In at Least One NYC School Jeans Banned ---For Teachers

In at least one New York City (P.S. or elementary) school supervisors have banned jeans ---on teachers!

“In an increasingly diverse nation where what you wear may be the ultimate self-expression, teachers are falling victim to the same dress code rules as their students.”
--USA Today, July 31, 2012
Huh?
Let's go to how clothes and electronics rules are defined and actually practiced in the NYC DOE:
First, these are strict and well-defined as to attire, just as they are to electronics.
But let's look at the hypocrisy. Students flout the rules. Administrators ignore them.
Guys, we'll perennially tolerate your way low saggin', the DOE is basically telling children. (See this Chaz post.) And everyone, you can operate any and every electronic amusement device you wish. (See this post by Life in Limbo on the lewd-mouthed student with the laptop.)
Again, this is your DOE of the 2000s and 2010s: no accountability standards for students; tough standards for teachers.
Here's USA Today's July 30, 2012 story on the getting tough on teacher adornments patterns:

When kids in one Kansas school district return to class this fall, they won't be seeing cutoff shorts, pajama pants or flip flops — on teachers.
Kindergarten teachers, who would meet new dress codes, at McAdory Middle School in Birmingham, Ala.
The Wichita School District is just one of a growing number in the nation cracking down on teacher apparel. Jeans are banned in at least one elementary school in New York City. A school district in Phoenix is requiring teachers to cover up tattoos and excessive piercings. And several Arizona schools are strictly defining business casual.
In an increasingly diverse nation where what you wear may be the ultimate self-expression, teachers are falling victim to the same dress code rules as their students.
In most cases, schools are taking the actions because they believe some teachers are dressing inappropriately. School board members received parental complaints about teacher dress at Arizona's Litchfield Elementary School District, Superintendent Julianne Lein says.
The move comes at a time when the number of public schools requiring uniforms has nearly doubled over the past decade to 19%, reports the National Center for Education Statistics. The center doesn't track teacher uniforms or dress codes. But it soon may have to, as schools have moved to:
•Ban tattoos and piercings. Teachers can't sport outlandish hairstyles or facial piercings, and tattoos have to be covered up at the Litchfield Elementary School District.
Fifth-grade teacher Tim Schooley, who says he's surprised it's taken so long to implement a dress code, isn't sure how school officials will enforce the tattoo rule. He has a tattoo on his calf, but keeps it covered . "Tattoos can be a symbol or something of extreme significance that you have," he says. "That, to me, is a little bit different."
•Outlaw jeans. At New York's P.S. 64 Robert Simon School, jeans are an absolute no-no.
•Nix skinny straps. Students shouldn't be seeing too much of their female teachers in Peoria and Litchfield school districts, as tank-top straps can't be less than 2 inches wide.
What happens to those who don't follow the new rules?
"Staff members will first be counseled by their supervisor to brainstorm options in ways to meet the code," Superintendent Lein says. "Further non-compliance will be dealt with through the normal disciplinary channels." But in this case, not detention.

UPDATED: Will Campbell Brown Play Even with Alleged Perv Kevin (Mr. Rhee) Johnson? & Haimson Scoops StudentsFirst Link

CAMPBELL BROWN HYPOCRISY, L'AFFAIRE RHEE-JOHNSON - BROWN SPOUSE, AT STUDENTSFIRST NY, IS TOP ROMNEY AIDE - JOHNSON IN SUMMER OF '95 - RAVITCH BLOGS HAIMSON (SHOWING BROWN LINK TO STUDENTSFIRST) - UNIONS MUST RAISE ISSUE OF SOFT GLOVES FOR PERVVY SUPERVISORS

Campbell Brown, a former CNN anchor of her own show, suddenly got it in her to go on a war against teachers' unions, impugning them as covering for sexual predator teachers. With Brown, and the editorial directors of tabloid newspapers such as the New York Post, there is a tack that the accused much prove their innocence. If she's going down that road, she needs to look in her own crowd, including deformer couple, Rhee-Johnson.

