List of Jan. rallies planned for school closing protests, by school

From NY Indypendent online:
NYC School Closings Draw Heated Protests on a Bitterly Cold Day: Community Activists Claim Department of Ed Targeting People of Color Neighborhoods for Privatization Schemes
By John Tarleton
From the December 31, 2009 issue | Posted by John Tarleton , Local | Email this article

Parents, educators and community members rallied in the freezing cold outside Tweed Courthouse late Monday afternoon to protest the Department of Education’s (DOE) recently announced plan to close 21 more public schools in 2010 including 15 high schools.

“They dropped a bomb on the schools without any notice,” said William McDonald a Queens parent and a leader of Save Our Schools Coalition (SOSC), a group that opposes the school closings. “The principals didn’t know. The teachers didn’t know. The parents didn’t know.”
Tweed Courthouse, located in Lower Manhattan, serves as headquarters of the NYC Department of Education. PHOTO: Flickr-CC
Tweed Courthouse, located in Lower Manhattan, serves as headquarters of the NYC Department of Education. PHOTO: Flickr-CC
The closings primarily target schools (see full list below) in predominantly people of color communities that serve a disproportionate number of high-needs students. Vanessa Sparks, a former member of the District 28 Community Education Council in Central Queens, cited the closing of Jamaica High School as an example. While the predominantly black Jamaica HS is slated to be closed after serving as a pillar of the community for 117 years, Sparks said schools in whiter, more affluent neighborhoods like Forest Hills and Kew Gardens with similar records of academic achievement remain unscathed.

“They don’t play the same game with every community,” Sparks said, referring to Mayor Michael Bloomberg and DOE Chancellor Joel Klein.

About 20 people turned out for the rally which was organized by SOSC. Many of those present expressed concern that the school closings were being carried out to facilitate the expansion of privately-run charter schools.

“They are using kids as pawns to privatize the schools,” said Monica Harris, president of the P.S. 20 Parent Teacher Association in the Lower East Side, which is locked in a battle to prevent the expansion of a charter school that would come at the expense of P.S. 20 and another public school in the neighborhood.

Elizabeth Bouiss and Joseph Occhiogrosso, both teachers at John Dewey High School in Bensonhurst/Coney Island came out to show their support. Bouiss said DOE directives have made it increasingly difficult for teachers at Dewey HS to “carry out the school’s progressive mission”, which emphasizes empowering students to make decisions regarding their educational experience. Dewey HS is not targeted for closure this year but Bouiss worried that it could be targeted in the future, especially given the DOE’s record of breaking up big schools and turning them into clusters of smaller, specially themed schools.

McDonald said protests would continue during the next month as the Panel on Education Policy (PEP), holds public hearings at each of the schools slated to be closed. The 13-member PEP, which replaced the old city school board in 2002, will vote on the DOE proposal on January when it meets at Brooklyn Tech High School in Fort Greene. Despite the fact that Mayor Bloomberg appoints 8 of the Board’s 12 voting members, the demonstrators vowed to fight to the end.
“January 26 will be ground zero in this fight,” McDonald said.

Here are the dates and times for upcoming hearings at schools designated for closure:

5-Jan 6pm School for Community Research and Learning HS 1980 Lafayette Ave, Bronx
5-Jan 6pm Academy of Environmental Science and Renaissance Charter 410 East 100 Street, Manhattan
6-Jan 6pm Frederick Douglas Academy III (6 -8) 3630 3rd Ave, Bronx
6-Jan 6pm Beach Channel HS at Beach Channel HS
7-Jan 8pm Columbus HS 925 Astor Ave, Bronx
7-Jan 5pm Global Enterprise HS 925 Astor Ave, Bronx
7-Jan 6pm Paul Robeson HS 150 Albany Ave, Bklyn
7-Jan 6pm Jamaica HS 16701 Gothic Drive, Queens
8-Jan 6pm Choir Academy of Harlem HS 2005 Madison Ave, Manhattan
11-Jan 6pm Norman Thomas HS 111 E 33st, Manhattan
11-Jan 6pm Kappa II (6-8) 144-176 East 128 st, Manhattan

11-Jan 6pm Alfred E. Smith HS 333 East 151st, Bronx
12-Jan 6pm William H. Maxwell Vocation HS 145 Pennsylvania Ave, Brooklyn
12-Jan 6pm Business, Computer Applications and Entrepeneur HS 207-01 116 Ave, Queens
13-Jan 6pm Academy of Collaborative Education (6-8) 222 West 134 St, Manhattan
13-Jan 6pm PS 332 (k-8) 51 Christopher Ave, Bklyn
13-Jan 6pm School for Academic and Social Excellence (6-8) 1224 Park Place, Brooklyn
14-Jan 6pm New Day Academy HS 800 Home St, Bronx
14-Jan 6pm Metropolitan Corporate Academy 362 Schermerhorn St, Bklyn
19-Jan 6pm Monroe Academy of Business Law HS 1300 Boynton ave, Bronx
26-Jan 6pm PEP meeting Brooklyn Tech High School
Source: Ed Notes

Petition to protest the MTA card cut-off of NYC students

Click here for an online petition against the MTA's cutoff of transit MetroCards for New York City school students.

