charge of filing a false report in a car accident.

Officer Christopher Scott was revealed as the most egregious ticket-fixer, charged with more than 150 separate counts ranging from official misconduct to conspiracy, officials said.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/10/28/2011-10-28_nypd_officers_gather_at_bronx_courthouse_in_support_of_indicted_cops_in_ticketfi.html#ixzz1c70xUVTZ

FAKE, CORRUPTED NUMBERS AT CITY-FINANCED JOB PLACEMENT AGENCY; ECHOING NYPD ARREST QUOTAS, AND TOP-DOWN CULTURE OF ACCOMMODATING TEST-CHEATING IN NYC SCHOOLS
*SEEDCO AND WORKFORCE 1 IMPLICATED
On September 27, 2011, Michael Powell, in "The New York Times" reported on this problem in "Managers Pushed for Fake Job-Placement Numbers, Ex-Workers Say." excerpts:

. . . . Our mayor takes much pride in his “I’m one tough businessman” ethos. Each year he instructs commissioners to set higher goals for placing the unemployed in jobs, and each year contractors deliver those numbers on the dotted line, even in hard economic times.

It is quite miraculous, particularly if the numbers are based in reality.
Unfortunately, a question mark hangs over such claims. . . . .
Seven former Seedco [city-financed agency] employees say managers encouraged employees to produce hundreds, even thousands, of fake job-placement numbers over several years.

“The falsification of this data was not a mistake, nor was it an accident,” said Ana Defillo, who came to Seedco as an AmeriCorps worker. “It was endemic.” . . . .
For years now, the mayor and his officials have set job-placement goals as if playing a game of bar darts: Close your eyes and toss one high on the wall and — voilà! — a reasonable goal. Certainly city statistics suggest success leaping upon success. Workforce1 placements rose to 24,701 in the last fiscal year from 17,218 in fiscal year 2007. In the same period, the city unemployment rate rose to 9 percent from 4 percent. “Their goal,” said Mr. Harper, who now works in Seattle, “is to lightly touch as many people as possible and take credit for whatever jobs they get.” . . . .

NY1: UFT: It Appears that NYPD is Spying on Teachers

2011-10-25T23:26:00.011-04:00

In an exclusive report by NY1, "NY1 Exclusive: Teachers Union Says NYPD Keeping Close Watch Following Support Of Protests," the United Federation of Teachers, New York City's teachers' union asserts that the New York Police Department might be spying on teachers, particularly in light of the UFT's support of the Occupy Wall Street protests at Zuccotti Park.
Here are opening excerpts from Lindsey Christ's October 21, 2011 report:

The United Federation of Teachers has vocally supported the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, and union representatives now say they believe the New York City Police Department may be spying on them as a result. NY1’s Lindsey Christ filed the following report.

Police cars are not usually parked outside the headquarters of the United Federation of Teachers, but union representatives say they've been there for the past few weeks.

Union leaders say they think they've been put under surveillance by the New York City Police Department ever since they began supporting “Occupy Wall Street.”

Click for full report: "NY1 Exclusive: Teachers Union Says NYPD Keeping Close Watch Following Support Of Protests."

AND
Alternet: Since 2002: NYPD: $0.8M on metal fences.

8 NYPD Officers Caught in Import Guns into Brooklyn Operation

2011-10-25T22:57:00.006-04:00

Eight New York Police Department officers have been charged in a sting operation with involvement in a conspiracy to bring guns into the city.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, in a joint news conference with N.Y.C. FBI office head Diego Rodriguez and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly announced the results of the FBI's investigation.

New York Times' story on the gun transit into Brooklyn operation was accompanied by notes on how this news comes in the midst of several police corruption developments:

And the arrests come at a difficult time for a department, the largest municipal police force in the nation, already besieged by corruption accusations. In recent weeks, testimony at the trial of a narcotics detective has featured accusations that he and his colleagues in Brooklyn and Queens planted drugs or lied under oath to meet arrest quotas and earn overtime, leading to the arrests of eight officers, the dismissal of hundreds of drug cases because of their destroyed credibility and the payout of more than $1 million in taxpayer money to settle false arrest lawsuits.

Two other officers, in unrelated federal cases, have been charged in recent weeks with criminal civil-rights violations accusing them of trumping up charges against innocent victims. In one case, on Staten Island, a white officer is accused of falsely arresting a black man and then bragging about it using a racial slur. And in the coming days, 16 officers are expected to face charges in a ticket-fixing scandal in the Bronx.

Feds: NYS must investigate DOE's job of serving homeless children

2011-10-25T22:19:00.008-04:00

NY1 reported Friday, October 21, 2011 that federal authorities want New York State authorities to investigate how good a job the New York City Department of Education is doing in educating New York City's over 50,000 homeless students.
Look at the numbers: there are notable gaps between the performance of the homeless students and that of the rest of the city's students.
Could it be that the attendant stresses of poverty, not only teacher performance, are major factors behind the performance of New York City's schoolchildren? The major and the policy deformers talk a lot of hot air about allowing all children the opportunity to excel. This is indeed a laudable goal, however, should not actions count more than words?

This is the city that is seeing dizzying rent and property increases, outpacing inflation in the rest of the economy, and certainly outpacing incomes. Could not the sickening housing costs and poor blue collar job opportunities be something that the mayor be held to account for, not just education (the Education Mayor)?

The key opening excerpt from NY1's website:

The federal government is ordering the state to monitor how the city is educating its more than 50,000 homeless public school students, and on Tuesday the City Council learned from the Department of Education just how bad things are for these vulnerable children. NY1's Education reporter Lindsey Christ filed the following report.

Of all the groups in the city’s public schools, homeless students are likely the most disadvantaged, with the worst chance of getting a good education. Last year, 53,500 city public school students were homeless.

On Tuesday, the Department of Education revealed just how badly those students are doing. The graduation rate is 41 percent, compared to a citywide rate of 61 percent.

In elementary and middle school, an average of only 38 percent of homeless students passed the math exam, compared to the citywide average of 57 percent.

Only 27 percent of homeless students passed the English exam, versus 44 percent citywide.

Several city agencies serve homeless children, but there has been little coordination. That became clear last January, when a student had to miss a Regents exam required for graduation so she could be with her family for a hearing to get into a shelter.

Click for full NY1 story.
A side note, it is often the case that homeless students are concentrated in certain schools. Of course, these students face challenges that we can only imagine a fraction of, and when their grades suffer, these schools are threatened with shut-down, and the excessed teachers enter the absent teacher reserve (ATR).

NEWS: On "Occupy the PEP"

2011-10-25T21:24:00.011-04:00

Education activists, including allied parents and students, took over the Panel for Educational Policy. In the spirit of the Occupy Wall Street movement downtown, the protesters began the public's speech by saying "mic check."
The PEP meeting at the Seward Educational Complex (with five, count 'em, five schools), convened to discuss "Core Curriculum" standards, began at 6:00 and closed up at 6:10 PM and relocated to elsewhere in the building.

DOE PEP'S PROVOCATION
Any honest and complete presentation of tonight's events must recognize that the PEP set up a provocation tonight. In a break from previous policy, the PEP insisted in procedural rules announced days before the meeting that people with questions submit them in writing.
The PEP thus set the stage for high tension. What was the reason for denying open microphone opportunities? After all, at many PEP meetings in the last twelve months plenty of people had opportunities to speak. One might say that the time limits afforded many people the chance to speak.
Reminder, I am still speaking about PREVIOUS meetings. Varying opinions were expressed, con, mainly, and a handful endorsing the PEP's policy objective of the night.
Yes, the nights could be rowdy and noisy, but both sides could always be expressed and the PEP could always do its voting. Now if one objects that opponents (upset at a total lack of popular political --democracy, remember?-- participation) were louder than the PEP facilitators of the business of the night, one should recognize some basic things: save for Patrick Sullivan, the PEP members, almost to a person, did not care what the public thought anyway. If they (the PEP, not the public --b'sides, what business does the public have in interfering in public policy?) were peeved at the noise, they could always chat among themselves to pass the business of the evening.

Click on this link to see Gotham Schools report, to this minute, THE ONLY Internet news outlet, up to 9:45 PM, to have reported anything on the PEP occupation story.

So, why did the PEP decide to deny the public any chance to pose impromptu questions or statements? Maybe, we need to direct our speculations to the man that runs the PEP, the mayor, who picks the eight of of the panel's thirteen members. Maybe it's that he just does not want teachers gathering publicly. Note how his NYPD gendarmes this weekend told teachers that they must stop their "grade-in" at Occupy Wall Street: “No grading papers in public," according to Fred Klonsky's story, "NYPD tells teachers, 'No grading papers in public'."

Hey, why are these important stories only covered by the blogs, and not by the commercial news?

UPDATE:
News coverage:
Well-edited youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbmjMickJMA

NYTimes coverage in SchoolBook: http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2011/10/25/walcott-event-disrupted-by-protesters/

NY1 coverage: http://www.ny1.com/content/news_beats/education/149635/education-panel-meeting-disrupted-by--occupy--protesters

Epoch Times: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/united-states/teachers-and-parents-occupy-education-meeting-63296.html

Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/25/occupy-wall-street-department-of-education_n_1031812.html

GothamSchools: 1) http://gothamschools.org/2011/10/25/discussion-of-common-core-to-compete-with-human-mic-tonight/

2) http://gothamschools.org/2011/10/25/protest-derails-doe-meeting-on-curriculum-after-just-minutes/

3) http://gothamschools.org/2011/10/25/underneath-the-shouting-a-hum-about-curriculum-standards/

Occupy wall street livestream videos (though they are hard to sort through): http://www.livestream.com/occupynyc

Daily News: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/10/26/2011-10-26_school_boss_disrupted.html

Fox News: http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/protesters-shout-down-schools-chancellor-walcott-20111025

A NYPost editorial: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/the_thugs_win_again_sIavzdrhUBM3HxPHHY7IxH?CMP=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME=

Blogs---
http://ednotesonline.com/

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2011/10/last-night-at-pep-we-occupied-doe.html

http://raginghorse.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/occupy-the-department-of-education-walcott-takes-it-on-the-hop/

More Corporate Fronts Driving Education "Reform" Exposed: Now, the DeVos Family

2011-10-23T07:08:00.002-04:00

Behind every education "reform" (actually, deform) group is a millionaire investor or donor. We've heard about the Broad and the Gates foundations manipulating public education policy. Here is more unsettling news of a 1%er family and right wing shadow groups manipulating policy in the same vein.

Behind Education Action Group is Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the DeVos family of multi-level marketer Amway fame. (Wikipedia describes the Mackinac Center as: The Mackinac Center for Public Policy is a free market think tank headquartered in Midland, Michigan. It is the USA’s largest state-based free market think tank.)
(And see Right Wing Watch about the Mackinac Center: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/mackinac-center-public-policy
From the madfloridian blog (in democraticunderground.com):

[As with the earlier Tempers Flaring in Memphis article, the following is from the madfloridian post, the indents are from the inset boxes throughout the article.]

Another "false front" education reform group? Keep eye out for their op eds in local papers.
Posted by madfloridian in General Discussion
Sun Oct 09th 2011, 12:55 PM
The Michigan Education Association writes about the Education Action Group and warns to watch out for their activities.

Behind the false front

Note the ties to the Mackinac Center and the DeVos family.

EAG isn’t really a group. It’s two very partisan men with ties to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and Dick DeVos of Amway Corp. fame. Olson’s brother is director of education policy at the Mackinac Center, another anti-union, pro-privatization group. The man who incorporated EAG, Eric Doster, is a Michigan Republican Party lawyer who has served on the board of the Great Lakes Education Project, a political action committee linked to DeVos. DeVos, of course, helped finance the failed 2000 vouchers initiative.

EAG bashes the collective bargaining process and school employees’ rights to inform the community and to work to elect leaders who value students and the employees who teach and help them at school.

Olson claims to be nonpartisan, but he is a partisan Republican Party activist and an officer in the state party.

Olson refuses to disclose his group’s funding sources, making it difficult to discern whose agenda EAG is pushing.

This Michigan-based "reformer" group just had an opinion piece published in the Tampa Tribune. It is anti teachers unions.

Teachers' union seeks to nullify the public's will

The column refers to an effort by the teachers' union in Florida to fight the new anti-tenure law. They totally misrepresent what the situation is about, and then they go on to express support for Rick Scott's extreme education changes.

By filing this suit, union leaders are telling people that teachers should not be held accountable for the performance of their students. They want us to believe all teachers are equally intelligent and motivated. They're saying that all teachers should continue to have a guaranteed job for life under tenure and remain on a common pay scale, regardless of the outcome of their work.

More than anything, FEA leaders are blatantly displaying their disrespect for the democratic process. They have no interest in the outcome of the elections that put Scott and his legislative allies in office. They are willing to use the courts to overturn the will of the people.

So much for majority rule. Union leaders, with all their wealth and influence, can simply shop for a politically-friendly judge who will rule in their favor. The eventual ruling may have little to do with the constitutionality of the new law and more to do with judges who accept donations from the teachers' union and feel obliged to pay them back.

And they speak of Rick Scott:

Reform-minded leaders like Scott have stood up to the unions and demanded accountability in the classroom. If teachers are not going to be held responsible for student performance, who will be? Can you think of another profession where employees are not held accountable for the final product?

[Ed.: are doctors held entirely responsible for patients' health? Or are diet and exercise credited?? Are police held entirely responsible for crime rates? Or can poverty be pointed to??]

They simply are not telling the truth. I wonder how many op eds in how many newspapers?

One member of this group has been regularly hounding an education blogger these last few months. They demanded and got all his education emails. The blogger, Fred Klonsky, posted about it often at his blog.

The return of Velderman. Ask GOP tough questions and you get put on a watch list.
It was late last school year that the goof ball ideological terrorists at the Michigan-based Education Action Group demanded that my school district hand over to them all my work emails.

Which they did.

EAG gofer Ben Velderman signed the FOIA request. The reason for the FOIA was that this blog asks tough questions about education and public policy and is outspokenly pro-teacher and pro-union.

Nothing has changed about that. Certainly not a FOIA request from some punk from EAG.

Now Think Progress reports that this is becoming standard GOP practice. Ask a Republican elected official a challenging question and you get placed on a watch list.

There are many of these groups which are fronts for corporations. One of them that is doing great harm to public schools is called the Parents Revolution. It is no parents revolution, it is funded by billionaires, connected to Green Dot charter schools.

The MEA website says this EAG group has tactics that "include sending anti-union mail to residents, attending local school board meetings and using the news media to further its negative agenda."

They also recommend:

If EAG surfaces in your district, please inform your local MEA UniServ director. You also may want to share what you know about EAG with your school board members and administrators, so they can consider EAG’s motives.

Maybe I should let them know it is surfacing in Tampa, Florida.

Bennington VT teachers strike, first in SW Vt. in Decades

2011-10-22T18:04:00.004-04:00

The teachers' strike in Bennington, Vermont is continuing.
Talks have suspended for the weekend:

From Neal R. Goswami, "Strike talks break for weekend," yesterday in the Bennington Banner:

BENNINGTON -- Teachers will continue their strike for a fourth school day on Monday, after union and board negotiators mutually agreed to break for the weekend Friday afternoon without a settlement.

Both sides said progress was made Friday and a framework appears to be in place to move closer to a settlement on Monday. There is "nothing imminent" to be signed, though, according to Darren Allen, spokesman for the Vermont chapter of the National Education Association.

The school boards -- Bennington, North Bennington, Shaftsbury, Pownal and Mount Anthony in the SVSU, and the Southwest Vermont Regional Technical School District -- presented a contract offer to the union around 10 p.m. Thursday. The union reviewed it overnight and met face-to-face with board negotiators Friday for the first time since the strike began on Wednesday.

Allen said negotiators for the Southwest Vermont Education Association, which represents about 270 teachers, were comfortable with Friday’s progress and agreed to break for the weekend.

"Sometimes when you’re at the table for that long it really is productive to take a break," Allen said.
. . . .
Teachers are now in their second year without a negotiated contract and working under conditions set by the boards in June -- one day after the previous school year ended. The union is seeking a successor agreement to replace the imposed conditions.

The union voted overwhelmingly on Oct. 12 -- 209 to 12 -- to authorize a strike if a deal with the boards was not reached by earlier this week.