On scouring the Internet, you cannot seem to find a resolution to the allegations of sexual misconduct of Sacramento, California Mayor Kevin Johnson, the spouse of Michelle Rhee.

There are now ways to scrub Internet reputations. Apparently, Johnson has not found the wherewithal to do this.

"Karoli," writing at Crooks and Liars, summed up the hypocrisy:

What does this prove, really? It proves bad people exist everywhere. In unions and not in unions. In charter schools and in public schools. But the key difference is that when it comes to teachers' unions, publications like the Wall Street Journal allow intellectually dishonest so-called "journalists" to smear an entire group of people for the actions of a few. {In my book this is called discrimination. -NYC Eye} If I were to apply Campbell Brown's logic, I would smear every single charter school in the country because Kevin Johnson misused nearly a million dollars of taxpayer money and may have engaged in sexual misconduct, too. But I won't, because it's flawed, agenda-laden, political skullduggery.

In 2009 Johnson was under investigation for TWO matters: misappropriation of funds, and allegations of sexual misconduct:

Office of Inspector General report on Kevin Johnson: http://www.scribd.com/doc/101709609/2009-OIG-Report-Re-Kevin-Johnson

Now, let us go back to the full article at Crooks and Liars, which includes the reference to Cameron Brown. Could there be projection happening in her attack on teachers? The cold numbers are used to assess teachers. But if we turn the tables on her, the cold numbers hurt her, as could not compete in her time slot against the likes of Bill O'Reilly, Nancy Grace or Keith Olberman. See this report two years ago in the New York Daily News: Campbell Brown steps down as anchor of eponymous CNN cable news show due to low ratings.

In this troika of teacher attackers we see lots of people that couldn't hack it in own area, so they have moved on to safe spots from which they can take a righteous ground and attack others. This smacks of the defense mechanism of psychological projection. In Rhee, an ex-teacher who could not handle the basics of classroom management. She moved on to take over the school system, couldn't hack that without resorting to erasure-gate. Now, she gets to head StudentsFirst, and opine on Meet the Press that she will reserve comment on Republicans as she is a Democrat. Next, Johnson, who couldn't hack reserving his behavior in close proximity to youths. So, he moved on to become a medium-sized city mayor. Then, there's Brown, who had trouble competing in the brutal O'Reilly/Grace/Oberman timeslot. So, now she's winging a Wall Street Journal guest op-ed opportunity, taking the holy ground by attacking America's current easy target, scapegoats.

"Campbell Brown Slams Unions At Teachers' Expense,"Crooks and Liars, August 1, 2012

I suppose the one good thing to come out of this is that Campbell Brown, who has absolutely no business talking about education in any way, finally reveals herself as the stealth Romney campaign advisor we have all known she is. {Link to Ali Gharib piece at ThinkProgress, "Campbell Brown, Wife Of Top Romney Adviser, Says Obama Is ‘Condescending’ To Women". --NYC Eye}

Before I discuss her despicable effort to "Willy Horton" the American Federation of Teachers and President Randi Weingarten in particular, let's just review who Campbell Brown is. She is a long-gone CNN White House correspondent, married to Dan Senor, and has no classroom experience or anything to suggest that she has authority when it comes to public education.

Still, that didn't stop her from writing an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal using Willy Horton tactics to smear the American Federation of Teachers yesterday by proclaiming that the AFT "goes to bat for sexual offenders." And if that wasn't enough, she then paraded herself onto Morning Joe Monday morning to whine about it and smear the teachers even more.

