Excellent, sympathetic comments at Daily News about the Rubber Room situation

The "Daily News" allowed some excellent comments by sympathetic readers, on the issue of Rubber Room accusations, on the occasion of the closing of the rubber rooms.
We should remind readers of the context of the Rubber Room closures:
The closures decision occurred simultaneous with the public premiere of an independent film no the rubber rooms. UFT president was letting New York City schools chancellor off the hook when he agreed to the closure of the rubber rooms. The movie was apparently embarrassing to the city.

Here, some of the best comments on the issue of rubber rooms, and accusations against teachers, by someone named "EllenB."

EllenB
6:28:20 PM
Apr 15, 2010
Having many friends who are DOE educators, I have an inside look at what's really what in the NYC education scene that many people don't have. First of all, It is absolutely APPALLING that the DN has continuously bashed teachers within its pages, particularly those assigned to the "Rubber Room". Most of those teachers have, in truth, done NOTHING wrong. They are in effect political prisoners. China or the old USSR have nothing on the Bloomberg version of the camps. Some of the teachers assigned to "Rubber Rooms", unfortunately, have in fact been incompetent or actually committed a crime. And they should, of course, be removed from the classroom. But they are a very small minority of the hundreds of teachers in "Rubber Rooms". A very small minority indeed. The teachers may have been whistleblowers on unscrupulous administrators, and their reward was to be falsely accused of hastily drawn-up charges and sent to the "Rubber Room". Students who justly received failing grades
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EllenB
6:30:01 PM
Apr 15, 2010
Cont'd for poor quality work are actively encouraged to write statements against their teachers, which are then used to "justify" charges against that teacher. And they end up in the "Rubber Room" for no authentic reason at all. Oh, and if the charges are found to be false, the teacher's name is still blackened but there are NO consequences to the students, none at all. It's such fun to get some get-back at your competent teacher who justly gave you a failing grade for low quality work or who told you to be quiet so that a lesson could proceed and people could actually learn, or who had your cell phone confiscated. Every single day since the dawn of time, teachers have had to raise their voices in class when polite requests for quiet are ignored. By rewriting definitions, this has now become a criminal offense, corporeal punishment, under Bloomberg and it's been given the title "verbal abuse". "Corporeal" refers to "bodily" and this sort of punishment originally meant tha
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EllenB
6:31:41 PM
Apr 15, 2010
CONT'D - that teachers could not physically strike students. Many teachers reassigned to "Rubber Rooms" did nothing more than speak a little too loudly. Principals with a lot of older and hence expensive teachers have been very busy inventing all sorts of ludicrous charges to then clear their school budgets of these high-priced veterans, whose salaries are then eventually taken over by the central DOE---off the budgets of the individual school. This decentralization of salary payments was instituted by Bloomberg, and presents an obvious incentive to get rid of expensive teachers--by any means. The point is, the vast majority of the teachers sitting in the "Rubber Rooms" are falsely accused by their school administration based on questionable evidence, and would much rather be TEACHING kids than sitting around. And if you, a highly educated and intelligent person, were forced to sit basically immobile in an overcrowded room, only allowed to walk around during the lunch hour, w
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EllenB
6:34:34 PM
Apr 15, 2010
CONT'D - hour, what exactly WOULD you do to pass the hours? These people are not criminals, but they are being treated so. These people are not lazy bums, but they are being characterized as such. Bloomberg created the "gotcha" parameters, then pays off the media to defame those so accused (and usually innocent), inflaming public opinion against these unjustly maligned educators and thus gaining a favorable position with which to negotiate a less favorable contract for teachers. What is so hard to see about this? Yet judging from the vicious and ignorant comments posted by many here, Bloomberg's counting on an easily roused mob mentality ("Lynch them teachers! Hang 'em high!") worked admirably.
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oneofthemany
7:37:54 PM
Apr 15, 2010
@EllenB- This is EXACTLY the truth. I dare anyone who does not work for the DOE to see what goes on these days in a school. Principals have been given carte blanche and g-d help the teacher who speaks out against him/her. They'll quickly find themselves in the rubber room on charges of corporal punishment based upon NONSENSE. Take on the thankless job of being union rep, file a grievance for a fellow colleague and you'll find yourself written up for insubordination or professional misconduct. The DOE and the Mayor cry that the Union is the reason that things move so slow but when you have 15 arbitrators for the entire city that work 5 DAYS A MONTH, whose fault is that? The 60 day rule has been in effect for years but those cases are few and far between.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/04/15/2010-04-15_city_to_close_rubber_rooms_reassignment_centers_for_teachers_accused_of_major_vi.html#ixzz0lEUy4v3w

Education Week challenges schoolratings; Daily News publicizes assertions: administrators intimidating teachers to pass (failing) math students

SHAME OF THE CITY
Education Week writes "Questions Raised on New York Test System's Reliability"

"High number of schools receiving A or B in city a red flag, critics argue" September 29, 2009
By Erik W. Robelen

The recent news that 97 percent of New York City public schools got an A or B under the district’s grading system might be seen as reason for celebration, but critics suggest the grades hold little value and highlight the need to revisit the state assessment system.