Steven Stitzel, an attorney representing the boards, said he plans to meet with a union representative Monday to develop a "very clear list" of issues that must still be addressed.

Meanwhile, all of the boards will meet together Monday afternoon to discuss progress. Much of the meeting is likely to take place in executive session, according to officials.

Teachers are continuing to walk picket lines at their respective schools. On Friday, teachers also picketed in front of the SVSU central office where negotiations were taking place.

Union members are "really staying organized and together," according to one teacher. But there is growing "frustration" that union officials have not shared more specific details of proposals.

"They don’t understand the details of the proposals," the teacher said. "They’re staying organized but they wish they really knew what was going on with the proposals."

Despite increasing optimism that a deal will be reached next week, both sides acknowledged Friday that a significant amount of work remains.

The two sides have disagreed on three main issues -- the amount of health care premiums the districts will pay, how much of the school day is under the control of administrators, and salaries.

Those issues remain a central part of negotiations, according to both sides.
. . . .

Read the full article at the Bennington Banner.

Flashback: Trade School Girls' "Report Cards" Pre-FDR

2011-10-22T01:20:00.010-04:00

Contemporary New York writer uncovered file records of girls at trade high schools in New York, in the first three decades of the 20th C.

ATR Plight & Tribunal of Bloomberg's DOE Hits Huffington Post & GothamSchools Big Leagues: Educating for Democracy: The People's Trial ...

2011-10-21T04:55:00.006-04:00

Joel Shatzky in Huffington Post, "Educating for Democracy: The People's Trial of Mayor Bloomberg" in Huffington Post, October 16, 2011 addressed the absent teacher reserve (ATR) fiasco and the demise in general of public education under the leadership of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (the Coalition for Public Education (CPE)).

Shortly after Mayor Michael Bloomberg assumed control of the New York City school system, he presented his programs as a national leader in "educational reform." But there has been evidence in the New York public schools in the recent past of cheating on standardized tests by teachers and supervisors.

Moreover, the much publicized "success" of the mayor's program has been in part based on inflated test scores and the "dumbing down" of the tests themselves. Yet under the mayor's "leadership" Bloomberg continues to close down "failing" schools and replace them with charter schools causing wide-spread disruption to students, parents and veteran teachers. As a result of these closings, some of the most valuable and experienced teachers lose their positions and end up in "ATR" (Absent Teacher Reserve) where they are misused as substitute teachers with no permanent position since the principals are reluctant to hire high-salary veterans and prefer to employ cheaper, inexperienced teachers to meet their "bottom line." This is the business model of education that the Bloomberg Administration has imposed.

At a "trial" held at DC 37 of AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees sponsored by the Coalition for Public Education forpubliced.org and hosted by Sam Anderson, a noted educational leader dedicated to wresting the school system out of mayoral control, testimony was given by dozens of parents, teachers and concerned educators describing the negative effect the mayor's "educational reform" has produced in what seems to be a part of a nationwide attempt to privatize the public schools, deskill teachers, strip them of their union rights, and firmly establish a two-tier educational system: one for the privileged and one for everyone else.

The all-day trial was adjudicated by such well-known legal authorities as Thomas Mariadson, of the Asian-American Legal Defense Fund, Esmeralda Simmons, of the Center for Law and Social Justice, Damon Hewitt of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and attended by City Councilman Charles Barron. Angel Gonzalez, a member of GEM (Grassroots Education Movement) described in detail the destructive effect of school closings in which a disproportionate number of Black and Latino students are pushed out of their neighborhood schools to accommodate charter schools. This process not only results in damage to the students but a disproportionate number of Black and Latino teachers end up as ATR's further diminishing the ethnic diversity of the system. Among other results of the co-location of charter schools in district schools is that they-the charters- cut back on needed programs in bi-lingual and special needs education.

Another aspect of the damage the Bloomberg administration has done to the NYC public schools was revealed by a teacher-parent whose daughter goes to Bronx Regional High School, the school attended by Nicole Suriel, the girl who was tragically drowned on a class beach visit last summer. The parent testified that he had repeatedly warned the school administration and Department of Education of neglect and indifference to student well-being at the school and blames the Administration for fostering this negligent attitude that resulted in the girl's death.

The teacher also reported the conditions at the GED Plus school where he teaches which is located at Bronx Regional High School. The school is intended to offer a chance for high school dropouts ages 17-21, to get their General Education diplomas. However, according to the teacher's testimony, the school has no library, no arts programs, no gym, no special literacy program, no ELL for students whose first language is not English, and 35 in a class.

There were many other charges of mismanagement of the public schools by the Bloomberg administration. These included the dismissal of a twelve-year special ed veteran when the DOE discovered she hadn't taken a foreign language course in college; the excessive number of summonses and arrests of students of color where not only security personnel but also regular police with firearms patrol the former Brandeis High School. It had once been one of the best high schools in the City but was closed down so that a charter school can be "co-located" at the facility on the Upper West Side where the workers and teachers will be non-unionized. The testimony throughout the time I attended presented a consistent pattern of inadequate attention to and neglect of schools that desperately need more support.

And while these schools are "failing," Councilman Barron reported that during the period of the Bloomberg administration's control of the schools the DOE budget has increased from $11 billion to $24 billion while only 23% of the students graduating from the public schools are prepared for college. With a great many of the services for the city schools now "contracted out," Barron wonders where so much of this money is going with so little effect on improving public education.

At the same time, as pointed out by Leonie Haimson, a nationally known parent-advocate and Executive Director of Class Size Matters, a clearinghouse for information on class size, the actual number of students in classrooms K-12 has increased under the Bloomberg administration, despite the fact that $650 million each year for the past three were specifically appropriated by the State legislature under the Contracts for Excellence law to reduce class size. Moreover, Haimson pointed out that several programs that have no research to support them are being vigorously expanded under the Mayor's watch: paying students for improving test scores and increasing the use of on-line (computer-based) instruction.

An alternative to such destructive practices was offered at the hearing in an ICOPE (Independent Commission on Public Education) video created by a group of high school students who actually asked other students what they felt would improve their schools. The video, based on a study called YRNES (Youth Researchers for a New Education System) www.ICOPE.org found that in addition to wanting to be treated with greater respect by teachers and other staff, about 80% of those students questioned expressed an interest in participating in leadership roles in their school. Perhaps if other school administrators, besides the Mayor, heeded the students' request, there might be some marked improvement in their performance in learning.

If the "Trial of Mayor Bloomberg" showed anything, it was that his programs were more expensive, more destructive, and more demoralizing with no significant improvement in learning outcome than prior to his administration. The sentence for what he's done is that he should be dismissed from his position as head school administrator so that more positive outcomes can be produced for our City's young learners: student, parent and teacher-based, not business-based education.

* * * *

Hollywood respected older teachers; DOE would put Miss Bishop into ATR status; UFT would dismiss her plea for an elected representative

Among points raised in a Gotham Schools article by Rachel Cromidas,
"At union meeting, jobless teachers decry ATR deal 'shell game'" there was attention to a raucous ATR meeting, SEE THE FULLER ARTICLE BEYOND THE FOLLOWING EXCERPTS [SUBTITLES mine, Ed.]:

AMY ARUNDELL AND LEROY BARR DISMISSING UFT MEMBERS' CONCERNS

Amy Arundell, a UFT special representative, told the roughly 100 teachers at the meeting that the point of moving teachers weekly is to position them for jobs that could open up at the schools where they are temporarily assigned. The previous arrangement, in which members of the ATR pool often stayed at one school for an entire year, allowed principals to use them as free labor, she said, without necessarily incentivizing them to offer the ATR teachers permanent jobs.

CRAZY WEEK TO WEEK ROUTINE

Above frequent interruptions from the standing-room-only crowd, Arundell told teachers they must report to their new assignments next week, even if the principals at the schools they were assigned to for September tell them to stay put. She and several teachers in the room said some principals are asking ATRs to ignore their DOE placements and stay on, in violation of the agreement.

She encouraged the teachers to “be proactive” with the principals and press them to find money in their limited budgets to create permanent positions.
“Otherwise, you can’t stay,” she said. “Unless a principal tells you, ‘I hire you,’ Central DOE won’t know that a principal wants to keep you. You know that saying, ‘Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?’ That’s true here.”

That logic sounded hollow for a Manhattan-based teacher who said after the meeting that the normally “pro-teacher” union had agreed to a deal that does not put ATRs’ best interests first.

“This weekly assignment nonsense is meant to aggravate people so they get disgusted and leave,” she said.

UNION VS. DEMOCRACY OR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES

During the meeting, attendees called on the UFT to create a chapter just for ATRs and to file a discrimination lawsuit against the city on their behalf. But the union officials present, which included LeRoy Barr, the UFT staff director, rejected those requests, arguing that discrimination is difficult to prove and that chapter leaders at the schools where ATRs are temporarily assigned are equipped to advocate for them.

Arundell urged teachers to contact their temporary chapter leaders with complaints about hostile principals or requests to teach subjects out of their license.

But several teachers complained during the meeting that they had reached out to the UFT and the DOE with complaints, and received no response.

“It may be news for some of you, but there is not union representation in every school,” one teacher called out from the audience. “I was at one school that had no chapter leader.”

Several teachers complained about being assigned by their new principals to lunch duty or clerical work, which Arundell said was not part of their contract. Others spoke of being asked to take on subjects they are not licensed to teach.

One Manhattan-based librarian, who came to the Brooklyn meeting because the Manhattan meeting is not until next week, said her current principal is using her as an assistant to two kindergarten teachers at an elementary school because the school’s library is closed.

“I take the kids to the bathroom every period. That’s about all I do. My principal said to me, ‘I don’t want you here. You’re not going to work anyway.’” She paused for emphasis and whispered, “I think it’s because of my gray hair.”

UNION AGAINST CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT, DOUBTING DISCRIMINATION

Teachers throughout the room clapped when one attendee called on the union to file a class-action lawsuit against the city. Union officials shot down the idea, saying that courts require a high burden of proof for discrimination suits that the union would be unlikely to meet.

“But it’s happening everywhere,” another teacher called out. “Stop the shell game that’s taking place.”

Several teachers in attendance said they would like the union to create an ATR teacher chapter to represent them — something the union officials said was not likely to happen.

As the 2.5-hour-long meeting wrapped up, Vincente DeSiano, an elementary school teacher in the ATR pool, collected names and contact information from the roughly 40 people still present, after union officials said they would not provide information about who had attended.

“We have power that we don’t realize,” DeSiano said. “I want us all to be able to share information with each other and see how we can help the situation.”

See the original large article at Gotham Schools.

NY Times: Charter School Driving Droves of Teachers Away

2011-10-19T20:03:00.007-04:00

Anna Phillips, "High Teacher Turnover at a Success Network School," October 19, 2011.

More than a third of the staff members at a Harlem charter school run by the Success Charter Network have left the school within the last several months, challenging an organization that prides itself on the training and support it offers its teachers.

The unusually high turnover at Harlem Success Academy 3 and the network-wide issue of teachers quitting mid-year led the founder and chief executive of the Success Charter Network, Eva S. Moskowitz, to express concern in an October newsletter.

“This is not a ‘gig’ ” she wrote, informing staff members that by breaking their commitment to the schools and families midyear, they were acting unethically.

At Harlem Success Academy 3, 22 of the school’s 59 administrators, teachers and classroom aides left between the end of the last school year and the beginning of this one, according to the school’s records. Some took jobs at other schools, some moved to new cities and some said they quit out of frustration with the school’s tightly regulated environment.
. . . .
Few of the teachers who left Harlem Success Academy 3 would speak about why they quit, and those who did refused to be named, citing fear of retribution or concern that they could lose their new teaching positions.
. . . .
One former Harlem Success Academy 3 teacher who quit at the end of last school year said she had left because she felt “micromanaged.”

“You couldn’t teach in the way you wanted to teach,” she said. “If your kids weren’t sitting perfectly, looking straight at the teacher, not saying a single word, then you weren’t doing your job.”
. . . .
Read more of the article as originally posted at the New York Times website.

Undercover Operation Angers Brooklyn College Students

2011-10-16T22:03:00.002-04:00

The NYPD thinks this college sophomore is a threat?

From "The Brooklyn Ink" blog.

By Omar Akthar, "Undercover Operation Angers Brooklyn College Students," Tue, Oct 11, 2011

Students at Brooklyn College reacted, at turns, with both outrage and acceptance over a report that the New York Police Department used undercover officers to infiltrate Muslim student groups on campus.
According to a CBS news report this morning, The Associated Press obtained documents that show that the NYPD has been sending undercover officers to schools and colleges like Brooklyn College to infiltrate Muslim student groups and monitor their activities.
“It’s definitely scary, it makes me think twice about what I say when I’m speaking to someone on the phone when I’m on campus,” said sophomore Faria Imtiaz, a member of the Muslim Students Association. “It shows that if it could happen to us, it could happen to anyone.”

This wasn’t her first brush with police surveillance. “The NYPD released a list of institutions that were under surveillance for potential Islamic fundamentalism, one of them turned out to be my high school,” she said. Still, she added, maybe actions like this are necessary in the times we live in.
Konstantinos Marinakis, a senior, supported the department’s actions.
Konstantinos Marinakis, Brooklyn College Student by Omar Bilal Akhtar
He said that while there should be surveillance, it shouldn’t be specific for only certain groups. “I don’t agree it should be specific groups, “ he said. “The NYPD should go undercover in schools to infiltrate all groups ”

But sophomore Elizabeth Allan called the operation racist, a violation of privacy, and an example of racial profiling.

The operation may, in fact, violate U.S. privacy laws—and may also jeopardize federal funding for the universities if the department were to hand over student records without their consent to the police, law professor Ramzi Kassen told the AP.
The City University of New York has had an understanding with the NYPD since 1992 that states that in non-emergency situations, police officers may enter CUNY premises only upon the request or approval of a CUNY official.
Jeremy Thompson, the Senior Director of Communications and Marketing at Brooklyn College said, “If these allegations prove correct, it is certainly something that has happened without our knowledge.”

According to documents obtained by the AP, the NYPD may have gained access to student records through working with campus security, under the pretense of working on gang or narcotics cases. This would be a violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), a federal statute, according to Richard Rainsberger, a consultant on college privacy laws told the AP. If the college is found to be violating this statute, it could lose all its federal funding.
Thompson said that it was not unusual for the college to cooperate with the NYPD. “I don’t know if there is any veracity to that claim or not, but I can tell you we have a very good relationship with the NYPD. Our public safety officers are in regular communication with the 70th precinct here,” he said. “But we are certainly bound by the FERPA, and so anything that would have been done as far as the release of student records or documents would have been under those guidelines.”
***
Contact The Brooklyn Ink
Are you at Brooklyn College? What do you think about this? Email us at thebrooklynink(at)gmail.com.
Tweet your thoughts@thebrooklynink

Click to original Brooklyn Ink article for audio clips and comments.

Update:NYS Regents Ponders Sending Tests Away From Teachers' Own Schools/ NYT: Files: 14 Suspected Cheating

2011-10-15T21:51:00.007-04:00

New York State Regents Considering Sending Regents Tests Away for Schools for Scoring
Cheating in New York City Schools: 14 Cases
UPDATE: 10/17 NY1 contribution on this topic --link at bottom of this post.

Regents to Vote on Change to Cut Risk of Teachers’ Test-Tampering
By SHARON OTTERMAN
Published: October 15, 2011

The New York State Board of Regents will decide Monday whether to bar teachers from grading their own students’ standardized tests, a longstanding practice that state officials say creates a temptation for educators to cheat in an era of high-stakes exams.
The ban, which would start in the 2012-13 school year, would require districts to score tests in other schools, on computers or in regional centers. The change would most likely cause Regents exams, now held just before graduation, to be held earlier in the spring and could lead to additional costs for districts.

The state is in the process of introducing a new evaluation system that judges teachers in part on how well their students do on standardized tests. These rising stakes are behind the state’s push for better test security, as is an acknowledgment by state officials that they have not done enough to detect or prevent cheating.

. . . Remainder of NYT article.

The best route would be to send the tests outside of New York City. If they were examined in the city there would still remain the taint of intimidation from superiors in the New York City Department of Education.