Surely that wasn't timed to coincide with the end of AFT's National Conference Monday, or Vice President Biden's rousing speech to the teachers in attendance on Sunday. Surely not. [Disclosure: I attended the conference at AFT's invitation]

Oh, I forgot one more thing Mrs. Senor forgot: Dan Senor is on the board of StudentsFirst NY. StudentsFirst NY is an arm of Michelle Rhee's education deform coalition, funded by Rupert Murdoch and others who have an interest in destroying teachers' unions. Dan Senor is also a senior Mitt Romney advisor, and smearing teachers' unions is one of Romney's top priorities. It certainly didn't hurt to have that Dan Senor/Morning Joe connection when Campbell wanted to put a little traction under her smear, either.

But you know, Campbell Brown should have checked with Michelle Rhee before taking this tack. Because now it's my non-reportorial duty as a citizen of this great country to point out that Michelle Rhee goes to bat for sexual predators, too. This is actually a story I haven't talked about because I happen to think Rhee's personal life should not be involved in her effort to wreck schools.

But Campbell Brown opened up Pandora's box, so let's just go ahead and lay it out there.

Michelle Rhee's husband Kevin Johnson was under federal investigation in 2009 for misuse of funds connected with his charter school, St. Hope Academy. This was a big right-wing story at the time, but mostly underreported by mainstream press or the left, because the Obama administration fired the OIG in charge of the investigation shortly after his report was issued. The timing gave rise to a shrill whine from the right wingers about cronyism, etc, while they ignored the actual report about Johnson's malfeasance. Here's a snippet of the letter from Chuck Grassley wrote concerning the investigation:

In September 2008, after reviewing the facts that the OIG investigation presented, the Corporation’s Debarment and Suspension Official (Official) determined that the grantee’s two principals, Kevin Johnson and Dana Gonzalez were responsible for six acts of diverting grant funds to non-grant purposes, and found that “immediate action is necessary to protect the public interest.”

In total about $850,000 was misused. As a result, the OIG requested that the Official suspend all future Federal grant funding to both St. HOPE Academy and Kevin Johnson and Dana Gonzales individually. The Official ultimately suspended St. HOPE Academy and its principals “from participating in Federal procurement and non procurement programs and activities.” None of the respondents exercised their right to submit facts objecting to the suspension.

What Grassley does not mention in his letter is that Kevin Johnson was also under investigation for inappropriate sexual conduct with a 16-year old student at the school. Skip to page 26 of the report below to read the specifics.

2009 OIG Report Re: Kevin Johnson
And what does this have to do with Dan Senor, Michelle Rhee and Campbell Brown? Well, it seems that Michelle Rhee actually interfered in the federal investigation, and covered for her "friend" Kevin Johnson, who she married in 2011. See also here regarding Rhee's conduct on Johnson's behalf.

When Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star who is now mayor of Sacramento, was under investigation last year for alleged financial misdeeds and inappropriate behavior with female students, he had an important ally behind the scenes.

Michelle Rhee, the nationally known education reformer who is now head of the Washington, D.C., public schools, had several conversations with a federal inspector general in which she made the case for Johnson and the school he ran in Sacramento, according to the inspector general. Rhee, who had served on the board of the school and is now engaged to marry Johnson, said he was "a good guy." { - Above two paragraphs are from 2009 L.A. Times story -NYC Eye}

What does this prove, really? It proves bad people exist everywhere. In unions and not in unions. In charter schools and in public schools. But the key difference is that when it comes to teachers' unions, publications like the Wall Street Journal allow intellectually dishonest so-called "journalists" to smear an entire group of people for the actions of a few. If I were to apply Campbell Brown's logic, I would smear every single charter school in the country because Kevin Johnson misused nearly a million dollars of taxpayer money and may have engaged in sexual misconduct, too. But I won't, because it's flawed, agenda-laden, political skullduggery.

Of course, we'll never know one way or the other, because Michelle Rhee married Kevin Johnson, so she wouldn't be compelled to give evidence against him in any prosecution one way or the other, and she interfered in the original investigation as well.

Where is Campbell Brown shouting about how the president of an organization covered up for a man who may have sexually assaulted young women in a charter school where there are ZERO requirements for any kind of due process before teachers are fired? Where is her outrage at the possibility that Kevin Johnson behaved inappropriately toward a minor and other Americorps volunteers without any investigation, largely because Michelle Rhee stood up and defended him as a "good guy"?