DOE HANDED STUNNING DEFEAT IN “U” RATING APPEAL

Tuesday, December 01, 2009
DOE HANDED STUNNING DEFEAT IN “U” RATING APPEAL

In a sharply worded decision, yesterday, Justice Walter Tolub of New York Supreme Court rebuked the DOE for affirming a "U" rating given by an elementary school principal to a 20 year veteran when few of the procedural safeguards were followed. Jill Budnick, represented by private counsel, decided not to accept the rating and had claimed that she was targeted by the principal due to her seniority.

Justice Tolub found that the teacher evaluations and appeals of unsatisfactory ratings must be conducted in compliance with the formal procedures set forth primarily in two handbooks prepared by the Division of Human Resources, namely, "Rating Pedagogical Staff Members" and "The Appeal Process." The Handbook requires a Rating Officer (in this case, the school principal) to complete a thorough performance review for the academic year before rating the teacher (Section 11, at 3-4).

The Handbook states that the Rating Officer should make informal and formal classroom visits in order to improve and sustain effective teaching (Ex. 4, Section 1, A, at 1). A formal observation may consist of one full-period observation or a series of short visits by the principal (Section II, E, at 7). Discussion with the teacher before and after an observation must be built into the formal observation process, along with a post-observation conference and a written report, which should include prescriptive recommendations for professional growth where appropriate.
The Rating Officer must characterize each formal observation of the employee's performance Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory and indicate why this is so (Section 1, A, at 1). In arriving at the rating for a school year, the Rating Oficer should take into account all events and incidents manifesting professional growth, pupil guidance and instruction, and classroom management (Section, II, C, at 4). A U rating has serious implications, as it is a compelling reason to file charges against a tenured teacher and may affect the teacher's ability to obtain additional licenses and salary increments (Section II, G, at 9).

Reports of observations must be included in a teacher's official file and a teacher is permitted to append a letter or note of explanation or rebuttal to documents placed in the file (Ex. 4, Section 11, I, at 9-10). This appended material is considered part of the original document and should be permanently attached thereto (Section II, I, at lo). Any material to be placed in a teacher's file must include a notation that it is being placed in the file and a space for the teacher to sign and to indicate when he or she received a copy of the material.

Justice Tolub found that the rating officer did not provide pre and post observation conferences or any meaningful way to correct Budnick's alleged deficiencies. Additionally the Court noted that documents appended to the file letters were not included in the record on appeal and the appeals officer refused to mark into the record supportive letters from colleagues and other teachers.

The irregularities, according to the Court required that the U rating be vacated, an S rating be substituted and the DOE ordered to make the changes.

Rubber Room Teachers Sue Klein and NYC DoE

Saturday, December 05, 2009
Rubber Room Teachers Sue Klein and NYCDOE
Breaking Education News - For Immediate Release

Manhattan Attorney, Dr. Joy Hochstadt, Esq.
Files Class Action Lawsuit in Federal Court to
Close the NYC Dept of Education "Rubber Rooms"

from: "Village Voice," New York News Blog
Teachers Bring Suit Against Klein Over Rubber Rooms
By Roy Edroso, Tuesday, Dec. 1 2009
Click to above link for full "Village Voice" article link

And here, from Betsy Combier's NYC Rubber Room Reporter blog:
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Whistleblower PE Teacher Daniel Smith Sues the NYC BOE in Federal Court For Putting Him in the "Rubber Room" For More Than Two Years

Contact: Alan J. Wax (631) 873-8044
(631) 574-4433
or Todd Shapiro (516) 312-6573
alanjwax@waxwordsinc.com

COACH IN DEPARTMENT OF ED’S RUBBER ROOM SUES TO GET OUT;
CLAIMS HE IS VICTIM OF RETALIATION FOR BEING OUTSPOKEN

NEW YORK (Nov. 12, 2009) -- Daniel Smith, the outspoken former Dewitt Clinton High School girls softball coach and Bronx high school gym teacher, is suing the New York City Department of Education to get out of one of the city’s infamous “rubber rooms.” Smith claims he’s been assigned to the rubber room for speaking out against school officials.
Click to link for full article

