Education Notes

Womenâ€™s Formal Wear

2011-07-10T08:56:00.000-07:00

Womenâ€™s Formal Wear Is A Great Way to Stand Out From the Crowd
When it comes to womenâ€™s formal wear, the only thing that comes to mind is elegant dresses and gowns. Of course, the little black dress (or the LBD as itâ€™s popularly referred to as) is a very elegant and a classy dress to wear to any formal occasion or event.

The elegant dresses come in a lot of materials such as silk, taffeta, chiffon, lace, jersey and many more. The color for the season right now is purple and mauve but other colors such as wine, golden, navy blue, teal and other pastel shades look just as nice. These elegant dresses can be teamed up with a bolero or shawls. Empire line dresses accentuate the bust and the waist and focus attention on these areas while drawing attention away from the hips and the buttocks.

Necklines and embellishments set off the dress from others

Deep neckline, swooping necklines and square necklines accentuate the cleavage and show off the bare shoulders and the long necks. The gowns are form fitting. There are a number of sizes and colors as well as styles that are available for these evening dresses. Since these dresses are form fitting, they come with a zipper for a snug fit. Some of these elegant dresses may also have elegant trails that look very beautiful.

The womenâ€™s formal wear can also come with a number of embellishments such as lave, bows, trails, crystals, belts and lots more. They make the dress look extremely fetching and make the dress stand out from the rest. Some of the dresses can be divided into two parts such as a bodice and a skirt. Along with these crochet shawl with endings look great.

Accessorizing your dress

Along with the womenâ€™s formal wear, one needs to team them with the right kind of accessory, hairstyles and makeup. The tall and elegant womenâ€™s formal wear go well with thin stilettos and other dainty sandals that have diamante settings. Always accessorize as this makes the dress look better. For this all you need to do is get a beautiful pair of earrings or a bracelet. Wear pearls or diamonds as they very well with the womenâ€™s formal wear.

The right makeup and hairstyle will go a long way in enhancing your look

Check the latest trends for makeup. Ensure that the foundation and the base that you put on the face hide away your flaws. Highlight your eyes and apply some great lipstick. Always know that less is more when applying makeup. You want to look elegant and not the other way around.

There are a number of hairstyles and the latest is the bob cut that is been patronized by the celebrities. Choose the look that complements you.

Winerip on Jamaica HS and CL James Eterno, Video of Student Doreen Mohammed, James Liebman Returns as the Class Fool

2011-07-04T10:07:00.000-07:00

James Eterno, Jamaica's representative to the teachers' union, has been portrayed in the news media as a man who cares more about preserving jobs than - as the mayor never tires of saying - "putting children first." That is not how Kevin Gonzalez sees it. For Kevin, Mr. Eterno is the United States history teacher who stayed late to tutor his students, helping Kevin earn a top score of 5 on the Advanced Placement test.
Doreen and Gerard definitely feel put first. Jamaica had no college adviser this year - until October, when Mr. Eterno stepped in. "Before Christmas break he stayed late to make sure everything was perfect to send to the colleges," Gerard said. "Mr. Eterno went way beyond." After Doreen was accepted to Columbia, she spoke with people at the admissions office. "They told me how Mr. Eterno kept calling them about me and faxing them stuff," she said.

(And let me remind people that James has a little 2-year old of his own at home.)

Here is a video I shot of Doreen Mohammed speaking at a press conference at Tweed in support of the NAACP/UFT suit about how the DOE denied her school resources - and she also talks about James who was there) and the other teachers at the school who supported the students. Many of these, James included, will soon be ATRs vilified by the DOE and Educators $ Excellence. Children first indeed.

http://youtu.be/J1vpqAMtmAQ

One of the myths perpetrated by ed deformers is that being a strong union rep is incompatible with being a strong teacher. Mike Winerip in today's amazing article on Jamaica HS with the above paragraph on James Eterno (who I should point out was the candidate who ran for UFT president against Michael Mulgrew in the 2010 UFT elections) certainly punches a whole in that myth.

I've been working with James Eterno in ICE for the last 8 years. Everyone knows James is an outstanding union Chapter Leader and a passionate defender of his school. But while I pretty much assumed James was a great teacher, he was often too modest to talk about things like that he was the teacher of the year at Jamaica HS a few years ago.

I have always thought that union activists should merge their defense of teacher rights with their defense of children. I always used to criticize James for separating the two. In the campaign for president of the UFT, if James hadn't been forced to spend all his time defending his school, I had hoped he would have brought in the experience of working with students and how it informed his activism. I met with a young 2nd year teacher/activist the other day and we both could agree that the kids were the best part of the job. I still think so.

Some conspiracy theorists might surmise that this comes out on July 4 when nobody is around to read it. Not I. Wait - on second thought.....

Here is Winerip's must read piece.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/nyregion/a-failing-school-not-to-these-students-at-jamaica-high.html?ref=nyregion http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/nyregion/a-failing-school-not-to-these-students-at-jamaica-high.html?ref=nyregion

After Burn
One of the things I liked about the way Julie Cavanagh framed the issue was that having strong teacher rights made her strong in advocating for the kids and parents in her school. Now that she has become chapter leader we will see people like her and Eterno bringing these issues to the fore.

After Burn2: James Liebman returns for a class fool performance

As James S. Liebman, the Columbia law professor who developed the city report card, wrote in an e-mail: “Good high schools aren’t satisfied when just a few kids get into strong colleges. They aim for all kids to do so.” Education Department officials point out that the graduation rate at Jamaica has stayed at about 50 percent for years.
But it is also possible that the deck has been stacked against Jamaica High, that the 15 “worst” high schools have been packed with the students with the worst problems. According to an analysis by the city’s Independent Budget Office, these schools have more poor children (63 percent versus 52 percent citywide), more homeless students (6 percent versus 4 percent), more special-education students (18 versus 12). For 24 percent of Jamaica High students, English is a foreign language, compared with 11 percent citywide.
The “worst” high schools are sent the eighth graders who are the furthest behind: their average proficiency score on state tests is 2.6 out of 4, compared with 2.9 citywide, and more of these students (9 percent versus 4 percent) are over age, suggesting they have had to repeat grades.

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Attrition Will Be Worse Than Anticipated/Haimson Speech at PEP on Class Size

2011-07-04T04:20:00.000-07:00

I believe the attrition will be worse than indicated. I was speaking to a teacher of over a decade who said she is not going back. She has until August to let them know and will wait for the last minute. Her disgust was so apparent - she said she would only go back if by some miracle her Leadership Acad principal (she used the expression Leadershit Acad princ) was gone. What kind of job will she look for? Anything she said. The teaching job is just not worth the stress. This is a top level 2nd career teacher who would rather take a meager pension than continue to put herself through the pain.

I hear stories of other people- especially those who had their tenure extended by a year for clearly political reasons - the principal or superintendent trying to demonstrate how vigilant they are being while they admit to the teacher their teaching is OK. Stories are that 50% of the teachers did not get tenure or were extended. Sources tell me many of these young teachers are livid and are OUTAHERE!! Some of them are - or were - supporters of of the Gates funded anti-teacher group Educators $ Excellence (no matter what they say), which makes believe there are no politics in the system.

The reality is that this is exactly what the deformers want to happen as it helps push the temp teacher/peace corps concept that they are aiming for where there will be no need for pensions at all and where most teachers will be at extemely low salaries.

The lessons of making a job that was stressful to begin with into a 24/7 stress factory will lead to a lower level teaching staff than the ed deformers started out with. Unfortunately we will have a mostly privatized/deregulated system where proof can be hidden and it will be another half a generation before the counter reformation takes hold, though there are already signs of it beginning.

The above was my comment after Leonie Haimson posted this:

Though the worst was averted, the city budget deal is still only a very partial victory for our kids.

In essence, the deal came about because the city finally acknowledged what the many have long warned: Bloomberg's failed policies and the worsening conditions in our schools have persuaded even more teachers to leave voluntarily than usual, which mitigated the need for layoffs.

Nearly half of the 6,100 teaching positions that the budget cuts would eliminate will still be lost -- an estimated 2,600 -- through attrition, and these teachers will not be replaced, despite rising enrollment. This will certainly lead to the fourth year in a row of increased class sizes in our schools and probably even sharper increases than have occurred in more than a decade.

Children in the early grades will experience the worst of it, as Kindergarten enrollment is rising especially fast. Grades K-3 will suffer the largest class sizes in twelve years--with an even larger class size equity gap between NYC children and those in the rest of the state.

All this, despite Bloomberg’s original campaign promise to reduce class sizes in grades K-3, a court decision in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case and state law passed in 2007 requiring that the city lower class size in all grades, several audits showing DOE misusing millions of dollars of state class size funds, and a growing body of research indicating that smaller classes lead to more learning, narrow the achievement gap, and are a significant determinant of success later in life.
Another problem with this deal is it sets the stage for yet another budget battle next year; in which the interests of children will again be pitted against those of millionaires as well as Tweed bureaucrats with flawed priorities.
As parents, we need to redouble our efforts to pressure our political leaders, including the Governor, the Mayor and the Speaker of the City Council, to adequately fund our schools and provide NYC children with their right to smaller classes and an equitable chance to learn.

Leonie Haimson

Leonie Haimson makes the best and most persistent case for low class size as she did at the June 27 PEP meeting. Here is a video of her speech:

Why Does Diane Ravitch Hate Children?

2011-07-04T01:55:00.000-07:00

Just brilliant satire---

America's education reform movement -- the most significant reform movement in the history of this planet -- is just concluding another amazing school year. Politicians of all stripes and parties have come together to say, "We will not accept inferior teachers destroying the lives of our children anymore".

With grim budget cuts necessitating layoffs, we are reminded once again that seniority based layoffs make as much sense as saying that U2 should have to keep Bono as their lead singer just because he's been with the band for 30 years and has tenure.

For the past 30 years, education reformers have had to fight the forces of the status quo, but in that time we have agreed that certain changes must be made to education:
The business principles that have made our economy great should be applied to our schools as well.
We need a common curriculum
We need frequent standardized testing
We need a longer day and school year to allow more time for increased test prep
We need a rich curriculum focused like a laser on only math and reading
We need an end to tenure and LIFO policies
Younger perkier teachers are superior to the old saddle horses who too often dominate public education.
The best teachers for poor inner city students are young, preferably Ivy League educated young people from well to do families.
Charter schools are superior to public schools because they can council students into leaving and public schools must teach everybody.
We should fire the bottom 1/3 of all teachers every year.
These points are the hallmark of true education reform. They bind together Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, Chris Cristie, Arne Duncan, and myself. Several forces of the status quo have naturally opposed these moves, but lately one of the worst critics has been Diane Ravitch.

READ ENTIRE PIECE AT: http://laststand4children.blogspot.com/
Why Does Diane Ravitch Hate Children?

Charter School Attrition Exposes BS of Supposed High Grad Rates

2011-07-03T17:43:00.000-07:00

Take a look at these examples of charter school attrition. C.A.S.I.L.I.P.S. does excellent work.
https://sites.google.com/site/casilips/graduation-rates

I'll just throw up - I mean that literally and figuratively - just a few charts (we feature similar charts taken from Edwize in out film that wow the audience.) Go to the site to see a gaggle of them.

I'm picking on SEED in Washington DC because it was featured in Waiting for Superman as the nirvanna of charter schools. See the trailor where Davis Guggenhein left out some inconvenient truths:
http://www.seedschooldc.org/page.php?pid=64

Wowie - ONE HUNDRED PER CENT GRAD RATE - if you just manage to lose a bunch of kids who might not have graduated along the way.

Actually, don't get me wrong. I think the SEED concept of boarding during the week (like they do in the Cuban PUBLIC SCHOOL System) is great. But let's be honest about the whole thing.

Here is the way SEED has been described in all the hype:

SEED School of Washington DC

From an August 13, 2010 webpage with video segment on the NewsOne website
"In a neighborhood where only 33 percent of students make it through high school and few go on to college, the Seed School in Washington DC is making a difference to get its youngsters on the road to success. Most students entering the Seed School do so three grades below grade level. Upon entry, students are set up in dormitories during the week and allowed to spend weekends at home. This year, the school proudly reported a 100 percent graduation and college acceptance rate." A video segment on SEED from MSNBC can also be viewed on this webpage.

Here's the bad news:

GET LOTS MORE CHARTS HERE:

CASILIPS - Citizens Against Special Interest Lobbying in Public Schools

The Gallery of "100% Graduation Rates"

All the schools mentioned below have been publicized as having "100% graduation rates." Each of the graphs below shows the enrollment of a cohort of students (class) as these students pass from 9th grade to 12th grade over a 4-year period. In each case, the number of students in the cohort group drops significantly from 9th grade to 12th grade, indicating large attrition. Yet the schools were able to claim "100% graduation rate" on paper by recording all students who departed as "transferring" to other schools by "choice." It is questionable whether enough followup was done to ensure that these departing students really did continue their education. Further, it is not clear why a high school should be so completely absolved of responsibility for attrition. A better way of measuring graduation rate is needed.

Message from Teacher in England on the Strike

2011-07-03T17:22:00.000-07:00

Sent to a friend:

Our public sector workers got a lot of bad press for striking. Lots of teachers I know went on strike, but I didn't as my union hasn't voted for that at this stage. One of our main issues (along with the similar issues you face) is that of our pensions. We have two perks in teaching - good holidays and a good pension. Our salaries do not equal our other professional counterparts, but knowing we would have a good pension have kept teaching unions quiet for a long time. Unfortunately, the pension we all signed up to is being destroyed and the governement is asking us all to pay around £100 a month towards it, whilst our final pension will on average be worth £50,000 less!
Who knows what will happen, but our current conservative government don't respond well to strikes (remember the miners of the 1980s!).
The world isn't how it should be. I'm currently marking GCSE religious studies papers and the main essay question is; "You should always stand up to unjust governments".... do you agree? Quite apt at the moment eh?
Hope the cause is a success and things start to change for both sides of the Atlantic!

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Where did all the money go?

2011-07-02T09:01:00.000-07:00

I just came across this laying on my computer messy desktop - I think this was a leaflet from Staten Island that Loretta Prisco sent - this was given out on the SI ferry by her.

Since 1980 the economy has doubled in size, yet adjusted for inflation, most wages have barely increased. So…Where did all the money go?

Almost all of it went to the super rich. The top 1% used to take home 10% of the nation’s total income, now they take home more than 20%.The super-rich have 40% of the nation’s entire wealth.

With wealth, comes political power-especially power to lower their tax rate. Pre- 1980, the top tax rate was 70%, now it’s less than 35%. Much of the super rich’s income is capital gains on which they pay 15%.

Tax revenues are less than 15% of total revenue creating: the deficit, overcrowded schools, roads sacrificed, limited library hours, firehouses and senior centers closing, cuts in senior and youth programs and much more.

Instead of joining together for jobs and wages, many workers are scared and are competing for jobs and wages. Union vs. non-union, private vs. public, native born vs. immigrant.

The middle class can no longer borrow as before, nor do we have the purchasing power to get the economy growing, which means… the only way to grow a strong economy is to keep a strong middle class. (edited from Robert B. Reich)

So…where can we get $$$? - $4.7 billion?

· Ending subsidies to the big five banks

· Closing hedge fund loopholes

· Cutting NYC contracts to the big six banks

· Demanding the electronic mortgage recording system pay owed fees

· Taxing the super rich

· Taking 1/3 of our $3 billion surplus for services

· Restoring the commuter tax and establishing a progressive one

· Taxing insurance companies as all other businesses are taxed

(Suggestions from the Independent Budget Office, The May 12 Coalition).

Walcott Speech at PEP Makes Baby Cry

2011-07-02T04:04:00.000-07:00

http://youtu.be/foRoS7nNu0Q

Tom Crean Comments at the June Delegate Assembly

2011-07-01T20:52:00.000-07:00

Here's a follow-up to our report (Getting Physical and UFT Delegate Assembly Reports from James Eterno) on the UFT Delegate Assembly from Tom Crean, Chapter Leader of MS 218K who was the lone voice who spoke against the budget deal.

Hi Norm

As you have already stated on ednotes I was unfortunately the only speaker allowed at the Delegate Assembly against the UFT's deal with Bloomberg that averted layoffs. There was, as James Eterno has pointed out, much more that could have been said especially about the position of ATRs. I chose, however, to look at the wider question of cuts to education, how this will affect teachers as well as students and parents and how the cuts could have been stopped.

Anyway here is the gist of what I said:

Michael Mulgrew in his report stated correctly that the budget the City Council is about to agree contains a range of cuts to social services and the layoff of 1,000 city workers. What is not correct is to suggest that the budget won't contain major cuts to education on top of all the other cuts to education in this city in recent years. We are all greatly relieved that there will be no layoffs of teachers. But the deal we are discussing implicitly accepts a reduction in the teacher workforce of 2,600 which in addition to previous cuts amounts to a reduction in the order of 8,000 teachers in the past three years. In my school, IS 218, we experienced class sizes of 37-38 in the 7th and 8th grade this year and it wasn't until well into the school year that we got partial relief in the 8th grade. With cuts this big in the workforce, our experience at 218 will be increasingly common. It may be true that our pay and benefits are not being cut in this deal but it is inevitable that, for large numbers of us, our working conditions will be further degraded.

The cuts and attacks against public education are part of a wider corporate offensive against the public sector and the working class in this country. Bloomberg is the sharp end of this in New York but Cuomo is not far behind. The question may be asked: how could we stop such an onslaught? The answer history gives us is social struggle. If you are looking for a model look at the civil rights movement. On May 12 we took a step in that direction. As Micheal Mulgrew stated previously it was good that we got out of the pens. We marched on Wall Street alongside other unionized workers and activists and gave vent to working class anger. And there are a lot of angry working class people in this city right now. From there we should have steadily escalated the resistance and made clear that business as usual was over until ALL the cuts were taken off the table [as we all know the resources are there; it's a question of priorities, those of Wall Street vs the needs of ordinary people] If necessary there should have been mass civil disobedience; instead in the end we chose to break the front of labor.

All the best,
Tom Crean
Chapter Leader MS 218, Brooklyn

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Comment on my video statement on Success blood-sucking cancer charter network

2011-07-01T10:36:00.000-07:00

Bravo Norm!

My school is co-located with an HSA in Harlem. Every single one of our classrooms, related service and administrative offices have been moved every single year that we have been co-located with Harlem Success Academy.

This is disruptive, disrespectful and has had a destabilizing effect on our school community. Our students, parents and educators are being treated like refugees in our own school building, all in order to privilege the millionaire and hedge fund backed charter school HSA. Parents, students and teachers must re-acclimate themselves to an entirely new and different school layout every year.

These moves take place in our public school, while Harlem Success renovates the classrooms that our students have been forced to vacate. Last year HSA projected 125 kindergartners for the 2010-2011 school year, but only enrolled about 80 something.

This inaccuracy, or lie if you'd prefer, provided HSA with extra space while 4 of the related services in our public school (we serve a high needs population of self contained and English language learner populations) were forced to squeeze into a 2/3 size classroom that provided no privacy. Co-locations do not work and the privileging of charters is at the expense of our most vulnerable students, families and the public education system!

The idea that charters provide choice is an absolute joke! Our parents did not choose to have their children taught in unsafe basement classrooms (our public school students were forced into classrooms that were created in our building's basement next to a boiler room for the past two years, while HSA took all of the newest classrooms in the building) or to have their children moved around their school building like refugees. They did not choose to be second-class citizens in their own school building.

The Grand Coalition Against Teachers - and a Bonus Video of - Me at the PEP

2011-07-01T05:55:00.000-07:00

Hey, is it July already? You mean we've passed the last day of school? My how one loses track in retirement.