Sorry, but Campbell Brown has absolutely zero business writing about education, unions, or sexual misconduct as long as she's willing to disguise her obvious ties with StudentsFirst NY, Michelle Rhee, and Kevin Johnson and ignore the evidence on the record about their misconduct. Not only does her cynical ploy to discredit the AFT fall flat, it simply affirms her reputation as a Washington insider has-been who is trying to revive her career by papering over Mitt Romney's utter failure as a viable candidate.

[Footnote: Kevin Johnson is now the mayor of Sacramento, and despite right-wing claims that he's a darling of the Obama administration, the truth is that even Democrats can't stand the man. Or his wife. "Why Labor Doesn't Like Rhee"]

Actually, Karoli, see my last post, for the photo of vice president Joe Biden with his hand on Rhee's shoulder, and mayor Johnson grinning at Biden.
And all that funny money moving around at the charter school under Johnson's watch? Could that have been hush money to keep someone quiet, in a manner akin to out-of-court settlements? Just asking.

Bravo to American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, for standing up to Brown, in a twitter battle. She is reminding Brown that the accused deserve the rights of due process.

Fred Klonsky at his blog, rightly called out the mass character impugning and the pass given to Johnson: "Male teachers are sexual predators and the union protects them."

ALLEGATIONS OF MAYOR JOHNSON'S 1995 SEXUAL IMPROPRIETY WITH MINOR
From the Phoenix New Times, Paul Rubin, May 8, 1997
"The Summer of '95: A teenage girl tells police Kevin Johnson won her confidence, then took advantage of her. While her allegations are open to question, there are many questions about KJ's behavior."

Phoenix Suns fans who were puzzled by the inconsistent play of Kevin Johnson during the playoff series against Seattle should consider this:

Days before the series began, an attorney for a 17-year-old Phoenix girl delivered a letter to Johnson. It demanded $750,000 before 5 p.m. on April 28.
If Johnson failed to cut a check, the attorney warned, a lawsuit would be filed promptly.
"Despite your current, very positive image and persona," civil attorney Kent Turley wrote, "[the girl's] experience with you will cause us to use the theme in any litigation that you were in fact a wolf in sheep's clothing."
. . . .
The alleged sexual contacts, Turley wrote, had occurred in the summer of '95, when Kim was 16 and Johnson was 29. He quoted Kim Adams extensively in his demand letter, including this account:
"He [Johnson] said I could sleep in his room or the guesthouse and I chose the guesthouse. . . . We got into the bed and he took all of my clothes off and all of his but his shirt. He was on top of me touching me all over--my breasts, butt, in between my legs, and stomach. Then he took off his shirt. I didn't really know what to do--I was very confused because I thought we were friends, but I didn't know what else to do than to go along with it. . . . He told me to pinky-promise not to say anything and when I asked why, he said I knew why."
In an understatement, Turley concluded that public disclosure of the alleged revelations would be scandalous. The comment was an attorney's attempt to maneuver--some would say strong-arm--Johnson into agreeing to a rapid and secret disposition to the case.
Neither Turley nor Kim Adams claims Johnson and the girl had sexual intercourse; she claims Johnson fondled her genitals on several occasions. If it was done without her consent, such acts could be considered felonies and can call for a prison term upon conviction.
Last January, however, the Maricopa County Attorney's Office reviewed a Phoenix police investigation of the girl's claims and declined to prosecute Johnson, saying the case did not meet the agency's threshold of "reasonable likelihood of conviction."