Ravitch chimes in on illusory reputation of Duncan and Chicago schools

The close them down, spill out the staff and rebuild them approach is under full swing in Chicago. The media loves a story of someone performing miracles in tough situations. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan received media accolades for his closing and reopening strategy in Chicago.
DIDN'T WE LEARN FROM THE BUSH-TEXAS EDUCATION "MIRACLE" EXAMPLE?
Maybe people should scratch the surface and engage in a bit more critical thinking, both as they research for the media and as they digest the media. As in the situation of George W. Bush and the alleged education miracles in 1990s Texas, we have a phony situation in Chicago. We should have learned our lesson then. The Texas reality was manipulation to produce attractive test scores.
As New York University professor Diane Ravitch tells us, the real record of Duncan's close-and-reopen schools strategy is unimpressive. It progressed with data frenzy, data manipulation and in the end, no improvement in the results.

The Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago released a report ("Still Left Behind")
earlier this year that documented the lowered cut scores on Illinois's state tests, which gave the illusion of progress in Chicago. Chicago students are still far behind, and progress during Arne Duncan's tenure was meager. The report reaches these key findings:

"Most of Chicago's students drop out or fail. The vast majority of Chicago's elementary and high schools do not prepare their students for success in college and beyond.
. . .
Similarly, the scoring of the state tests in New York was dumbed down dramatically from 2006-2009, and it became possible for students to reach Level 2 by random guessing. Proficiency rates on state tests soared dramatically at the same time that the state's scores on NAEP remained flat. As a result of the state's dumbed-down tests, New York City's accountability system crashed, and 97 percent of all elementary and junior high schools were rated A or B because of their alleged gains on the state tests.
. . .
New York City and Chicago are two districts that adopted competitive business practices, aggressively closing down schools and spurring competition. What are the results? Grade inflation on state scores, but neither district saw significant improvement on NAEP since 2003. (NYC did get a gain for its 4th grade students in math in 2007, but not in 4th grade reading, 8th grade reading, or 8th grade math, and in 2009, the state's math scores were flat, which indicates that the city's were, as well.)

Living as we do in an age when test scores are so easily manipulated and so often fraudulent, we should proceed with caution before using them to determine the fate of students, teachers, principals, and schools.

BLOATING OF SCHOOLS CREATES NEW REPUTATIONS OF "WEAK SCHOOLS"
The close and reopen strategy leads to the "failure" of other schools, as weaker students get pushed to the remaining large schools that are forced to take them, as told in this story on Adlai Stevenson in the Bronx, and this story on Richmond Hill in Queens. Once the crowded atmosphere weakens students enthusiasm and the gap between ninth grade enrollees and graduates increases, the Chancellor clamours for the schools to be shut down.
CLOSE-AND-REOPEN STRATEGY HAS FAILED FOR DECADES IN NEW YORK
Jamaica High School's death knell has been sounded. See this post, on the planned closure of Jamaica and eight other schools. And this is stirring much activism in the activist teacher community. New York City Chancellor Joel Klein, fresh from Mayor Michael Bloomberg's weak victory is running forward with a growing list of schools to shut down.
We should peruse lists of shut down large comprehensive high schools. Lists here and here (Norm Scott's). It has been going on since the 1970s, with the closing of Julia Richman in Manhattan, and a new wave that began with the closing of Eastern District (Brooklyn), James Monroe (the Bronx) and Andrew Jackson (Queens), all in the mid-1990s. Serious study needs to be made: what good came of these closures? The residual schools in the same campuses have similar difficulties (e.g., Regents scores, graduation rates) as the earlier schools. If the record of closing down and reopening has made no profound progress, then we need to look to different strategies to improving education for the students in the city.

I have previously posted here and here about how the curriculum options for students are different in schools in minority neighborhoods, contrasted with schools in white neighborhoods. This pattern and the linked trend of school restructuring is exclusive to minority neighborhoods and is a massive civil rights class action lawsuit waiting to be launched.
RACE TO THE TOP "RTTT" NEEDS TO BE ARRESTED
A race to the top, to the best of aspirations, sounds nice on paper. The reality is that Duncan is pushing a poisonous plan that will encourage other school systems to pursue the same unfounded policies that has accomplished nothing in Chicago and in New York.

Poll: Which workplace TV show does you school remind you of?