...anyone who brings up out-of-school factors such as poverty is both defending the status quo of public education and claiming that schools can do nothing to overcome the life circumstances of poor children. The response is silly and, by now, tiresome. Some teachers will certainly be able to help compensate for the family backgrounds and out-of-school environments of some students. But the majority of poor children will not get all the help they need: their numbers are too great, their circumstances too severe, and resources too limited. Imagine teachers from excellent suburban public schools transferring en masse to low-performing, inner-city public schools. Would these teachers have as much success as they did in the suburbs? Would they be able to overcome the backgrounds of 15.6 million poor children? Even with bonus pay, would they stay with the job for more than a few years? Common sense and experience say no, and yet the reformers insist they can fix public schools by fixing the teachers.

The Grand Coalition Against Teachers, By Joanne Barkan - posted at TFT (The Frustrated Teacher)

I know we're preaching to the choir here, but Joanne Barkan's article should give you much ammunition when you get into those July 4th arguments with teacher bashers. Here's the link.

Where Barkan doesn't go in this piece – and there may be follow-ups – is the motivation of the ed deformers in the "blame the teacher" campaigns: Defanging the unions (non-unionized charters, Teach for America/Educators 4 Excellence shock troops, merit pay) - not that the unions have put up a strong fight - but at least they have the ability to bring a unified teacher force to the table. In the ed deform world each teacher is on an individual contract and competing with each other. That is the holy grail of ed deform. While luring teachers with the promise of higher pay through merit pay, they will be able to lower the average teacher salary substantially - think of the south.

This ties in to Barkan's next article on the rise of education entrepreneurship where there's a whole lot of money to be made out of education. First you kill of the only force capable of putting up opposition. Then you milk the cow until a generation later - or less - it is clear what it was all about. By then it is too late.

Thus, my intense anger at the UFT/AFT/NEA (which opens its meetings today in Chicago) for basically laying down in front of the ed deform juggernaut. Every single UFT official talks about how they are not against charter schools or even co-locations when they are done right. When I talk to them they seem to understand what is afoot but are helpless to get in the way other than trying to make the procedure work - procedures set up in a stacked deck. Thus the law suit to "make them do it the right way." I won't get into the whys of how the union functions because that is a longer story about the ideology behind the AFT/UFT, an issue some of us will be exploring this summer in study groups.

Here is a short video of my speech to the PEP on Monday about charters.

http://youtu.be/UVBC9_YB1lE

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Joy to the world -gangsta charter investigated - NY Post

2011-06-30T05:14:00.000-07:00

"It's about time the AG's Office takes a look around -- they'll have a lot to work with," said one ex-staffer. "Mr. Melendez always likes to say that finances and compliance are the two things he and the board handle exceptionally well, but this doesn't pass the laugh test."

Just desserts in today's NY Post article (below) by Yoav Gonen for Believe Charter network founder Eddie Calderon-Melendez who harassed Susan Ohanian with threats after she wrote about his chater takeover of the library at IS 126. Teachers who left the school had been in touch after Ed Notes wrote about the school but were very afraid to talk. We broke the story in May 2010 of the $100 reward recruitment poster that Jenny Medina at the NY Times picked up on. There is no better example of inequity that these schools are still open -

Here was a comment from a teacher at the school:

I'm currently a teacher under the Believe network and would love to whistle blow... once I am no longer employed by the network. In fact, Melendez received public criticism a few years ago for firing a teacher without due process who circulated the DOE pay scale among her WCHS colleagues and mentioned the dirty u-word. No one at the school who hopes to continue to work there for more than 48 hours would dare approach the UFT or even think about doing so, since firings come fast and furious. Right now our best hope is that someone who made it out can fight the good fight (from a safe distance)!

I've been in touch with the teacher who is now teaching in another state and I think I asked her to contact Yoav who has been following up on the story for months. I imagine some of the hordes of former teachers are talking to Yoav, who used Ed Notes source material as part of his investigation.

Here are some links to Ed Notes articles:
Dismantling the IS 126 Library

Education Notes: The Title of "The Worst Charter in the World ...

May 09, 2011

Ultimate charity fund-raising event: A roast of Eddie Calderon-Melendez. Charge $50 a plate and invite current and former employees (mostly former). We'll make enough to cure cancer. Williamsburg Charter High School has ...

http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/

Brooklyn middle school students squeezed out of study space by 3 ...

Oct 06, 2009

Eddie Calderon-Melendez , founder of the Believe High School Network, which runs the charters, said the use of shared space is negotiated every year. ...

http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/

Ohanian on Brooklyn Charter School Thug

Jun 04, 2010

Charter $$ probe

AG eyes 3 schools in W'burg

By YOAV GONEN, Education Reporter

Last Updated: 7:02 AM, June 30, 2011

Posted: 2:44 AM, June 30, 2011

EXCLUSIVE

State officials are investigating a Brooklyn charter network whose woeful financial management was detailed in The Post last month, a source familiar with the probe said.
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office has issued a subpoena seeking financial and governance documents from the Believe High Schools Network -- which operates three charter high schools in Williamsburg.
The probe, which appears to be the first by a New York attorney general of a charter-management firm, could usher in increased oversight of the fees and services supplied by charter groups, the source said.

Asked about an investigation, a spokesman for Schneiderman said, "We cannot comment on potential or ongoing matters before the office."
The Post wrote last month how the Believe network charged the Williamsburg Charter HS $2.3 million in management fees in 2009-10 -- well above the citywide average.
The founder and CEO of the network, Eddie Calderon-Melendez, had also founded the Williamsburg Charter HS years earlier.
Under the network's guidance, the school shelled out more than $750,000 in consulting fees last year and was scheduled to pay $2.3 million for space on Varet Street this year -- all using taxpayer funds.
At the same time, the school was forced to suddenly shed 20 teachers from its payroll in January, and by year's end administrators had to rely on teachers to volunteer to sweep up their classrooms and throw out hallway trash because of a custodial funding shortage.
The school also got into hot water in 2010 for seeking to address an enrollment shortage by offering students $100 a head to recruit other kids.
"It's about time the AG's Office takes a look around -- they'll have a lot to work with," said one ex-staffer. "Mr. Melendez always likes to say that finances and compliance are the two things he and the board handle exceptionally well, but this doesn't pass the laugh test."
Neither Calderon-Melendez nor a Board of Trustees member responded to e-mails seeking comment.
The group's finances have been unusually difficult to inspect because, as of last month, the network had not yet registered as a nonprofit, as required.
When asked in May about the delay, a network official blamed bureaucratic snafus.
The two other schools managed by the network -- Believe Northside and Believe Southside high schools -- paid it a total of $540,000 in management fees in 2009-10, their first year of operation.
Neither school -- both also co-founded by Calderon-Melendez -- had filed its required annual report with the state as of last month.

Co-Locos Exposed

2011-06-30T04:23:00.000-07:00

In Patrick Sullivan’s opinion, the only real hope for PS 9 is if the chancellor has a change of heart, and grants them the right to expand into a K-8 school. “Rather than help successful public schools,” Sullivan said, “the DOE is more focused on giving preference to charter schools…and certainly the fact that the money behind the schools is from a lot a people the mayor knows helps the charter school agenda.”

Julie Cavanagh also believes cronyism is at play, and points out that the founder of PAVE, Spencer Robertson, received $26 million to build his charter school after his father, hedge funder Juilan Roberson donated $6.75 million to Bloomberg’s New York City Center for Charter School Excellence, and various other pet projects of Bloomberg’s. (There are other claims of the Robertson Foundation and Bloomberg’s funny business here.)

Good article on co-locations from popular Brooklyn Based blog

http://brooklynbased.net/blog/2011/06/tracing-the-roots-of-co-located-schools/

Comments on the NYCEDNews Listserve:

This article has some serious factual errors. Though clearly there are far more co-locations now, and many more highly damaging ones b/c of increased overcrowding and an administration out of control, there were far more than 12 co-locations when Bloomberg came into office in 2002.

The article completely ignores the fact that the small schools reform movement, which resulted in many co-locations, was founded by Debbie Meier and Ted Sizer about 25 years ago.

Leonie Haimson

--------------
I never said the therapists do not see kids if they can't find a space. I said they find a substandard space such as staying in the classroom, or spend their time looking for space. I did mention programs being canceled due to space, but not mandated programs. I cited my boys group, a partnership with the Red Hook Justice Center, which I had to cancel on a few occasions because we didn't have a space to meet. No less egregious, but want to be clear that we make every effort for our kids to get their mandated services despite the cancer that has consumed our school building.

Next year we will have two rooms that seven related service providers will have to share. One of those rooms is not a room "assigned" to ps 15, but a room our community partner will share with us. I have no clue how we will meet our kids needs after next year and the last several years have been insufficient in terms of space. I will continue to repeat myself on this issue ad nausium until it is fixed: the DOE MUST account for services for children with special needs in the instructional footprint. Any less is discrimination.

Thanks to Nicole for this article- it is impossible to navigate this issue and get it all right, but this was a fair piece and does a good job of highlighting the inequities of co-location. It is a very complicated problem; I understand space is an issue across the city-- but we shouldn't deny space to some for the benefit of others. You can't rob occupational therapy from Paul to give Peter's charter school office space.

Julie Cavanagh
---------------------

While I feel like an old timer pointing to a more accurate vision of "history' , there are some slight nuances to the points made in this article that deserve mention. As the article makes clear, "Bloomberg and then-Schools Chancellor Joel Klein resurrected NYC’s small school movement." Indeed, the small schools movement that predates these gates funded "reforms" differes greatly from the 'close 'em and start over w/ new kids' model BloomKlien set up after taking control of the governance of our schools in 2003.A number of East Village school were spawned a result of that earlier movement; new, alternative-visioned schools, sharing space in the traditional district schools that had emptied out during the city's fiscal crisis. When DoE employee, MAK Mitchel, the Executive Director of School Governance for the Department of Education, states that: "Few schools were co-located back then", which she estimates as " less than 12", she negates the trans-formative nature of these new schools and the all-choice equity and diversity based admissions plan the elected school board introduced in District One. By 2005 when BloomKlien began parachuting charters and other new schools into communities, more than 80% of District One community schools were sharing space. The prior methodology, based on 5 years MOU's that took into account growth and changes in programs; building councils consisting of all the stakeholders; and a common supervisor, the community superintendent, to set the vision and work through conflicts, worked to actually reform the community district schools.The history of schools within schools goes back well before it was captured by this administration's attempt to reform schools by offering a portfolio of choices , privatization of public education , and accountability by high stakes standardized tests.Those attempts have failed miserably- maybe it is time we go back to our roots- our grass roots, and let communities make decisions about our kids and schools again.

Lisa Donlan

David Greene - Why I ain’t ain’t marching anymore (with apologies to Phil Ochs) - Save Our Schools (SOS) March- July 30 in Washington

2011-06-29T11:16:00.000-07:00

I march because of what this war on education will do to my former colleagues and the new teachers with whom I work.
I march for change.
I march for reform.
I march for academic freedom.
I march for curricula and methodologies to develop the best-informed, critical thinking, problem solving students in the world.
Most of all I march for our kids.

David Greene

MARCH WITH GEM ON JULY 30

I said the following to an ed deform slug from CEC6 at Monday night's PEP - a guy who loves Joel Klein and anything the ed deformers do - he got up at the mic and attacked the NAACP and UFT law suit as a job protection program - he said to me why can't people be civil - I responded: "There is a war on. One side has the atom bomb and the other side - the side of truth, justice and ~~the American way~~ – has pee shooters and he has chosen to be on the side of the people with the bomb." Sort of shut him up.

As I reported this morning, at yesterday's DA Yelena Siwinski asked Michael Mulgrew about the SOS march in Washington DC on July 30 (http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org/) and whether the UFT would support it. Mulgrew said they would support(we think he said that) and the AFT has already endorsed but that every major education leader would be in South Africa that day. I love that because we don need no stinkin leaders there – imagine Randi Weingarten preening in front of that crowd, though it wouldn't surprise me if she didn't figure out a way to be in 2 places at once.

I know people are asking for the UFT to provide a bus for those who want to go on July 30 and come back that night. Many of us in GEM are going to the pre- march 2 day conference on July 28 and 29 (our film is being shown in two auditoriums at the same time at American University on July 29 and we are doing a GEM workshop on July 28 at 10:30 AM). But if you want to go for the march only send me your name and if we get enough people the UFT may get that FREE - I repeat - FREE - bus.

Well, here are a bunch of good reasons to go in an absolutely brilliant post from David Greene.
(and read Diane Ravitch on Reasons for Hope).

David Greene On Why He Is Joining the "Save Our Schools" March in Washington where he makes an apt comparison to the Vietnam War. Instead of the military-industrial complex we have the edu-industrial complex.

Why I ain’t ain’t marching anymore. (with apologies to Phil Ochs)

The last and only time I marched on Washington D.C. was the Moratorium to end the Vietnam War in November 1969. Hundreds of thousands marched through the cold streets of Washington D.C. while FBI agents took pictures of us as we shouted “Peace Now” and waved our flags and signs. My friend and I had constructed a giant (we thought it novel) Peace Flag that was eventually used up on the speaker’s platform. We were so proud. We slept on the gym floor of a local parish church. When it was time to leave, at first we couldn’t find our bus to go back to NY, but eventually we did. Frankly, it is all a blur but a well worthwhile one.

I was not a joiner, a marcher or a protester. I was not much of an activist either. I had friends who were deeply involved in the movement but I was happy to get involved in conversations and do my little part to convince people, one at a time, that the War was wrong. However, when friends were deployed I felt it important to do more. So I marched.

Here we are 42 years later. I will march on Washington this July because again we must stop a war. This time it is the war against teachers, students, and education. Over the past 10 years what started as an intervention has become a full-scale assault. The parallels with Vietnam are astounding.

Now as well as then presidential decisions to begin by giving assistance in “the battlefield” became congressional acts to fund, arm and send troops. Corporations were enlisted to fund and manufacture the goods to fight. Escalation became the operating word.

This time I was content to argue against standardized testing, No Child Left Behind, and most recently, Race To The Top. This time I pointed out not how a military-industrial complex gained control of foreign policy, but how a new education-industrial complex had seized control of education policy, for their own profit.

In addition, what seemed like a good idea, TFA, had morphed into what I now call a 5th branch of the armed forces. At first it innocuously sent advisors in small numbers to educational “battlefields”. But now its power and numbers escalate as we idly sit by.

Not for nothing, but TFA recruits young men and women in a not so unfamiliar way. “Join the Army- Be All You Can be? Join the Marines- Looking For A Few Good Men? Join the Navy- It's Not Just a Job, It's An Adventure? Join the Air Force- Aim High? TFA- This could be the best career decision you make?”

TFA recruits are also thrust into a war zone, yet less prepared than my friends were 42 years ago. Often misled and naive 20 somethings, they are unarmed when they go to war to defeat the enemies of education: poverty, poor training, poor leadership, and a host of other saboteurs.

So now 42 years later I go to Washington to march again. But this time I go as more than a marcher. I go as an organizer, presenter, and activist. I do all this because the Chief Executive, Congress, and an Industrial Complex including TFA threaten the avocation I have loved for 41 years.

I march because of the high school kids and programs I see threatened by this assault.

I march because of what this war on education will do to my former colleagues and the new teachers with whom I work.

I march to teach how good high schools can be if we let professionals do the work.

I march to fix how we train new teachers (traditional and TFA) to be better able to fight the real war they and our students face day in day out.

I march to get TFA to change; to work with traditional teacher training institutions; to stop vilifying veteran teachers and actually recruit them to train their recruits; to help us recruit top talent to stay in teaching; to become "lifers". I march to get TFA to listen.

I march for change.
I march for reform.
I march for academic freedom.
I march for curricula and methodologies to develop the best-informed, critical thinking, problem solving students in the world.

Most of all I march for our kids.

David Greene

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Getting Physical and UFT Delegate Assembly Reports from James Eterno

2011-06-29T01:14:00.000-07:00

UPDATED: Weds. June 29, 7:45AM

Balancing the budget on the backs of ATRS is not quite as awful as balancing it on the backs of newer teachers who would have been laid off but it was totally unnecessary. With Bloomberg’s poll numbers on education sinking to "Bushian Post Hurricane Katrina" levels, the UFT was holding all of the cards and should have insisted that to save money that the DOE should be compelled to place all of the ATRS into positions in their districts.

Teacher bashing continues. When firehouses close, the firefighters aren't blamed and they are sent to another firehouse. When police precincts redeploy whole precincts because of corruption scandals, the clean cops who worked in the corrupt precinct don't have to apply to other precinct captains. They are transferred. Only teachers face the indignity of having to pound the pavement to seek a job because a program was downsized or closed. President Mulgrew said this union leaves no educator behind. This is not totally true as the ATRs have certainly been left to basically fend for themselves.--- James Eterno at the ICE blog

As much as it pains me to admit this, it's not really a bad deal for most of the membership.- Miss Eyre at NYC Educator

It is absolutely a bad deal for most of the membership - at least anyone in front of a class--- Norm Scott

I hope you all had a great final day of school. It wasn't all that great for the people who had to miss school parties to attend the UFT Delegate Assembly to vote on the recent budget agreement - see some of my posts on that over the last few days.

Today: UFT Delegate Assembly to Sell Deal, Bloombe...
For Shame! UFT Victory Lap at Settlement Pilloried...(MUST READ FROM LORETTA PRISCO)

(E$E also had an end of school year party at a bar on the high line - fancy shmancy - for all their people who are not popular enough to be invited to their own school parties. I know one thing - I bet there weren't 2400 people who supposedly support them there.)

Health and welfare
I had my annual physical with Dr. Mark, who all my pals from the UFT activism of the 70s are using because he is such a good doctor. He's a pretty liberal guy. He brought up an article by Joel Klein in the Atlantic and said it made some sense. My blood pressure shot up. I gave him a copy of our film to set him straight and we talked ed deform. He gave me a prescription to lower my horrible cholesterol and told me to lose about 15 pounds. "I don't care if you drop dead tomorrow," he said - did he join Unity Caucus? - "but a stroke that disables you is something you don't want to happen." Clarence Clemmons dying at an age only 3 years older than me is certainly scaring me into trying to avoid those Little Debbies, (though the first thing I did upon leaving his office before heading over to the DA was to grab a slice of pizza). Before I left his office I went over to pay anything I owed - nada - thank goodness for Medicare.

The Delegate Assembly
They actually let guests into the DA because the place was not full but I am not in touch enough to give a cogent report of the DA. But the Unity faitful outdid themselves in patting themselves and Mulgrew on the back to such an extent chiropractors had to be called in to deal with wrenched shoulders. Many of their speakers were pre-planned (I heard conversations downstairs).

There were lots of winks but no details from Mulgrew on how the ATRs were protected but he couldn't talk about it - like he was the smartest guy in the room. After the meeting PS 193 chapter leader Yelena Siwinski and I paid a visit to Bloombergville where I took some pics and video (I'll post later).

Yelena got the floor at the DA yesterday to remind Mulgrew of the SOS march in Washington on July 30 after Mulgrew announced a major labor march on Washington on Aug. 27. Mulgrew said the UFT is supporting the SOS march but labor has to get is act together - he said he and most major ed leaders will be in South Africa at the end of July. GEM is going down for the showing of our film at American U on July 29 and we are doing a workshop on July 28. Come march with GEM on July 30.

Later in the eve, 13 of them were arrested for civil disobedience, a tactic I am hearing more and more of being used. NYC teachers have been intimidated from participating in CD due to stringent enforcement of the DOE - like jaywalk and you can be fired - especially if you are an ATR - ok, so I'm exaggerating a bit.

I'll repeat James Eterno's important reports from the ICE blog below which also talk about the lack of democracy (does the earth turn?). When Mulgrew had to allow an opposition voice IS 218K chapter leader Tom Crean spoke eloquently on why we should not agree to this deal - I asked Tom to write it up for Ed Notes and he said he would - even Mulgrew was impressed and said he couldn't disagree with many of the premises - thus the Aug. 27 march and call for a millionaire tax (I better check my TDA.)

James Eterno on the DA on ATRs

Tom laid out the big picture as to what people will be facing with the cuts, especially with rising class size (Mulgrew admitted during Tom's speech we have lost 8-10,000i teaching positions in the last few years) in essence a response to this statement by Miss Eyre over at NYC Educator that it is not really a bad deal for most of the membership. It is absolutely a bad deal for most of the membership - at least anyone in front of a class.