(Condon only substantiated a handful of the accused test-cheating cases in New York City schools: NY Times. Sharon Otterman, from the September 24, 2011 Times, "State Says It Analyzed Test Erasures for Cheating; 62 Schools Proved Suspect." --The page tab gets more to the point: "In Reversal, New York State Says It Used Erasure Analyses to Detect Cheating."

Published: October 15, 2011
Cheating in New York City Schools: 14 Cases
A collection of reports by the Special Commissioner of Investigation for the New York City school system describing substantiated cases of test tampering and grade changing by educators. Most of the documents were obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information request and were redacted to protect the identities of witnesses and minors.

Click to above link for the 14 cited cases.

NY1, 10/17/11: "State DOE To Consider Measures To Prevent Regents Cheating."

NYPD fabricated drug charges vs. innocent people to meet arrest quotas, former detective testifies

2011-10-13T21:08:00.007-04:00

AND,New York Times, Jim Dwyer, "The Drugs? They Came From the Police"

Jim Marzulli, New York Daily News, October 13, 2011, "We fabricated drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas, former detective testifies"

A former NYPD narcotics detective snared in a corruption scandal testified it was common practice to fabricate drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas. [Photo]

The bombshell testimony from Stephen Anderson is the first public account of the twisted culture behind the false arrests in the Brooklyn South and Queens narc squads, which led to the arrests of eight cops and a massive shakeup.

Anderson, testifying under a cooperation agreement with prosecutors, was busted for planting cocaine, a practice known as "flaking," on four men in a Queens bar in 2008 to help out fellow cop Henry Tavarez, whose buy-and-bust activity had been low.

"Tavarez was ... was worried about getting sent back [to patrol] and, you know, the supervisors getting on his case," he recounted at the corruption trial of Brooklyn South narcotics Detective Jason Arbeeny.

"I had decided to give him [Tavarez] the drugs to help him out so that he could say he had a buy," Anderson testified last week in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

He made clear he wasn't about to pass off the two legit arrests he had made in the bar to Tavarez.

"As a detective, you still have a number to reach while you are in the narcotics division," he said.

NYPD officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Anderson worked in the Queens and Brooklyn South narcotics squads and was called to the stand at Arbeeny's bench trial to show the illegal conduct wasn't limited to a single squad.

"Did you observe with some frequency this ... practice which is taking someone who was seemingly not guilty of a crime and laying the drugs on them?" Justice Gustin Reichbach asked Anderson.

"Yes, multiple times," he replied.

The judge pressed Anderson on whether he ever gave a thought to the damage he was inflicting on the innocent.

"It was something I was seeing a lot of, whether it was from supervisors or undercovers and even investigators," he said.

"It's almost like you have no emotion with it, that they attach the bodies to it, they're going to be out of jail tomorrow anyway; nothing is going to happen to them anyway."

The city paid $300,000 to settle a false arrest suit by Jose Colon and his brother Maximo, who were falsely arrested by Anderson and Tavarez. A surveillance tape inside the bar showed they had been framed.

A federal judge presiding over the suit said the NYPD's plagued by "widespread falsification" by arresting officers.

Click for original NY Daily News article with photo and comments.

AND,New York Times, Jim Dwyer, "The Drugs? They Came From the Police"

Is it time for another commission to investigate police corruption? All the venom against teachers, never shall patterns in the New York Police Department be questioned.

L.A. students Re-taking "turnaround" school from charter hands to public hands

2011-10-13T01:45:00.003-04:00

From Madfloridian's Journal at democraticunderground.com, with MadFlo tipping a hat to Michael Klonsky; indents are MadFlo's blockquotes, containing of other articles.

{Take note of how Los Angeles students took the initiative in the effort to retake the public school. All of following text is written by madfloridian.}

Taking back a failing "turnaround" school from a charter group without hurting their fundraising?

Posted by madfloridian in General Discussion Tue Oct 11th 2011, 01:02 PM That's really sneaky. It's hard to do that quietly. But that is what is going on in Los Angeles.

The charter group, L.A.'s Promise [note who's on board of directors], is having a fundraising time. So the school officials (including the state superintendent) are being careful not to harm their raising of money, although a school they took over, a "turnaround", is not working.

Hat tip to blogger Mike Klonsky.

Turning around the 'turn-arounds': L.A.'s Promise turns out to be a big lie

Out in L.A., they're "turning-around" Manual Arts High School again. School district officials announced that they will retake control over Manual from L.A.'s Promise, a corporate-style reform group they had appointed to turn the school around. The huge campus (3,500 Latino and African-American students) has been beset by overcrowding and endured a disorderly start to the school year that saw initial shortages of desks and textbooks and left some students without class schedules. In March, hundreds of Manual students walked-out to protest teacher lay-offs and transfers forced by the management group.

Ten teachers have no classrooms of their own; instead they share rooms and switch locations from period to period. A new school is expected to open nearby next year to relieve overcrowding. "The primary problem is that the classes have ballooned," said history and government teacher Daniel Beebe, one of the instructors without a classroom.

Writes Howard Blume in L.A. Times:

"Top district officials faced a dilemma in dealing with L.A.'s Promise. They wanted to address the situation at Manual Arts without alienating the backers of the nonprofit group. Officials did not want to derail a recently launched, major fundraising initiative led jointly by L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy and education philanthropist Megan Chernin, longtime head of the L.A.'s Promise Board of Directors."

Protecting a charter group that apparently did not do a good job. Hmmm. I doubt they would offer the same courtesy in any way to traditional public schools. Here is more from the Los Angeles Times:

L.A. Unified to retake considerable control of Manual Arts High

Los Angeles school district officials will retake substantial control over Manual Arts High, which has been part of a high-profile reform effort led by an independent nonprofit, officials announced Thursday. The campus has been beset by overcrowding and endured a disorderly start to the school year that saw initial shortages of desks and textbooks and left some students without class schedules.

But wait...looks like they will "throw more money" at the situation. The district will simply monitor the group more closely.

L.A.'s Promise endorsed a compromise under which the district "will take the lead in the daily organizational, managerial, and educational operations," according to a district statement. The district will also provide additional resources to the group's efforts at the school.

Wonder what would happen if they threw more money at public education?

The nonprofit's once-solid relations with the teachers union reached a new low in recent months, when the group forced many teachers at Manual Arts and Muir Middle School — which L.A.'s Promise just took over — to seek jobs on other campuses. Administrators also put more pressure last year on Manual Arts teachers with stepped-up classroom observations and critiques.

..."Senior Andrea Leyva complained of 50 students in an art class with no supplies and of using a 10th-grade textbook in a 12th-grade Advanced Placement English class.

That's pretty bad...an advanced placement class using a 10th grade textbook. The Schools Matter blog [post of October 9] covers the issue of who is running L.A.'s Promise: "So-called LA's Promise isn't all that promising."

ho's Running LA's Promise?

Typical of unelected boards charged with running neoliberal quasi-private schools like charters in Los Angeles, LA's Promise's twelve member board doesn't have a single educator. Instead their board is dominated by entertainment industry types (here in Los Angeles simply known as "industry") with some investment capitalists, bankers, CEOs, and a couple of corporate lawyers thrown in for good measure. Their Board of Advisors has the same dearth of educators or even people remotely connected to education. Most frightening among their decision makers is former Gates Foundation charlatan, the technobabbling Tom Vander Ark. Everything we need to about how Vander Ark operates is summed up in this New York Times quote:

But after spending more than $1.5 million of investors’ money on consultants and lawyers, Mr. Vander Ark, 52, has walked away from the project, and the schools will not open as planned this fall, leaving others involved stunned and frustrated.

Talk about take the money and run.

From September, in the Los Angeles Times, the words of a teacher who left there and did not go back.

At Manual Arts High, a caring teacher is at the end of his rope: Jeremy Davidson, an art teacher at Manual Arts High, walks off the job because of unruly students. Many share his sense of frustration.

Art teacher Jeremy Davidson skipped the annual back-to-school-night at Manual Arts High this week. He'd walked off the job the day before — after 10 years at the mid-city campus — done in by a group of unruly ninth-graders who'd hijacked his sixth-period drawing class.

Davidson shared his story with me a few hours after he left campus. Two days earlier, he had emailed The Times, complaining about "the awful conditions" at Manual Arts.

"The overcrowded, dirty classrooms, and lack of support from administrators, is demoralizing and crushing the teachers — and not fair to students," he wrote.

Still, I had to wonder, what kind of teacher abandons those students when the semester has barely begun? A teacher at the end of his rope, Davidson told me; one who has had his fill of broken promises and dashed hopes.

"You keep raising your expectations, but nothing changes," he said. "After all these years, I look around and see that things are just getting worse."

10 years on the job. That's an accomplishment.
So it looks like the L.A.'s Promise charter group will keep getting public resources, but they will simply be monitored more. That is public money going to a private company with mostly entertainment folks on their board.
I guess the message is that it's okay not to do a good job unless you are a traditional public school. Discuss (3 comments) | Recommend (+10 votes)

Crp. Philanth in Ed. Policy Excl's Par's / other notes / Gates gave $ for

2011-10-13T00:57:00.009-04:00

{Both from Oct. 12 Haimson distru. See original email.}

Newark Parents Pushed Out of Decision Making on Zuckerberg Donation
October 10, 2011
Cindy Gibson

?
October 7, 2011; Source: Star-Ledger | Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg made quite a splash last year when he donated $100 million to help fix Newark’s troubled schools not only because of the size of the gift but its promise of involving Newark residents in deciding how the money would be spent—funds that the city would match.
According to Joan Whitlow of the Star-Ledger’s NJ.com, that promise of “citizen-centered” involvement has fallen by the wayside with the announcement that the Foundatio n for Newark’s Future will be dispensing Zuckerberg funds. Whitlow reports that the foundation’s board has three voting and one nonvoting members, only one of whom is from Newark, and that’s Mayor Cory Booker. The only way to get on the board, according to Gregory Taylor, the foundation’s president and CEO, is to donate at least $10 million because the foundation has to “raise enough to match the original $100 million.”
While Whitlow concedes that people who put up private money have the right to do with it what they want, she argues that “promises were made in Newark” and those, too, are important to honor when decisions about struggling public schools are on the table. She notes, “The mayor was pretty articulate and insistent…[that] Newarkers were going to decide…how the money would be spent.” An organization—PENewark—was established to organize residents’ involvement and, according to a HuffPo blog post by Booker, did hold "11 large-scale community forums, 25 mini-forums," and also, "knocked on 66,000 doors, received more than 20,000 surveys and contacted 45,000 community members in total.”
Whitlow argues, however, that the “the PENewark survey…was so weak, it had to be redone by Rutgers and New York University.” She also attended some of the meetings, during which the energy of citizens—which “should’ve been harnessed”—was “not used and then extinguished.” As she writes, “The outpouring of people put lie to the idea that Newark parents, teachers and students don't care. They wanted to roll up their sleeves and work for the lhttp://www.blogger.com/posts.g?blogID=3958525356631767583ong haul. I heard organizers asking for just that kind of commitment. No one said, ‘Tell us some stuff, then go away and let the $10 million men take it from there.’"
The foundation’s response? During a Star-Ledger editorial board meeting this week, Taylor said “letting the people have their say is not how professional philanthropy works.” He said there would be an advisory board formed, that the foundation hopes to have a chairman for it by the end of next month and that the group will include Newark people. The advisers will help shape the broad outline of what the FNF supports. It will not, however, have a say in who the foundation supports or will be able to present suggestions to the board, Taylor said.
Whitlow and others think that’s “not enough.” She argues that “if the goal is to improve education in Newark, the board should be expanded to include voting members from and of Newark, with a direct say in how the mon ey is spent. That fund needs people who have a sense of what has worked and already failed, people who have a stake in the outcome. The board needs balance against any preconceived notions about education that might motivate someone to give $10 million, or more.”
This is a compelling example of how philanthropic institutions are having to grapple with the cultural shifts that technology is driving—including transparency, collaboration and partnering with “real people” in “real communities” to solve complex problems. Whether and to what extent this particular foundation decides to entertain new ways to do its job remains to be seen, but one thing is clear to Whitlow and others in Newark: It may be their money, but “it’s Newark’s kids,” so where does the public fit when it comes to making funding decisions that affect those kids?—CMG

Vanguard
Obtain Prospectus

Dear Leonie,

Is Billionaire philanthropy good or bad for democracy?

For a time I want to use this weekly letter to you to surface what I consider to be some of the more intriguing questions embedded in the so-called "new normal" of our work. Many of them have to do with what I consider to be risky paths being taken in a very chaotic environment. That risk, of course, can end in good or in bad or both... but if we do not talk thoroughly about the potential outcomes and the ethics of some of the directions being taken and urged upon us by others, we are being dumbly herded-and who wants that?

So make sure you are a part of our "salon," under which roof you can speak your most irreverent thoughts and hear those of others. Only in this way can we get beyond the catatonia-inducing pabalum that passes for rigor to a more cri tical dialogue that might actually inform us all.

Today I'd like to call your attention to a newswire that we did yesterday about billionaire philanthropy in public systems. Over the past two years we have been tracking not only billionaire philanthropy as it has manifested itself across the nation but also the concerns of onlookers about the effects of that philanthropy on democracy. A lot of the concern has been focused on the Gates Foundation, ri ghtly or wrongly but yesterday's newswire by CMG referred to Facebook founder Zuckerberg's massive donation to the Newark School system and the subsequent exclusion of parents from decision making.

Are these instances of billionaire philanthropy really tantamount to the very rich buying an inappropriate voice in the direction of public systems--which are intended to be accountable to the citizens they serve? Are the concerns about the impacts of bil lionaire philanthropy like Zuckerberg's comparable to concerns about the influence of investments made by institutional philanthropy in public systems?

This is a nation starved for cash, but it is hardly an equal opportunity starvation across the nation's landscape. Some areas like Newark for instance or Detroit are actually suffering greater levels of poverty and have higher needs for system improvements. What does it mean when residents of the area are edged out of core decision making and accountability mechanisms through agreements - tacit or explicit -with people with deep pockets? Are we placing critical components of communities in the category of pet projects of the very rich? Just asking.

As Always,

Ruth's signature

Madfloridian's December 3, 2011 upload:
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/8240

ca Dec 6 upload of Gates gave $ for deform

Bloomberg's Plan for Fingerprinting Food Stamps Applicants Is Denounced

2011-10-12T07:01:00.001-04:00

Fingerprinting Those Seeking Food Stamps Is Denounced

By KATE TAYLOR
Published: October 11, 2011

Taking aim at a practice she called unnecessary, costly and punitive, the speaker of the City Council, Christine C. Quinn, is asking the Bloomberg administration to justify requiring applicants for food stamps to be electronically fingerprinted.

New York City, where 1.8 million people receive food stamps, is one of only two jurisdictions in the country that require applicants to be fingerprinted, according to Ms. Quinn’s office. The other is Arizona.

California and Texas recently lifted a similar requirement; New York stopped using fingerprinting for food-stamp recipients statewide in 2007, but kept it in New York City at the Bloomberg administration’s request.

Robert Doar, the commissioner of the city’s Human Resources Administration, said the policy deterred fraud and prevented case duplication, catching 1,200 duplicated cases a year and saving about $4 million annually in federal benefits.

But Ms. Quinn and opponents of the practice say that there is no evidence that it prevents fraud and that cases of duplication could be found through other means. Instead, they say, it simply deters some New Yorkers from applying for food stamps.

In an interview, Ms. Quinn said that, at a time of rising poverty and budget cuts, the city should not be spending money on unnecessary enforcement measures.

“We’re spending public dollars where there is no crime being committed,” she said.

Joel Berg, the executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, said that electronic fingerprinting created a stigma around applying for federal aid, treating “poor people as if they’re basically criminals for trying to access a program to which they’re legally entitled.” Since many of the city’s applicants for food aid are minorities, Mr. Berg said, requiring fingerprinting here, and not in the rest of the state, also raised civil rights issues. It is “electronic stop-and-frisk,” he said.

The rest of the Bloomberg on food stamps article.

Automating Instruction Isn't What Works: Grading the Digital School Inflating the Software Report Card

2011-10-11T00:31:00.001-04:00

Another interesting irony: closed or hidden bidding on committing millions of public dollars to digitizing public education; yet the record does not suggest that this is money well-spent.