The results, they say, reveal far more about flaws in the city’s so-called “progress reports” —and the state testing regime that largely drives them—than they do about the quality of education in the 1.1 million-student district.

Eighty-four percent of the city’s 1,058 public elementary and middle schools received an A on the city’s report cards this year, compared with 38 percent in 2008, while 13 percent received a B, city...

(Alas, the site wants you to subscribe in order to read remainder of story.)
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From the Daily News (not the New York Times):
"PS 147 in Queens probed for promoting failing students: School math doesn't add up in records" October 7, 2009
(We could say that this is part of Bloomberg/Klein misrepresentation of student performance under B/K regime..)

Flunked math and couldn't do the work.

Teachers say administrators at Public School 147 in Cambria Heights doctored failing grades into passing ones and bumped seventh-graders up to eighth grade.

"I was told that no students were going to summer school this year, so everyone had to pass," math teacher Darren Johnson said.

Copies of student evaluation forms obtained by the Daily News show two math teachers at PS 147 failed nine seventh-graders with a final score of 55. But copies of three of the students' report cards - dated two weeks later - show a final grade of 65.

Those students fell "far below standards in function and algebra concepts," the report cards say. Report cards for the other students could not be obtained.

An Education Department spokeswoman said neither the principal nor agency officials would comment because the investigation is ongoing.

Some of the students who flunked rarely turned in homework assignments, teachers said, and could not perform basic algebra problems. Most did not pass the state math exams. One student was late 52 days.

"It didn't make sense to me to pass kids who failed almost every single test," Johnson, 29, said.

The tenured six-year veteran was given an unsatisfactory rating for the year by school Principal Anne Cohen.

Johnson, who resigned last month, says an assistant principal told him PS 147 could not pay for summer school.

The Education Department pays for summer school only for children who get the lowest possible score on state exams. Schools must dip into their budgets to pay for extra help for other kids, including those who failed a class.

All schools took a 5% hit to their budgets this year.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2009/10/07/2009-10-07_school_math_doesnt_add_up_ps_147_in_queens_probed_for_promoting_failing_students.html#ixzz0TPIFiWKz.

Reports such as this help explain the cold truth that tens of thousands of New York City students are being pushed along -SOCIAL PROMOTION LIVES ON in reality. This explains why you encounter majorities of students in ninth or tenth grade that cannot perform multiplication operations without counting on their fingers (apparently, indicating that they have not mastered fourth or fifth grade mathematics competency).

Daily News first in detailing extent of organ (kidneys) -brokering scandal, and first in covering juking stats of City hospital deaths

It has been almost a week since the incredible news flashed midday that 44 people had been arrested in New Jersey and that aside from the usual agents of governmental corruption, dealers in organ smuggling had been arrested.

The attention to the latter point is the result of the valiant work of anthropology professor Nancy Scheper-Hughes (University of California-Berkeley). She has been trailing this story at least since 2003, documenting a lucrative international trade in kidneys. Yet, U.S. authorities ignored her (while South African and Brazilian authorities made great use of her sleuth work). Furthermore, CBS News' Sixty Minutes did not want to follow through on her story. (Could it be that Dr. Scheper-Hughes' research tainted the reputations of doctors at some of New York City's more prestigious hospitals?) And the U.S. State Department "dismissed [Scheper-Hughes' reports of] organ trafficking as "urban legend."

Let's give a shout out to the New York Daily News, for this newspaper gave ample attention in its July 24 coverage of the corruption arrests to her research and her essential role in tipping off the facts to U.S. authorities.
Dr. Scheper-Hughes documented the physical coercion in securing the kidneys, paraphrasing the threats that the kingpin of this smuggling operation made, while displaying a pistol:

"You're here. A deal is a deal. Now, you'll give us a kidney or you'll never go home.' "

The details of her research will appear in her forthcoming book, ''A World Cut in Two, The Global Traffic in Humans for Organs.''
Click here for the MP3 audio file of WNYC's Brian Lehrer's interview, Friday, July 24 with Dr. Scheper-Hughes.
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COVERED-UP DEATHS AT NEW YORK CITY PUBLIC HOSPITALS
As if organ-smuggling isn't eerie enough, The New York Daily News ran an expose Sunday, July 26, 2009, on scrubbed hospital records that concealed deaths at the hospital, "Hospital records were sometimes falsified to cover up medical mistakes." Click here to read Robert Gearty, Benjamin Lesser and Greg B. Smith's story and watch the Daily News' two videos.
Well, this is a parallel to the tendency of New York City schools to not report incidents of violence. Terrorize teachers against reporting student acts of violence, drastically slash the numbers of deans, and voila! A drastic reduction in student violence.

Daily News Prints Teacher Op-Ed Criticizing Mayoral Control

Sunday, May 24, 2009 the Daily News printed an opinion piece by Queens teacher Arthur Goldstein:
"Teacher Against Mayoral Control: All that power hasn't made things better"

As a teacher in an A-rated school, I believe mayoral control has been an absolute disaster.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Our federal and state governments have checks and balances so no one person has total control, which is a synonym for dictatorship.