As much as it pains me to admit this, it's not really a bad deal for most of the membership. Although ATRs will be doing per diem substitute work, they'll be doing it for appointed teacher pay and benefits. It's not good for them, I realize, and they're in the original situation for the terrible crime of having worked in a school that closed. But they do still have jobs, with the same pay and benefits they've always had, and it's going to be pretty tough to U-rate them now because they can't be expected to properly plan or participate in the life of a school.

Well, I wouldn't bet they are not going to be U rated. I think that's the plan. What does the DOE lose in U-rating someone? It can take a year to adjudicate and in the meantime the teacher is barred from earning extra salary (there may be some other penalties) and can get so stressed that they end up leaving, especially those nearing retirement age. Call this an end run around LIFO.

This question was raised on ICE-Mail:

How assignment in district for a week at time will work for ATRs in D79 who could be sent anywhere in the city. The answer at last night’s Executive Board was that it will be looked at by the Joint Oversight Committee that is part of the agreement.

James had 2 reports, one focusing on the ATRs and the other on democracy at the meeting. I'll let you read the latter at the ICE blog (A DELEGATE ASSEMBLY THAT LEONID BREZHNEV WOULD HAVE BEEN PROUD OF) while here is his report on the ATRs. Personally, I think long-term the ATRs are in trouble - the problem is most teachers don't see themselves as potential ATRs (which they may very well be once Bloomberg gets LIFO killed and they can start closing down any schools they want without worrying about the ATR issue) while I say every teacher should wear the emblem: "Ich Bin un ATR."

CITY BUDGET BEING BALANCED ON THE BACKS OF UFT'S ATRS
We have an agreement between the UFT and the city that eliminates the possibility of over 4,000 layoffs this year. We also gain increased hiring opportunities for Absent Teacher Reserves to be hired provisionally and to get considered for positions at reduced costs to principals. In exchange the UFT has agreed to suspend sabbaticals for 2012-2013 and to allow the DOE to move Absent Teacher Reserves who are not lucky enough to secure a permanent position from school to school on a weekly basis.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew's report at tonight's emergency Delegate Assembly highlighted the no layoff part of the agreement, which we are all happy about. Nobody in their right mind wants to see over 4,000 teachers lose their jobs. Mulgrew also thanked everyone for doing work with the state and city council. He told us the mayor said he wanted non seniority layoffs. He talked about opposing the mayor with the city council. He didn't, however, talk for too long about the part of the agreement that dealt with Absent Teacher Reserves becoming nomads.

The new agreement forces each principal to interview at least two ATRS per semester if they have vacancies and they are supposed to hire ATRS for vacancies and leave replacements. I don’t quite understand what happens if they interview two and don’t like them. Can they then hire someone from outside or give the classes away in a secondary school as a sixth class for special per session pay or to substitutes? UFT leadership believes these new procedures will lead to a big reduction in the ATR pool. I hope they are correct because anyone unfortunate enough to be left behind in the ATR pool risks becoming a teacher gypsy.

The agreement on page three contains the following ominous clause: "An Excessed Employee/ATR shall be assigned to a school within his/her district/superintendency each week. A 'week' shall be Monday through Friday, or shorter if the work week is less than five(5) days." Then there is clause C which says: "An Excessed Empoyee/ATR shall be notfied no later than Friday (or the last work-day of the week) if he/she will be assigned to a different school the following week and, if so, to which school. An ATR who has not been notified that he/she has been assigned to a different school by Friday shall report on Monday, or the first work day of the work day of the work week, and for the duration of that week, to the last school to which he/she was assigned." In other words, if a teacher does not find a permanent job on his or her own, buy a good GPS.

Besides the obvious problems of ATRS not having stability from week to week and not being able to bond with students, or know which person in each particular school to go to in order to resolve issues with payroll or their sick bank days or other items, this makes it virtually impossible for ATRs to do any per session work (extra activities for money that are pensionable.) We are truly worried that ATRS will now become third class citizens.

One of the worst parts of the horrible giveback laden 2005 contract was the loss of placement rights for members whose schools close or are excessed because their school or program is downsized. Since then, there has been a pool of teachers ranging from the hundreds to thousands called ATRs who have no permanent job and must substitute. Under current rules, ATRs usually stay in a school for a year and then can be reassigned. It is not a very professional existence but we are told by UFT leaders that at least the ATRs have jobs. In 2008 the DOE and UFT came to an agreement to allow principals to hire ATRs and only get charged on their budget the cost of half of a starting teacher for seven years. (The teacher still gets full pay.) The UFT predicted this would basically end the ATR problem but it didn't. The reasons ATRs are not hired are either because they have obscure licenses or they are activists who are not going to say, "How high?" when a principal tells them to "Jump!"

UFT Secretary Michael Mendel told me the ATRS will have a much greater chance of getting a full time position under this new agreement. Again, I truly want him to be right but I fear he might be wrong. The subsidies didn't lead to the withering away of the ATR pool and neither will this as I see it because unfortunately some principals don't care about cost as much as they care about control. Furthermore, having teachers do coverages is much cheaper than hiring someone they don’t know.

Balancing the budget on the backs of ATRS is not quite as awful as balancing it on the backs of newer teachers who would have been laid off but it was totally unnecessary. With Bloomberg’s poll numbers on education sinking to "Bushian Post Hurricane Katrina" levels, the UFT was holding all of the cards and should have insisted that to save money that the DOE should be compelled to place all of the ATRS into positions in their districts. That would save some money for sure as it would eliminate the ATR pool if DOE was not allowed to do any new hiring until every ATR in a license in a district was placed. Any remaining ATRs could cover classes in an individual school so as not to create the potential chaos that this agreement could bring.

Teacher bashing continues. When firehouses close, the firefighters aren't blamed and they are sent to another firehouse. When police precincts redeploy whole precincts because of corruption scandals, the clean cops who worked in the corrupt precinct don't have to apply to other precinct captains. They are transferred. Only teachers face the indignity of having to pound the pavement to seek a job because a program was downsized or closed.

President Mulgrew said this union leaves no educator behind. This is not totally true as the ATRs have certainly been left to basically fend for themselves.

-----------------

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

U Ratings Galore, UFT Ignore

2011-06-28T22:58:00.000-07:00

UPDATED: Weds. June 30, 3AM

(If you have numbers on your school send them in)

Reports are coming in of high numbers of U ratings handed out today. Supposedly Jane Addams had 20 15 and JFK 12, including the newly elected Chapter Leader.
I wonder if any of this will surface at the UFT delegate assembly today.
If you have numbers for your school send them along.
So expect our 6 figure salaried (with double pention) Unity Caucus slug to complain about our carping and point to all the teachers who didn't get U's as a victory.

This comment came in:
At Jane Addams, 15 teachers received "U" ratings, and one received a "D". I teach there, but I am one of the lucky ones.

And an email below from a teacher which on my Blackberry I misread as FDR. I did find out that 11 or 12 teachers at FDR has their tenure extended. I am hearing from people that a number of tenure extendees are so pissed they are leaving but not telling. We'll see if anything comes of this - keep an eye on that 2600 estimate of retirees and leavees. I got a call from someone Tuesday around 3pm who left a message that he was in the act of handing in his retirement papers - a 3 or 4 year ATR who has many valuable skills but just was worn down by being an ATR - the very purpose of course. I hope he shares his skills in helping to build GEM now that he is retired.

I emailed back for more info which I will add to this post.

Hi Norm,
At FDNY HS 11 teachers of 24 received U ratings. That has to be a new record. And the s-o-b principal bragged today about the great graduation rate and the regents passing rates. Who the heck is responsible for that, if not the U-rated teachers?

And to ICE-mail:

Anecdotally, at least, there appears to be a spike in U ratings this year ... at least in my district ( D75) and from what I've heard, elsewhere as well.

Lots of 'em handed out to people retirement-eligible or and/or to people top scale. Probationer got one in my school and an ATR as well, I understand. The would have *easily* passed in previous years.

Has UFT acknowledged this phenomenon? Anyone collecting data on this?

Scary stuff for everybody, but esp so for those holding the U s.

I would NOT want to be looking for a teaching position at this time, in this economy with the added onus of a U rating.

We live in a beautiful world.

Today: UFT Delegate Assembly to Sell Deal, Bloombergville Protests, Plus Video of Activists at PEP Last Night (And Happy Last Day of School!)

2011-06-28T07:08:00.000-07:00

Tues. June 28, 2011
More on the PEP last night later tonight.

Here is a video I taped last night of Bloombergville activists singing a song to cheer people up.

Here is a press release regarding today's actions:

This spring thousands of teachers, parents, youth and allies made it clear to Bloomberg that we would not accept teacher layoffs or the manufactured education budget "crisis." While we continue to analyze
the compromise reached this past Friday, it is important to note that grassroots organizing by teachers, parents, youth and allies has been crucial to building the pressure on city and union leaders.

Let's keep up the pressure on City Council as the vote on the final budget on Tuesday. While wide-scale teacher layoffs and firehouse closings may have been averted and City Council is restoring the Geriatric Mental Health Services and Elder Abuse treatment and prevention programs, we need to support a full-scale restoration and INCREASE to ALL city services, the education budget and public sector jobs!

Join us on Tuesday 6/28 for the following actions:

Noon: Protest Bloomberg's Budget Cuts

Where? Bloombergerville, Broadway & Park Place

What? March to 49 Chambers Street where the City Council ‘Stated Meeting’ for Budget vote will take place at 1:30pm.

5pm: Family Day of Action at Bloombergville

JOIN THE BNS/BCS Political Action Coalition for FAMILY ACTION DAY TODAY at 5:00pm to support the protesters at Bloombergville and Tell Bloomberg not to cut vital city services.

WHO? Kids, parents, families who want to keep sending the message that the remaining city budget cuts to city services and public employees will hurt New York schools and children

BRING? NOISEMAKERS -- maracas! tambourines! pots and pans! your voices!

WHERE? 250 Broadway near City Hall. Take the N/R to CityHall or 2/3 to Park Place or 4/5/6 to Brooklyn Bridge

LOOK FOR Mike and Amy in the straw cowboy/girl hats

WHAT is Bloombergville? Go to Bloombervillenow.org or search for Bloombergville on Facebook or Twitter: #bloombergville

CONTEXT. There are real revenue options that City Leaders can use to increase education and city budgets. Download the May 12 coalition report on Real Revenue Options here: http://onmay12.org/sites/default/

files/MAY%2012%20COALITION%20R
EAL%20REVENUE%20OPTIONS%20FINAL%
205.27.11_1.pdf

You can also read:

Call Bloomberg's bluff - analysis of the layoff deal from SocialistW

PEP Peeks

2011-06-27T16:39:00.000-07:00

The early returns

6pm

Not a big crowd. Seems to be more security than audience. I am #2 to speak. What can I say in 2 minutes? I'll think of something.

Some NAACP and UFT and a small batch of Success people all handed orange tee-shirts by the handlers. Success Teachers wear blue. Basically no big push from Eva tonite since its a slam dunk.

Big Walcott innovation - give his report by coming off the stage.

Walcott spoke like he was doing standup. Except when teachers from Clara Barton started heckling him. He threatened to have them removed. Would love to have seen if he could get away with it. They shut up. Darn.

Patrick Sullivan asked Walcott about disastrous CEC election policy. He agrees it was flawed. Has he been dep mayor for education forever?

Cec speakers. Khem Irby and Noah Gotbaum nail them. My turn coming up. Later.

Cheers,

Norm Scott

Education Notes

ednotesonline.blogspot.com

Grassroots Education Movement

gemnyc.org

Education Editor, The Wave

www.rockawave.com

Robotics blog

normsrobotics.blogspot.com

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

UFT Rolls Over When Eva Comes to Call

2011-06-27T11:02:00.000-07:00

UPDATED: Tues. June 27, 2011, 8am

I find this infuriating. It expresses precisely why these battles have to be fought at the grassroots levels.

http://gothamschools.org/2011/06/27/charter-school-advocates-demand-uft-apology-but-get-debate/#more-62138

Leroy Barr, a union vice president, and parent Sabrina Williams and Lynwood Shell, a Morehouse College student who is working this summer in the education division of the United Negro College Fund, which works with Achievement First charter schools.

Williams and Shell accused the union of trying to diminish choice for families who have opted out of traditional public schools. But Barr told them that the UFT’s objection is not to charter schools or even to the concept of co-location, but to the process that the Department of Education has used to allocate school space.
“So why is the lawsuit not against the DOE?” asked a parent who had been listening in.
“It is,” Barr said. “You are a byproduct of our fight with them.”

Eva sends out her political operatives and the UFT lays on its back with its paws in the air. Pathetic. Like someone said - they are like a boxer who says "no mas" in the first 30 seconds of a fight. No wonder Eva is so emboldened.

You know, some people would say it is a brilliant move for the UFT to come out and offer snacks and coffee - I can live with that. But make the case for the ultimate goal of charters instead of nodding about how much they agree on. I have had dialogues with HSA parents and they actually agree with lots of what I say - but say they are doing what's right for their own kids. I tell them that they are the ones who are the key not HSA and that their kids would do well anywhere because if their interest in their child's education. I tell them it is fine to send their kids to Success but why are they allowing themselves to be used as political shock troops for Eva's personal ambitions. At least try to create a little doubt.

I tend to whine when I see no spine.

Tonight PEP Votes on Budget Without Info and Charters Expand - Work already started at IS 33 for Eva before the vote tonight

2011-06-27T09:34:00.000-07:00

We discovered at IS 33 this morning that work has been ongoing to prep the space for Eva Moskowitz' Brooklyn Success school in the fall despite the fact that the PEP vote tonight has not taken place yet. A local/activist lawyer on the scene told us this work may be illegal.

Meanwhile, expect a somewhat raucous Panel for Educational Policy meeting tonight over charter co-locos. The rubber stamp PEP will vote on a budget they haven't seen yet. We will try to be there to capture the follies on tape. Here is Leonie Haimson's take:

The PEP will be voting on the budget tonight; as well as several controversial charter co-locations, and the public is supposed to give informed comment beforehand.

Yet we still have no information about what this budget deal actually means for our schools.

We know that at least 2600 teachers will be lost to attrition, which will mean sharp increases in class size. In grades K-3, class sizes will likely rise to their largest level in 12 years, despite promises by Bloomberg when he first ran for office to reduce them to twenty or less. We are told that principals are being briefed today, and being warned that the cuts will still be large.

If budgets are cut sufficiently, many schools will also likely to be forced to “excess” some of their teachers into the ATR pool, so the impact on classrooms and kids and schools would be the same as if there were actual layoffs.

Here is the information about tonight’s PEP meeting:

When: Monday June 27, 2011 at 6 PM (sign up between 5:30 PM -6 PM if you wish to speak.)

Where: Prospect Heights Campus, 883 Classon Ave, Brooklyn (take the 2,3 , 4, 5 S trains to the Eastern Parkway/ Brooklyn Museum Station); map here.

It’s really unbelievable that they haven’t even bothered to update the link on the PEP page on the budget since May 6.

I’ll let you know if I get a response from the Chancellor; pl. do the same and let me know if you hear back from him.

The City Council will vote on the budget either Tues. or Wed., am trying to confirm the date and time and will let you know that as soon as I hear back from them.

Thanks, Leonie

Dear Chancellor:

The PEP is voting on the budget tonight and the public is supposed to give comments beforehand.

And yet this link to the total DOE budget has not been updated since May 6.

The information provided in the first place is entirely inadequate, stating only overall dollar amounts and not how much will be allocated to schools and how much spent on other Tweed priorities, including the central and mid-level bureaucracy, testing, data systems, charters, contracts, consultants and the like.

But most egregiously, this information also is no longer correct, since the budget deal was announced Friday night that supposedly eliminated the need for 4100 teacher layoffs.

When are you going to provide parents with the real numbers? Any time before the budget is voted upon tonight?

Thanks,

Leonie Haimson

For Shame! UFT Victory Lap at Settlement Pilloried

2011-06-27T03:24:00.000-07:00

--we sold out - not just ourselves and the communities we live in, but just as importantly, the families we serve. For shame! ---Loretta Prisco

If I were a parent of kids in the schools, I would be pissed. Parents and students supported the teachers, rallied with them, made phone calls, etc. There will be approximately 7,000 teachers less than a few years ago - and the student population has grown. Increased class size, less support for kids, many schools with closed libraries, not getting gym twice a week, and we call it a "victory"! For whom? The only way that we can get what we all need in this city is to raise revenue from those who can afford it. Wouldn't it be wonderful if teachers raised their voices in one loud unified "no" to this settlement?

Don't hold your breath as the mayor's tactics of threats and intimidation worked once again. Funny how if you say there is no money time and again - and your leaders go along - you begin to believe it. Is there a surplus? Does Tweed spend money on wasted projects like water? Should the UFT/AFT leadership take a stand on the way easy money appears when, oh, say you want a cool billion to go to bombing Libya. We know that a stand won't shake the money loose but the union is the only entity that could be out there making the case and trying to win people over to the revenue fight. Even though we started hearing "Wall St." words from the leadership, when push came to shove, the very concept of pointing out where the money is has disappeared from the lexicon.

I find it interesting that even some blogging friends have been looking at the deal between the UFT and Bloomberg through the narrow lens of the teacher. Loss of sabbaticals for a year? Many people think they were gone anyway. The ATRs as subs has created a but of concern. I agree - it is always worse than the UFT will present it at the DA on Tuesday, the last day of school, a day when people like to go out with their colleagues at school but now have to go to a meeting where they will really not have any decision making power.

We cannot separate the ATR issue from the closing school issue. The creation of ATRs was done jointly by the UFT and the DOE in the 2005 contract. That allowed them to accelerate the closing of schools. This agreement is part of the overall plan to force out ATRs after schools are closed by making the job as intolerable as possible. It opens the door to remove them from their school support network and as we know day to day subs - even experienced teachers - struggle. Suddenly subs teaching goodness knows what will be given the worst classes and written up as incompetents. Add that pressure to all the others and people will begin to flee - and the UFT leadership will do little to help and support them. Is this a way out for them without having to be charged with selling out ATRs?

But most important are these comments by retired teacher Loretta Prisco who still mentors new teachers about what this agreement does to the teaching/learning conditions. There is lots more to say - like does this mean that Christine Quinn - that Lilly livered anti- LIFO Bloomberg suckup will be the UFT choice for mayor as the UFT will argue mayoral control with her in charge would be better?

The threatened loss of 6,400 teaching jobs captured so many, kids or not, teachers or not, to this fight. We should have spoken in one, loud, unified voice ---- we had the pressure going, the Progressive Caucus of the City Council was pushing the Alternate Budget as proposed by the May 12th Coalition, we had the support of the community ---Loretta Prisco

Here is Loretta's full statement:

Looking at news reports, a teacher asked me to summarize what we really lost. After all, it didn't look like we lost much to save over 4,000 jobs. This was my response. We lost lots a golden opportunity - more than we will ever get back.

Specifically, no sabbaticals 2012-2013. You can count on this being the beginning of the end of sabbaticals. One rarely gets back what one gives up. We have NEVER gotten back anything given up. When I began in the system, at the very beginning of the union, every contract was a win-win. And every year, as our contract improved, so did teaching and learning conditions, because they are tightly woven together. Now not only do we give back when a contract is negotiated, we give back when we are not even negotiating and don't even have a contract!

Also, we must look larger at the fact that will not be filling those positions lost by attrition. Principals have been told to U rate and harass teachers, and I think purposefully. Let's look at motive. The Mayor is not concerned with maintaining good teachers. I don't think I have to convince you of that. All he and the Chancellors past and present under Mayoral Control, want are drones - young, will do as they are told, are cheap and will never collect a pension - and that they go steadily through a revolving door. Klein said years ago that he wanted to increase teaching by computers - cheaper and more controlled - with big contracts going to tech companies and those who sell programs. U ratings are designed to reduce the teaching force by pushing teachers out. We have lost over 6,000 positions in the last few years while our enrollment continues to grow. Translate that to increased class size. More on that later.

