Activists, Use this ProPublica site: A New Way to ‘Check In’ on Education Inequality

The ProPublica Nerd Blog A New Way to ‘Check In’ on Education Inequality

by Al Shaw ProPublica, Jan. 24, 2013, 2:19 p.m.

Starting today if you connect [1] your Foursquare account to "The Opportunity Gap," we'll send you stats about schools whenever you check into one. If you've checked into a school we've associated with a Foursquare "venue," we'll show you some details and give you a link to that school's profile.

You can also tap the ProPublica section of your checkin (see screenshot to right) to bring up that school's profile and compare it to nearby schools right from your smartphone.

The ProPublica News apps desk is:

* Scott Klein * Krista Kjellman Schmidt * Jeff Larson * Al Shaw * Lena Groeger

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A year ago when we launched the first version of our "Opportunity Gap [2]" news application ["A New Way to ‘Check In’ on Education Inequality"], we tightly integrated Facebook [3] in order to make it easy for readers to compare schools and share their school comparisons. Today's relaunch adds Foursquare, along with adding a slew of new data [4] to the app as well as algorithmically generate narratives by Narrative Science. [5]

To accomplish the Foursquare integration, we're taking advantage of their new Real-Time API [6] which lets us send push notifications in response to checkins. In order to associate schools with Foursquare venues, we used Foursquare's search API with its "match" intent -- a specially-designed endpoint [7] for "venue harmonization" between apps. We ran our database of over 50,000 schools through Foursquare's API to store the venue IDs. If you check into a school that we haven't matched to a venue in our database, we'll use your location and the school name to show you a number of guesses as to what school you're at (we don't store your checkins or location data in our database at all). Once you pick one, we'll use your checkin data to link the school venue, so the next user that checks into that school will immediately see school stats.

Many news applications are location-based, and we're excited to start experimenting with bringing our apps to users where they are.

Polls Could Suggest Militants are Winning War vs NYC Mayor

The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) basks in the glory of polls showing more public trust in the UFT than in New York City's Department of Education.
Has the UFT leadership ever considered that those that did the ground-breaking work to expose the DOE's lies and policy outrages have been the dissidents outside the Unity clique controlling the union?
The union is winning the war of public opinion; and the dissidents are probably the ones that spurred this turning of the tide.

The wrath of school communities: At a Feb. 9 PEP meeting at Brooklyn Tech HS, over 2,000 teachers, students, parents and supporters from 23 closing schools packed the room to the rafters, putting the city on notice that it is failing its communities.

A round-up of the mayor's F rating in the public opinion polls, as reported in New York newspapers:
See in the NY Times (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/poll-finds-strong-disapproval-of-mayors-handling-of-schools/) re Quinnipiac poll: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/poll-finds-strong-disapproval-of-mayors-handling-of-schools/
in Daily News: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/city-voters-trust-teachers-union-mayor-poll-article-1.1018778

NYC Rubber Room reporter, drawing from a January 17, 2012 New York Post story: "Mayor Mike Booed...NYC Just Doesn't Like Him (With Good Reason): He’s Mayor Boo!berg"

Students revolting vs Walcott at Bronx School meeting, from the Daily News:

School organizers were forced to abruptly end a meeting at a Bronx high school Tuesday night when it was interrupted by angry students, causing Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott to leave. Students at Evander Childs in Williamsbridge jumped from their seats, yelling about the city’s “failed education policies.” The students disrupted the meeting about a half-hour after it began, saying it was payback for a meeting last week at Herbert H. Lehman High School, where students were only allowed 30 seconds to speak about their closing school. “They don’t even care about what we say,” said student Jesse Aponter, a junior at Lehman. After a five-minute attempt to calm the rowdy crowd, the meeting was adjourned and Walcott left.

Read more: "Dennis Walcott leaves meeting at Bronx high school after angry students interrupt him: Students yelled about city’s 'failed education policies'," Daily News, February 1, 2012.

BRIAN JONES on DEMOCRACY NOW!

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.