Grading the Digital School: Inflating the Software Report Card
By TRIP GABRIEL and MATT RICHTEL; Published: October 8, 2011

The Web site of Carnegie Learning, a company started by scientists at Carnegie Mellon University that sells classroom software, trumpets this promise: “Revolutionary Math Curricula. Revolutionary Results.”
T. Lynne Pixley for The New York Times

In Augusta, Ga., the school district has expanded the use of Cognitive Tutor math software to all of its high school students.
Grading the Digital School Unfulfilled Promises
Articles in this series will look at the intersection of education, technology and business as schools embrace digital learning.

Grading the Digital School: In Classroom of Future, Stagnant Scores (September 4, 2011)

The pitch has sounded seductive to thousands of schools across the country for more than a decade. But a review by the United States Department of Education last year would suggest a much less alluring come-on: Undistinguished math curricula. Unproven results.

. . . .

Many companies ignore well-regarded independent studies that test their products’ effectiveness. Carnegie’s Web site, for example, makes no mention of the 2010 review, by the Education Department’s What Works Clearinghouse, which analyzed 24 studies of Cognitive Tutor’s effectiveness but found that only four of those met high research standards. Some firms misrepresent research by cherry-picking results and promote surveys or limited case studies that lack the scientific rigor required by the clearinghouse and other authorities.

. . . .

Carnegie, one of the most respected of the educational software firms, is hardly alone in overpromising or misleading.

[Funny, a company is among the most respected, yet it can overpromise or mislead --Ed.]

. . . .
And Intel, in a Web document urging schools to buy computers for every student, acknowledges that “there are no longitudinal, randomized trials linking eLearning to positive learning outcomes.”

Follow the rest of the article at the Times' main site.

More Corporate Fronts Behind Education "Reform" Exposed

2011-10-10T16:21:00.006-04:00

Behind every education "reform" (actually, deform) group is a millionaire investor or donor. We've heard about the Broad and the Gates foundations manipulating public education policy. Here is more unsettling news of meddling 1%er families in the same vein.

Behind Education Action Group is Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the DeVos family of multi-level marketer Amway fame. (Wikipedia describes the Mackinac Center as: The Mackinac Center for Public Policy is a free market think tank headquartered in Midland, Michigan. It is the USA’s largest state-based free market think tank.)
(And see Right Wing Watch about the Mackinac Center: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/mackinac-center-public-policy
From the madfloridian blog (in democraticunderground.com):

As with the earlier Tempers Flaring in Memphis article, the following is from the madfloridian post, the indents are from the inset boxes throughout the article.

Another "false front" education reform group? Keep eye out for their op eds in local papers.
Posted by madfloridian in General Discussion
Sun Oct 09th 2011, 12:55 PM
The Michigan Education Association writes about the Education Action Group and warns to watch out for their activities.

Behind the false front

Note the ties to the Mackinac Center and the DeVos family.

EAG isn’t really a group. It’s two very partisan men with ties to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and Dick DeVos of Amway Corp. fame. Olson’s brother is director of education policy at the Mackinac Center, another anti-union, pro-privatization group. The man who incorporated EAG, Eric Doster, is a Michigan Republican Party lawyer who has served on the board of the Great Lakes Education Project, a political action committee linked to DeVos. DeVos, of course, helped finance the failed 2000 vouchers initiative.

EAG bashes the collective bargaining process and school employees’ rights to inform the community and to work to elect leaders who value students and the employees who teach and help them at school.

Olson claims to be nonpartisan, but he is a partisan Republican Party activist and an officer in the state party.

Olson refuses to disclose his group’s funding sources, making it difficult to discern whose agenda EAG is pushing.

This Michigan-based "reformer" group just had an opinion piece published in the Tampa Tribune. It is anti teachers unions.

Teachers' union seeks to nullify the public's will

The column refers to an effort by the teachers' union in Florida to fight the new anti-tenure law. They totally mispresent what the situation is about, and then they go on to express support for Rick Scott's extreme education changes.

By filing this suit, union leaders are telling people that teachers should not be held accountable for the performance of their students. They want us to believe all teachers are equally intelligent and motivated. They're saying that all teachers should continue to have a guaranteed job for life under tenure and remain on a common pay scale, regardless of the outcome of their work.

More than anything, FEA leaders are blatantly displaying their disrespect for the democratic process. They have no interest in the outcome of the elections that put Scott and his legislative allies in office. They are willing to use the courts to overturn the will of the people.

So much for majority rule. Union leaders, with all their wealth and influence, can simply shop for a politically-friendly judge who will rule in their favor. The eventual ruling may have little to do with the constitutionality of the new law and more to do with judges who accept donations from the teachers' union and feel obliged to pay them back.

And they speak of Rick Scott:

Reform-minded leaders like Scott have stood up to the unions and demanded accountability in the classroom. If teachers are not going to be held responsible for student performance, who will be? Can you think of another profession where employees are not held accountable for the final product?

They simply are not telling the truth. I wonder how many op eds in how many newspapers?

One member of this group has been regularly hounding an education blogger these last few months. They demanded and got all his education emails. The blogger, Fred Klonsky, posted about it often at his blog.

The return of Velderman. Ask GOP tough questions and you get put on a watch list.

It was late last school year that the goof ball ideological terrorists at the Michigan-based Education Action Group demanded that my school district hand over to them all my work emails.

Which they did.

EAG gofer Ben Velderman signed the FOIA request. The reason for the FOIA was that this blog asks tough questions about education and public policy and is outspokenly pro-teacher and pro-union.

Nothing has changed about that. Certainly not a FOIA request from some punk from EAG.

Now Think Progress reports that this is becoming standard GOP practice. Ask a Republican elected official a challenging question and you get placed on a watch list.

If EAG surfaces in your district, please inform your local MEA UniServ director. You also may want to share what you know about EAG with your school board members and administrators, so they can consider EAG’s motives.

Maybe I should let them know it is surfacing in Tampa, Florida.

Most Americans approve of local schools : Poll shows

2011-10-08T12:00:00.002-04:00

Given the war against public schools from Barack Obama and Arne Duncan to Chris Christie, this is ironic news. So, what gives with the mania to attack teachers?

Most Americans approve of local schools : Poll shows
By James Campbell, on August 17, 2011, at 8:11 am
USA TODAY

By Greg Toppo

A new survey finds that more Americans today like their kids’ public schools than at any time in the past 36 years — even though they believe U.S. education in general has taken a bit of a dive.

Nearly eight in 10 Americans — 79% — give an “A or B” grade to the school their oldest child attends, according to findings released today by Phi Delta Kappa (PDK) International, an educators association. That’s up from 68% in 2001, and the highest percentage of favorable ratings since PDK began asking the question in 1985. That year, 71% of parents gave their kids’ school top grades.But since 2001, Americans have soured on schools in general: When 1,002 adults were asked June 4-13 to give a letter grade to ”public schools in the nation as a whole,” only 17% gave them an A or B, down from 23% in 2001, and 27% in 1985.The survey is part of broader findings released annually by PDK, which has been polling the public on education trends since the mid-1970s.
Bill Bushaw, the group’s executive director, says the split is the most curious finding. He said parents’ increased liking of their child’s school may be a sign that people are more in tune with local schools’ efforts at educational reform.”I think they see the things that schools are attempting to do to transform,” Bushaw said. Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington, D.C., education think tank, says there’s evidence that many U.S. public schools are improving. But he says parents’ willingness to like their child’s school may stem from a kind of guilt — especially if parents can afford to pay for a private school or have moved to a neighborhood with higher-performing schools.”Who’s going to give their kid’s school a low grade unless they’re poor and they’re trapped?” he says. “There’d just be too much cognitive dissonance to admit that your child’s school” isn’t up to par. The overall drop in opinion of U.S. schools coincides with reports that the quality of schools in the USA is slipping compared to other nations.

Tempers Flare at Jobs Fair as Experienced Teachers Told No Jobs

2011-10-07T21:44:00.008-04:00

Memphis surplus teachers crisis instigated by policies of U.S. Education Secretary Arne Dancan
Published verbatim from democraticunderground. Indents are article excerpts that the original post cited. Article excerpts have been broadened to include full articles or letters cited. {Bracketed parts} are from this blogger.

"Gee, Arne. How do you feel about the tempers flaring at the Memphis schools job fair?" {From 10/7 post at democraticunderground, which drew from the "Memphis Commercial Appeal."}

This is your education reform in action, Arne Duncan. Does it make you proud to see all those long-time teachers in their 50s unable to get jobs after devoting themselves to their careers?

I hope they do file those age-discrimination lawsuits..I will be among the first to offer financial support.

They are being laid off and replaced by trainees from TFA. Yes, this is your reform in action. Proud of it, are you?

Tempers boil over at Memphis City Schools job fair, "Commercial-Appeal" news story link.

Police were called to calm a disturbance at a Memphis City Schools job fair Friday when about 70 experienced teachers were told there were no openings.

"When I heard that, I turned around and told all the teachers in the auditorium that we need to file a class-action suit," said Dennis Paden, 54, an 18-year classroom veteran with a master's degree.

"Most of the teachers, if not all, were over 50. Several were in wheelchairs. It's a classic case of age discrimination," said Paden, who was told to leave the fair at American Way Middle because he was causing a disturbance and being belligerent.

....Teachers said the flare-up reflects anger over changes that allow the district to hire new teachers over senior staff to help meet "curriculum needs."

One of the comments after the article hits the nail on the head.

"As a result of the teacher shuffling, all sections of physics at Ridgeway High were dissolved this week ... Students were told Friday, a week before the quarter ends, that physics classes would no longer meet."

Ridgeway, isn't that supposed to be one of the better schools in the MCS?

How could an accredited high school not offer Physics? Isn't that sort of like educational malpractice?

As for Dennis Paden, I'd have him teaching my children any day. We can use passionate, interesting history teachers out in the new suburban schools. We could also use someone like him at my children's private school (that is within about a 10-minute drive of his home).

Who's Dennis Paden? Here's his letter today about being treated disrespectfully and being without a job in spite of glowing references. He says the superintendent calls them "lemons:"

Letter: "MCS mistakes prove costly," from the Commercial Appeal today:

I am one of the many Memphis City Schools teachers whose official status is "surplus teacher." Supt. Kriner Cash derisively refers to us as "lemons." For him, it may be a joke. For cash-strapped taxpayers it is no laughing matter. By my conservative estimate, his misuse of resources will cost you in excess of $6 million.

Last year I taught advanced placement U.S. history, African-American history, economics, U.S. government and two regular sections of United States history. My other duties included coaching the debate team and serving as head coach for our varsity baseball program. It was a grueling schedule that I accepted as a professional challenge. I did not complain. I was proud to be a team player. At the end of the year when my principal told me that my A.P. class would be discontinued and that as a result of other staffing cuts he needed my slot to hire a football coach, I was stunned. I was placed on the surplus list and have yet to be hired at another school despite glowing recommendations, a master's degree in my subject area and a résumé packed with career experience in virtually every area related to the social sciences. My evaluations contain no deficiencies.

Being a vocal critic of reforms that too often label children, teachers and schools as failures as a result of high-stakes testing, I can understand how I may have rubbed some the wrong way. However, when I meet with other teachers in surplus status, I find they too are highly qualified and were solid contributors in their last assignment. So, what gives?

It is curious to me why so many veteran teachers have been relegated to the sidelines in exchange for less experienced and, in most cases, less qualified Teach For America personnel. According to Deputy Supt. Irving Hamer and John Barker of MCS, it is data that drives all MCS educational decisions. Where is the data that says inexperienced Teach for America personnel are worth the millions of dollars spent to lock proven veterans out of the classroom?

Dennis Paden

In my opinion as a retired teacher, and in the opinion of those teachers I speak to who are still in the classroom....it is past time for the person in charge of all this mess to be fired.

From day one Arne Duncan started by attacking teachers' unions. He only went to charter schools, he hung around with the reformers and praised documentaries like Waiting for Superman in which teachers were treated insultingly.

I am sick inside over the way teachers are being treated. Memphis is one of the worst. My thoughts go out to them.

{Of course it's totally unscientific, but here's the letter grade that readers gave the record of placing MCS "surplus teachers".}

Commenter wrote:

Similar stories in many districts. This is just sick.

I'm working with a handful of TFA replacements this year. It's disgusting that anyone with a brain thinks they can waltz in and do a comparable job - or even do better - than the experienced teachers they are replacing.

It's like an alternate universe where up is down, in is out and everyone smiles and pretends the kids are okay.

Another commenter wrote:

I'm mentoring my third TFAer. This sucks.

The first two quit; one in the middle of a semester, the other before finals near the end of the year. Most of these people do not belong in front of classrooms. I have only met one TFAer I would consider qualified to teach, and honestly that is because she went back to school and actually took some classes on her own about education, educational theory & practice. Many TFAers believe the hype about themselves as "saviors" and do not feel like they need the sufficient educational background in order to practice the teaching discipline. It's sad for our students who deserve top tier, qualified instructional professionals.

Piece by piece our public education system is being dismantled by a Democratic administration. That should make us all very angry.

Another commenter wrote:

football coach wasn't it

a master's certified teacher to teach history or a football coach to teach history, in the usa it is an easy choice, football is more important than history in the usa... in france the schools do not waste any resources on sports, all sports teams are run by the towns/regions and have fuck all to do with the schools, in school you have physical education class and that is it for sports.

Another commenter:
Article from Aug. .They fired the teacher of the year.

They applied for money from Bill Gates, and it had strings attached.

http://soetalk.com/2011/08/17/in-memphis-clashes-between-new-and-experienced-teachers/
{Ed.: SOE Talk is an outlet for students, prospective students and alumni of the Johns Hopkins School of Education.}

By Jane Roberts, The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn. (MCT)

When Memphis City Schools accepted millions of dollars from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to improve teacher effectiveness, it agreed to tap new pipelines for attracting teachers.

But after at least 190 teachers with no experience were hired over 100 teachers with lots of it, school board members wanted to know Monday if jobs were earmarked for some of the new teachers—and what they are supposed to tell angry constituents.

“Out of North Memphis, I’m getting this phone call: ‘How can you let the teacher of the year last year go when you’re hiring people who don’t have experience?’” board member Sara Lewis said after the meeting. “That needs to be explained to people. People don’t understand. Our issues are (getting) accurate and adequate information.” While Supt. Kriner Cash did not say whether some positions were intentionally left open for Teach for America and other talent partners, he said the process for filling positions was “open and transparent,” and he reminded board members that he has said if any highly qualified teacher is not permanently placed, he will see to it himself that he or she will be.

When the district applied for $90 million from the Gates Foundation in 2009, its proposal said that 30-35 percent of new hires would come from talent pipelines that produce high-quality teacher applicants. In 2009, the district expected it would hire 190 teachers from those sources this year alone. Next year, the number jumps to 235.

With only 5 percent of MCS graduates ready to succeed in college, Cash said the district has to do something different.

“We are trying to change and improve that rate,” he said. “We also have some of the highest numbers of students who are not proficient. … We have to do everything we can to give principals a choice—that is what research shows—give them the latitude to hire staff they need to move the needle.”

The issue boiled over after weekend media reports that the board would be voting on a $1.4 million contract Monday to hire more teachers from an outside group, Memphis Teacher Residency.

This year, MCS signed a contract to place 100 TFA corpsmen, paying their salary plus $4,000 per person to cover training and recruiting costs.

Since 2009, MTR has placed 45 teachers in public and private schools in the area. The residents complete a one-year master’s degree in urban education through Union University and work four days a week in the city schools in supervised mentorship. They also receive a living stipend.

“MTR does not have a contract that requires MCS to hire our residents,” said director David Montague. “What I would like to think is that our teachers are attractive enough that principals hire them because they want them in the building. I would love for them all to get hired in Memphis City Schools, but they are not going to get hired because they have to be hired.”

Memphis Education Association president Keith Williams told board members that displaced teachers had been upstaged by “outsourced labor,” reminding them that new teachers have no record of their success in the classroom. Williams went further, saying they also have no relationships in the city.

Cash said MEA has been part of the discussions, saying, “We are working together on this issue.”

But he was clear that he has little power over anecdotal evidence, and board member Rev. Kenneth Whalum agreed, saying he could do nothing for teachers who say they are being mistreated but insist on anonymity.

Well, guess what? TFA is one of those "pipelines" of talent.

My anger grows.