Having ATRs work as per diem subs? First of all, all the ATRs that I have met, have been doing the work of per diems by covering classes. So I am very suspicious of this. It is not saving money, so why was it negotiated as a financial issue. This has not been spelled out and I am concerned that this will be making it tougher for those who have done nothing wrong, except dedicated their teaching lives in underperforming schools.

Now let's look at what this has done to the communities we serve.

To save teaching jobs, (to keep class size down) parents joined forces with us - wrote letters, rallied, demonstrated, went up to Albany, and signed petitions. It was encouraging to hear parents say such nice things about teachers over the last few months. For too long we have been kept at each others throats. What did we do? How did we say thanks to our allies? Saved our own jobs ( no doubt important and I am not minimizing that) but we did not continue the battle to fill all positions so that class size would be maintained. We folded our tent and went away, leaving our allies out there alone. I am embarrassed by that.

But the reality was that we were never going to lose those positions, and Mulgrew knew that. The Mayor's motivation was political, not financial. He used the threats to defeat LIFO, but didn't get it. So Mulgrew and the Mayor "negotiated" a giveback. They come up winning. Our kids come up losing. We went to a party about 10 days ago and met an old friend who works for city government. He was clear - there will be no cuts and the announcement will come on Friday - and it did.

Now let's look at the really big picture - truthfully the city does have reduced funds - and it will get worse. The answer is the dilemma is to raise revenue, NOT CUT SERVICES. And Mulgrew knows that. He talks about the millionaire tax - and "we will work on it". Not good enough. We must get funds - now. For the super rich, with all of their loopholes and much of their wealth from capital gains, a millionaire's tax will undoubtedly help the city big time, and will mean that most of the wealthy will be paying under $10,000. They will not leave the city, as the Mayor keeps insisting that they will because in reality, it will cost them so little. But it is not just the millionaire's, but the banks and corporations that are profiting handsomely, no sinfully. Mulgrew doesn't even mention it.

So what will happen in our schools and communities?
Senior services have been reduced drastically over the last few years. Funding for elder abuse has been cut.
Meals provided for the homebound are down to one meal a day in 4 boroughs - try surviving on that.
Culturals (providing so many wonderful enrichments to our kids) have been cut ( the Noble Collection alone that provides wonderful programs has been cut 85%).
Our streets will be dirtier.
Library hours cut.
Literacy programs will be cut for the parents of the kids we teach.
Our roads and bridges will continue to be in constant disrepair.
Services for immigrant families curtailed.
It looks like other city workers - probably parents of kids we teach - will lose their jobs. We know how unemployment effects families. And continues to put a stress on the city's financial resources. Council member Recchia from Brooklyn recommended that we cut the number of agents that collect money from the parking meters (how much do you think they make?) - and not a word about those who stealing from this city with tax loopholes, no-bid contracts, etc.
AIDS funding and other city services will be compromised.
The list goes on and on. Enumerating the list is to depressing for Sunday morning. The threatened loss of 6,400 teaching jobs captured so many, kids or not, teachers or not, to this fight. We should have spoken in one, loud, unified voice. Just to say, we had the pressure going, the Progressive Caucus of the City Council was pushing the Alter Budget as proposed by the May 12th Coalition, we had the support of the community, and we sold out - not just ourselves and the communities we live in, but just as importantly, the families we serve. For shame!

Loretta Prisco

---------------------

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

OUTRAGE NUMBER 2 OF THE DAY: EVA CALLS DIVERSIONARY PROTEST AT UFT AT SAME TIME AS AUTISTIC CHILDREN BOYCOTT

2011-06-26T11:51:00.000-07:00

With parents of autistic children set to boycott a Brooklyn school being invaded by Moskowitch and rally at Tweed, Moskowitz is trying to draw press coverage away from them. But of course since they will arrive at Tweed at 10:30 there is still time for the press to cover their arrival if not the official start of their protest at the school at 8:30AM. Ed Notes will be there to cover even if not other press shows up.
See my earlier post for the parent press release:cOutrage at Eva Moskowitz: Parents of Brooklyn Autistic Students to Boycott PS 368K, Vow Not To Move Aside for Success Academy Charter Invasion/PEP Monday Night

YES, CONTACT Contact: Eva press flack Kerri Lyon 917-348-2191 to express your outrage

FROM LEONIE HAIMSON:

See the just-released press advisory from Eva’s press/political machine below.

This new protest tomorrow morning appears to be cleverly designed to draw media away from the long-planned boycott planned by the parents of autistic children at PS 368Kat 8:30 AM tomorrow, and their march to Tweed, to protest the co-location of Brooklyn Success Academy at their school.

Contrast their protest, organized by real life public school parents who wrote their own press advisory, to the advisory put out by Kerri Lyon, a PR flack now Senior Vice President at SKDKnickerbocker, one of the largest PR firms in NYC, hired by Eva to handle her media relations.

Kerri was originally hired away as a reporter from Channel 2 news by DOE in 2007 at a large salary, reportedly to put a “good spin” on their news, and then was subsequently by the Charter School Center, probably at an even higher salary.

Her official bio credits her for the following achievement: “She even booked Chancellor Klein on “The Colbert Report.” (though Colbert’s chief booker is married to Jon Alter, and is a big charter school booster herself, so this was probably pretty easy.)

http://www.skdknick.com/about/kerri-lyon/

her advisory follows the one from the parents of PS 368K.

Outraged Parents of Brooklyn Autistic Students to Boycott PS 368K and Vow Not To Move Asidefor a Brooklyn Success Academy Charter School Invasion

What, When and Where: On Monday, June 27 at 8:30 am, courageous, fed-up parents from PS 368K will gather for a press conference in front of their school at the IS 33 campus on 70 Tompkins Ave. Brooklyn. Then they will march with their children and travel from this site to Tweed at 52 Chambers Street, NYC for a second press conference at 10:30 am.

Who: Basilica E. L. Johnson, P.T.A. President of The Star/P368K program in District 75, is also the parent of a 10 year old autistic son, who attends this public school program of about 100 special needs students.. She has organized a parent walk-out to protest the co-location of Success Academy at K03370 Tompkins Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11206 in School District 14.

Basilica EL-Johnson, email: tom.n.tinys.house@gmail.com and 732-688-8099(cell)

Contact: Kerri Lyon

917-348-2191

PARENTS PICKET UFT HEADQUARTERS

(NY, NY)—On Monday, June 27 at 8:30 a.m., parents will picket outside UFT headquarters to demand the teachers union stop jeopardizing their children’s futures and allow their schools to open as planned. The UFT and NAACP have refused to withdraw their lawsuit hurting 7,000 children, despite the fact that all the claims in their lawsuit have been addressed.

With some charter schools set to start the school year in as early as 37 days, these 7,000 families have no idea if their children’s schools will be able to open.

WHAT: Parents Picket Outside UFT Headquarters

WHO: Parents affected by UFT and NAACP's ongoing lawsuit

WHEN: Monday, June 27. Parents will picket starting at 8:30 a.m.

WHERE: Outside UFT Headquarters, 52 Broadway, NY, NY

Outrage at Eva Moskowitz: Parents of Brooklyn Autistic Students to Boycott PS 368K, Vow Not To Move Aside for Success Academy Charter Invasion/PEP Monday Night

2011-06-26T04:39:00.000-07:00

Ed Notes will be there to cover events.

Panel for Educational Policy

On Monday, June 26 the DOE's Panel on Educational Policy will discuss Charter School Relocations at IS 308 in Brooklyn and a number of other schools. Join the UFT, NY Communities for Change and the Coalition for Public Education to protest at Prospect Heights High School 883 Classon Avenue (near Eastern Parkway)-- take the 2,3 or 4 trains to the Eastern Parkway/ Brooklyn Museum Station.

See you on Monday @ 6 PM!

The Grassroots Education Movement will also be there.
--------------

Press Advisory
Date: Monday, June 27, 2011
Times: 8:30 am, PS 368 Entrance/10:30 am, DOE Tweed 52 Chambers St.

Contact: Basilica E. L. Johnson (732-688-8099)

Outraged Parents of Brooklyn Autistic Students to Boycott PS 368K and Vow Not To Move Aside
for a Brooklyn Success Academy Charter School Invasion

What, When and Where:

On Monday, June 27 at 8:30 am, courageous, fed-up parents from PS 368K will gather for a press conference in front of their school at the IS 33 campus on 70 Tompkins Ave. Brooklyn. Then they will march with their children and travel from this site to Tweed at 52 Chambers Street, NYC for a second press conference at 10:30 am.

Who:

Basilica E. L. Johnson, P.T.A. President of The Star/P368K program in District 75, is also the parent of a 10 year old autistic son, who attends this public school program of about 100 special needs students.. She has organized a parent walk-out to protest the co-location of Success Academy at K03370 Tompkins Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11206 in School District 14. The school site currently houses three schools: Urban Assembly School for the Urban Environment-14K330, an existing DOE district middle school that serves sixth through eighth grade, the Foundations Academy-14K322, an existing high school that serves nine through twelfth grade, and lastly, an existing District 75 school "PS368 . The building also houses an Alternative Learning Center-88K988, a suspension center serving grades 9-12.

Why a walkout?

Ms. Johnson asserts, “The Success Academy has already made it known that it plans to alter the gymnasium space allocated for the children of District 75, which includes a population of autistic, learning disabled and emotionally disturbed children. That will just be the beginning with no end. Once the Success Academy is in place, it will start devouring space like the beginning stages of a Cancer growth that spreads until it has consumed the entire entity. This is evident at P.S. 15 in Red Hook, Brooklyn where special education students are receiving their services in hallways and stairwells, all so that PAVE Academy Charter School can have more classrooms. Or, at P.S. 241, in Harlem, where public school students are now forced to learn in basement classrooms bordering the boiler room, all so that Harlem Success Academy Charter School can have more space upstairs.

Help us to send a message to the DOE that public schools matter because our children matter. Help us send the same message to Eva Moskowitz, a former city-council member with no former teaching qualifications and whose only interest is that of her being the CEO of Success Academy. We do not want her idea of “change” at our school.”

Therefore, the emboldened parents of PS 368K with their special needs children are taking a passionate
stand to say NO MORE! Ms. Johnson insists, “Our children have been short changed and pushed aside
for too long. And let it be duly noted that autistic children do not conform to change readily. They cannot
be pushed from this space to that space, this floor to that floor and still maintain the fragile stability their
teachers so expertly nurture.”

Very Real Parent Fears:
With unfair public school cut-backs, and so-called “modifications” to special education guidelines that supposedly “streamline” services, the parents of special needs children live in daily fear about what actions will be taken next to marginalize their children. Charter schools do not educate these high needs students, yet they flourish on billionaire funding and DOE privileges, absorbing more and more public school space and resources. Ms. Johnson concludes, “Are our children with special needs all going to be placed by the DOE in one-room school settings, where all needs classifications co-mingle together and where all mandated services, as per federal regulation orders, are only a pretense on an I.E.P. form?” What happened to real and humane differentiation of instruction?

Jitu Weusi, life-long activist for educational and civil rights justice, astute veteran of the successful 1968
Brownsville community-control-of-public-schools movement and current chairperson of the Brooklyn chapter of the city-wide Coalition for Public education, cogently predicts, “Success Academy has a history of vamping on the dreams of the poor. Their day of recompense is coming!”

------------------------

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Follow-up: Comments on Mark Naison Teach for America Post

2011-06-25T05:53:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot of reaction to Mark Naison's

Dr. Mark Naison - Teach for America and Me: A Failed Courtship

Some have left comments on the original post. Some have commented on the listserve. I've collated some of them below and will keep adding to them.

Erica:

Mr. Naison,

I am a current Teach for America corps member in the Mississippi Delta. I read your blog earlier today via a colleague (also Black) who teaches at the same school, KIPP Delta College Prep in Helena, Arkansas. I wanted to say that I find your comments dead on, although I risk losing my Americorps stipend for going in-depth about how I feel as a first generation Black college student from the inner-city (Compton, California specially), I will say that I was very disappointed to see the low number of students of color who would be my peers in the organization. Furthermore, I was rather distraught in the beginning with the way that the "achievement gap" is framed through TFA and made it very public, which did not make me too popular, that while we come in as individuals trying to make a difference in the achievement gap, we by no means can look at others as the reason why there is one. That was a very delicate way of getting out what I sensed in the atmosphere, that they, are not "saviors." I could actually go on for hours, so I will digress.

To be completely honest, I sought Teach for America for the wrong reasons. I, too, thought it would help in my quest to apply for law school. After having a wonderful first year of teaching (my class tested science MAP results that put us in the top 20% percent of the nation in science concepts and general science), I'm going to take a big leap and apply to law school in the fall. God willing, I can get into a Southern California institution and I will explain why that area is where I would like to be specifically. As originally planned, I do not want to attend law school to go into law; I have every intention of committing myself to public policy and public service. I have put heavy thought into starting a non-profit organization that offers the opportunity for ALL students willing to participate, regardless of race from low socio-economic backgrounds, a pathway to college readiness and gets them ACTIVELY thinking about themselves as students who can succeed on a college campus by taking them on trips to universities, studying for the SAT, focusing on their grades and mapping out realistic goals to get them to and through college.

As I think about this idea more and more, I've put heavy thought about getting together a small group of dedicated individuals that would be willing to see something like this happen. Specifically, college graduates of color that I have met through networking as a past Chair of the Black Student Alliance at my university and being involved in planning many California student of color conferences.

I am sharing this because I would like to know your thoughts on this. I plan on returning back to the community where I was born and raised and offering whatever I can because it was done for me. After a year of being in the Delta, I have realized how much I am seen as the "other." I am still a Black woman, still from a low socioeconomic background, but I am still foreign. I think developing a non-profit organization such as this, applying for grants to fund the program, and using grassroots methods of relying on people that I grew up with, that are like me and have attained a degree can be just as powerful as the concept of Teach for America.

I look forward to your response.

Anon:

Amen, Prof. Naison, Amen! It's so good to know I am not the only one who feels this way about TFA. As an administrator at an Ivy-league institution where TFA recruits heavily, I have seen precisely the things you mention. I've had TFA teachers on my staff who have made it clear that teaching in low-income, urban schools was something to do while they studied for the GMAT, LSAT or GRE to enter graduate or professional schools to get to where they really want to be. Most of the ones I've encountered have no intention of pursuing teaching as a career or of having a profound impact on a child's education. For too many of them, (but of course, not all) there is no sense of commitment or altruism. As you state, it's just something that looks good on a resume. For the schools that rely on TFA recruits to fill teaching positions, the 2-year commitment guarantees a lack of dedication and continuity that does students more harm than good.

Wilma:

As an inner-city public school student in Philadelphia, I was exposed many
such "Urban Peace Corps" programs, but we always knew from the beginning
they were just passing through.

Teach For America however is the most insidious of all because students from elite private Liberal Arts Colleges and Ivy League Universities think SO little of public school teachers, they think the presence of their greatness for two years will elevate the "great unwashed students and teachers in urban public schools" to such an extent, a lifelong commitment is not needed.

I am certain many of them find they "cannot hang" as they were not prepared properly by TFA which blows their superior mindset out of the waters.

Still, amongst those who DO try to hang in there and make a difference, the disrespect, frustration and working conditions we teachers count as a given drive many away.

This is all a part of the "Anyone Can Teach" mantra which permits non-teachers of all stripes to dictate to education experts. Renowned "entre-manures" tour schools and teach one lesson at the chalkboard etc. in an effort to show their commitment to urban education. Please!

We teachers have allowed this as well, because we want to be accessible to our kids and their families. It feels awkward to declare ourselves as education experts.

We need to get over this before it is too late!

LOTS MORE BELOW

Brent:

Fantastic piece, Professor Naison, and I'm honored to have graduated from the same university you teach at (in Lincoln Center, but I took classes at Rose Hill).

Your piece speaks to me primarily because I was one of those students at Fordham who was interested in TfA who came from a low-income community, look like many of the students I teach, was also a student who previously received special education services, and graduated from Fordham with a 3.2 GPA, above the 3.0 required by the program. I have also had experience working with the same kind of children I work with currently.

I got rejected by TfA outright after the paper application.

On the paper application (and in the group interview for NYCTF), I never mentioned any aspirations beyond teaching. Though I learned enough to get to where I am today, I'm not fluent in the language of privilege and business is dreadfully boring to me (no offense to anyone who's in business). Heck, my physical appearance doesn't show the typical businessman look: I didn't wear a suit to my NYCTF interview and ties make me uncomfortable after a certain period of time. If TfA wanted a candidate they could persuade for a career in finance, law, and business, I was definitely not that candidate.

To this day, I am still perplexed by the rejection. Wouldn't programs like TfA want to foster a stronger social investment by students who lived in those communities to contribute positively through a consistent and powerful teaching presence, especially if they were qualified?

For full discourse, I ended up getting accepted by the NYC Teaching Fellows as a member of Cohort 18 that same year in a cohort with 90% career changers. I've been teaching in a good school in Washington Heights in a community that resembles the one my family and I grew up into. I was able to graduate with a 4.0 at City College with my Masters in my teaching concentration. I have no aspirations of leaving the profession, but only to continue to become a stronger teacher, a more informed citizen within the "de-form" movement, and a more-informed advocate for my students and the community I teach in as a special education teacher.

If TfA is to truly advocate for educational equity, it should recognize that its current model doesn't reflect on its motto by any means. The more experience a teacher becomes, the stronger that teacher is within all areas of what makes a teacher. Borrowing from TfA's website motto, to me, consistency and experience are both essential in order to, yes, "ensure true educational opportunity for all."

I am a teacher and, to me, a long-term commitment with a strong focus on teacher growth in all facets is necessary to foster true education growth in their students. Not a two-year stint that'll allow candidates to use the thousands of children they teach in high poverty areas as "a (metaphorical) stepping stone to a career in business.”

Thank you again, Dr. Naison.

- Brent, FCLC '09

Robert:

By now there must be hundreds of thousands of TFA vets. I don't think it makes much sense to stereotype them as slumming white careerists. Nor is it safe to assume that students
at elite colleges are children of privilege. Many students at those schools get financial aid, work 2 or 3 jobs to make ends meet, and go deeply in debt to pay their tuition. I agree with Mark that
it would be better if TFA teachers stayed on longer. But this is a problem that goes way beyond TFA since many non-TFA teachers leave the teaching profession within 5 years.
I do not agree with the TFA quickie approach to teacher education and think it contributes to the problems TFA teachers have and to their abandoning teaching so quickly. Much
as I dislike the program, however, I have found those who volunteer for it are diverse -- and include some very committed radicals of all races -- as well as the careerists alluded to in these
e-mails.

Janet:
Hi Robert,

While you are right that not all elite college graduates are alike,some do come from the working class,you are worrying about the wrong people. They ALL will be fine! You should be worrying about the poor students who were denied their rightful education because their untrained, clueless TFA teachers,as well meaning and intelligent as they are, are totally unequipped to teach urban unskilled youth and after one or 2 years, they have hardly begun to learn how to teach.I talk from experience,from the trenches, having been a NYC teacher for 45 years and afterwards, a mentor to TFA and teaching fellows! Doesn't anyone care about the students?
Janet Mayer, author of AS BAD AS THEY SAY? Three Decades of Teaching in the Bronx.

Helen

I agree with most of you and your assessment of TFA. I even agree to a slight extent with one of you who took the position that not all of the candidates are elites who are marking time while waiting to enter the career for which they prepared themselves. I do, however, think that is a very small percentage.

Coincidently, last week, I met a prominent gentlemen who lived in one of the most affluent Chicago suburbs. While discussing education, he revealed that his son is an executive with TFA. I gave him my card and asked to have his son call me to discuss the failings of the program and its misguided intentions and directions. I'm still awaiting the call which may never come!