In an more immediate sense, the physical structure of our schools reminds us of films such as "Up the Down Staircase" or the threats from students bring "The Blackboard Jungle" to mind. Or the quest for respect, as in "To Sir With Love," only the real world teacher's quest for respect from administrators, not just the Sidney Portier character's search for peace between students.

Our schools exude farce, pathos, irony, tragedy, scandal. The comedies in the poll at right come to mind as I think of the ... challenges ... as I put it, delicately, of working in New York City (NYC) public schools / the Board of Ed / the Department of Education.

Your vote in this online poll and your comments are most welcome.

To NYS: Education should be last on public chopping block

Campaign to protect classrooms

Call or fax Albany to protect classrooms!
Budget talks in Albany are coming down to the wire.
Governor Paterson reconvened the State Legislature this week for a special session to close a midyear deficit of over $3 billion, and under consideration is a $223 million cut to New York City schools. Legislators will make a decision on a deficit reduction plan in a matter of days.
The UFT is prepared to work with lawmakers to meet the challenge. We have proposed alternative budget cuts that will help us get us through the immediate crisis. But we say
NO to cuts to the classroom and direct services to the classroom.
We need you to once again call or fax your local senator and assembly member and tell them: Protect the classroom!
Call the state Assembly at 518-455-4100, between 8 a.m. and midnight, Monday through Friday, and ask to speak to your local assembly member.
Don’t know who your assembly member is? Look it up here.
Call the state Senate at 518-455-2800, between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m., Monday through Friday, and ask to speak to your local senator.
Don’t know who your state senator is? Look it up here.
Send another fax to your state representatives to drive home the message that classrooms must be shielded. Go here to send a fax to Albany. (UFT site)
Urge your state legislators to protect classrooms from midyear cuts!
Sincerely,

Michael Mulgrew
UFT President

Coordinated media campaign against ATRs; separate, unequal schools in minority neighborhoods

Is anyone noticing that after a lock-step media campaign (particularly among the newspapers of New York City) on certain topics: about a year ago, against the Teacher Reassignment Centers / a.k.a. "Rubber Rooms" and their detainees, this summer, the imperative for renewing mayoral control for Michael Bloomberg, and most recently, the imperative for a) ending teacher tenure and b) eliminating the ATRs, the new cancer on New York City public education?

Additionally, where is the outcry among activists or the UFT over the DoE strategem that produced the ATR mess? Namely, I speak of the school decommissioning in minority neighborhoods, a school closure process that has eliminated access to a range of programs that continue to be available in schools in white and Asian middle class neighborhoods. From the break-up of established schools comes the creation of over 1,000 ATRs.

Generations ago, noble, principled activists put Plessy to challenge the segregation laws in transportation, backed legal challenges in Topeka, Kansas to end school segregation. Today, who is challenging New York City Department of Education Chancellor Joel Klein for his clear segregation of schools, most glaringly, the charter schools and the high schools? Worst served by these two systems are the special education students and the English Language Learners / a.k.a. English as a Special Language students. (I addressed this issue at greater length in an October posting.)

Policy-makers would be wary of constructing a school assignment pattern that explicitly excluded black students. But with the charter school system and the free-for-all competition pattern that the Department of Education has set forth in the 2000s in the Klein era, charter schools are starkly skewed in their demographics (more middle class families, exclusion of special education students and ELL (ESL) students by the exclusion of services for these students).

But here is where the paradox appears: the city has broken up schools, cast off teachers as ineffective, and has overwhelmingly transformed the curriculum of schools, all-the-while masking the failed curriculum with invalid increases in graduation. The flip-side of the tricky game of watered down Regents tests and increases in students' scores, as detailed by NYU education professor Diane Ravitch is a dirty secret of a failure to properly educate students.
Test results that are more properly fitting for contrast against test results in states beyond New York State, those from the NAEP, indicate flat performance rates in English and math.
(News late in the week just ended indicated that New York State students are performing worst in GED pass rates are the lowest in the nation.)
Throughout the curriculum there are profound flaws: in English the city pushes watered down standards of literature and student writing, teachers interested in teaching grammar are derided; in mathematics constructivist math is in vogue, whereby pre-adolescents are expected to create theories for math operations, teachers interested in emphasizing memorization of times tables are derided.
The result? High school graduates Johnny and Jane cannot perform at authentic eighth grade level standards. You want proof?: just see the reports on how the vast majority of New York City graduates in the CUNY colleges require remedial courses in English and math. (As WNYC's Beth Fertig reported last week, these courses actually deal with math at a level of the later years of middle school.)
In sum, the city breaks up schools and places blame on teachers; the city's curriculum fails the students, it gets away with blaming the teachers. The UFT and real education reform advocates (not the expensive consultants at Tweed) need to make the real case for education equity and they ought to oppose the castigation of experienced teachers for the hasty mistakes of the Department of Education. The media need to do a better job of speaking to people outside of the city administration and ill-informed think-tanks; they need to do a better job of connecting the dots to recognize the city's role in short-changing school-children's opportunity for a quality education (across the board, in Canarsie as well as in Bayside).