{AND PEOPLE WONDER WHY EMPLOYEES WANT UNIONS????????????}

Orange Co., CA H.S. Issues ID Cards Based on Test Scores

2011-10-06T22:39:00.003-04:00

"John F. Kennedy High School Issues Illegal Student IDs Based On Standardized Test Scores (POLL)" --Huffington Post, October 6, 2011
The article begins:

An Orange County, CA high school has come under fire from state education officials after they issued student ID cards that are color-coded based on their standardized tests scores, the Orange County Register reported.

At John F. Kennedy high school, the cards come in three colors: Black, the highest level, gold, the second best, and white ... the worst.

The cards do more than just announce students' testing levels, however. The gold and black cards also give students access to a variety of discounts and campus privileges, while the white cards give none.

Los Angeles' KABC reported that some parents claim the status cards humiliate their children, after state officials have deemed them a violation of the students' privacy rights, the Anaheim Union High School District is reviewing the program.

Read the full article: "John F. Kennedy High School Issues Illegal Student IDs Based On Standardized Test Scores (POLL)" --Huffington Post, October 6, 2011

Bloomberg Upset at Ruling Against Decades of FDNY Racial Hiring Bias

2011-10-05T23:15:00.006-04:00

A federal judge in Brooklyn, New York, today, Wednesday, October 5, 2011, ruled that improved recruitment will not be sufficient to overcome decades of racial bias for white men and against black and Latino job candidates. U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis ruled that there will be court monitoring to ensure that hiring is more diverse.

From Reuters, , "Court to keep tabs on New York City fire department hiring":

U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis, who last week identified "areas of concern and room for improvement" in how the city recruits minority candidates for its fire department, followed up Wednesday with a broad but open-ended draft remedial order that calls on New York City to make a top-to-bottom reassessment of how it handles racial issues in how it recruits, hires and employs black and Hispanic firefighters.

The judge faulted New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg's leadership on the issue of Fire Department of New York diversity, ( from the New York Daily News:

While issuing the order, Brooklyn Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis slammed Mayor Bloomberg and his team for ignoring a mountain of evidence showing discriminatory hiring practices for years.

"Though the city's use of discriminatory hiring practices has persisted through numerous changes in city leadership, the evidence adduced in this case gives the court little hope that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg or any of his senior leadership has any intention of stepping up to the task of ending discrimination in the FDNY," Garaufis wrote.

Mayor Bloomberg, always the grumpy contrarian curmudgeon, expressed his displeasure with the federal court ruling, from the Daily News, "Mayor Bloomberg slammed by judge for ignoring years of discrimination in FDNY hiring practices"

"The judge was not elected to run the city, and you can rest assured that we'll be in court for a long time," Bloomberg shot back.

The city's and Mayor Bloomberg's contemptuousness about the issue of racial diversity parallels the pattern of the disappearing black and Latino teacher (in the NYC Department of Education) that Sean Ahern has written about.

State education officials knew about scrubbing for years but did nothing: e-mail - NYPOST.com

2011-10-03T23:17:00.003-04:00

State education officials knew about scrubbing for years but did nothing: e-mail - NYPOST.com
Duh!!!!

Curious that cheating is substantiated at a New York City school, yet the city feels compelled to study the matter more, yet, all claims against teacher mis-conduct are always substantiated.

Same problem appears in the powers-that-be being unmoved, unfazed over teacher allegations of New York State Regents and other state tests.

In this example from this summer, investigators dismiss the allegations that teachers make. See this story from this summer:

Sharon Otterman, "New York Times", "Under Bloomberg, a Sharp Rise in Accusations of Cheating by Educators", August 22, 2011.

REVERSAL: STUDY OF ERASURE ANALYSIS AND NY TEST CHEATING ALLEGATIONS

Sharon Otterman, "New York Times," "State Says It Analyzed Test Erasures for Cheating; 62 Schools Proved Suspect" September 23, 2011.

In New York State, however, education officials have said the spark that set off most of the investigations in those places, a procedure called erasure analysis of standardized tests, was something they could not afford and did not do.

Yet officials revealed this week that the State Education Department had quietly been conducting erasure analysis on some high school Regents exams for more than three years, a process that red-flagged 64 incidents of possible problems, including one that led to the ouster of an assistant principal in the Bronx.

And after an audit by the state comptroller raised concerns about cheating in 2010, the State Board of Regents voted, to little notice, to expand such analysis to six additional tests last school year, and to all Regents exams in 2011-12, though the necessary funds were never authorized.

Bank Street Conference on Helping Schools, Not Closing Them

2011-09-26T20:47:00.005-04:00

This last weekend, Saturday, September 24, 2011:
Rachel Cromidas, "Event aims to teach city to help schools instead of closing them" Sept. 23, 2011 at GothamSchools.

The city official in charge of closing schools and the union chief who has sued to keep schools open are both set to speak at a conference tomorrow about what can be done to help schools without shuttering them.

The conference, “Effective Alternatives to School Closings: Transforming Struggling Schools in NYC,” was organized by the Coalition for Educational Justice, the Alliance for Quality Education, and the Urban Youth Collaborative, all advocacy organizations. The event is meant to send a message to city policymakers that there are ways to reform failing schools without shutting them down, according to Ronnette Summers, a parent and CEJ member who helped organize it.

The city Department of Education has closed 117 schools since 2002 and Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said this week that he plans to close additional schools, particularly middle schools, that do not meet the department’s standards.

“Every year there’s more and more schools on the closing list and that seems to be the only reform strategy that the Department of Education uses to improve schools,” Summers said. “People in places where they know [closure] is not working felt that it was important to bring it to New York City to let them see that there’s other ways to improve schools.”

Click to this link, to get full article, and six page Scribd document.

UPDATE: Comptroller Nixes No-Bid NYS Contract w/ Murdoch Firm; Will Steiner Get Penalty?

2011-09-26T20:38:00.001-04:00

New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli cancelled the no-bid $27 million contract that the New York State Department of Education made with Rupert Murdoch's Wireless Communications. The contract came just weeks after New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein left the New York City Department of Education to work on Murdoch's News Corporation. The contract was to have enabled schools to track student and teacher data. The Daily News' article on the story. Former New York State Education Commissioner David Steiner, who inspired some of us a year or two back with his recognition that European teachers pride themselves in their knowledge of their subject, has had his slip-ups. Last year he signed off on the wacky idea of Cathy Black as New York City Schools Chancellor.

Latest on Steiner: He is caught in a conflict of interest scandal in benefiting from a corporate-paid junket to London, England, United Kingdom. Soon after Steiner's London trip, Pearson found itself in a $32 million dollar deal with New York State. From the New York Daily News:

A State Education Department commissioner took a roughly $2,000 junket financed by the charity of a learning firm that later won a $32 million state contract. Then-Commissioner David Steiner traveled to London in June 2010 for a conference held by the Council of Chief State School Officers - which reimbursed him for his expenses. Ultimately, the foundation connected to education firm Pearson gave money to the council to foot the conference's bill. Six months later, the state contracted with Pearson to develop new math and reading tests. "It doesn't take long for people to connect the dots," said Jack Jennings of the Washington think tank Center on Education Policy.

Read Rachel Monahan's story in the New York Daily News.

UFT Gives In: Schedules Mass ATR Meetings; Scheduling SNAFUs

2011-09-25T15:49:00.007-04:00

The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) has conceded to demands for Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR) teachers to have more voice.
However, some developments suggest that the UFT is dampening potential groundswell factors.
First, the meeting was to be a single one (see this flyer at Ed Notes), at the Brooklyn Marriott building offices of the Brooklyn UFT. But a single site could see too much agitation for Unity to manage. (Classroom management anyone?)
The UFT split the meetings into successive nights: October 3 in the Bronx, October 4 in Brooklyn, October 5 in Staten Island, October 6 in Queens and October 11 in Manhattan.
(See the poster at the UFT website.)
Should the UFT reconsider siting important meetings at its Bronx offices? That site is close to major highways, but otherwise it is difficult to access: it is only near the 6 train and the buses that go to Westchester Square, Bx 4, 4A, 8, 21, 31, 40, 42.
And most important of all, when were the meeting schedulers last teachers themselves? Have they forgotten that the first Mondays of the month are routinely the days of faculty conferences? ATRs leaving after the school bell on Monday, October 3 could get written up for missing the faculty conference. Besides, won't teachers already tired from the faculty conference be a little too burned out to attend another meeting?

Great John Liu DOE Audits: School Space Estimates --w/ UPDATE; Use of ATRs

2011-09-25T15:24:00.009-04:00

New York City Comptroller John Liu has made some important audits in the past few weeks, as regard to the New York City Department of Education's measurement of the use of school space (lest we use the word, "assessment") and the city's use of teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR).

First was the audit of the use of ATRs.
See Phylissa Cramer's "Comptroller’s audit criticizes city’s handling of ATR pool" at Gotham Schools.
Quick summary, from lede of the story:

The Department of Education could potentially be doing more to help teachers whose positions have been eliminated find new jobs.

That’s one conclusion of an audit conducted by Comptroller John Liu of the DOE’s efforts to help members of the Absent Teacher Reserve, the pool of teachers whose jobs were lost to budget cuts, enrollment changes, or school closures. The audit concluded that the vast majority of ATRs — 95 percent — are working full-time in teaching jobs, but that the department doesn’t maintain data sufficient to conclude whether its efforts to help the teachers find permanent positions are paying off.

Then, there was his audit of the New York City Department of Education "Blue Book" estimates of the use of school space. As the Daily News explains, "The book is used to help determine what neighborhoods need more school buildings as well as space-sharing arrangements."
Gotham News reported:

To evaluate the city’s success at ensuring accurate Blue Book data [calculations of school space use], Liu’s office analyzed entries for 23 schools and found that space assessments for 10 percent of all rooms were incorrect in a way that affected the school’s overall capacity.

The quick summary (from Gotham Schools) of his findings:

The newest audit examines the city’s “Blue Book,” which contains space estimates for each school building. The DOE and the School Construction Authority use the Blue Book to guide how many students can be placed in a school, and how many schools can fit into a building. Critics, including members of the City Council, say Blue Book numbers don’t always reflect reality — for example, suggesting that an additional class could fit into an art room — and that decisions based on them can leave schools crunched for space.

This story has some relevance to teachers, since it relates to how much space the city allots to schools and the measure of capacity utilization. Under utilization is one of several measures by which the city justifies closing or scaling back some schools' operation or student enrollment.
See the full Phyllisa Cramer story at Gotham News.

See the full Rachel Monahan story at the New York Daily News.

UPDATE:
Mr. Data Mayor (Bloomberg) really is the fraud when it comes to numbers and managing resources in the New York City schools. He just can't anything right.
New from the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) website is: UFT survey finds nearly 7,000 oversize classes as NYC school year opens: An estimated 250,000 students spending all or part of each day in overcrowded classrooms"

The number of classroom teachers has fallen as class sizes have risen. Based on the system’s records, this fall there were 73,784 classroom teachers, compared with 76,127 in 2010; 77,784 in 2009 and 80,649 in 2008.
. . . .
Because arbitrators’ rulings are enforceable in court, the system generally lowers class sizes as hearing dates approach. However, because the hearings are scheduled over a number of weeks, some large classes remain so for weeks; the contract also permits certain exceptions, meaning that some classes remain oversize the entire semester.

Does Thompson Think that the UFT is the Wimpiest Municipal Union of Them All?

2011-09-22T01:21:00.004-04:00

A very interesting nugget appeared on the inner page continuation of an article in the September 2, 2011 edition of the Chief-Leader."

Former New York City Comptroller and 2009 sacrificial lamb Democratic Party nominee against Mayor Michael Bloomberg, William Thompson appeared at a public panel on the state of New York City public education, along with a variety of figures in New York City education. Representing the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) was Vice-President Leo Casey.

On the topic of a new contract between the UFT and the New York City Department of Education, Thompson was more pessimistic about the prospects of a contract under Bloomberg than was Casey.
Casey:

Let's sit down, let's work out issues before us . . . there's no reason why we can't [talk in the course of negotiating a contract].

Thompson:

There is not going to be a contract under the Bloomberg administration.

He added:

The attitudes of other municipal unions are, we'll wait for the next [Mayor].

From this exchange, one can easily suspect that the other municipal unions are reading the city's behavior viz. a viz. municipal unions. And they are being savvy and refraining from negotiations that would include colossal givebacks, let alone making conciliatory comments toward the mayor. (And wasn't it a mistake for the UFT to avoid endorsing Thompson inn 2009?)

Contrasting Sept. 20 2011 Mulgrew, Walcott Statements on Teacher Evaluations; 3012c Law

2011-09-20T19:46:00.008-04:00

Below are statements from today, September 20, 2011, from United Federation of Teacher Michael Mulgrew and New York City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott regarding teacher evaluations.
These statements do not address the rumor in some districts that formal observations are to begin this week.
The joint letter raises the new New York State Education Law on teacher evaluation, 3012-c. The union and the teacher activist community need to study, discuss and address this law more openly and thoroughly.
DIVERGENT POINTS BETWEEN MULGREW LETTER AND JOINT MULGREW/WALCOTT/LOGAN LETTER
Notice that the second letter is a joint letter signed by Mulgrew, Walcott and Ernest Logan, President, Council of School Supervisors & Administrators. In the Mulgrew letter there is praise for the work of Charlotte Danielson, a writer on teacher evaluation. Mulgrew underscores a professional respect element in Danielson's guidelines, and he adds a request that District Representatives be informed if these aspects are not followed. In the M/W/L letter there is a clear departure from giving too much weight to evaluations stemming from Danielson's thinking. I have italicized the contrasting statements on Danielson's thinking in the two letters.
MULGREW LETTER

Dear Chapter Leader,

I am sharing with you, below, a joint letter from Chancellor Dennis Walcott, Council of School Supervisors & Administrators President Ernest Logan and myself that is going out this afternoon to all principals in the Principals’ Weekly. It comes in response to the concerns and misconceptions we are hearing in the field about teacher evaluations and observations.

There is no new teacher evaluation process, and there will not be one until we can successfully negotiate one with the DOE. I do not know when that will happen.

The only schools using a different system are the Restart and Transformation schools, under an agreement that was made to ensure those buildings remain open.

There are also 110 schools piloting tools like Charlotte Danielson’s Framework for Teaching, to help administrators and teachers focus on instruction during the observation process. Please note that our contractual evaluation process remains in place in those pilot schools.

Charlotte Danielson’s lifelong work is based first and foremost on the fact that a school must have a professional, respectful culture where any instructional issues can be discussed in a safe and supportive environment. If discussions about Danielson’s framework in your school are not starting from that premise, please contact your district representative.

Remember: real educational improvements can only be accomplished by supporting teachers and their work in the classroom.

Sincerely,
Michael Mulgrew

JOINT MULGREW/WALCOTT/LOGAN LETTER

Sept. 20, 2011

Dear Colleagues,

Congratulations, once again, for a successful opening to the 2011-12 school year. We thank you for your dedication to raising the bar and creating robust learning experiences for our students, teachers, and staff.

As we work to ensure all New York City students graduate ready for college and careers, we must remain focused on strengthening student work and teacher practice. We want to clarify how this impacts your day-to-day work with teachers and administrators, particularly given New York State Education Law 3012-c, passed in May 2010, establishing a new framework for teacher and principal evaluation.

This new 3012-c framework will not take effect city-wide for teachers and principals until DOE reaches agreements with UFT and CSA, respectively, on its implementation. The only exception to this timeframe is in SIG funded Transformation and Restart schools.

The NYCDOE's instructional expectations recommend that principals/assistant principals engage in more cycles of classroom observation and feedback using a rubric that articulates clear expectations for teacher practice. Our goal is to help develop a supportive and professional dialogue that will help both administrator and teacher enhance instruction for the students of our schools. We hope that this will lay the foundation for the work ahead by practicing this feedback cycle with a rubric. That said, the current model of observation and evaluation of teacher performance remains in place and does not change the number of observations currently required under the UFT contract.

At this time, a research-based teaching framework, like Danielson's Framework for Teaching, should only be used for formative support of teachers. It should not be used for teacher evaluations.

Effectively adopting a research-based teaching framework helps to set clear expectations, so that teachers and administrators know what effective teaching looks like and have a shared language to discuss what is working and what needs to be improved. By having a continual dialogue about instructional practices, no matter where they fall on the performance spectrum, we will be able to develop stronger instructional practices which will benefit all of our children.