Children don't need pity from those who feel they are doing them a favor; they don't need people who are not dedicated to enriching their lives to prepare them for lifetime learning which will lead to their success; and, they don't need teachers whose attention is divided between what they are doing and what they really want to do.

I pray that some of them will fall in love with teaching and make that their lifetime career; but, because I feel they are not properly oriented, they use this as a stepping stone for immediate employment.

Great teachers are born! Great teachers love what they do for children! Great teachers inspire and motivate students to reach their full potential! Unless one has this calling, that person does not belong in a classroom.

We have to be on guard and wary of the military/industrial complex, the prison/industrial complex and now the education/industrial complex. Those who are filled with greed have found yet another revenue source and they are exploiting it for all it's worth. We must fight for public education! We must fight to be respected as the professionals we are! We must stay united in order to do what is in the best interest of children.

TFA is not that entity! Helen

Mark Naison:

Robby and Janet

I would like to see someone do a longitudinal study comparing what happens to a group of TFA recruits, and the students they have worked with, for a period of 10 years I would bet large amounts of money that the differences in how their lives turn out would be astounding- a veritable "tale of two countries." I would venture to say that very few, if any, TFA members will end up in prison, unemployed, or living in poverty, while a portrait of their former students would tell a different story.

This is not TFA's fault, but their failure to acknowledge the limited impact their organization has had on entrenched poverty and racism in the US, as well as the reputation
joining TFA has gained as a form of resume padding for careers outside teaching, suggests we can count on little help from this organization in combating social inequality in
the US. Unless TFA corps members are radicalized by their experience, TFA is more part of the problem than part of the solution!

Best Mark,

Sighs of Relief as UFT Snatches Defeat From the Jaws of Victory

2011-06-24T19:42:00.000-07:00

Friday, June 25, 10:30PM -
LAST UPDATED SAT JUNE 26 - 8:30AM
SEE IN DEPTH ANALYSIS BY REALITY BASED EDUCATOR

Planning a sabbatical next year (2012-13)? Forget it. UFT has suspended them, perhaps with other givebacks, to avoid the emergency layoffs that a 3.2 billion dollar surplus necessitates. -Arthur Goldstein, chapter leader at Francis Lewis HS on Facebook

Protesters have come up the steps and are yelling, banging and chanting loudly outside front door of Tweed. Feels like Tweed is under attack- Tweet from Lindsay Christ, NY 1

Looks like our pals at Bloombergville are not happy. Imagine if they were joined by teachers with cancelled sabbaticals and the ATRs. Both group are losers in this settlement.

I use "relief" in the headline with irony as people are rejoicing over the deal between the UFT and Bloomdud to avoid layoffs. Bloomberg was bluffing, trying to use the layoff threat to browbeat everyone into giving up seniority. When that didn't work it was clear he wasn't going to lay off his favorite Teach for America and E$E newbies. We were also reporting a high number of retirees and scuttlebutt from the schools that so many 3rd teachers who had their tenure extended were disgusted enough to leave the system. We also felt that the system could not be run without some level of chaos if it lost so much personnel. [NOTE: thanks to Unity slug for pointing out that sabbaticals are for the 2012-13 year - still a loss and another part of the contract sold off even if people think it is minor - anyway, who is going to teach long enough to even get a sabbatical?]

So given that Bloomberg was in a box, the UFT handed him a crowbar.

Here was a chance to force them to cut out the bullshit consultants and high priced programs but someone blinked.

On the other hand, next year when Bloomberg tries it again who will believe him? But by that time they may have browbeaten seniority protections out of the system. If I were an ATR I would be worried as they are target number one. Is there anything in this deal that opens up the door to going after them since they are Bloomberg's major target?

Then there's the fact that even though no layoffs, there is attrition - with retirements and the fed-ups gone how many less personnel will there be?

Well, by the reactions, people seem happy so far because they look at this short term. I'm with Reality Based Educator who commented on this post:

I think the agreement should have been that the CityTime and DOE tech consultants work as per diem subs, but only in their own districts. Well, at least the ones that haven't been arrested for stealing.

I'm Hot, You're Not: The Longest Day Redux (And I Get Treated Like a Dad)

2011-06-24T08:55:00.000-07:00

Boy my behind is behind. Here is a follow-up to Tuesday's (June 21) The Longest Day. And was it long. I got home at 10:30 and fell into a rare full-night's sleep.

NOTE: THE ENTIRE YOGA CLASS IS ONLINE FOR VIEWING HERE.

HOT Yoga
No, I didn't get to Times Square in time to get a mat (they gave me a piece of cardboard), or even a good spot in any of the 3 main locations for the 12:30 Bikram yoga class. I ended up on the sidewalk in front of the Marriott, gazing wistfully up at my favorite 8th floor bar where we love to get a drink before or after a show while looking down on Broadway.

There had to be thousands of people in 3 or 4 holding areas from 48th St down to 45th. Now, Bikram is HOT Yoga in 100 degree rooms so even though it was warm out, this was fairly light stuff for me. By the end of the hour and a half class I was sweaty but not drenched. Sometime during the class I realized that I could go up to the Marriott bathroom and clean up a bit before my next ventures. And so I did after class ended at 2pm. Here is a video link and another one from my Blackberry.

NAACP/UFT in court
I called Mona Davids from the Marriott to see if they were still at the court house for the UFT/NAACP law suit and I headed down there but all I saw was the NY 1 truck and one of their camera women, so I was too late for the dueling press conferences. At least the NAACP and UFT haven't sold out - yet. (Remember last year how the UFT settled with the DOE during the summer for more resources for the closing schools and spend the year crying about how the DOE violated the agreement - DUH!) I don't know, I smell a sell-out since the DOE/Charter tag team always will win as long as the UFT doesn't get into the full match instead of looking for ways out.

Here is a good report from Leonie:

The courtroom was so full of an army of attorneys for the charter schools today that only five people were initially let in the room who weren’t attorneys or press. Only one of these lawyers actually participated in the arguments, a Paul Weiss attorney; and he didn’t seem to impress the judge very much.

GS says these firms are representing the charters for free—two of them representing Eva’s chain. Outrageous that corporate America should represent them for free; where are these law firms when it comes to representing public school parents? Thank god for Stroock, the UFT ‘s law firm, and Chuck Moerdler, who did an excellent job in court today.

http://gothamschools.org/2011/06/21/five-things-to-know-about-todays-uft-naacp-lawsuit-hearing/

The firms are heavy-hitting corporate practices, all of which are representing the charters pro-bono. They are Kirkland & Ellis LLP (New Visions High School, New Visions School for Advanced Math and Science, Teaching Firms of America, Invictus Prep), Arnold & Porter LLP (Upper West Success Academy), Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP (Bronx Success 1 and 2 and Brooklyn Success), SNR Denton (Explore Excel, KIPP Infinity, Harlem Children’s Zone Promise Academy 1 and 2 and East Harlem Scholars).

Check out all the stories at Gotham. And I put up Leonie's take-down of Beth Fertig's coverage of the suit on NPR at Norms Notes: Parents Slam NPR Education Coverage

City Hall Press Conference

Next I went over the City Hall for the May 12 coalition press conference with many of the Coalition for Educational Justice groups showing where the money to be saved could be found. A bunch of politicians were there organizing the event. I often have mixed feelings about CEJ stuff for complex reasons (sometimes unseemly ties to the UFT)- as do other activists in NYC - but the work they do has to be supported. The press conference was followed by a march around City Hall Park after which we went over to join the crew at Bloombegville on the corner of Park and Broadway where they are camping out. See some more pics I took below.

I shot some of the press conference but there are vids up on you tube already from others (links will be here when I get them). Here is a short piece that shows the march from City Hall over to Bloombergville on Broadway and Park.

Dad for a day: Julie Cavangh treats
I had a 5PM meeting so I left Bloombergville and headed uptown. After the meeting Julie Cavanagh took me out for a "father's" day dinner of fish 'n chips. She used to introduce me as her advocacy husband but since I'm exactly twice her age "dad" seems more appropriate. Sometimes she refers to me as "grandpa" during my increasing senior moments.

Last summer, Julie asked me what my goal was. I answered, "Finding 50 more like you." I'll take 5.

It is hard to realize that I know Julie less than 2 years since we have done so many projects together. I've proudly watched her go from zero to sixty at super speed as an activist. Her activism stems from her concern for the children and parents she works with - the invasion of PS 15 by PAVE charter school has helped create a force of nature.

A year and a half ago no one knew who she was. Now there is not an event where she is not in demand or an activist who is not in touch with her. She will be in Chicago and Washington DC in July and will begin to play a role in the national stage. Her ability to organize, get things done and lead is unparalleled. And she will also be taking on the job of chapter leader at her school. Oy! She's never attended a Delegate Assembly. This will be fun to watch.

But for all the accolades (Leonie Haimson at the Skinny Awards dinner called her one of only two people she's met who have star power - Diane Ravitch is the other) Julie has also proven to be one of the kindest, most generous, supportive, people I've ever met with some of the best instincts to do the right thing based on moral imperatives that sometimes leave me shameful at my inattentiveness – her giving me hell for throwing my gum in the gutter because pigeons might choke on it made me feel like a heathen - though a car would get them way sooner than my gum. Now I walk around with gum stuck in my pockets.

While she often mentions me as one of her mentors, I have learned a lot more from her than she has from me (like loving animals as opposed to loving just your own animal). She insists on doing things right and is often a demanding perfectionist – that doesn't always mesh well with my often slovenly "it's good enough for government work" attitude. She is someone I listen too all the time and she should be credited as the first person to have the ability to shut me up with one look. I'm a proud poppa indeed.

Well, those fish 'n chips were sure good. Too bad she's a veggie or I would have tried to wangle Peter Lugers for next year.

Well, at least Julie has promised to come visit me when I end up in the nursing home. But then again, so has my 93 year old dad who at our visit to his doctor the other day told her his only problem was that he doesn't have a young woman. I reminded him that young to him is a woman in her 80's.

Photos from the City Hall Rally

SOS March in Washington July 28-31 - GEM Participation

2011-06-23T20:17:00.000-07:00

Members of the Grassroots Education Movement are excited to be participating in the SOS march and activities in Washington from July 28-July31. Our film will have a double concurrent showing on the evening of July 29 at American University, the night before the big march. We also found out that cites around the nation are supporting the event with their own activities. Our film will be shown on July 30 in Las Vegas and Tuscon. Here is an update from Julie Cavanagh, who is coordinating for GEM:

This week Diane Ravitch wrote a piece detailing why she is marching with the Save Our School Coalition this July: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2011/06/why_i_am_marching_on_july_30.html. (Please share widely)

The weekend in DC, with the march set for Saturday, July 30th, is shaping up to be an exciting event with real education reformers from around the country lined up to give workshops and speak and there will be a film series as well: http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org/

The Grassroots Education Movement will be there presenting a workshop on Thursday, July 28th on building grassroots power and parent-teacher-student- community partnerships and our film, The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman, will be screened twice on Friday evening.

Please consider attending the SOS march. Visit the site, donate to the cause, and hope to see you there in July!

GEM has a committee working on plans for the march. If there is anything we can do to support you in your plans to attend please let us know. We are working on organizing a NYC contingent, more information to come. In the meantime, Amtrak is offering discounts for the weekend of the march. The information is below, make your reservation now!

To all SOS WASHINGTON DC Marchers: Get a discount on your trip!!

*** AMTRAK OFFERING DISCOUNTED FARE ***

TO EVERYONE ATTENDING THE SAVE OUR SCHOOLS MARCH....

Amtrak will offer a 10% discount off the best available

rail fare to ( Washington , DC ) between (July 25, 2011 – August 03, 2011).

To book a reservation call: Amtrak at 1 (800) 872-7245.

Ask for: Save Our Schools March Convention Rate-X08H - 929.

*** MUST BOOK VIA PHONE, NOT VIA INTERNET! ***

This COUNTS FROM ANYWHERE IN THE US. YOU CAN USE IT FOR ONE WAY OR ROUND TRIP!!!!

Leonie Haimson summarizes court hearings in the school closure/co-location lawsui - June 22

2011-06-23T06:27:00.000-07:00

On June 22 Oral arguments were heard in the UFT/NAACP school closing/co-location lawsuit. State Supreme Court Judge Paul Feinman’s courtroom was packed, mostly with attorneys and reporters, so crowded that initially the guards let in only about five unaffiliated observers (including me.) The cadre of charter school lawyers was especially immense; about 25 of them, all apparently pro-bono. The city sent a handful of lawyers, including Michael Best, and the UFT/NAACP had a small contingent from Stroock, Stroock and Lavan.

Chuck Moerdler, Stroock’s senior litigator, started by saying he had only three main points: One, that the case could be streamlined, because DOE agrees that they need approval from the State Education Department before they can close 12 out of the 19 schools; and yet they have not even filed any applications to do so, as the State Education Commissioner confirmed just that morning.

Second, last year, there was an signed agreement between the UFT and DOE to provide extra help to these schools, as part of settling the previous lawsuit, including an “education plan” that would provide them with more teachers in the ATR pool (absent teacher reserve) and support in myriad ways.

Whether or not that agreement was a binding contract, there was an “obligation of good faith” that DOE had utterly failed to live up to. At Beach Channel HS, for example, the DOE agreed to send 11 ATR teachers , but two never showed up, and another was “illegally” asked to teach special needs students. At Columbus HS, twenty five classes in the fall did not have a single teacher, and the single ATR teacher they sent was only qualified to teach typing and stenography (!) which the school does not offer. At Jamaica HS, where they were supposed to provide a Teacher Center, the principal received an email about this on June 10, only a few weeks ago, following nearly a full school year of non-action.

Third, as to the charter co-locations: DOE put boilerplate language into the Building Utilizations Plans, they were empty of content until the UFT/NAACP lawsuit was filed; they are still rewriting the BUPS and redoing all the hearings to try to repair the deficiencies, but they are still not adequate.

In any case, these BUPs are “ wholesale revisions,” and according to state law, any “significant” revision of a building plan requires a new six-month waiting period before the start of the next school year when the co-location can occur. It is now far too late in the year. Moerdler went through a litany of some of the unfair and inequitable co-locations that are still being contemplated, with children at the district schools losing equitable access to bathrooms, libraries, gyms, etc. He argued that the “city of NY which has betrayed” these schools by their failed promises, and that the NYC DOE has one goal only: “the destruction of free public education in New York City.”

The city’s attorney, Chlarens Orsland, was up next. He said that the DOE was “working with State Education Department” to ensure they would get approval to close these 12 schools and that they expected a decision by July 31. The other seven schools (ironically those not on the state’s failing list) can be closed without the state’s approval. He denied that there was any agreement with set timelines to provide extra support to these schools; and cited an affidavit from former Chancellor Joel Klein, who disputed the UFT’s interpretation of this agreement.

( Klein’s affidavit says that the “agreement was never intended to be a mechanism to limit or forestall any of the DOE’s determinations as to the necessity of closing or co-locating schools. Rather, the portion of the letter agreement providing for the Education Plan was a mechanism to ensure that the 19 schools, which had a history of poor performance and student outcomes, received additional resources to enrich the students’ educational experience.”)

READ MORE AT THE NYC PUBLIC SCHOOL PARENT BLOG

Yesterday's court hearings in the school closure/co-location lawsuit

newsclips on the hearings, see GothamSchools, Post, Times, NY1, WNYC.

Monday June 27: Planned school walkout and march to Tweed by parents of special ed students in Williamsburg/Bed-Stuy (District 14) out to protest Eva Moskowitz Invasion of IS 33

2011-06-23T02:36:00.000-07:00

Ed Notes will be there to cover this. I was at the public hearing on June 16 and Khem Irby and I spoke (Norm Scott and Khem Irby take on Success Charter N...) after which we connected up with some of the parents who are organizing this event. GEM/CPE's David Dobosz who lives in the area has been working with them.

June 22, 2011
Good morning to everyone,

My name is Basilica EL Johnson and I am the P.T.A. President of The Star/P368 program in District 70. I am also the parent of a 10 year old Autistic son who is in attendance in the public school program. My purpose for contacting your organization is request your presence/participation in a school walk out to protest the opening of Success Academy at K03370 Tompkins Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11206 in School District 14. The school site currently houses three schools, including Urban Assembly School for the Urban Environment-14K330, an existing DOE district middle school that serves sixth through eighth grade, Foundations Academy-14K322, an existing high school that serves nine through twelfth grade and an existing District 75 school-75K368,"P368@I033K. The building also houses an Alternative Learning Center-88K988, a suspension center serving students in ninth through twelfth.

The Success Academy will alter the gymnasium space allocated for the children of District 70, which includes a population of Autistic, Learning Disabled and Emotionally Disturbed. That will be the beginning of no end. Once the Success Academy is in place, it will start devouring space like the beginning stages of a Cancer growth that spreads until it has consumed the entire entity. This is evident at P.S. 15 in Red Hook, Brooklyn where special education students are receiving their services in hallways and stairwells, all so that PAVE Academy Charter School can have more classrooms. Or, at P.S. 241, in Harlem, where public school students are now forced to learn in basement classrooms bordering the boiler room, all so that Harlem Success Academy Charter School can have more space upstairs. What actions are to be taken next? Our children with special needs are all going to be place in a one room school setting, where all classifications are to co-mingle together receiving services that are mandated to receive on their I.E.P. as per federal regulations order i.e DOE?

Therefore, we as parents of Autistic children, all children with special needs and/ or challenges are taking a stand to say NO MORE! Our children have been short changed and pushed aside for too long. And let it be dually noted that Autistic children do not conforn to change readily and acceptably. Please join us at 70 Tompkins Avenue, Brooklyn to march from this site and travel to Tweed at 52 Chambers Street, NYC. Help us send a message to Eva Moskowitz, a former city-council member with no former teaching qualifications and whose only interest is that of her being the CEO of Success Academy, that we do not want Change at our school. Help us to send a message to DOE that public schools matter. And our children matter.

Thank you humbly,
Basilica EL-Johnson

email: tom.n.tinys.house@gmail.com

70 Tompkins Avenue
Between Martin Luther King, Jr. Place & Stockholm Street
Brooklyn, NY 11206
Date: June 27, 2011 @ 8:30am

Dr. Mark Naison - Teach for America and Me: A Failed Courtship

2011-06-22T13:14:00.000-07:00

UPDATED: Sat., June 26, 9AM

This June 23 post has reveived a lot of comment and interest as just about anything on TFA does. In addition to the comments below the post there have been a lot of comments on Mark Naison's listserve. I just posted a bunch of them in a follow-up.
So after reading this and the comments, check back in for lots more:

Follow-up: Comments on Mark Naison Teach for America Post

June 23

The following was sent by Mark Naison to his listserve and has sparked a number of comments which I will compile, post in another blog and keep adding to as the come in. I will post links to this piece and the follow-ups on the side panel.- Norm

Every spring without fail, a Teach for America recruiter approaches me and asks if they can come to my classes and recruit students for TFA, and every year, without fail, I give them the same answer: “Sorry. Until Teach for America changes its objective to training lifetime educators and raises the time commitment to five years rather than two, I will not allow TFA to recruit in my classes. The idea of sending talented students into schools in high poverty areas and then after two years, encouraging them to pursue careers in finance, law, and business in the hope that they will then advocate for educational equity rubs me the wrong way”

It was not always thus. Ten years ago, when a Teach for America recruiter first approached me, I was enthusiastic about the idea of recruiting my most idealistic and talented students for work in high poverty schools and allowed the TFA representative to make presentations in my classes, which are filled with Urban Studies and African American Studies majors. Several of my best students applied, all of whom wanted to become teachers, and several of whom came from the kind of high poverty neighborhoods TFA proposed to send its recruits to teach in.

Not one of them was accepted! Enraged, I did a little research and found that TFA had accepted only four of the nearly 100 Fordham students who applied. I become even more enraged when I found out from the New York Times that TFA had accepted 44 out of a hundred applicants from Yale that year. Something was really wrong here if an organization who wanted to serve low income communities rejected every applicant from Fordham who came from those communities and accepted half of the applicants from an Ivy League school where very few of the students, even students of color, come from working class or poor families.