Then, there are more sordid details of shared physical intimacy with other youths, a 16-year-old, in the summer of 1995 and improper touching at his charter school. Click to the latter part of this article. RAVITCH REPOSTS HAIMSON
What a great couple of days it has been. People are not sitting silent amidst the vulgar smears of teachers. Diane Ravitch has posted this piece from Leonie Haimson, which documents the cronyism of Campbell Brown, connections with StudentsFirst. Waiting for Brown to blow a whistle on Rhee or Johnson? Don't hold your breath.
In "Campbell Brown and Michelle Rhee: Another Odd Couple," Ravitch wrote an intro to Brown's stone throwing, and reprinted parent activist Leonie Haimson's contribution which documents Brown's spousal link to the StudentsFirst family.

Leonie Haimson is a leading parent activist in New York City and a co-founder of Parents Across America, which keeps tabs on the depredations of the corporate reformers.

Here is Leonie’s take on l’affaire Campbell Brown. One would think that Michelle Rhee and her organization StudentsFirst would be wary of getting too deep in the weeds with the issue of sexual misconduct. Yet they seem to want to exploit it to the full in a fact-free fashion.

The text of Leonie’s commentary follows, in full:

Campbell Brown was the first witness chosen to testify at the Cuomo Commission hearings last week, all about how the UFT protects sex abusers. She repeated the same claims in the WSJ a few days later.

Bloomberg & Students1st NY (which essentially works for him, under the direction of Micah Lasher) are pushing a bill in the legislature, S.7497, that would allow him to fire any teacher accused of abuse, no matter what the arbitrator decided.

Meanwhile, it has been revealed that Brown’s husband Dan Senor, a senior Romney advisor, is also on the board of Students1st. There is more on this here and here – including about how Rhee’s own husband, Kevin Johnson has been accused of sexually molesting a minor under his supervision.

Here is the Students1st NY email blast sent out today:

We need your help, right now, to speak out against sexual misconduct in our school — and against sexism in the education debate.

On Monday, Emmy Award-winning journalist Campbell Brown — who previously served as White House Correspondent for NBC and as an anchor for CNN — wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about how New York law, supported by the teacher’s union, keeps sexual predators in the classroom.

Last night, the union responded — by attacking Campbell’s husband (who, among other things, serves on our Board).

National teachers union president Randi Weingarten took to Twitter and started republishing comments about Campbell’s “hubby” and his political views — as if Campbell’s accomplishments and perspective on this issue didn’t count. This morning, many of Ms. Weingarten’s colleagues have pursued the same line of attack.

Will you help us send a message that sexual misconduct has no place in our schools, and that sexism has no place in this debate?

Click here to speak out on Twitter. Tell Ms. Weingarten that she should focus more on protecting kids and less on sexist spin. Please use #protectourkids.

Of course, the union is looking for anything to distract from the issue at hand: that the union fights tooth-and-nail against giving school districts the authority to terminate anyone who engages in sexual misconduct.

Hopefully, if enough people speak out, we can convince the teachers union to put down the poison pen (and keyboard) and join us in trying to do something about this issue.

Click here to make your voice heard. Urge the union to put students first.

Chandra M. Hayslett
Director of Communications
StudentsFirstNY
http://twitter.com/StudentsFirstNY

Ah, Campbell Brown, if you live in a glass house, do not throw rocks.

And, thanks again to those that did the right thing and stood up against the blanket smears of teachers as perverts: AFT president Randi Weingarten, NYU professor Diane Ravitch and Class Size Matters head Leonie Haimson. It is refreshing that when there are sleazes like Brown, some people will stand for truth.

HEY, HEY, HO, HO, SOFTER GLOVES FOR SUPERVISORS' SEXUAL IMPROPRIETY HAVE TO GO

Since major media personalities and outlets are side-lining serious issues and making a smoke-screen of an non-epidemic of sexually predatory teachers, teacher unions also raise and fight the media and the city for bias in the areas of principal sexual improprieties as compared to teacher sexual improprieties. (Albeit, don't get me wrong, sexual misconduct is a terrible offense. Victims of sexual assault remain scarred for decades. But let's not broadly impugn teachers as a class or negate due process rights.)