We applaud your hard work and dedication to our shared goals for this school year and beyond.

Sincerely,

Dennis M. Walcott, Chancellor, NYC Department of Education
Michael Mulgrew, President, United Federation of Teachers
Ernest Logan, President, Council of School Supervisors & Administrators

Jury Selection in 2009 Bloomberg Campaign Aide's Trial Begins Monday

2011-09-16T19:40:00.007-04:00

From Queens Campaigner, September 15, 2011, "Jury selection set to start Monday in theft case against Haggerty" -[on Bloomberg election aide]
Scroll below for NYT on JUDGE DECISION AGAINST MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, HAGGERTY ROLE RELATIONSHIP TO 2009 BLOOMBERG RE-ELECTION
Queens Campaigner 9/15 article, by Joseph Gargiulo:

Jury selection was expected to begin Monday in the trial of Forest Hills Republican political operative and Bloomberg campaign volunteer John Haggerty, who is accused of stealing $1.1 million of the mayor’s money for a phony poll watching operation.
When Mayor Michael Bloomberg was running for a third term in 2009, he donated $1.1 million to the state Independence Party that was then funneled to Haggerty, which prosecutors say was supposed to be earmarked for poll watching on Election Day.
But prosecutors claim Haggerty, a Forest Hills resident and a widely known Republican operative, did not use the funds for those purposes and instead used the money to buy out his brother’s share of their father’s Forest Hills Gardens home.
Haggerty is facing larceny charges and jury selection was scheduled for Monday in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Haggerty’s lawyers contend he did not do anything illegal in how he used the funds from Bloomberg.
Haggerty and his brother, Bart, are in a longstanding feud with Queens Republican Party Chairman Phil Ragusa and have tried to wrest control of the county party from Ragusa and his allies.

And now for the John Eligon, New York Times report, Monday, January 12, 2011 on judge's decision against New York City Mayor Bloomberg, and the background on this political corruption trial.

With Ruling, Mayor’s Spending May Enter Trial of Former Aide
A Manhattan judge on Monday refused to bar defense lawyers from exploring Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s campaign spending habits in the trial of one of his former political consultants.
Justice Ronald A. Zweibel of State Supreme Court did, however, say he would decide the relevance of particular evidence as the trial of the consultant, John F. Haggerty Jr., proceeded.

The ruling sets the stage for what could be interesting and revealing political theater, as Mr. Haggerty’s lawyers have hinted at plans to expose what they say were efforts by Mr. Bloomberg’s 2009 re-election campaign to keep certain information secret. Jury selection is now scheduled to begin next week.

Prosecutors have accused Mr. Haggerty of stealing more than $1 million from Mr. Bloomberg by promising to provide ballot security for that price, even though he had no intention of doing so. Based on Mr. Haggerty’s false representations, Mr. Bloomberg contributed $1.2 million to the state’s Independence Party, most of which went to Mr. Haggerty for ballot security that he never performed, prosecutors said.

But defense lawyers have said Mr. Bloomberg knew that once he gave money to the Independence Party, he no longer legally controlled it. So, the lawyers argued, Mr. Bloomberg was not relying on representations by Mr. Haggerty when he decided to give money to the Independence Party for ballot security.

Read the rest of the original John Eligon article in the Times on the John Haggerty trial. ...is Haggerty the straw-man patsy for corruption in Bloomberg's third term campaign?

NY State Releases Persistently Dangerous Schools List, Many in Bronx, Brooklyn

2011-09-16T19:18:00.006-04:00

Thanks to Channel 12 News, here is the site for New York State's list of "Persistently Dangerous Schools."

Bronx (3), Brooklyn (2) and Harlem (2) schools predominate in the city. Middle schools appear much more than high schools. Then, more frequent than high schools are schools that are K through 5 or 8 schools (e.g., PS 194 Countee Cullen (Harlem, Manhattan), PS 12 (Weeksville, Brooklyn) and PS 11 (Highbridge, Bronx))

Yet, upstate rural towns predominate for the rest of New York State. A suburban exception to this list is Greenburgh Eleven Elementary in Dobbs Ferry. And this list includes schools carried over from previous years' lists. Schools from the older list includes schools in some very rural areas, e.g., Little Flower School in Wading River on the Long Island Sound in northeastern Suffolk County.

New York Times Explains School Numbering System

2011-09-16T19:02:00.003-04:00

Wondering about the numbering system in the naming of New York City public schools?
Anna Phillips in the New York Times wrote "Naming a Public School in New York? It Isn’t as Simple as 1, 2, 3" to explain it for you. (September 7, 2011.)

In the beginning, there was Public School 1. Then it got messy.
There are actually four P.S. 1’s in New York City: That first school, established in 1806 and later named for Alfred E. Smith (Manhattan); the Courtlandt School (the Bronx); the Bergen (Brooklyn); and the Tottenville (Staten Island). Plus, of course, the P.S. 1 in Long Island City, Queens, which now houses a contemporary-art museum. There are also three P.S. 2’s, three P.S. 3’s and four P.S. 4’s.

In a system of 1,700 schools, the numbering can be dizzying. For children starting at Public School 8 this week, they might be traveling to Washington Heights — or Brooklyn Heights, or two other places. And if teachers are assigned to work at Public School 75 on the Upper West Side, they should not necessarily assume that it opened before Public School 76, about a mile north, or that it bears any relationship to the P.S. 75 that was on the Lower East Side many years earlier.

The fact that the numbers are repeated across boroughs is, in part, because the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island originally had their own school systems. But over the decades, as the city has closed, moved and razed school buildings — and, recently, opened lots of new ones — the sequential numbering of schools has disappeared.

“You start out with a deck of cards with all of the suits in order, and over the course of a century the deck has been shuffled so many times that it doesn’t have meaning anymore,” said Stephan F. Brumberg, a historian of education at Brooklyn College.

Today, the Education Department uses an allocation code management system to do the work. When a new school is created, a computer assigns it a number, careful not to repeat within a borough; that code is sent to the state for approval.

Except when it is not. Shimon Waronker, the Orthodox Jew who founded the New American Academy in Crown Heights last year, was given No. 748. He had previously run Middle School 22. He pointed out to the chancellor that 748 plus 22 is 770, the address (and nickname) of world Lubavitcher headquarters, and they decided New American would be Public School 770 instead.

Other cities seem not to have this problem. Atlanta and Washington use names, not numbers. Schools in Baltimore are numbered, but people generally say their children attend Westside Elementary, not P.S. 24. And the only numbered schools in Los Angeles are the ones labeled for the streets they are on, like the 28th Street School — something that helps alleviate confusion.

Back when the first public schools began in New York, the numbers really meant something. Those who like order will appreciate that Manhattan’s P.S. 1 is truly the first public school on the island, though it has moved buildings.

The school opened 205 years ago in a “small apartment,” then moved into a schoolhouse on Henry Street on the Lower East Side, according to a history of the New York public schools, written in 1905 by Archie Emerson Palmer, secretary of the Board of Education. Created by a private charity, it was known as “New York Free School No. 1.”

Click here to read the rest of the article at the Times website.

Sign MoveOn petition to save St. Mark's Bookshop from Cooper Union

2011-09-12T20:37:00.004-04:00

From their letter:

Dear New York City MoveOn member,

The St. Mark's Bookshop has a long tradition in the Lower East Side and serves an admirable and increasingly rare function. But St. Mark's is struggling to pay the market rent that Cooper Union is charging them at 31 3rd Ave. A significant rent concession by Cooper Union could save this irreplaceable neighborhood institution.

That's why I created a petition to the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art on SignOn.org, which says:

The St. Mark's Bookshop, a vital Lower East Side cultural institution, needs a rent low enough to survive. Join the Cooper Square Committee petitioning Cooper Union, the bookstore's landlord, to give St. Mark's Bookshop a lower rent.

Will you sign the petition? Click here to add your name, and then pass it along to your friends:

http://signon.org/sign/save-the-st-marks-bookshop?source=mo&id=30890-663882-KnL4y1x

On 9/11 Anniversary: Never Forget: Giuliani, Whitman, Bloomberg, Other GOP Betrayed First Responders' Health

2011-09-11T03:07:00.009-04:00

As some may have noticed earlier this month, the British journal, "The Lancet," released a study, reporting that Fire Department of New York (FDNY) firefighters that served duty at "the pit" or Ground Zero of the footprint of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers developed cancer at a rate of 19 percent greater than the rate for the population of New York firefighters who did not work at Ground Zero.
Duh!

With the fires and dust clouds that remained at the pit for months and at streets in a one-quarter mile radius from the site for days, the air was sickening to encounter for a few minutes.

On the fifth-year anniversary of the airplanes's terror attacks collision into the Twin Towers, the New York Times reported on what was in the air after the buildings collapsed ("the film" refers to "Dust to Dust," a documentary on the health problems that the air posed to workers in the Ground Zero area):

In addition to more than 400 tons of asbestos, this film counts 90,000 tons of jet fuel containing benzene; mercury from more than a half-million fluorescent lights; 200,000 pounds of lead and cadmium from computers; crystalline silica from 420,000 tons of concrete, plasterboard and glass; and perhaps as much as two million pounds of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from the diesel-fueled fires. Some of those substances are carcinogens; others can cause kidney, liver, heart and nervous-system damage.

It doesn't take a graduate degree in any field of science to realize that this stuff would be dangerous to breathe and that health problems would create fatalities beyond the original roughly 3,000 to die on the original September 11.

MSNBC ran a story, also on the 2006 anniversary, “Most 9/11 recovery workers suffered lung ills: 70 percent of WTC responders developed symptoms, major study shows“ which is still available in video online.

(Will the James Zadroga Fund administrators now include cancer coverage to Ground Zero workers, after their denial this summer? --"Anger voiced at NYC meeting on 9/11 victim fund")

GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS LIED TO OR OTHERWISE BETRAYED THE FIRST RESPONDERS
*Then Mayor Rudy Giuliani told New Yorkers that "The air is safe as far as we can tell, with respect to chemical and biological agents."
*Then Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd-Whitman said that
the air was safe to breathe and that people in the area were not "exposed to excessive levels of asbestos or other harmful substances."
*Never forget the opposition of Congressional Republicans to the James Zadroga bill to give health expense aid to Ground Zero workers.
*Then there's current mayor Michael Bloomberg, who banned religious leaders and organized prayer at the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
*And he banned firefighters from the 9/11/11 commemoration ceremony. Read CNN report, "First responders decry exclusion from 9/11 ceremony" on the same.

Bloomberg had sought to limit local monies for the sickly first responders. From Jan. 21, 2007 reporting on mayor Bloomberg's legal struggles to limit city payouts to those sickened at Ground Zero:

Mayor Bloomberg is calling for an emergency halt to a judge's orders that the city start paying sick World Trade Center workers, The Post has learned.

Lawyers for the city have asked an appellate court to stop Manhattan federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein from forging ahead with settlements and trials for 9/11 responders seeking compensation for respiratory illness, cancer and other diseases ....

Hellerstein has refused to delay the case while the Bloomberg administration appeals his earlier ruling that the city does not enjoy blanket immunity from such suits under a state disaster act.

NY Times Unmasks Computerized Education Fraud

2011-09-11T02:25:00.006-04:00

Education deformers are zealously touting the virtues of computerized learning, eliminating expensive teachers, bunching up classes and having students "learn from" machines.

The New York Times ran a long piece last Sunday, in which they cite experts who have researched the efficacy of computerized learning. The results are stagnant or declined performance.

Click to read the article, "Grading the Digital School: In Classroom of Future, Stagnant Scores" in "The New York Times," September 3, 2011.

In an era of budget cutting, why are we spending millions on computerized education while teachers must dip into their own funds for things such as pencils and notebooks for the students?

NY1 Poll: NYers Give NYC DOE Chancellor Walcott a C Rating

2011-09-07T23:35:00.008-04:00

On Wednesday night, September 7, 2011, NY1 released results of a NY1/Marist Poll on the New York City Department of Education.

The leading news from the poll on the performance of the DOE is that a plurality of polled New Yorkers give low marks to Schools chancellor Dennis Walcott:

A new NY1/Marist poll finds 46 percent of respondents say Walcott is doing a fair or poor job, 28 percent are not sure or have not heard of him and 26 percent say he is doing an excellent or good job.

Read the full story on NY1.com.

And follow this link for the pdf file of the results of the poll itself.

Only 34% of NYers Approve of Bloomberg Education Performance

2011-09-06T22:43:00.006-04:00

Recent news, to be published in Wednesday, September 7, 2011 New York Times,
in a CBS News/ New York Times poll of 1,027 New York City residents, only 34 percent approve of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's performance in shaping New York City schools. The 34 percent figure represents a historic low for the mayor, since a peak of 67 percent approval in October 2005 and June 2006 CBS/ New York Times polls.

Sharon Otterman and Alisson Kopicki report in "New Yorkers Say Mayor Has Not Improved Schools" that most of the polled New Yorkers say that the Department of Education schools have declined or stagnated since Mayor Bloomberg took control of the school system nine years ago.

One of the mayor's trademark trends has been breaking apart schools and housing multiple schools in one building. When questioned about the latter trend, 48 percent said that housing multiple schools in one building was a bad idea, and 39 percent said that the practice was a good idea.

The leading concerns of polled residents were in this order: funding, easing overcrowding and teacher quality.

Ironically, when the subset of parents of schoolchildren were polled about their satisfaction with the choice of their child's school, 67 percent said that they were satisfied.

Here is the online link for the New York Times survey of New Yorkers' opinions about the New York City school system.

Bloomberg in Hot Water for WifeBeatGate Cover-Up (re Deputy Mayor / Manhattan Institute Big)

2011-09-05T13:52:00.006-04:00

The news outlets have been all over the story:
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg covered up for NEARLY AN ENTIRE MONTH the fact that Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith's resignation was occasioned by his arrest on the charge of assaulting his wife. Mike's silence has him in unflattering news in a range of high profile media outlets. Boy, the media love affair and fealty to the New York city-state prince has wither
Mayor still defiant Bigthink columnist blasts Times for soft coverage

(We would like to bring up that he is chairman emeritus of a division of the rightist free-market Manhattan Institute, has a named appointment at Harvard --Daniel Paul Professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and a former mayor of Indianapolis, Indiana. The same Wikipedia biography reference indicates that he is an ed profiteer: he has been a Partner of Knowledge Universe.)

Thursday "The New York Daily News" reported that Bloomie hid from the media (Jonathan Lemire and Reuven Blau):

Under furious attack about his coverup of a top deputy's domestic violence arrest, Mayor Bloomberg abruptly canceled his radio show Friday morning to avoid being grilled.

WOR radio's John Gambling is mad at the formerly teflon mayor, The Daily News' Reuven Blau reports.

MAYOR OF STEEL DEFIANT, RESOLUTE, DEFENSIVE
WNYC radio which has had innumerable appearances of ed deformers such as Eva Moskowitz and Geoffrey Canada, has the WifeBeatGate story as its lead story today as of 2:00 PM:
The lead story's page headlines, "Bloomberg Defends Decision to Withhold Disclosure of Deputy Mayor's Arrest." (Arun Venugopal)
WNYC's story began:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg refused to apologize on Sunday for not disclosing that Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith had been arrested before he resigned.

The administration had initially said Goldsmith had left to pursue opportunities in the private sector. Last week, it was revealed Goldsmith had been arrested in Washington, D.C., in late July on domestic violence charges.

Politickerny.com reports that "City Columnists Bash Bloomberg Over Goldsmith" --David Freedlander reporting.

At topix.com: link to "Bloomberg Under Fire Following Goldsmith Scandal" By: Michael Herzenberg.

TIMES STILL COVERING FOR TEFLON MAYOR MIKE
Lindsay Beyerstein, blogger at bigthink.com criticized "The New York Times" for writing that she said was an attempt to "normalize" him. (The following quote begins with the Times excerpt.)

"Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s management style has its hallmarks: unwavering loyalty to aides and a deep distaste for exposing private lives to public scrutiny."
That's Michael Barbaro's lead in the New York Times this evening. The lead sets us up to believe this story is about Bloomberg's "management style," his "unwavering loyalty," and his distaste for exposing "private lives" to public scrutiny. Makes him sound like a pretty good guy, right?

Aside from sagacious critics such as Beyerstein, let's see how long the media keep this story going until it shifts over to his next self-congratulatory executive announcement.