Since that time, the percentage of Fordham students accepted has marginally increased, but the organization has done little to win my confidence that it is seriously committed to recruiting people willing to make a lifetime commitment to teaching and administering schools in high poverty areas.
Never, in its recruiting literature, has Teach for America described teaching as the most valuable professional choice that an idealistic, socially conscious person can make, and encourage the brightest students to make teaching their permanent career. Indeed, the organization does everything in its power to make joining Teach for America seem a like a great pathway to success in other, higher paying professions. Three years ago, the TFA recruiter plastered the Fordham campus with flyers that said “Learn how joining TFA can help you gain admission to Stanford Business School.” To me, the message of that flyer was “use teaching in high poverty areas a stepping stone to a career in business.” It was not only profoundly disrespectful of every person who chooses to commit their life to the teaching profession, it advocated using students in high poverty areas as guinea pigs for an experiment in “resume padding” for ambitious young people

In saying these things, let me make it clear that my quarrel is not with the many talented young people who join Teach for America, some of whom decide to remain in the communities they work in and some of whom become lifetime educators. It is with the leaders of the organization who enjoy the favor with which TFA is regarded with captains of industry, members of Congress, the media, and the foundation world, and have used this access to move rapidly to positions as heads of local school systems, executives in Charter school companies, and educational analysts in management consulting firms. The organization”s facile circumvention of the grinding, difficult but profoundly empowering work of teaching and administering schools has created the illusion that there are quick fixes , not only for failing schools, but for deeply entrenched patterns of poverty and inequality. No organization has been more complicit that TFA in the demonization of teachers and teachers unions, and no organization has provided more “shock troops” for Education Reform strategies which emphasize privatization and high stakes testing. Michelle Rhee, a TFA recruit, is the poster child for such policies, but she is hardly alone.

Her counterparts can be found in New Orleans ( where they led the movement toward a system dominated by charter school) in New York ( where they play an important role in the Bloomberg Education bureaucracy) and in many other cities.

And that elusive goal of educational equity. How well has it advanced in the years TFA has been operating? Not only has there been little progress, in the last fifteen years, in narrowing the test score gap by race and class, but income inequality has become greater, in those years, than any time in modern American history. TFA has done nothing to promote income redistribution, reduce the size of the prison population, encourage social investment in high poverty neighborhoods, or revitalize arts and science and history in the nation’s schools. It’s main accomplishment has been to marginally increase the number of talented people entering the teaching profession, but only a small fraction of those remain in the schools to which they were originally sent.

But the most objectionable aspect of Teach for America –other than its contempt for lifetime educators- is its willingness to create another pathway to wealth and power for those already privileged, in the rapidly expanding Educational Industrial Complex, which offers numerous careers for the ambitious and well connected. An organization which began by promoting idealism and educational equity has become, to all too many of its recruits, a vehicle for profiting from the misery of America’s poor.

Dr Mark Naison

Fordham University

NYC Screenings of "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman" Thursday, Saturday, Sunday

2011-06-22T05:57:00.000-07:00

Thursday, June 24, 4:30

New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE) & the Public Science Project (PSP) Invite you to a screening of: Grassroots Education Movement's “The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For Superman."

What: Screening of “The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For Superman” When: June 23, 2011 Time: 4:30 PM Where: The Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue at 34th street, Room# 6304.01 Welcome Message: Members from the Public Science Project, Center for Immigrant Families, NYCoRE, and the Grassroots Education Movement (GEM-NY). Post-Screening Discussion: Participants will reflect on the film and share strategies around organizing within our local communities. Questions/RSVP: info@nycore.org *Please bring photo ID Visit the official film website at: www.waitingforsupermantruth.org Also... *Join NYCoRE for our end of the school year happy hour after the screening from 6 to 8 PM! Galway Hooker @ 7 East 36th Street (2 Blocks from the Graduate Center)

Saturday, June 26, 1pm
District 17 CEC (Crown Heights)
Film is being shown at 1:00 PM and discussion is after. They are also showing WFS in the morning at 10:00 AM. Reps from the, Special ed office, NAACP, DOE, some charter office will be present.

Where: Middle School 246
72 Veronica Place
Brooklyn, NY, 11226
(Snyder & Albemarle)

SUNDAY - 3PM - Baldwin Long Island church screening (still waiting for details)
Screening will be from 3 - 4:15 at First Presbyterian Church of Baldwin, 717 St. Luke's Place, Baldwin. One block west of Grand Ave. Public parking across the street.

MORE SCREENINGS AROUND THE NATION:

Chicago:
Screening: Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Lane Tech High School (one of the largest schools and where CTU leader Karen Lewis taught chemistry for
2501 W. Addison
Chicago, IL 60618

12:30p with discussion to follow. We expect at least 75 teachers to attend.

This is a tremendous film, and a timely response/contribution... labor unions and teachers are under attack and we appreciate that this film dispels the charter school myths infecting our community (teachers included!).

------------------

Washington DC Teachers Union held a screening Saturday

Join us on Saturday, June 18, 2011 @3:30 pm

Thank you and the Grassroots Education Movement for providing us an excellent education reform documentary. We had great discussions and questions from all during our forum. Unfortunately, both DC Mayor Gray and DC Council Chairman Brown were not able to attend because "previously scheduled commitments." We will continue to invite them to participate in upcoming forums. Please find attached pictures, printed program and flyer from our most recent forum (Fix Our Public Schools, Don't Privatize! DC Premiere Screening "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For "Superman").
Again, thank you Grassroots Education Movement for this important documentary.

In Solidarity,
Willie

Los Angeles

My local union, UTLA is showing your film this week and I was so excited to see a real dialogue alive and vibrant. I started a blog a few months back called "Becoming Superwoman" meaning that we must all become fearless leaders in real, authentic educational reform. So many times, we are put on the defense regarding contracts, benefits, test scores and it is time to stand up and it takes so much away from the conversation that needs to happen. I am beyond waiting!
Please check out my blog at www.becomingsuperwoman.weebly.com.

I am putting together a MeetUp group to organize a dialogue in my local area (Los Angeles). I am proud to say that I am a slightly below average teacher in LAUSD according to my AVG score, so I must be doing something right. If i ever teach to the test, it is with full disclosure that this is the power game of the day, so you might as well beat it, but I know too well that my students are more than just a test score derived from 4-5 days of testing annually. I know that they are more than what I know of them as i meet them crammed into our small classrooms, their 35 or more bodies.

Sincerely,
Paula Cohen
LAUSD Teacher

-------------------
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

GEM's Mollie Bruhn Part of Move.On Event Thursday -

2011-06-22T05:01:00.000-07:00

I haven't told you much about Mollie Bruhn who has worked with GEM from its earliest days. Mollie was a key player in putting together "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman" and her apartment is the home of Real Reform Studios. (Her partner Darren Marelli did the amzing editing of the film.) Mollie, a former charter school teacher who was fired for asking too many questions, authored the GEM pamphlet "The Truth About Charters." She teaches kindergarten in Bushwick and is one of the Teach for America alums still in the classroom after 6 years.

Mollie sent this:

This past Friday, I was interviewed by a group of people working with Moveon.org. They are launching a new campaign, called "Rebuild the Dream," and will be live-streaming a program hosted by Van Jones this Thursday. (http://www.rebuildthedream.com/) Part of my interview will be included in this presentation. They interviewed a bunch of people who have had to deal with budget cuts/the economic downturn. I spoke mainly about class size increases and education funding cuts. Van Jones' presentation is going to be focused on exposing the truth about what is happening with our economy (We're not really broke!).
I randomly fell into doing this interview (Leonie recommended me and urged me to do it. Thanks Leonie!) and don't exactly know what shape the presentation/live stream on Thursday will take, but wanted to share the info below with all of you if you are interested in tuning in.

And Leonie this:

On Thursday, MoveOn is launching a new national campaign called Rebuild the Dream, with an ad that includes Mollie Bruhn, NYC teacher, talking about the effect that budget cuts would have on her school.
It will start w/ a concert/presentation by Van Jones at Town Hall on Thursday night; be sure to tune into the link below.
Click here to RSVP and make sure you're logged on and tuned in at 8:15 p.m. ET this Thursday.

Be part of the movement to Rebuild the Dream!

READ THE MoveOn announcement below

Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2011 12:50:21 -0700
From: moveon-help@list.moveon.org

Thursday night, the revolution will be live streamed. So get in on the launch of Rebuild the Dream on Thursday at 8:15 p.m. ET. It will be part tent revival and part concert, featuring the truth about our economy from inspirational leader Van Jones. Click here to RSVP and catch it online in HD.

RSVP Now

Dear MoveOn member,

This Thursday night at 8:15 ET, we're hosting a one-of-a-kind online event, and you're invited!

It's the launch of a new organization called Rebuild the Dream, which is dedicated to creating an economy that works for ALL of us and to stopping the attacks on the middle class and working Americans.

The launch event will be An Inconvenient Truth for our economy—on steroids. It's equal parts tent revival, dance party, and gripping story about what's happened to our economy and how we turn it around.

It will be led by green jobs visionary and former White House advisor Van Jones. And while he lays out the truth about our economy, hip-hop megastars The Roots and world-renowned visual artist and DJ Shepard Fairey will back him up with some amazing music. I've seen the rehearsals, and it's simply astounding.

We'd love to have you join us for the live stream, in HD. And because a mass movement requires mass bandwidth, please RSVP to let us know you'll be watching!

Click here to RSVP and make sure you're logged on and tuned in at 8:15 p.m. ET this Thursday.

Rebuild the Dream is an organization dedicated to building the American Dream movement—the answer to the question: Will we fight alone and lose, or will we stand together and win?

Young graduates and returning veterans who can't find a job shouldn't stand alone. Families losing their homes to the banks that they bailed out shouldn't stand alone. Seniors having their Medicare slashed and the poor and disabled having their Medicaid gutted shouldn't stand alone.

This is not a coalition—it's a movement of people standing together. It's a banner under which we can all be proud to march. It's a movement dedicated to the enduring values and principles that we share, not the election of any individual.

Those values and principles will be enshrined in a Contract for the American Dream, which we'll build together from the ground up. That starts in July with house meetings in every congressional district across the country.

And this Thursday night it all starts with the truth—live streamed into your home.

Click here to RSVP and make sure you're logged on and tuned in at 8:15 p.m. ET this Thursday.

Thanks for all you do,

–Justin, Peter, Marika, Stephen, and the rest of the team

P.S. Over the past several weeks we've been spreading the "we are being lied to" message with creative and confrontational on-the-ground action. It's taken off quickly and generated a lot of attention. Click here to see the video that's creating all the buzz.

Column for The Wave: The Longest Day

2011-06-21T07:57:00.000-07:00

This column will appear in print on Friday, June 25 but is pertinent for today's activities.

The Longest Day

By Norm Scott

June 21, 2011
I’m writing this on the morning of the first day of summer. When summer officially hits at 1:16PM I expect to be in Times Square taking a Bikram yoga class with well over a thousand other people (I’ve been ably prepared after a decade of Anita Ruderman’s classes at Hot Yoga on 116^th St.) The first thousand people who show up get a free mat and a water bottle so I gotta write quickly or I’ll be doing yoga on concrete.

Following that I’m heading to the NYS Supreme court on Centre St. for a rally supporting the NAACP/UFT suit to keep closing schools open, including Beach Channel (where the grad rate went up, which was noted on NPR), after which I’m off to a press conference with parent and student groups at the Tweed Courthouse at 3pm where they will present alternative budget and revenue raisers. An ad hoc group in Staten Island held a standing room only town hall meeting last week where all kinds of wasted money was found in the city budget (see my June 19 blog posting for a list).

At 7PM it’s off to Bloombergville (the current incarnation of the famous depression era Hoovervilles) at City Hall Park where education activists have been sleeping in and rallying. The web site, bloombergvillenow.org/ says: Since June 14, people of Bloombergville have been camping out across from City Hall to oppose major cutbacks in social services and thousands of layoffs by the Bloomberg Administration. Bloombergville has maintained a presence of a few dozen to 150 people around the clock within view of the Mayor’s office. We’re students, activists, and concerned citizens, average New Yorkers most affected by the $400,000,000 of proposed cuts to the city’s budget. (For a fun Bloombergville video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=v2TimS0t_VQ)

It should still be daylight when I roll back into Rockaway. But drat, tomorrow the days start getting shorter.

Yes, Let’s Throw Money At Education

I appeared as a guest along with fellow Grassroots Education Movement (GEM) pal and parent activist Lisa Donlan on the WBAI program “Ethics on the Air” last week. I was asked about fixing schools and I offered the simplest advice I could think of: double the staff – teachers, social workers, guidance counselors, aides, paras, custodians. Whatever it takes. A caller asked, “Isn’t that just throwing money at the problem?” “YES. When have we ever really thrown money at the problems in education? Why not try it?” I suggested we swap the defense and education budgets and see if America is a better place for all its citizens after a few years. I find it interesting that a recent study funded by the right wing suggests that reducing class size is not cost effective. But a billion dollars materializes out of thin air to bomb Libya. On the first day one of our super hundreds of million dollar planes crashed. How many less kids in a class would one of those suckers fund?

“The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman” reaches six continents and 50 states

Our GEM produced film has gotten almost 2000 requests from teachers, parents, union officials and even from school superintendents – a demonstration of the anguish ed deformers and their propaganda film “Waiting for Superman” have caused in education circles around the nation and the world. And people are not just watching in the comfort of their homes but are setting up viewings in schools, libraries, churches (there will be a showing in a church in Baldwin LI this Sunday) and larger venues. I have to share this email with you, perfect for a day I’m taking a mass Bikram yoga class:

(See the previous post from India here).

When Diane Ravitch saw this email she tweeted it to her 13,000 followers with a link to order the dvd. Looks like those 4000 copies we had made up will be going, going, gone.

Well, I gotta go and start practicing saying “namaste” so I blend in with the thousands of others. I may just be humming “We don’t need no education, we don’t need no school control” throughout the class.

Norm blogs at http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/. Email him at normsco@gmail.com if you are interested in seeing the film.

"The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman" Reaches India

2011-06-21T05:46:00.000-07:00

We've been telling you that we have requests from all 50 states and 6 continents. Many of the comments demonstrate the impact ed deform has had all over the world. (Today the film is being shown at Lane HS in Chicago where 75 people are expected to attend.)

Jagdish Madnani to gemnyc

Hey,
Thank you for sending that DVD all the way to India - we really loved it and feel solidarity towards you guys. We hope its OK if we make many copies of it and pass it around - do let us know whether the copyright is held by you or is it under a Creative Commons license. Of course we don't plan to make it a commercial venture, more of an awareness campaign. Some of the issues facing us in India are different but some issues are exactly the same; so this video would help in raising awareness.

By the way, one of us has written a parody of "We don't need no education" by Pink Floyd. Here it goes:

We don’t need no education
We don’t need no school control

No corporatization of the schools now

Corporates leave those schools alone!

All in all

You don’t fit in there at all!

We don’t need no education
We don’t need no system control

No market driven voucher schemes

Privates leave the public alone!

All and all

You don’t fit in there at all!

We don’t need no education

We don’t need no mind control

Plans and rubrics made by others

Let teachers figure out things alone!

All and all

You don’t fit in there at all!

We don’t need no education

We don’t need no performance control

Market driven indicators

Leave complex teacher rating alone!

All and all
You don’t fit in there at all!

Best,
Jagdish & Sriparna

--
“The best things in life are not things

Afterburn from Arizona:
Just wanted you to know that I’m pulling together a panel of educators from both the charter schools (this one, I know they’re good – have a great reputation with kids who have behavioral problems) and public schools. I am lining up educators from diverse backgrounds to make a difference in kids education. So far, I have two educators confirmed.
The public screening of the film will be Saturday, July 16^th from 12:30 to 4:00 p.m. I will be holding a panel discussion with the educators and attendees. This will be at the Juniper Branch Library in Phoenix at 19^th Ave and Union Hills. I will be setting up additional screenings at the Cholla Branch (Metro Center) and Burton Barr (downtown Phoenix) later on. I have no idea where this is going, but it’s a start.
Thank you so much for starting the conversation.

The Lies Arne Duncan Tells: Check Those Charter School Waiting Lists

2011-06-20T04:35:00.000-07:00

My new tactic: whenever charter school proponents talk about their waiting lists ask them to reveal them and watch them run for the hills. Since they are using these "lists" to claim there is demand for their schools which gives them access to public money they should have to make these lists public.

Chicago-based Substance's George Schmidt has been asking for lists for a long time. He discusses the wait list fallacy in this excerpt from this article:

Orwell at the U.S. Department of Education: The lies Arne Duncan previewed while CEO of Chicago's schools are now going viral and national... Arne Duncan claims he speaks for the 'great silent majority' of American teachers... But he's lying again as usual, just as he did in Chicago for eight years

Duncan's teacher bashing policies were so clear by the middle of his time as Chicago schools CEO that he was afraid to appear in uncontrolled settings with real teachers in the school system he served as overseer. He routinely refused to answer questions at press conference that dealt with the factual realities of the Chicago school system, answering every pointed question with the phrase, "I'll get back to you on that..."

I know, because I was usually the only reporter who asked those kinds of questions. By the mid-2000s, the corporate party line in Chicago's mass media had become so tightly controlled that Duncan's utterances, no matter how ridiculous, were treated as "news", while the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times and electronic media simply refused to look at anything behind the lies Duncan was repeating.

Many of those lies became the talking points of the U.S. Department of Education after Barack Obama appointed Duncan (and his current group of "Chicago Boys") to revolutionize the public schools of the entire nation the same way he had been allowed to revolutionize the public schools of the nation's third largest city.

Let me share two examples of the Orwellian nonsense Duncan would routinely spout during press conferences.

As Chicago radically expanded charter schools during the Duncan years, Duncan regularly hosted what amounted to charter school pep rallies, usually co-sponsored by corporate groups that were both anti-union and anti-public schools. At one of those meetings (announcing "Requests for Proposals" for further Chicago charter schools), Duncan floated the claim that the "proof" that charter schools were successful was that charter schools in Chicago (according to Duncan) had "waiting lists."

Whether or not these words are small or bigger lies, they had two pieces which Duncan regularly refused to answer questions about:

First, which charter schools have "waiting lists" and how long are those waiting lists?

Second, because Chicago has a dual school system consisting of a small number of elite elementary and high schools and a vast number of regular public schools, the only comparison that would have been valid would be to compare the fictional "waiting lists" Duncan claimed for the charter schools with the real "waiting lists" for Chicago's selective enrollment schools.

But, as noted, Duncan's answer was "I'll get back to you on that..." Which, of course, he never did.

Over the years, as Duncan kept repeating his mantra about the supposed "waiting lists" for Chicago charter schools, I repeatedly requested the lists to verify what Duncan was claiming. By the end of Duncan's time in Chicago (2008), it was clear that several of Chicago's charter schools and "campuses" were actually suffering enrollment declines and that they had no "waiting list" except in the carefully scripted fictions of Duncan and his media handlers. Because the corporate media refused to follow up with factual questions, however, Duncan could simply repeat his talking points, over and over and over, and those talking points would be repeated as fact in Chicago's corporate media.

The "waiting list" was one of the most notorious.

The other thing I asked for was the "waiting list" for Chicago's most famous selective enrollment public high schools. Again, there was not answer. As everyone familiar with Chicago knows, before elementary school and then at seventh grade, parents scramble to get their kids into the small number of selective elementary and high schools. The most famous of the high schools today are Whitney Young Magnet High School (for decades one of the best public schools in Illinois), Walter Payton magnet high school, and Northside College Prep high school (there are others, but none who have such a large number of applicants). In fact, by the time Duncan was pushing privatization the most, had Whitney Young been allowed to maintain a "waiting list", based on the number of applications Whitney Young would have had a "waiting list" as long as any "waiting list" that could have included all of the city's charter schools.