City kids need reasonable class sizes and decent facilities. Under Mayor Bloomberg, class sizes just took their biggest leap in 10 years.

Some people say class size doesn't matter, but even the best teachers can give more attention to 20 kids than 34. The fewer kids I have, the more individual attention each one gets.

Under this mayor, charter schools get the best of everything, including small classes and new technology.

My high school was built to hold 1,800 but enrolls 4,450 students. My kids sit in a crumbling trailer, with no technology and often no heat in the winter. So much for efficiency.

The mayor says it's his way or "the bad old days." That's a false choice. We need a system that works better than what we have.

We need a chancellor who works for the kids, not the mayor. The chancellor needs to fight for what's best for kids whether or not the mayor agrees. He can't do that if the mayor can fire him for not following his orders.

A few years ago, the mayor fired two members of the Panel for Educational Policy who had the nerve to disagree with him.

Consequently, the PEP is a mayoral rubber stamp. No mayoral appointee dares to stand up for kids.

This mayor boasts about accountability. Teachers are accountable. Principals are accountable, but the only time the mayor is accountable is once every four years.

That's not enough, particularly for a man who is prepared to spend $100 million to buy reelection and who scoffed at the voters by changing the term limits law they twice affirmed.

Four more years of this system guarantees the privatization and destruction of public education in New York City. That's a prospect we should all oppose.

Crains: MTA fare increase compromise now supported by exec office-holders, but not supported by legislators; Daily News on wealthy tax hike

The buzz in the last day or two has been that New York State government leaders have an MTA fare compromise that could spare transit riders a 25% fare increase.
Crain's headline to the latest major story is that Paterson, Bloomberg and Silver are on board with the now-famous (Richard) Ravitch plan compromise. (The crucial element of the Ravitch plan is the imposition of taxes on employees in the MTA service region and the imposition of tolls on the East River bridges, in exchange for temporing the looming fare increase.)
Unfortunately, state legislators are not cooperating --yet.
{{Scroll down for a link to NY Daily News article which lays out an Albany (New York State legislature) on tax hikes on the very-wealthy, with a mind to thwarting killer fare increases.}}

"Get on board with MTA fix: Without the Ravitch plan, many face unaffordable increases," March 28, 2009
The board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority last week did what it had to do in the face of Albany inaction—it raised fares by about 20% and made painful service cuts to balance its budget. This will harm the New York region's economy. Reversing it may depend on the actions of CEOs.

The causes of the MTA's problem are simple. The agency is broke because the recession is pummeling real estate transfer taxes, and it has no money to finance crucial capital improvements because the Pataki administration loaded up the MTA with debt that's now coming home to roost.

The solution, worked out by civic leader Richard Ravitch, is fair and equitable. It imposes relatively modest fare increases, a small regional payroll tax on all downstate employers and tolls on drivers crossing the East River bridges. Gov. David Paterson, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver agree the Ravitch plan makes sense. Yet Democrats can't marshal the votes to pass it in the Senate. Breaking that deadlock requires winning over Senate Republicans—and that's where the CEOs come in.

The business leaders who make up the Partnership for New York City have stood solidly behind Mr. Ravitch, despite the fact they would be paying a new tax when they could least afford to do so. They haven't been powerful enough to tip the balance in the Senate in part because the Albany-based Business Council of New York State has opposed the MTA compromise in line with its consistent no-new-taxes position. The attitude is shortsighted and anti-downstate. A change in the Business Council's thinking would help.

Also crucial may be the Real Estate Board of New York, which supports Mr. Ravitch but whose top priority in Albany right now is rent legislation. REBNY has long been one of the most reliable sources of campaign funds for Senate Republicans; it has the clout to pressure them to support the Ravitch plan.

Some suggest the answer lies in firing another CEO, the MTA's Lee Sander. He has become a target for those who believe the MTA is bloated and wasteful. In truth, Mr. Sander has wisely streamlined operations and cut costs in his two years in the post. He hasn't solved all of the MTA's problems. Who could in such a short time? And he hasn't been the most effective politician in selling what he has done. But is that really a fault? Shouldn't the job go to a seasoned transportation professional rather than a politician?

Without an MTA fix, countless New Yorkers face an unaffordable increase in one of their most basic necessities—and the MTA's capital plan will simply stop, putting the system on the track to ruin. There are many important issues to be decided in Albany in the coming days. None is more important than saving the MTA.

On Friday March 27, 2009 Kenneth Lovett and Glenn Blain in "The Daily News" reported on an Assembly (our lower house in the legislature) plan to increase taxes on three tiers of the people with income earnings over $300,000 per year. The Senate Democrats have a competing plan on people earning over $350,000 per year. Either of these plans would lessen the blow to subway riders, modest income taxpayers in the MTA service region, and drivers passing over the East River bridges.
Overall, propects are not looking encouraging for this plan's success, as our Democratic governor (David Paterson), Assembly leader (Sheldon Silver) and Senate leader (Malcolm Smith) are not in agreement on these plans. These leaders are evidently kowtowing to the ultra-rich, while the working and middle class New Yorkers are quaking with dread at the prospect for 25% fare increases in the midst of an economic crisis.