NYSUT (NY state teachers' union) wins in court decision on tests and evaluations

2011-09-05T02:38:00.008-04:00

New York State's teachers union (New York State United Teachers, NYSUT) scored a victory on August 24, 2011 in a New York State-level court decision.
The New York City based "Chief" reported in the September 2, 2011 issue ("Exceeded Terms of NYSUT Deal: Judge Blocks State Bid to Up Teacher Test Liability) that school districts can count student test scores at the level of 40 percent of the teacher's evaluation only if the union approves.

Democratic New York State governor Andrew Cuomo opposed teachers on this one. ("Union, state battle over teacher evaluations," in "Rochester Democrat and Chronicle") He pushed for teachers to be evaluated with 40 percent of their evaluations based on students' test scores.

The over-riding principle was the collective bargaining process. The state union sued New York State in June over the evaluation formula, arguing that Cuomo was attempting to "circumvent collective bargaining." Cuomo's 40 percent formula went against the original state and teachers' union agreement that the student test scores would only use those scores for 20 percent of a teacher's evaluation. The New York State Board of Regents decided that local school districts would have the choice on using these test evaluations.

(No reaction yet from New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg or city's United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew on this one.)

For more, pick up a copy of "The Chief" at the newsstand or read it at your local public library.

Protest and Rally Against Egregious School Staff Layoffs: Weds Sept. 7

2011-09-05T02:35:00.000-04:00

Protest and Rally Against Egregious School Staff Layoffs: Weds Sept. 7, 4PM
MEDIA ADVISORY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 2, 2011

Contacts:
Mona Davids, New York City Parents Union, (917) 340-8987

Protest and Rally Against Egregious School Staff Layoffs

Who: Coalition of parents, teachers, labor and community leaders including the New York City Parents Union, Local 327-DC 37, United Federation of Teachers, Coalition for Public Education, Grassroots Education Movement, Class Size Matters, The Mothers' Agenda New York, NYCORE, Teachers Unite, Independent Community of Educators, New York Charter Parents Association and OurSchoolsNYC.org

When: Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Time: 4:00PM

What: Protest & Rally Against Egregious School Staff Layoffs

Where: New York City Department of Education, 52 Chambers Street

Window on Weingarten's, Mulgrew's treatment of UFT reporter Jim Callaghan

2011-09-03T03:10:00.011-04:00

In the course of reading GothamSchool's review of Steven Brill's "Class Warfare," we read some testimony into the context of the United Federation of Teacher's firing of Jim Callaghan. This summer is the one-year anniversary of the dismissal of one very intrepid reporter for the UFT's "New York Teacher", a reporter who was distinguished in tackling many important, unaddressed issues in New York City schools and teachers' rights. (Readers will remember that Callaghan's articles were removed from the New York Teacher online archive.)

What follows are key quotes from the discussion at the GothamSchools site. (Minor format edits, added):

For her own personal and political reasons, Weingarten allowed the rubber roomers to languish for years because she refused to file grievances when Bloomberg and Klein violated the contract which calls for the D.O.E. to file charges within six months. Everything else she and Mulgrew say is rubbish- they are the Vichy leaders of the UFT After much fanfare, she ditched the rubber roomers , preventing writers at the Weingarten Times (formerly known as the NY Teacher) from doing dozens of exposes. what happened to the three people [writers] assigned to the rubber rooms?
-I was fired in August 2010- in the middle of trying to organize a union for union writers which Mulgrew said would happen over his dead body--- after 13 years at the union during which time Weingarten called me: the conscience of the union; her ace investigative reporter; one of the best historians in New York; her co-revolutionary. -Betsy Combier was fired in June 2010.-Ron Issac spends his days whining that he has nothing to do- at $70,000 per year plus his DOE pension). Issac told Weingarten this three years ago- I was there -yet she defended her tyrannical editor Deidre McFadyen in harassing Ron and myself. ..why would Weingarten hire someone and then give him no work?
Clearly, Weingarten wasn't serious about justice for the rubber roomers. It was one big farce. Not one suggestion- out of dozens--- I made to her, and staff directors Ellie Engler, LeRoy Barr and Garry Sprung was ever followed up. Weingarten had Barr remove me from a rubber room while I was in the middle of a story that the security guards were shaking down our members. Her Brooklyn Borough Rep Howie Schoor was sending copies of my emails I sent to him - I have them- to D.O.E.! I did one major rubber room story in October, 2007- and that was it for almost three more years! Is that the mark of a serious union leader?
Of course, Weingarten was distracted. She was also busy cleaning up her own mess by hiring Combier after she filed freedom of information requests for the time records for one of Weingarten's closest friends in the union. D.O.E. sent copies of the FOIL [Freedom of Information Law] requests to Weingarten. Within weeks, Adam Ross, lawyer for the UFT, was writing to Combier - I have the letters- offering her a job... Her confidentiality agreement is bigger than a Manhattan phone book. Prior to her hiring, I was told in writing that I was not allowed to even talk to Combier!
As for Klein, Weingarten talked to me on the steps at PS 45 in Staten Island the day after the story broke that Klein was keeping "files" on her and others. I told her to FOIL them. She never did. Why? And she told me that Klein had previously leaked her personnel file to Wayne Barrett of the Village Voice, who was writing a story challenging the way she qualified for a D.O.E. pension.
Much later, she emailed me that David Hickey, the CFO of the union whose main job is harassing UFT workers, (except his "favorites" ) accused me of leaking her pension file to Barrett- which I had no access to! In a sarcastic tone, she emailed me that she knew I would never do that.....her email- which I have- said Barrett obtained her file "illegally," but she refused to ask for a [Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard J.] Condon inquiry or to refer it to the District Attorney. I demanded that Hickey put up or shut up and then Randi accused me of being "defensive."
She also accused Barrett of "sneaking around"- in broad daylight- her country house in Amagannset talking to her neighbors; she claimed she was going to "out" her- a preposterous notion. In retrospect, what she clearly was worried about was that she was claiming to be "working" at her country house which is how she collected $160,000 in unused vacation and sick time over a 24 year period- breaking Cal Ripken's record with plenty to spare.
The deal in the Communications Department, always with a wink and a nod, was to make sure she always got one fax for every day she was out there so she could claim she was working! We all laughed- wouldn't we all like to be working from home in Amagansett. (Always a good hearted soul, Weingarten refused to allow her editor to work from home after she gave birth.) Weingarten always had tools-legal ones and media- to defend herself, especially with the Klein "private files" but never did. After all this, woud'nt you too invite your tormentor to your 50th birthday party where UFT vendors were "encouraged" to buy ads in the Journal that made her sound like Norma Rae, Mother Theresa, Eleanor Roosevelt and Mother Jones all wrapped into one body? Well, there was Klein at the bash, yukkng it up with his supposed enemies! and why would she always sussssshhh the 3,000 UFT members at The Spring Conference when Klein was booed and hissed? Instead of truly fighting Bloomberg and Klein she was guilty of the larger moral crime- denying so many members [rubber roomers] the right to representation. She was as much a part of the cover up of corruption at DOE as anyone.................only Mulgrew, her hand picked fake tough guy - is worse.
There are so many cover ups to write about- including one where I had-and have- a tape of a Klein confidante violating the HIPPA law by telling a writer on the phone and in an email that a teacher was crazy and had been deemed so by D.O.E. doctors. Weingarten took that out of the lead of my story and told me to lose the tape. I also have the original email -for when Weingarten starts her "woe is me" persona. Weingarten also emailed a UFT official that "maybe this is the time for (the Klein confidante) her to step up," meaning to play ball when the union wanted jobs for their cronies. Weingarten saved her ass from being fired and expected her quo for the quid. Stay tuned, lots more about how Weingarten and Mulgrew have thrown teachers over the side, including with the "PIP Plus" sell out , where teachers are being fired by the boat load- with the union leaders as part of the shanda [scandal]. Oh, in case we forget, she scurried out of town after lying to her Unity Caucus members that Bloomberg (using public funds as a bribe) promised her an eight per cent raise over two years but only if we knifed Bill Thompson in the 2009 mayoral race. We did knife him and it's two years later and no contract!
Jim Callaghan

Yes it's the real Jim Callaghan.... There are'nt enough cemeteries in this town to dig up all the bodies of corruption, malfeasance, nepotism, shady deals, booze fests and collaborationists who cheat the members so they can advance themselves, family members, mistresses, boyfriends, girlfriends.... Some literary agents have told me I might have to make it fiction because no one will believe it......
The day after I was fired, Mulgrew offered me a bribe-----he would use the members dues to silence me if I signed a non-disparagement agreement in return for free health insurance for life.....if I live to be 100, that would have cost the members $540,000! All so I would keep quiet and betray the members who paid my salary for 13 years to fight for them with D.O.E. and corrupt union officials like Mulgrew and Weingarten...the bribe was offered on Friday morning, august 13, after Mulgrew the fake tough guy found out I was going on Fox News that afternoon.....I told him to shove his hush money... the question for reporters and union members is what mulgrew fears so much that he would attempt to bribe me? Unless I wind up like Ted Maritas----- Google him,------ the rest of the country will find out how bad Weingarten and Mulgrew [are] and how sadistic their mostly white $190,000 per year enforcers are... I am open to suggestions for my book title....

It was hardly everything.......I would guess there are another 350 pages more........I left with 48 boxes of emails, reports, thank you notes from uft officials, including the founders of the union, hundreds of notebooks full of stories of teachers who were railroaded by Weingarten and Mulgrew and abandoned by so called journalists like deidre mcfadyen and Larry miraldi who went along with the UFT cover-ups of how our members were being sent to the end of their stellar careers....I left with logs and journals I kept and notations in my calendar of every major scam going on...

I was told to investigate PAVE academy which took over space in P.S. 15 in Red Hook.....Mulgrew then told me he was pulling the plug on my story because Bloomberg called him in a rage, telling him that the father of PAVE'S founder was a close friend of his named Julian Robertson, a billionaire hedge fund manager listed by Forbes as the 155th richest man in America, one spot ahead of David Rockefeller.... PAVE hadn't filed their 990 forms with the IRS but Bloomberg gave the school $35 million----our money----so the kid could build a new school in an under-utilized district....

[The main skeleton that was in the Klein files on Weingarten was that Weingarten actually had the very limited classroom experience of three years for a union president. The skeleton is here The above passages sound wild to outsiders, but awareness of the system shows that these things are going on in the DOE and the UFT.]

Why is Change.org hosting a petition for Michelle Rhee's group, Students First?

2011-09-02T14:38:00.000-04:00

NYT: test cheating charges vs. Rhee in DCPS amid test cheating charges from Georgia to New Jersey

2011-08-26T08:33:00.006-04:00

The New York Times this week ran a story (Michael Winerip), "Eager for Spotlight, but Not if It Is on a Testing Scandal") with this shamed-looking Rhee photo on how Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of District of Columbia Public Schools has been generous with her access to a range of news interviewers, yet she has refused to speak to reporters at USA Today. As the Times noted, the test erasure charges swirling around Rhee come at the same time as allegations of cheating in Atlanta, Indiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Texas.

Rhee's whole self-promotion campaign has come from her argument that her get tough methods of attacking teachers and stressing tests over everything were successful. Yet, erasure analysis raises plenty of suspicious red flags. Translation: Rhee's success is illusory, contrived:

At some schools, they found the odds that so many answers had been changed from wrong to right randomly were 1 in 100 billion. In a fourth-grade class at Stanton Elementary, 97 percent of the erasures were from wrong to right. Districtwide, the average number of erasures for seventh graders was fewer than one per child, but for a seventh-grade class at Noyes Elementary, it was 12.7 per student. At Noyes Elementary in 2008, 84 percent of fourth graders were proficient in math, up from 22 percent in 2007.

Ms. Rhee’s reputation has rested on her schools’ test scores. Suddenly, a USA Today headline was asking, “were the gains real?” In this era of high-pressure testing, Washington has become another in a growing list of cheating scandals that has included Atlanta, Indiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Texas.

It took the USA Today reporters a year to finish their three-part series. So many people were afraid to speak that Ms. Bello had to interview dozens to find one willing to be quoted. She knocked on teachers’ doors at 9:30 at night and hunted parents at PTA meetings. She met people in coffee shops where they would not be recognized, and never called or e-mailed sources at their schools.

BRIAN JONES on DEMOCRACY NOW!

2011-08-25T19:25:00.007-04:00

REAL ACTIVIST (as opposed to the anti-education deformers) Brian Jones (Grassroots Education Movement or GEM) (updated: appeared) on Democracy Now, tomorrow, Friday, August 26, 2011,
along with Diane Ravitch.

Local radio broadcast time: WBAI, 99.5 FM, weekdays, 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM.
Click here for TV, radio, Internet broadcast times.

UPDATE
Click to this post of essential quotes on Education Notes.

Judge Helps Bloomberg Score Big Hit Against Working Mothers

2011-08-23T03:59:00.011-04:00

JUDGE SUPPORTS BLOOMBERG L.P. IN DISCRIMINATION SUIT RAISED BY BLOOMBERG MOTHER EMPLOYEES

MOTHERS NEED NOT APPLY? - NYC SCHOOL PRINCIPAL ASKS ATR IF HER BEING A MOTHER WOULD CONFLICT WITH HER TEACHER DUTIES

IS ANYONE SEEING A PATTERN HERE?

Sometimes the blockbuster stories come in the summertime, when the subjects of the stories are spared the full exposure that they might get in December.

A federal judge has issued a decision in favor of New York City Mayor's Bloomberg L.P., a decision that is wincing in its harsh language. The language is further disconcerting in that it underlines how much the mayor, the legal system and our economic system (I dare not say society, since I would hope that people would not brazenly hold such sentiments) hold working mothers in contempt. Additionally, the judge supports companies' expectations that workers work far in excess of a forty hour week. (In a strange irony, this sickeningly insensitive judge is a woman.)

Toward the start of Mayor Bloomberg's term, employees of his Bloomberg L.P. charged that he was not in any way accommodating to women employees that needed time to care for their children. One employee charged that Bloomberg said, "Kill it," advising the employee-mother to abort her pregnancy. (For those that wonder about this quote, Google it. I have included a link to a Guardian (UK) 2001 article on the matter., Ed Vulliamy, May 20, 2001, "Is Michael Bloomberg the new Citizen Kane?" An excerpt is tucked below.) Just remind people, this is a privately held company, further indicating that the company's policies stem from the boss.

Judge Loretta A. Presko issued a decision that rejected the women plaintiffs' claim that Bloomberg L.P. discriminated against mothers and mothers-to-be.
Some legal decisions go down in the history books as glimmering testimonies to the law working for justice. Others, such as the Dred Scott decision, as noxious and inhumane, a disgrace to the principals of law. Presko's decision and her language fall into the latter category.

As Elissa Gootman in "The New York Times" reported, in "Bloomberg Discrimination-Suit Ruling Renews Work-Life Debate,"

“The law does not mandate ‘work-life balance,’ ” she wrote, in a decision issued on Wednesday.

Sonia Ossorio, executive director of the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women properly said,

“She hardly hides her contempt for women with kids who have ambition and want top-paying jobs,” Ms. Ossorio said. “If you read her comments, she says that basically if a workplace culture is work 24/7, then they have a right to have that type of culture.”

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said,

“It feels like a throwback to the era when women were forced to choose between work and family — an era that I had hoped we had graduated from[.]”

Now to the "kill it" quote, as cited in the UK Guardian:

After her doctor told Sekiko Garrison she was pregnant, in 1995, the top sales executive with a major finance company went to inform her boss of the good news. 'Kill it,' he reportedly said. Ms Garrison, aghast, asked him to repeat himself. 'Kill it,' he repeated.

These words, as readers of New York's press now know only too well, were alleged to be those of Michael Bloomberg - the mogul of the markets whose name is synonymous with Wall Street and who now wants to be the next Mayor of the Big Apple . . . .

Look to the stories in "The Village Voice" in 2001, "Bloomberg’s Sexual Blind Spot: Testimony of Would-Be Mayor Bares Indifference to Harassment, Misinformation on Rape," and in New York magazine in 2009 for further discussion of the context of this quote, and the employee in question.

Who should have it all, dear executive, the corporation or the working person?