But Duncan also refused to answer that question, instead returning to the "I'll get back to you on that."

The reason? Duncan's talking points were basically vapid corporate propaganda. And he knows it.

Another example, now national policy, is that claim that certain schools get "100 percent of their graduates into college..."

Chicago began pioneering that BIG Lie under Duncan, with the help of the Chicago Tribune. Chicago's corporate leaders needed a charter school that could float a plausible lie that racists would believe, and for that purpose Chicago's Urban Prep provided the answers. Under Tim King, a relentless promoter, Urban Prep is regularly featured in the Chicago Tribune and elsewhere as an example of some kind of miracle because, according to Urban Prep (and Arne Duncan, and Urban Prep's corporate supporters) "all" of Urban Prep's graduates get into college. That version of reality began in Chicago even before Urban Prep had any graduates, and it's still too soon to claim anything about its meaning, because none of the graduates of Urban Prep (which continues to expand with the support of those who run Chicago) has been in college for four years.

FOR MORE - click below for link

But the lies or Urban Prep actually began even before Urban Prep had any students, and they were simply repeated by Arne Duncan's and Urban Prep's corporate cheerleaders.

Like the "waiting list," the claims about college required some factual checking.

First, Urban Prep, like all Chicago charter schools, dumps its less successful students before they reach their final year. Only this year has a systematic study of that vicious attack on the students begun, thanks to a coalition of community groups, a couple of reporters, and a group of teachers who are keeping close track of the machinations of Chicago's charter schools.

It's easy to get "all" of your 12th graders into college if you eliminate the most risky of those before they reach 12th grade, which is what Arne Duncan allowed Chicago's charter high schools to do for years.

But there is another trick to the claim.

In America today, anyone who graduates from high school can get into a four-year college somewhere.

The only thing a school has to do is make it a prerequisite to graduation that the student apply to and get into a four-year college.

It's that simple. Whether the college is some fly-by-night for-profit or one of the Ivy Leagues (which corporate Chicago pushes for certain of the charter school students, and has been for years, to the detriment of the city's regular public school students, no matter how talented), if all students are required in 12th grade to get into a four-year college (event those who are going to really attend trade school or go into the military), another privatization "miracle" is easy to claim.

From that point on, the Chicago Tribune continues, year after year, to report the story as if it were (a) news and (b) some kind of miracle (because in a racist world, a bunch of African American teenagers getting into college is supposed to be miraculous).

There are dozens of other examples of the mendacity that Arne Duncan rehearsed during his years in Chicago, which are all now national policy and national talking points. But this is as good a start as will be needed as more and more people begin challenging every simplistic attack on teachers and every privatization talking point that comes from the Obama administration through the lips of the current U.S. Secretary of Education.

=====================

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Recheck Those Grad Rates: A School Pimps the Crap

2011-06-19T20:30:00.000-07:00

Multiply this story by thousands and we have an entire lost generation of students under Black&BloomWalKlein. How does that equate with the supposed 61% grad rate or whatever Bloomberg is claiming? And how about that 21% ready for college crew? With stories like this can you believe it is even that high?

Hi Norm,

Once again, I find one of your blog posts totally relevant to my day. In this case, it's the past 3 days. Here's the story of 2 bogus cases.

Case 1 - This is a sixth grade girl who has recently been removed from a class because she threatened to follow the teacher out of the building with friends on the last day of school and "kick [her] ass until [she] dies in the fucking street!" She failed the ELA and math this year. Her ELA teacher, a lovely person was told to go into her portfolio and find ONE piece of work where she got a 2 or 3. Her portfolio was basically empty; what was in there was crap. So the teacher goes to admin and says there ARE no pieces where this child has scored a 2 or 3, and that there is almost no work done at all. She is then told to give the child (along with the 7 others who failed both tests and had no decent portfolio work) a "special" writing assignment, and tell them that if they do a good job and turn it in, they can go to 7th grade. Well, this one child did not turn the assignment in. My friend goes to admin and shows them the crap that WAS turned in by the other 6 and explains that Screaming Banshee did not turn it in. She was told to give Screaming Banshee the assignment again, and sit with her on her prep to get her to write it. So she does and the kid writes about three lines of crap. Again, my friend brings this to admin and is told to take the assignments back and "edit" them, so the final becomes the "rough" draft and a new, "edited" piece becomes the final, and to "edit" so that the finished piece is up to standards. Screaming Banshee still refuses to write another paper, even when all she has to do is copy what my friend wrote on the original piece (which will be tossed because the old final copy will now become the rough draft.) She was then told to sit with the child as they write the final to make "suggestions" along the way, "to ensure that the work is at grade level". So she basically sat with the kid and told her what to write as the kid bitched and moaned about it being a pain in the ass.

Case 2 - Just today, a teacher is leaving to bring a batch of docs to the Dist office. The testing coordinator said to wait - something else needed to go that would be ready in a few minutes. So I sit and wait. About 45' later, the coordinator comes in and said that there was a hold up and she'll have to make the trip later. She went on to say that one of the APs was with a student who also failed the ELA/math and had an empty portfolio, meaning he had to do a "special" assignment. He had flat out refused to do it, so the AP was sitting with him in the conference room until he produced something. He finally did something, but it was crap, so the kid's ELA teacher was called down to "edit" his work and "assist" him in writing his final copy to ensure that it would be the level 3 he needs to pass. The teacher basically wrote the piece for him and at 3:00, the kid was still refusing to copy what the teacher essentially wrote FOR him. And the teacher was told to backdate the work to April or May.

Love it.

----------------------
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

New schedule: Join Bloombergville at 12 and 6 every day

2011-06-19T09:47:00.000-07:00

Please join us every day for Rallies/Public Gatherings at 12 and 6 PM

General Assemblies at 10 AM and 8 PM
Last night we decided at the General Assembly to have rallies or other gatherings at Bloombergville at 12 and 6 every day. This will not only show support for Bloombergville and opposition to budget cuts but also help sustain and recharge the avtivists sleeping here. Your support is vital and we need your presence here to keep us going. We also voted to hold General Assemblies at 10 AM and 8 PM that are open to all.

Today the New York wing of Real Democracia Ya, the group that organized the recent mass Spanish occupations, will be joining us at 12 and we will have a public gathering at 6. Please join us!

SRO at Staten Islanders for Real Budget Solutions & Against the Cuts Town Hall

2011-06-19T04:44:00.000-07:00

A grassroots group has formed to fight the budget cuts - Staten Islanders for Real Budget Solutions: Against the Cuts. On Tuesday, June 14th a standing room only crowd overflowed the 350 seat People's Town Hall Meeting at the JCC on Manor Road. There was a presentation by an economist on where the money really is, followed by people speaking to the cuts and what it means to them.

Our message -

* The poor, working and middle class are paying the price for a crisis that we didn't create. This is simple economics. The answer to the crisis is on the revenue raising side - and that doesn't mean from us. We shouldn't be responding the oft asked question: What should we cut? Following the suggestions of the Beyond May 12th Coalition document, we would like to present an Alter Budget to be delivered by a Staten Island economist who spent 10 years at the Federal Reserve and many more as an economist for Swiss bank.
* We should not pit one agency or service against another. We shouldn't get our piece of the meager pie and go away. We will speak about our issues, our cuts - in one loud voice.

With one voice and many thanx, Loretta Prisco

Alternative Revenue Solutions

Simple: Budgets are made of 2 things: revenue and expenses. If there is a shortfall, there are 2 ways to go – raise revenue or cut expenses. We say “raise revenue”. These taxes would have little effect or no effect on Staten Islanders, by the way.

Real Revenue Options for 2012
Counter the most drastic cuts immediately

• End subsidies to Big 5 Banks……..……....$100 million

• Close hedge fund loopholes……………….$320 million

• Cut NYC contracts to Big 6 Banks..……....$60 million

• Electronic mortgage recording system

must pay fees owed NYC.……………………..$70 million

• Tax millionaires……………………………….....$450 million

• Spend from our $3 billion surplus……$1 billion

Total $2 billion

(May 12 coalition alternative budget plan: Strong Economy For All, Center for Working Families, Fiscal Policy Institute, Good Jobs New York, New Deal for NY)

More Ambitious Options
Invest in our city and its people to rebuild the economy

• Restore commuter tax…….…………....$735 million

• Establish progressive
commuter tax…………………….……...$1.3 billion

• Make insurance companies pay
taxes like other businesses………...…$300 million

• Increase personal income taxes
for the wealthy……………………………...$735 million

Total $2.07 billion (Independent Budget Office)

Next GEM Meeting: Monday, June 20th-- Help Build a Campaign for Test-Free Teacher Evaluations!

2011-06-18T13:45:00.000-07:00

The push for test-based accountability is out of control and seems to have no sign of slowing down. Standardized test scores have already been used in New York City to justify shuttering over a hundred public schools; often times that space is then handed off to education corporations known as charter schools. Now up to 40% of teacher evaluations in New York State could be based on tests, meaning that it would be next to impossible for a teacher to achieve a satisfactory rating with a poor grade on test-based measures.

We know that high-stakes testing narrows the curriculum and leads to teaching to the test. Instead of delivering the kind of challenging lessons which foster critical thinking and create thoughtful citizens, teachers feel pressured into teaching in ways we know are not effective: rote drills and memorization of multiple choice questions from previous exams. Students of color are most likely to fall victim to this kind of low-level instruction, which has become common-place in schools which are obsessed with raising test scores.

Join us for the next meeting of The Grassroots Education Movement to clarify our understanding of the ways in which the addition of test-based measures into teacher evaluations connects to the drive to privatize our public schools AND to build a campaign to advocate for test-free teacher evaluations!

Monday, June 20th, 5pm
CUNY Graduate Center
34th St and 5th Ave
(Please bring ID)

After the discussion on teacher evaluations we will break into action groups focusing on a variety of issues like planning the fight against next year's closings and co-locations, building Fight Back Friday for the fall, the Save our Schools march in July, and of course our test-free teacher evaluation campaign. Please join us! All are welcome!

MUST SEE - Battle for Brooklyn This Weekend at Cinema Village -

2011-06-18T03:06:00.000-07:00

6/18
A group of us from ICE went to see the movie last night and it is a powerful indictment of the corporate-government alliance along the lines of Academy Award winning Charles Ferguson's "Inside Job."

There are also amazing parallels to our own "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman" which Battle for Brooklyn filmmaker Michael Galinsky was kind enough to mention at last night's Q&A. The phony front group paid for by Bruce Ratner designed to divide the community - the Rev Herbert Doughtry and Acorn played a particular nefarious role - reminded us of the charter front groups. So much about the charter movement and the Atlantic yards project rings true.
The main cog in the resistance was Daniel Goldstein, a hero to many and he is the focal point of the film - he was there last night to answer questions.

One sided and proud of it

The NY Times said:
“Battle for Brooklyn,” a documentary about the unending mess that is the Atlantic Yards project, is unabashedly slanted and as a result will probably be dismissed by those it portrays unflatteringly. That’s unfortunate, because this film should be discouraging and dismaying for people on all sides of the project, for what it says about oversize expectations and missed opportunities.

I love when people accuse us of being one-sided - like when the other side has the atom bomb while we have pea-shooters we are supposed to do "fair and balanced." The same was said about our film which someone submitted to HBO where the comment equated us to the multi-million dollar Waiting for Superman and said a third film needs to be done showing the "truth." They can't handle the truth.

REVIEWS:
NY MAG
NY TIMES

Battle For Brooklyn | Film | Movie Review | The A.V. Club

Jun 16, 2011 ... Most viewers should find the documentary Battle For Brooklyn gripping and provocative, no matter their opinions about eminent domain, ...
www.avclub.com/articles/battle-for-brooklyn,57646/

'Battle for Brooklyn' review: Gripping documentary taps into fight ...
Jun 17, 2011 ... We all see the stories in headlines, we all walk past the neighborhood notices. But "Battle for ooklyn," a gripping documentary about how ...
www.nydailynews.com/.../2011-06-17_battle_for_brooklyn_review_gripping_documentary_taps_into_boroughs_soul.html

This weekend is the only showings so far and by supporting the film you will help get it into other theaters. SO GO!!!

AND MAKE SURE YOU GO TO THE RIGHT CINEMA VILLAGE - EAST 12 ST OFF UNIVERSITY (NOT THE ONE ON THE EAST SIDE).

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE TICKETS.

6/16
Michael Galinsky is the director of the movie on the Atlantic Yards and has recently been getting involved in the ed battles as his child goes to a co-located school. He has been very supportive of "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman". His next movie may be aimed at the ed deform crowd. Try to get over to see his movie this weekend to show support for the struggle against corporate takeovers whether in schools or entire neighborhoods.

Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn Newsletter
June 13, 2011

Watch Battle For Brooklyn This Weekend -- Help The Film Go National

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In this issue:
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> Must-see Movie: Battle for Brooklyn Opens June 17th at Cinema Village

> Weds, June 15: UNITY 4 Community Meeting -- Let's Do Better Than an Arena and Acres of Parking
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> Must-see Movie: Battle for Brooklyn Opens June 17th at Cinema Village
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In this weekend's Daily News sports feature article on Bruce Ratner the developer asserted, "Groundbreaking alone was vindication of sorts. But, of course, the final frosting on the vindication cake will be when we open the doors." (Strenuous rebuttal here.)

So, despite his empty slogan of "Jobs, Housing, and Hoops"--he sold off the Nets and half of the arena (which will be a net loser for the City) to a Russian oligarch, is providing 7 jobs for local workers and shown no sign of a single unit of affodable housing or promised public open space, leading to decades of massive surface parking lots揺e takes a bow and claims "vindication."

But Mr. Ratner can no longer deny reality or attempt to rewrite history because our community's principled, tenacious, and epic fight, and the way Ratner's arena came to be, has been captured for all history in a new, riveting documentary: Battle for Brooklyn.

After just winning Best Documentary and Best Film at the Brooklyn Film Festival, Clinton Hill filmmakers Suki Hawley, Mike Galinsky and David Beilinson eight-year-in-the-making movie is making its theatrical debut.

Here's the short version of why it is so important to get big crowds to see the film this coming weekend. Please use this, (and expand upon it if you wish) to email your friends and spread the word:

> > Battle for Brooklyn Screens at Cinema Village, Starting Friday, JUNE 17th
Battle for Brooklyn, the critically acclaimed movie about our epic community fight against Atlantic Yards, will begin its theatrical run on June 17th at Cinema Village in Manhattan (22 East 12th Street).

>> CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE TICKETS.

We urge you to attend a screening of the film when it opens at Cinema Village on the opening weekend of June 17, 18 and 19, and urge you to encourage your friends, family, neighbors and colleagues to go as well.

If the film is well attended during this opening weekend, it will be booked for screenings in well over 100 cities, and we will be ensured that our fight, and the reasons for it, will always be remembered.

Please make every effort to attend a screening this weekend (there will be five screenings each day at 1, 3, 5, 7, 9:15) Help get this important and universal story told all over the country!

>> CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE TICKETS.

Now, for something a little longer and in-depth (this text is also online at: http://dddb.net/battle):

Clinton Hill filmmakers Mike Galinsky, Suki Hawley and David Beilinson's eight-year-in-the making epic film about our epic community fight against Atlantic Yards--Battle for Brooklyn--made its US premiere when it opened the Brooklyn Film Festival on June 3rd to two sold out screenings, and just won best film in the festival. The film opens theatrically on June 17th at Cinema Village in Manhattan (22 East 12th Street). Showtimes each day are 1,3,5,7 and 9:15.

>> CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE TICKETS.

Why is it so important that you attend a screening this opening weekend of the 17th, 18th or 19th, and why are we exhorting you to gather as many friends, colleagues and family to attend? Well, first off, it is a riveting and remarkable film. It captures the essence of the fight in a compelling, dramatic narrative that will make you laugh and cry, and it has universal appeal. But also because well-attended screenings on those dates at Cinema Village will ensure that the film gets booked in well over 100 cities around the country.

Why does that matter? Here's why:

There is a scene in the film with Mayor Bloomberg speaking at the arena groundbreaking ceremony, with protestors in earshot outside the elites' tent. The Mayor says, "Nobody's going to remember how long it took, they're only gonna look and see that it was done."
We know he is wrong. But the success of Battle for Brooklyn will ensure that our story, the community's commitment to the principled fight will forever be at the forefront of any history of Atlantic Yards.

We urge you to please help make the film the success it rightfully should be, and to reward and support the filmmakers' extraordinary commitment--sticking with the story for eight years because they knew how important it was to tell it on film.
If Battle for Brooklyn screens around the country large, new audiences will learn of and be inspired by the principled and tenacious fight our community waged against the preposterous and destructive Atlantic Yards project, against the sort of government abuses that have become so commonplace across this country that nearly every community is struggling with the issues we've struggled with here in Brooklyn. The media narrative that the developer paid for (and continues to do so) will be revealed, to a wide audience, as mythology. Audiences will also see, and come to understand, the corrupt actions of Forest City Ratner and its friends in government. We are confident that national audiences will connect with the film; the audiences at the film's two sold-out Hot Docs festival screenings in Toronto loved the movie.
We urge you attend an opening weekend screening and to encourage your sphere of contacts to see the film at Cinema Village on June 17, 18 or 19.
If you can get five to ten people (or more!) to see the film that opening weekend, it will be a tremendous boost to the film.
Also, if you are a Facebook user, blogger or Twitter-er, please use those methods to alert your networks to the film and its June 17th opening weekend.

>> More information about the film, including a synopsis, can be found at www.battleforbrooklyn.com.

>> The film's Facebook page is at: http://www.facebook.com/battleforbrooklyn
Battle for Brooklyn has had a great reception in the press, even before it has started its theatrical run. Here's a small sample

"The movie...has heart, soul and chutzpah...Feisty but fairly reported...The time line that drives 'Battle for Brooklyn' makes it as urgent as any Hollywood thriller."
-- Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News

"Battle for Brooklyn is a riveting flick that shows how real estate developers use sports to seize other people's property and enrich themselves with taxpayer subsidies; it is about how corporate interests enlist their allies in government to get what they want, even if that means lying to the public and screwing people who lack deep pockets and political connections."
-- Michael O'Keeffe, New York Daily News

"Superb storytelling and great characters, especially charismatic city councillor Letitia James, make this a must-see."
-- Susan G. Cole, Now Toronto

Much more media praise can be found at www.battleforbrooklyn.com/press

-------------------------------------------------------------------
> Weds, June 15: UNITY 4 Community Meeting -- Let's Do Better Than an Arena and Acres of Parking
-----------------------------------------
Forest City Ratner is constructing the arena, but the rest of the demolished 22 acre site is a big questions mark...except for enormous "interim" surface parking lots. We, as a community, need to change this future for the coming decades.

In order to plan, set a better framework, and change the dynamic for the future development of the site Councilmember Letitia James, Senator Velmanette Montgomery and Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn invite you to UNITY 4, a community meeting on Wednesday, June 15th to discuss the community's plans for the Atlantic Yards site, with the UNITY Plan and its principles as a jumping off point.

Wednesday, June 15. 7pm
at Atlantic Commons, 388 Atlantic Avenue (between Hoyt and Bond) [MAP]

The meeting will include a presentation by UNITY Plan designers and architects Marshall Brown, Ron Shiffman, and Tom Angotti, a discussion of the current and future status of the site and Q&A with a panel including elected officials. Your ideas, thoughts and input will be invaluable to the meeting.

The UNITY 4 community meeting is sponsored by: Assemblymembers James Brennan and Joan Millman. Senators Eric Adams and Bill Perkins. Councilmembers Brad Lander, Stephen Levin, District Leaders Chris Owens and Jo Anne Simon, Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods, Pratt Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment, Park Slope Neighbors, Park Slope Greens, Four Borough Neighborhood Preservation Alliance, Prospect Heights Democrats for Reform, Park Slope Civic Council, Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats

-------------------

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Fight Back Friday at PS 193K

2011-06-17T09:58:00.000-07:00

SEE ENLARGED PHOTOS BELOW FOLD

CORE/Chicago Party Tonight to Support the Puerto Rican Teachers Union

2011-06-17T06:51:00.000-07:00

We've been reporting on the situation in Puerto Rico for years - just search FMPR on this blog for loads of background.