As Chaz's School Daze, a New York City blog reported, a New York City school supervisor impregnated a subordinate. Chaz's cited news story told of an additional case in which a principal several times was found in "compromising positions" with an assistant principal. No termination, in spite of the clear violation of Department of Education regulations. According to the 3020-a law any educator found guilty of sexual misconduct is automatically terminated.

And while we're on the subject of softer gloves treatment, let us go to the case of Mychael Willon, who was caught doing a perverse act in a Wichita, Kansas adult video store. His professional life after this? He got a bogus (mail order) PhD and became a LIS/Network supervisor of school supervisors in the Bronx (New York City) for several years. (He couldn't have done too much work during the day, as blogger SouthBronxSchool found that he lived in Owego, NY, 3 and 1/s to 4 hours from the Bronx.)
Rutland, Vermont rejected him for superintendent after it learned of his diploma mill "PhD". Leominster, Massachusetts rejected him for superintendent after learning of his public lewdness arrest. NYC DOE? Hired him. His life after the NYC Department of Education? A job in the growing for-profit virtual education industry, as Chief Academic Officer at Alternatives Unlimited.

Where is the pious posturing by Brown on pervvy principals???
Why does it take bloggers to bring down serial harassers? Why does the NYC DOE demote such supervisors to assistant principal instead of boot them out of the education profession? Look to the case of Bronxdale High School principal John Chase, Jr., and Gothamist's reportage:

According to a Sept. 19, 2011 police report, Chase told one school staff member, “We have a fancy copy machine that does all sorts of things. It even has a hole to stick your ---- -- for a ---- ---." In addition, Chase talked about a hole in the wall—left behind by phone repairmen—with great enthusiasm, because he said it meant he could shove his member into it whenever he wanted. But alas, Chase will now have to shove his proverbial member into some other school's hole in a lesser role.

STAND BY YOUR MAN
And what does the DOE do with a John Chase? [Assigning him to assistant principal] "It was just an agreement that it would be best for him to do it right now," said Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott.
New allegations surfaced about Chase, whereby he allegedly said things that made a 15 year old girl feel uncomfortable. What did Chancellor Walcott say?

On the new allegation, he said, “Just because an accusation is made doesn’t mean a person is guilty.”

Care to take the same position about teachers, Campbell Brown or New York Post editors? Until CNN, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Daily News and the New York Post back off from their campaign to paint a mass plague of perverted teachers, AFT president Weingarten and local union leaders should remind the media of the presumption of innocence, the rights of due process and the NYE Department of Education's kid gloves treatment of supervisors accused --or found guilty-- of sexual misconduct.

W. Post Audio: Rhee Jokes Over Taping Mouths; Mini-Scandal at StudentsFirst

Imagine if New Yorkers had reporters that would tear away the sheep's clothing from the wolves of New York City education. (Click on video box on right for audio of her speech.)

(Aghast woman at left; Arne Duncan possibly in background, by the window.)

A Washington Post reporter did just that in uploading audio with the headline, "Rhee talks about her early misadventures in teaching." Disgraced former Washington, DC Schools Chancellor, Michelle Rhee, investigated for "erasuregate," a scandal in which there were allegedly high numbers of erasures, was captured giving a talk to first-year teachers about her difficulties in her first years as a teacher. The Post uploaded an audio excerpt of the speech at Columbia Heights Education Campus in a video-type box. (Her students' scores fell in her first year, 64 percent to 17 percent in math.)

Her jovial, stand-up style delivery had her teacher audience laughing and included her explanation of the infamous mouth-taping incident. As she acknowledged in her delivery, students' lips bled.

What a difference an elite degree and a Teach for America appointment makes. (See last post: in addition to heading StudentsFirst, she sits on the Broad Foundation board.) As of this date, she has done no "desk service" or paid any penalty for the incident.

Read this well argued opinion piece at Huffington Post. Peter Drucker researched and found several incidents of teachers taping children's mouths shut. Harsh penalties ensued. For Rhee, supportive chuckles. Why? The author drew the parallel to the analysis of president Richard Nixon: "When the president does it, that means it is not illegal."