PRINCIPALS INCORPORATING THE 24/7 WAGE SLAVE EXPECTATIONS OF WELCH/BLOOMBERG:

Back to our question of who should have it all, should the principals have it all from their employees, or may the latter "have a life"?
The principals, apparently, in the following example expect the former concept:
A new blog, "NYC ATR" has a contribution from a job applicant that was subjected to numerous illegal questions from a potential supervisor (principal) regarding her status as a mother: "The Interview II, in which My Kids Become a Concern
ANOTHER INTERVIEW TALE," by Life in Limbo, August 19, 2011

Note how a common thread running through the account is the principal's expectation for the teacher to work far beyond an eight-hour day.

The first signs of trouble from the principal:

Her [the principal's] entire demeanor changed as soon as I said, “per-session.” She said, “Now you know in these times that budgets are tight. I heard you say that you would do this per-session, but I am wondering if you would still be as enthusiastic about this if we could not pay you.” I went on to explain that I already do this activity after school and on weekends and that I am paid when I do. I told her that volunteering my time instead of being paid would impact my availability as I would be hesitant to give up a paying gig only to replace it with an unpaid one--this would be the equivalent of taking a pay cut. Her face froze at that point, and the temperature in the a/c-free room dropped by at least 20 degrees.

The principal in the clincher, reflecting thinking that is thoroughly reflective of the employee as wage-slave to the enterprise that Welch/Bloomberg envision:

“As the parent of young children, I have to ask if your parenting responsibilities and child care situation would prevent you from being able to fully devote yourself to doing whatever it takes to move this school forward.”

Bloomberg has his stamp throughout the institution of the Department of Education L.P. Through his Leadership Academy he has groomed principals to expect superhuman performances from teachers. This interview reflects the sexist and inhumane expectations of principals that are in tandem with the mayor's expectations at Bloomberg L.P.

And people wonder why we want unions? Sekiko Garrison, the target of Bloomberg's alleged "Kill it" instructions, is an example of why corporate professionals need to shed their disdain for unions and seek unionization themselves.

NY Times / CBS News Poll: Bloomberg's Support at Lowest in Six Years

2011-08-16T23:33:00.004-04:00

The New York Times reported today, August 16, 2011, that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's popularity ratings are at their lowest this month, since six years ago:

"Poll Finds Bloomberg’s Approval Rating the Lowest in 6 Years."

We have to remember that the last times that New York City's mayor had such low ratings among polled city residents was in the 2002-2003 period, when the region was still recovering from the economic effects of September 11 and before that the bursting of the Dot Com Bubble.

Read through these numbers of New York City mayors' poll numbers. The views on mayoral job performance and condition of the city's economy have not been so unfavorable since 2003.

Read the full story by David W. Chen and Marjorie Connelly in "The New York Times."

Did He Just Say That?! Mayor Bloomberg Slurred Black and Latino Men

2011-08-05T18:30:00.012-04:00

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is donating $30 Million in an effort to aid African-American and Latino men.

He was interviewed on the PBS Newshour last night (August 4, 2011). The problem is, his language was a might patronizing, and given the gross generalizations in his comments, racist.

When he referred to crime rates he said, "If you look at who the victims and the perpetrators [of crime] are, it's virtually all minorities." (Emphasis added.)

Many white Americans have made attempts to be sensitive with their comments, both in the substance and in their choice of words.

Not so with Mayor Bloomberg. Here we have someone who opines nearly every business day on policy matters. We find it hard to believe that this was an impassioned slip of the lip.

Let's be clear: Blacks and Latino do not commit virtually all crime, nor are they virtually all the victims. Slick generalizations such as Mr. Bloomberg's are akin to the kind of thinking behind the differential prosecuting and sentencing of darker skin toned criminal offenders compared to lighter skinned offenders.

Here is the essential quote from the PBS Newshour interview transcript, I am critiquing, again, with emphasis:

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: Well, for a long time, people have said there's nothing you can do about it.
But blacks and Latinos score terribly in school testing compared to whites and Asians. If you look at our jails, it's predominantly minorities. If you look at where crime takes place, it's in minority neighborhoods. If you look at who the victims and the perpetrators are, it's virtually all minorities.
This is something that has gone on for a long time. I assume it's prevalent elsewhere, but certainly true in New York City. And for many, many years, people said there was just nothing you can do about it. Now, what we have done in the last 10 years is we have cut the testing gap in schools for black and Latino kids vs. white and Asian kids in half, but they still are way behind.
We have tried to diversify our police department, so that it really does measure the -- mirror the community's ethnicity. And they have brought crime down dramatically. We have the lowest crime rate we have ever had in the history of the city. And that's particularly important to black and Latino kids and their families and their neighborhoods, because that is where the crime is.
So they benefit from that. And we have done a number of these kinds of things, trying to attract the kind of jobs that are available to people who maybe don't have a formal education, have dropped out of school, or don't have great command of the English language, or have a blemish on their resume which would keep them from getting a job at a more traditional firm where they do an extensive background check.
JEFFREY BROWN: Well...
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: And so we have tried to attract industries that can use the people here who are unemployed.
But, nevertheless, there's this enormous cohort of black and Latino males aged, let's say, 16 to 25 that don't have jobs, don't have any prospects, don't know how to find jobs, don't know that the -- what their skill sets are, don't know how to behave in the workplace, where they have to work collaboratively and collectively.

Bloomberg with his donation is trying to help the unfortunate, or at least, help his image. Had he been a more sensitive speaker he would have taken great pains to emphasize that men with criminal or dysfunctional behaviors are a minority in the Black and Latino communities. We did not hear words representative of the majority, for example, "trust-worthy," "peaceful" or "law-abiding." Instead, Mayor Bloomberg, an influential public personality, has done a disservice by perpetuating racial stereotypes in the minds of lesser informed sections of the public.

Aside from the dissent voiced on Mark Riley's morning show at WWRL, as referenced in the Daily News, "Mayor Bloomberg donating $30M to minority youth causes skepticism among radio listeners" and a critique at the Mediaite blog, I have seen no dissent on this project.

Big Stories on Test Cheating in NY Times and Daily News -in Middle of Summer when Fewer are Noticing; Similar Cheating Concerns Across Nation

2011-08-04T13:38:00.008-04:00

(SCROLL DOWN FOR STATE SURVEY OF TEACHERS ON CHEATING)
Convenient for administrators, and city executives, embarrassing stories about schools and test cheating encouraged by administrators are hitting the news, when more people are at summer get-aways.

Sharon Otterman, Review Aims to Avert Cheating on State Tests

New York State education officials announced Monday that they had begun to review the way they detect and prevent cheating on standardized tests, taking a step to avoid the cheating scandals that have engulfed school systems in other states.

New York does not conduct statistical analyses of its high-stakes third- through eighth-grade tests to scour for suspicious results that could signal cheating, like unusual spikes in a school’s scores or predictable erasures on multiple-choice questions, officials said.

Analyses in Atlanta and Philadelphia, among other cities, have produced evidence of tampering on a scale that calls into question those cities’ educational achievements.

The State Education Department released a brief statement on Monday saying that the education commissioner, John B. King Jr., had convened a high-level working group in mid-July to begin an immediate review of “all aspects of the state’s testing system.” Officials said details would be available soon.

All aspects? I'm not holding my breath.

New York state should send a Michigan-type survey of teachers on cheating pressures. See "About the school cheating survey" (Detroit Free Press, July 27, 2011) on the Michigan Educator Survey. Nearly 30% of the surveyed teachers reported pressure to cheat.

And another quite interesting tidbit, broadcasted about nine years too late: Prince Michael I (Mr. Bloomberg) cut the funds for investigations of test cheating in 2002, immediately after assuming mayor control of the schools:

Rachel Monahan, yesterday in the New York Daily News: "NYC drops controls to ferret out cheating on high-stakes standardized tests."

34 NJ Schools Investigated For Possible Cheating:
Officials: Some Schools Showed Especially High Deviations Of Corrected Answers

In Michigan, teachers feel compelled to cheat

Alas, in many western and southern states the school year is starting in a week or two. In these states the scandals or "probes" are getting attention at an inconvenient time for policy bigs.
Pa. Joins States Facing a School Cheating Scandal Actually, this covers the Georgia scandal as well.

And Education Week gives us a thumbnail of cheating scandals in the era of No Child Left Behind (NCLB): "Cheating Scandals Intensify Focus on Test Pressures"

Consider that the policy maker/ media pundit beating up of teachers does not consider the role of administrators. A common thread of these stories is that administrators, not teachers, are the source of the pressure to cheat.

Will all of these scandals prompt education "reformers", media pundits and politicians to rethink their mania for tests and data emphasis? Let's hope so.

Times front page article questions how Joel Klein can objectively and effectively conduct internal investigation of scandal at News Corp.

2011-07-24T06:28:00.008-04:00

The New York Times has this story on the front page of its Sunday, July 24, 2011 edition:
"Former City Schools Chief Emerges as Murdoch Ally,"
This article is by Jeremy W. Peters, Michael Barbaro and Javier C. Hernandez.

(The final paragraph has the crucial point.)

Joel I. Klein, the former New York City schools chancellor, was in a tricky position. Three weeks ago, Rupert Murdoch asked Mr. Klein, now his trusted deputy, to oversee an investigation into the phone hacking scandal that has deeply wounded the News Corporation and its chairman, something Mr. Klein was eager to avoid.

“I am trying to get as far away from this as I can,” he lamented to a friend.

He has not succeeded. Mr. Klein, who joined the News Corporation as a senior vice president in January, is not only responsible for the investigation that could uncover what company managers knew about the hacking, but he also has become one of Mr. Murdoch’s closest and most visible advisers throughout the crisis.

His seemingly contradictory roles — de facto chief of internal affairs officer and ascendant executive with Mr. Murdoch’s ear — are raising questions about how robust and objective the internal inquiry can be. When Mr. Murdoch summoned a team of top deputies and outside consultants to London to help him manage the fallout from the hacking, Mr. Klein was one of the first to arrive, moving into a temporary office 20 feet from the chairman’s.

NOT STANDARD CORPORATE PRACTICE

Top lawyers and experts in corporate governance said the News Corporation should have hired outside legal counsel to oversee the inquiry, as dozens of companies like the American International Group and Fannie Mae have done in the past, rather than rely on an insider.

“That is not standard practice,” said Charles M. Elson, an expert on corporate governance at the University of Delaware. “You cannot be seen as objective if you are inside.”

Weak school discipline leads to family grief and neighborhood mayhem

2011-07-24T00:46:00.006-04:00

I have previously written in this blog about the problem of poor discipline, or serious class misbehavior in New York City Public Schools. Highly frustrating and disappointing, from a professional stand-point is supervisors' or administrators' essential unwillingness to enforce punishments against disruptive students, violent students or students that "play" in a dangerous manner. Teachers are scolded against reporting violent misdeeds. Growing numbers of administrators in the era of Bloomberg/Klein/ Black and Walcott actually hold teachers responsible for the incidents-- propagating the notion that if only teachers did a better (read more entertaining) job of "classroom management" no violence would occur.

Furthermore, students pick up on how there are no punishments. Some crafty students pick up on the stock scolding phrase by supervisors against teachers, "you can't control your class." When administrators blame teachers for boring or alienating the students and then stone-wall against issuing any punishments against violent or otherwise disruptive students, then the charge about being unable to control the students becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.

But I have said this all before. It is important to remind the public, in light of recent public events, of the context around such misbehavior. First, this spring there were local television reports about how a middle school in East New York, Brooklyn was the site of a girl' jabbing another student with a hypodermic needle. It is no wonder that such outrages do not occur more often. For, administrators berate teachers when they alert the administration to warning signs that presage such behavior. A second telling anecdote was the riot trashing of one Greenwich Village, Manhattan, Dunkin Donuts shop by a mini-flash mob of teenagers. I would bet that one lesson that the students in each story had long ago learned in school was that there are few consequences for disruptive or aggressive behavior.

CHILDREN NEED SOME RULES AND CONSEQUENCES FROM PARENTS

The "b" word is not how I refer to students, but the following article makes some points that policy "leaders" and parents need to consider:
(July 2, 2011 LZ Granderson, CNN Contributor, "Permissive parents: Curb your brats")
The author addresses the "kind of parent who allows your 5-year-old to run rampant in public places like restaurants" or airplanes or grocery stores.

[W]e know you don't discipline them at home because you don't possess "the look." If you had "the look," you wouldn't need to say "sit down" a thousand times.

If you had "the look," you wouldn't need to say much of anything at all. But this nonverbal cue needs to be introduced early and reinforced diligently with consequences for transgressions, just like potty training. And whenever a kid throws a temper tantrum in the middle of the shopping mall it's just as bad as his soiling his pants to spite his parents, and it stinks just as much.

And teachers are supposed to create discipline in the classroom when there has been none outside of the classroom.

Numerous commenters spoke of this in the comments page to a New York Times article Thursday, July 18 that had an enabling tone for the students subjected to suspensions.

I am a parent. I want my children safe at school. I send my children to school for education, not so that they can take part in babysitting students. Teachers are supposed to "teach," not handle disruptions from unruly children and young adults. It does not seem appropriate to ask our schools to become "rehibilation" centers, like jails, for children who have no respect for themselves and others.

. . .

Teachers are there to teach, not raise kids. The curriculum should include scholastic subjects, not life skills. Those are parental responsibilities.

. . .

One New York City middle school teacher in Brooklyn, on her first year teaching:)
The principal's solution when I asked for help was to threaten me with dismissal if I couldn't control my class. The assistant principal suggested, when I pleaded for guidance, that I just quietly move next to the disruptive student and stand there; not touch the kid, just make sure he or she knows that he or she is out of order. This was somewhat less effective than the useless call home. . . . We need to understand why other countries are able to teach their school children in quiet, controlled classrooms.

. . .

I find it profoundly significant that the word "parents" never occurs in this article. As long as parents continue to abdicate their responsibilities to others (schools, the government, churches) the dysfunction illustrated in this article will either stay the same or get worse.

Stacking in favor of Charter Schools -Chicago Mayor Daley's "last middle finger"...

2011-06-04T18:52:00.005-04:00

This is a tip-off from democraticunderground's "Madfloridian":
"Mayor Daley's "last middle finger" to public schools. How the odds are stacked in favor of charters."
Madfloridian wrote:

This story illustrates how easily public schools are painted as the problem, while it is never mentioned how often they get students returned from charter schools....because they are unable to meet the standards.

That Mayor Daley said such a thing shows how clueless some of the political leaders are about what is really going on....how these schools "counsel out" non-performers and send them back to public schools so they won't affect their scores.

From the Chicago Reader.

Charters unload problem students onto neighboring public schools - then reap the benefits.

An earlier post with this contribution at Chicago Teachers Union site:
"Stacking the Odds in Favor of Charter Schools"
BY BEN JORAVSKY FOR CHICAGO READER | 04/14/2011

A key excerpt:

On February 16, the Union League Club gave out its Democracy in Action award to deserving local high school students, and Mayor Daley was on hand to give a rousing speech—calling on regular public schools to make like the charters and transform ordinary neighborhood students into high-scoring, high-achieving, college-bound stars. Specifically, the mayor was hailing Urban Prep High School, a south-side charter school. But his unspoken message to all teachers was "work harder and stop whining."Consider it one last middle finger from Daley to the teachers and their unions because—well, why not?

Watching it all with a mixture of revulsion and disbelief was Eric Wagner, a social studies teacher at Kelvyn Park High School on the predominantly Hispanic northwest side. "I was there because one of my students—Jennifer Velazquez—had won the award," says Wagner. "I'm thinking, this is really inappropriate. There aren't even any charter school kids who won the award. Why is he ripping us?"

A public school student won. The charter students did not. Mayor Daley was either spinning or he actually did not know. Either way is a slap in the face to the public schools and to the winning student.

Prince Michael's Daughter Georgina Writes "Tell-All" Novel on Father Grinch

2011-06-01T20:55:00.004-04:00

The New York Times, which used to be a darling of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has allowed some cracks in the relationship.

It published Tuesday May 31, 2011 a notice about how Mayor Bloomberg, is, shall we put it, disappointed in his horse-riding daughter Georgina.

The background article by Julie Bosman and Michael Barbaro, "Mayor’s Daughter, Hints of Family Life."

And excerpts from Georgina's novel, "The A Circuit," introduced by Bosman and Barbaro.