Michelle Rhee: Education reform huckster

Michelle Rhee: Education reform huckster

Rhee, et al., are the biggest charlatans. It is a shame that we all (o.k., the public) fall for their snake oil pitches. We're the fools not to laugh Rhee straight into the street.

WEDNESDAY, APR 6, 2011 21:01 ET
"Michelle Rhee: Education reform huckster"
BY GENE LYONS at Salon.com

How Education Scandal is Handled in Atlanta -Contrasts for Teachable Moment

In Atlanta a major scandal brews in Atlanta: state, then federal investigators enter the scene. How this arises: concern appears over test score improvement patterns seem too good to be true. Sound familiar so far?
Read "Feds cast a wide net in Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal," Dec. 26, 2010 in "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution" for the story.
Choose your particular issue on which to hang a scandal charge in New York City: there are the easy cases: the no-textbooks at home policy; the million dollar no-bid contracts --that persist in a fiscal crisis; there are the cases that a little harder to pursue, but that can be labeled scandalous: the minority neighborhood focused drive to shut down larger schools, eliminating the benefits of economies of scale (larger schools having more deans, more social workers, more guidance counselors, more psychologists, more speech therapists, more choices of foreign language, more Advanced Placement opportunities, more choices in after-school extra-curricular programs); the aggressive reducing the ranks of minority teachers, while increasing the ranks of white teachers; the aggressive reduction of the older teachers, while increasing the ranks of younger teachers (racism/ ageism charge anyone?); the city under former schools chancellor Joel Klein aggressively introduced disproven constructivist math programs Everyday Math and Impact Math, and in a corresponding period, real proficiency in math has remained poor (see the numbers of students entering CUNY needing remediation courses) --See this New York Sun article printed in the Queens Teacher blog. There are issues aplenty by which activists or progressive politicians can pursue the charge of scandal.
CONTRASTS BETWEEN ATLANTA AND NEW YORK CITY
In Atlanta, the issue has been pursued aggressively by that city's only major daily, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In New York, the daily newspapers have been either organs of the city (see New York Post and city-industry revolving door with latter paper's hiring of Klein) or have been in the back pocket of the mayor (see New York Times or Daily News)
In Atlanta, state-level politicians have opposed city-level politicians or holders of appointed office (see Georgia governor Sonny Perdue's opposing Atlanta schools superintendent Beverly Hall)
In New York, there is no opposition from any state-level politician to mayor Michael Bloomberg or his school chancellor. The lone cry is by New York City councilman Charles Barron; there is no coordination between Barron and other concerned city politicians.
Where is the flexing of muscle of audit power, investigation power or just plain bully-pulpit power that city Comptroller John Liu or Public Advocate Bill de Blasio could easily exert? (Early in 2010 Comptroller Liu told New Yorkers that he was auditing the city Department of Education: see "With an Eye on Education, Liu Takes a New Approach," Mar. 3, 2010 in "The New York Times." By the end of the year there was little public connecting of the dots of the scandals or near-scandals listed earlier in this blog post.)

Come on John and Bill! You want to make a big splash in education, in the lead-up to the contest to become the next mayor? Grab these scandals by the horns!

NYCorE's Political Education and Mobilization (PEM) work group

Join NYCoRE’s Political Education and Mobilization (PEM) work group as we launch our educator political education series for the 09-10 school year. Through these forums we will interrogate the ways in which current education reforms are aligned with corporate-thinking and how deeply these reforms shape our work lives, the lives of our students and the local community.
First up, Obama & My Classroom.

What are some of the major elements of Barack Obama’s (& Arne Duncan's) education platform? How does this federal discussion affect the lives of teachers, students, and families in the New York City Public school system? What are the political ideologies that support this stance? How might we, as educators, respond? These are just some of the questions we will be looking at during this first gathering.

Join us, and please invite other interested educators and concerned community members.
Wednesday, Oct. 28th
5 – 7 pm
CUNY Graduate Center 365 5th Ave. (@ 34th St.) [Transit info at Education Activism box at right.]
Room 5409 Please bring ID.For information or to RSVP, contact Edwin -edwin@nycore.org