I share his interpretation of how Rhee's abuse goes unchallenged by her high-flying associates. I quote Zucker below:

What is especially galling to me is that no one -- not Oprah, not Bill Gates, not any of the high falutin' power brokers that either interview Michelle Rhee, work with her, or pal around with her -- will bring this abuse of children up with her.

Speaking of -gates, a StudentsFirst leader is in controversy for offering rewards for those who post positive comments on blog boards. RheeFirst! blog noted that the staffmember played victim when the contest came under fire.

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

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 (Local 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.

Teacher Rhee taped children's mouths; bleeding resulted / Statistics that puncture the myth Rhee created about her own teaching record in Baltimore

Seems Michelle Rhee, the high priestess of proper teaching in her stint as Washington, D.C. schools chancellor had failures of her own during her first year of teaching in Baltimore, Maryland.

Her second grade students were verbally unruly on their way to lunch one day. How did Ms. Rhee handle the situation? She taped the children's mouths shut. How horrible! This is something that teachers might joke about, but in reality they would never do this. The way this story developed is disturbing news and a warning to those that might do this.
At the end of Rhee's lesson on behavior she took the tape from the kids' mouths. Their lips were bleeding, in Rhee's own words, in an interview excerpted in "The Washington Post" this summer.
Need more proof? Here's an audio clip of Rhee glibly recalling the story as a funny party anecdote.

In New York City this would be cited as 420-A corporal punishment. No rubber room for Ms. Rhee. She squeaked past this one and became head of the school system in the big city to Baltimore's southwest.

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POSTSCRIPT:
Any career repercussions for Rhee? Hardly. The corporate media still love her and this episode never arises in their bios of her. Neither is there careful attention to the mythic self-representation she has created about her own teaching record in Baltimore (with the exception of the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun or PBS). Less recognized is how her actual performance in Baltimore fails to hold up on closer examination.

Read at the GFBrandenburg blog by a retired Washington, D.C. math teacher: "The Rhee Miracle Examined Again – By Cohort." He took her test score data for her three years of teaching, 1992-1995, in Baltimore under her Teach for America contract, and showed that she has exaggerated her performance in two years of teaching.

As he noted, had the IMPACT program she instituted in Washington, D.C. had been used in her own school, she would have been fired in the first year.

Here I will attempt to follow four different cohorts of students through Harlem Park Elementary, one of the Baltimore City public schools that was taken over by Tesseract/Edison company for several years in the early-to-mid-1990s and failed. Using publicly available data, I graphed the average percentile ranks of groups of students as they went through Harlem Park in first grade, then second grade, then third grade, and so on. If there’s a blank in my graphs, it’s because the data isn’t there.

I highlighted the classes where Michelle Rhee was teaching. In her last year, the scores did rise some, but nowhere near what she claimed. In her first year, they dropped almost as low as they can go. If Tesseract/Edison had been using the IMPACT evaluation system she foisted on DCPS teachers, she would have probably been fired after the first year!

As the Baltimore Sun reported, her claim, "Over a two-year period, moved students scoring on average at the 13th percentile on national standardized tests to 90 percent of students scoring at the 90th percentile or higher," was actually dubious. And Rhee, after being challenged on this, said that she would use the phrase "significant gains" instead of the 90th percentile term. Brandenburg noted, the study (researchers with the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Towson University, is stored in an online federal archive) presents "clear evidence of actual, knowing falsehood" by Rhee.

See also the June 30, 2007 Washington Post article, "Council to Challenge Rhee's Résumé." When someone did uncover her files, they indicated that her students' scores increase during the 2nd and 3rd years, but the gains were less than half what Rhee had claimed. (See February 8, 2011 Washington Post article, "Michelle Rhee's early test scores challenged.")

So much for honesty and empathy on Rhee's part.