Flash leak of teacher contract negotiations: UFT to cave in on ATRs

News flash on the contract negotiations between the United Federation of Teachers and the New York City Department of Education:

The UFT is inclined to give in on the ATR (Absent Teacher Reserve) issue, in order to secure a four percent salary increase in the next contract. The leaked word is that the union would accede to the termination (firing, dismissal) of teachers who could not find permanent assignments after six months.

Public Schools Better than Charters Says DOE Progress Report Data

Public Schools Better than Charters Says DOE Progress Report Data

Posted using ShareThis

Republicans increase seats on NYC Council

Republicans increased their seats on the New York City Council in the municipal elections of November 3, 2009. They will have five seats in the up-coming council when the 51 seat body commences its new term in 2010, an increase from the current three seats.

Traditionally, Republican seats on the council have been from Staten Island, central Queens (neighborhoods such as Middle Village) and southwestern Queens (areas such as Ozone Park and Howard Beach). In this election Peter Koo (District 20) is adding Flushing to that small number of neighborhoods represented by Republicans. News accounts have focused on his ethnicity. But they have ignored that he is a Republican; this is in contrast to other successful Chinese-American politicians (John Liu and Margaret Chin) in the city, who have up to this point won as Democrats. Another neighborhood in which a Republican is replacing a Democrat is Bayside. In this district Dan Halloran (District 19) is succeeding Tony Avella, who made an unsuccessful run for mayor in the primary this September 15. Republicans re-elected to the council this year are: Eric Ulrich (District 32), James Oddo (District 50), Vincent Ignizio (District 51).

A vacancy was also filled in the election. Miguel Martinez (District 10 in Washington Heights) resigned he seat earlier this year in a taint from corruption. He is succeeded by Ydanis Rodriguez. Like Martinez, he is one of the first elected members of local government originating from a Dominican-American heritage. The "Daily News" reported that "White City Council members the minority for first time ever after Tuesday elections". The News also noted that the council will also have the first two openly gay men from Queens (and I believe from the outer boroughs), Daniel Dromm (District 25) and Jimmy Van Bramer (District 26).

Two candidates -Davila, Griffith- challenge 2 incumbents that supported the term limits extension

New York City voters voted twice to support limits of two terms for the offices of mayor and city councillor. Yet several city council members supported the extension of term limits.

If you oppose those councillor's votes, you can vote them out on Tuesday, November 3, 2009. Here are the councillors and their opponents, running on the Working Families Party line with that party's endorsement:
Diana Reyna (District 34, in eastern Williamsburg, Bushwick in Brooklyn and western Ridgewood in Queens) (Click here for the district boundaries.) --challenged by Working Families Party nominee Maritza Davila

Albert Vann or Al Vann (District 36, in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights in Brooklyn.) (Click here for the district boundaries.) --challenged by Working Families Party nominee Mark Winston Griffith

Davila is a former aide to Williamsburg political powerhouse State Assemblyman Vito Lopez. She is also a community organizer, having established the Northern Bushwick Residents’ Association. Here is a biographical sketch by Aaron Short in the BushwickBK blog.

Griffith is the executive director of the Drum Major Institute, and is currently on leave, during the campaign.
WWRL radio host and New York Daily News columnist Errol Louis has repeatedly criticized Al Vann for his chronic absenteeism from the city council. Vann ranked an inglorious second place in absenteeism from votes, "A City Council Scorecard: Who's Engaged and Who's Not?", by Gotham Gazette.
Griffith received the endorsement recently of Al Sharpton and the Daily News.
The New York Times spotlighted the Vann-Griffith contest with a recent piece by Kareem Fahim this weekend, "Once a Young Turk, Now Challenged by One."

To see the break-down of city council votes on the term limit extension law, click on this link to NY1's site, "How They Voted: Council Members Tackle Term Limit Bill".

So, even if you are dejected over the lack of even resources in the Mike Bloomberg-Bill Thompson race for mayor matchup, you can still express your voice, to support candidates that oppose certain Democrats that caved in to the mayor's heavy-handed strong-arming of community organizations, media outlets and ultimately the city council to win an extension of the term limits law.