The union, led by Rafael Feliciano who has led them valiantly, is under unprecedented attack. It gives you one idea of why the UFT/AFT leadership are so afraid to fight back - their cushy positions would be threatened. Rafi pulled the FMPR out of the AFT back in 2003 calling them blood-sucking something or others (I don't speak Spanish). He is an amazing guy and we had him here at a GEM meeting and got some great footage of him for our film - he has one of the funniest lines.

We are all chipping in to bring him to Chicago for our big conference on July 6 and if you are interested in helping out send a check to Ed Notes, Inc. 518 Beach 134 St. Belle Harbor, NY 11694 - indicate it is for that reason. If you want to send a check to support our movie expenses (4000 dvds and mailing costs have put us thousands in the hole send it to the same place - just say what it is for.)

Rafael Feliciano (right), GEM co-founder Angel Gonzalez and GEM/ICE Lisa North

FROM CORE

A CORE Party to Support the Puerto Rican Teachers Union as they Face Unprecedented Attacks
On Friday, June 17th, CORE is having a party to help the president of the Puerto Rican Teachers Union pay for his plane ticket to Chicago. This is so that Rafael Feliciano and another teacher from the island can come to our National Teachers Conference on July 6th (register if you haven’t already). It is also Sara Chambers’ 25th bday (quarter life crisis), and we will be grilling boca burgers, meat patties and hot dogs.

We will be having some extreme four square matches, which you probably haven’t experienced since elementary school. Spirits will be provided but donation is encouraged.

The party is located at 1229 N Bosworth Ave (Milwaukee and Division). The party will run from 4:30pm-Late.

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Norm Scott and Khem Irby take on Success Charter Network at Public Hearing

2011-06-16T20:21:00.000-07:00

We attended the public hearing tonight. Success sent one person who didn't speak. The audience had 5 people from one of the current District 75 schools in the building - they will have to relocate within the school due to the Brooklyn Success invasion. The principal was with them. When Khem and I spoke they applauded. David Dobosz was with us. We hung out in the principal's office afterward where they shared some carrot cake and fruit. They were so happy we came out to support them and we made some nice connections. I gave them The Truth About Charters pamphlet and a copy of our film, which I also shared with D. 14 Superintendent Jim Quail who also spent his entire career in D. 14 as teacher and principal.

I usually am not happy when I speak, especially when it's totally off the top of my head. But this time I was a bit more coherent than usual.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15CAcqgX-zU

<br>

If you missed Lisa Donlan and me on WBAI June 15

I am that cancer survivor, and that element of Landeau's attack is the least of it While Another MS 216 Teacher Writes to Mulgrew

2011-06-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had a few conversations with people at the DA who said things along these lines:
Isn't Mulgrew so much more militant than Randi? That was shortly after a teacher from A Philip Randolph brought up how important it was for Mulgrew to come to the school and get involved because so many people were being harassed. So, sure it is easy to sound militant on the mega issues but it seems when it comes down to the school level where people are getting killed, it is a different story.

How about all those massive numbers of newbie teachers either having tenure denied or being extended (sample : one school 8 out of 9, another 4 out of 6)? Is the UFT covering it up? Since many of these teachers are so outrgaged they have told colleagues they will leave is the union thinking: the more that leave the less chance anyone will be laid off and maybe the LIFO issue will go away?

Well, here are some comments today on an old article from March, which has recently been updated (see below*).

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Reginald Landeau, Jr. - Triple Principal From Hell":

I am that cancer survivor, and that element of Landeau's attack is the least of it. I wish to tell my colleagues that I resigned because I had to for my career. The DOE is corrupt, and my success in the case was not woth the risk. But I have not stopped battling this monster, and I will continue until he too is in my position - staying up nights looking for jobs, worrying about his mortgage, his family, his health benefits...

He is undoubtadly targetting a specific cohort of teachers while protecting others. I truly like those protected cohorts, but the truth is the truth. We, as teachers, need to band together, attend PTA meetings en masse, write to politicians and the media, and perhaps make several calls to social service agencies and labor agencies since he is endangering the lives of experienced professionals, and in turn, the students of MS 216.

For those teachers who think they are safe...don't fool yourself. One feather ruffled on the empty head of his pet AP, one opposing viewpoint, and he will treat you too like a piece of trash.
Like I said...and I hope he hears...I will spend the rest of my time on this planet if necessary to be vindicated, both for myself and for the staff of MS 216.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Reginald Landeau, Jr. - Triple Principal From Hell":

Maybe we can get a suitable replacement for Landeau...someone with more moral fiber, more respect from the public, ... like Anthony Weiner.

Another outraged teacher at MS 216Q writes:

I INSIST ON A PERSONAL RESPONSE and still didn't get one.

I still did not get a response to my email and Washington Sanchez came to our school and conducted an SBO election instead of our chapter leader, Rachel Montagano. She is going through hell at her hearing and she didn't need to be subjected to that crap if the UNITED Federation of Teachers stood behind her when Reginald Landeau Jr. started harassing her.

A year and a half ago, I met you at a District 26 pep rally at Leonard's. You said that you would visit our school. We're still waiting. In that time, four teachers were put through the 3020a process. Three have lost their licenses to teach. I thought our union was supposed to protect its members.

I want answers. I want the truth and I can handle the truth.

------------
*Did UFT Undermine Chapter Leader at MS 216Q by Sen...
Reggie Landau Faces Student Protest Over Treatment...
Does the UFT Bury Stories Exposing How Weak It Rea...

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

NYC Education Groups Deliver Bloomberg News: Bloomberg Social Promotion Policy a Sham/Seven 50-Foot Scrolls To Mayor Bloomberg With More Than 16,000 Signatures Opposing Classroom Cuts

2011-06-16T15:00:00.000-07:00

Bloomberg has often boasted about his promotion policy, saying that previously students passed from grade to grade regardless of whether they mastered material. A RAND study commissioned by the city concluded that the policy had short-term benefits for students affected by it. The study al so confirmed, however, that more students have been promoted to the next grade since the policy was introduced than were promoted before. -

Gotham Schools (9 percent of third through eighth graders sent to summer school).

-------------------------

Bloomberg has police demonstrate Children First:

Bloombergville sleep-in updates:

http://bloombergvillenow.org/

From Doug:

A high school student, was arrested this morning with absolutely no provocation, but last I heard http://bloombergvillenow.org/he was about to be released. There is a press conference happening about this with Charles Barron that I think is going to be at noon at City Hall, but I don't have confirmation on that.

From Michael Friedman, who slept-out at Bloombergville last night: We spent the night in front of Citibank, on Broadway – a legal, public space – across from City Hall, where we had been displaced the night before after police abrogated an earlier agreement we had with them. There were about 50 of us, split into two groups in order not to block the bank entrance. At about 7 am, police began to gather and commenced harassing the group, apparently in response to complaints by the bank manager. First, they demanded we remove signs from the walls. Then it was signs leaning against the walls. Finally, they put up barricades separating the two areas where we were sleeping. A high school student, who has participated in the sleep-out since it started, was arrested for crossing from one area to the other with a sign in his hands.
Update: The student was released from custody shortly before noon.

---------------------
MORE Bloomberg Children First
And then there's the high school graduate scam.

Chaz's School Daze
These Three Schools Show How Bogus The Graduation Rate Is When It Is Compared To The "College & Career Readiness" Statistics.

SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL
Deserved Salutes To Uncle Mike Bloomberg And The 61% NYC Graduation Rate!

--------------------
And even more Bloomberg Children First

Mayor’s Proposal Includes $350M In Ed Budget Cuts, Plus $79M to Early Childhood Education, $34M to After School Programs

Parents Demand That City Return More Than $200M in State Funds to Ed Budget, Recognize IBO Savings of $100M to Avoid All Classroom Cuts, Not Just Teacher Layoffs

(New York City, New York) Parents, students and community members organized by New York City’s largest education groups delivered a petition to Mayor Bloomberg today signed by more than 16,000 New Yorkers opposing his massive, unnecessary cuts to schools.

The groups called on Bloomberg and the City Council to make restorations to a proposed $350 million cut from classrooms that would eliminate more than 6,000 teaching positions as well as afterschool programs, arts programs, tutoring, sports, counseling, professional development and other essential services.

Participants called attention to the City’s failure to utilize an additional $205 million in state education funding for schools, and demanded that the funding be re-appropriated. Protesters also pointed to an Independent Budget Office estimate that the Department of Education could realize savings of $100 million through more accurate estimates regarding teacher attrition.

“The fact is there are no excuses for the Mayor's proposal to eliminate 6,000 teaching positions. My son's school, High School for Law, has already had to eliminate it's after school as a result of last year’s budget cuts. When the Mayor received over $200 million from the State he could have chosen to use the money to maintain positions, instead he chose not to. That’s why I signed the petition,” said Carlos Ruiz, PTA President and Alliance for Quality Education parent leader.

----------------------

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Eva HSA Hearings in Harlem and Williamsburg Tonight

2011-06-16T12:33:00.000-07:00

Harlem- from Noah Gotbaum

Please join us tonight at the Harlem PS149/Harlem Success I charter expansion hearing at 41 W 117^th St. at 6 pm. The parents, students, and teachers at PS 149/The Sojourner Truth School are phenomenally eloquent and remain passionate and resolute after 5+ years of fighting Eva Moskowitz and the DOE.

Please come out to support them, to hear their stories, and to bolster them and the NAACP against the continuing PR storm.

IS 33 Old Building -

I'm covering this one as I monitor the extent of opposition in District 14 towards Moskowitz invasion. She has no foothold with parents there yet though I imagine some will come out tonight. IS 33 is in the middle of housing projects and has always been viewed as one of the least safe environments. The last time I was in IS 33 there were gunshots. No, not from the UFT directed at me.

Significant Changes in School Utilization - June Vote - 2010-2011 - New York City Department of Education

Date, time and place of joint public hearings for this proposal.
June 16, 2011 at 6:00 p.m.Foundations / Urban Environment / P368K@I033K
70 Tompkins Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11206
Questions about the proposal can be directed as indicated in section IV above.
Speaker sign-up will begin 30 minutes before the hearing and will close 15 minutes after the start. Interpretation services will be provided in Spanish. To request interpretation services in another language, please contact Mr. Taylor at the e-mail address or telephone number above.
VI. Date, time and place of the Panel for Educational Policy meeting at which the Panel will vote on the proposed item.
June 27, 2011 at 6:00 p.m.
Prospect Heights Campus
883 Classon Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11225

Summary of all public comment received to date.The following comments and remarks were made at the joint public hearing on February 17, 2011, regarding the co-location proposal:
1. The CEC 14 representative stated that the DOE’s engagement process moved too quickly. Specifically, she stated that the CEC was not able to meet with the Success Academy Charter Network or to spread information to their community about the proposal. She also stated that the signatures supporting the proposed school came from the Bronx, not from the District 14 community.

MORE:

2. A representative of the P369K@I033K SLT stated that the school organizations currently in building K033 have a great relationship and expressed concern that this relationship would be negatively affected by the co-location of Brooklyn Success in the building. Additionally, she asked whether charter schools are given more money than traditional schools. Finally, she said the co-location will cause overcrowding that will push the other schools out.
3. A representative of the Foundations Academy SLT questioned what Brooklyn Success would add to the building and expressed concern about the impact of co-locating an elementary school with a middle school and a high school on all students. She asked if Brooklyn Success is expecting to enroll students from a specific demographic. Moreover, she cited a Stanford study that says only 17% of charter schools outperform traditional schools while 83% perform worse. Finally, she questioned how shared resources in the building would be allocated and whether any school’s instructional programming would be impacted by the co-location.
4. New York City Council Member Albert Vann disagreed with the DOE’s assessment that the co-location would not have negative impact on students enrolled in the schools that are currently sited in the building. He stated that he opposed this proposal because there is no space in the building and because he was concerned about the siting elementary school students in the same building with middle and high school students. Additionally, he contended that comments made at the joint public hearing would not impact the final decision. He also stated that the DOE’s engagement process moved too quickly.
5. A representative of the Urban Assembly School for Urban Environment SLT stated that it was inappropriate to co-locate elementary and middle and high school students together. She stated that the building is underutilized, but she also stated that the space would be better used by the school organizations already in the building or another school organization that would serve students of a similar age as the school organizations currently in the building.
6. The principal of Urban Assembly School for Urban Environment stated her belief that Brooklyn Success would not be a good fit with the other school organizations in the building because they serve high school students, autistic students, and students at the ALC, while Brooklyn Success would enroll elementary students.
7. Multiple commenters stated that they support the proposal because:
a. They’ve had positive experiences with their children in Success Charter Network schools. (These were Harlem Success parents who have come to Brooklyn to plug HSA. They come to every meeting. I wonder what they get from Eva? - Pat)
52 Chambers Street Room 320 New York, NY 10007
Telephone: 212-374-0209 Fax: 212-374-5588
b. Charter schools that are working well should be given a chance to grow because the DOE is failing children.
8. A commenter stated that the engagement process did not effectively engage the community. He also asked whether it is legal for Success Charter Network to be asking for applications already, which he said do not say anything about a lottery and seem to suggest the program is screened.
9. A commenter said charter schools have inequitable access to resources and school spaces. He also stated that charter schools often exhibit a lack of collaboration with their co-located schools.
10. Multiple commenters expressed opposition for the proposal because:
a. The current schools have worked hard.
b. The extra space in the building should be used for schools that currently exist.
c. The new school should be placed somewhere like Greenpoint where people want this type of school.
d. There are already enough elementary schools in the area.
e. The community has not expressed a desire for this school. Signatures supporting the school were obtained from the Bronx, not Brooklyn.
f. Younger students should not be sited in a building older students.
g. Charters are run like corporations. The charter school process destroys the rights of the people and community because it is only through public schooling and public comment that the community has democracy.
h. The building is a public building, and charter schools should not be taking away public funds from public schools.
i. Charter schools create racial segregation.
j. Good results have come from public schools, so charters are not needed.
11. A commenter said it is problematic that charter schools are only put into neighborhoods with high minority populations.
No comments were received through the DOE’s dedicated written and oral comment mechanisms.

II. Information regarding where the full text of the proposed item may be obtained.
The revised EIS and revised BUP can be found on the Department of Education’s Web site:
http://schools.nyc.gov/AboutUs/leadership/PEP/publicnotice/2010-2011/June2011Proposals
Copies of the revised EIS and revised BUP are also available in the main offices of Urban Environment, Foundations, and P368K@I033K.
III. Submission of public comment.
Written comments can be sent to D14Proposals@schools.nyc.gov.
Oral comments can be left at 212-374-0208.
IV. The name, office, address, email and telephone number of the city district representative, knowledgeable on the item under consideration, from whom information may be obtained concerning the item.
Name: Benjamin Taylor
Office: Division of Portfolio Planning
Address: 52 Chambers St
Email: D14Proposals@schools.nyc.gov

Kids against teacher layoffs

2011-06-16T02:34:00.000-07:00

Hi, guys.

Please share this with as many people as possible. I want the message to get out to the electeds - this is about the kids and the future of our city, not about the union or the campaign contributors!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A828srkB8-U

Produced and directed by me, edited by my hubby, nobody was paid.

Shino

Mulgrew Bends Over Backwards to NOT Mention "Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For Superman"

2011-06-15T15:32:00.000-07:00

He'll need a back brace.

So Mulgrew starts the Delegate Assembly talking about how the ed deformers are failing. "Remember 'Waiting for Superman" he says? A few words on how it failed.

Now's the perfect opportunity to tell the delegates how a group of their fellow NYC teachers have made their own movie in response. Not a word. Of course. Why would the UFT leadership bother to mention one of the most effective responses to the ed deformers? Is it that the movie was made by the Grassroots Education Movement which the Unity Caucus leadership behind the scenes is trashing?

In other news Mulgrew is coming off talking real militant. No give on the lawsuit. No deal that he knows of on layoffs. We may need to get 50,000 people out in July. He's got to be joking.

Question from teacher at A Philip Randolph about teachers in the Bronx who last year got U ratings but were already on the plane for vacation. "This must not be allowed to happen this year" he challenges Mulgrew. Mulgrew just shrugs.

Well, I'm at the Skinny Awards dinner drinking lots of beer so I will be parteeeeeeing.

Cheers,

Norm Scott

Education Notes

ednotesonline.blogspot.com

Grassroots Education Movement

gemnyc.org

Education Editor, The Wave

www.rockawave.com

Robotics blog

normsrobotics.blogspot.com

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Lisa Donlan and Norm Scott on WBAI- Weds., June 15, 10PM

2011-06-15T13:50:00.000-07:00

REMINDER: Lisa Donlan and I will be heading over to WBAI after the Skinny Awards dinner:

Ethics on the Air

Wednesday, June 15, 2011 – 10 pm

WBAI – 99.5 FM and live on:stream.WBAI.org

NYC SCHOOLS - VIEWPOINTS OF A TEACHER AND A PARENT

with Norm Scott, publisher of Education Notes
and Lisa Donlan, president of Community Education Council 1

Join co-hosts Dr. Terry Perlin and Andra Miller for a conversation with a retired teacher and a parent advocate about what's wrong with city public schools and how they can be improved.

Our guests' experience include 30 years of teaching elementary school in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn (retired 2002),
years of advocating education reform including an occasional critique of union policy -- and a PTA presidency with close-in observation of administrative policies and how they affected teaching and learning, setting the stage for "each school for itself."

Mark your calendar and be sure to tune in.

For past programs go to: nysec.org/new-york/wbai-ethics-on-the-air

Just Another Demo but Bloombergville Sleep-In Takes it up a Notch

2011-06-15T07:46:00.000-07:00

Bloombergville Sleep-in Updates: http://bloombergvillenow.org/

Click: BLOOMBERGVILLE NOW! – 24/7 LIVE COVERAGE

GEM/NYCORE Sam Coleman, 6th from right below, on Democracy Now:

Sam Coleman: "So, I’m here today to let the city council know, to let the mayor know, that these budget cuts and the layoffs that they’re proposing are totally unacceptable. I teach in a low-income neighborhood, mostly immigrants, and my school is going to lose funding. That’s going to eliminate after school programs, going to eliminate art programs, going to eliminate materials that we badly need, as well as teachers getting excessed or laid off. And my message to the mayor is very simple: you can find the money. There are many, many, many wealthy New Yorkers who do not pay enough taxes, and the revenue is there, the money is there. And our schools need the money, and you cannot balance this budget on the backs of our children or our parents or our teachers."

The Fight Back Friday Crew

So we gathered outside the UFT Brooklyn Borough office - in the rain for the walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. Thank goodness it's next to the Marriott so I got to use the bathroom and change into my "Education Mayor, Really" super tee-shirt. Boy was it annoyingly humid. They ran out of rain slickers but umbrellas worked. Really, who was there? It was like a Delegate Assembly without the bananas. Mostly Unity Caucus people as far as I could tell- which is what the union can count on. And of course most of the UFT non-Unity activists. We all really have to stop meeting like this.

For us, events like this are a good time to get together with other activists for chats about politics. I'm in a never ending debate with many of the gang over how we view the UFT. My point of view seems to be in the minority.

I personally found the entire event a JAD - Just Another Demo. But it was great to connect up with the gang - see the photo. Many of these guys are the future.

A bunch of people were/are sleeping in. Here is a report from the field.

Bloombergville Continues: Speakout/Rally against Budget Cuts Wednesday at 7!

*** Please Forward Widely ***

...The first night of Bloombergville was great! After it stopped raining (and the cops started harassing us), we moved across the street and set up camp on Centre Street east of City Hall. There are around 100 of us here, the weather is perfect and it's been an exciting, inspiring night.

But we're not done! Some of us will be staying here during the day to maintain the encampment and we will be re-assembling in full force at 7 pm on Centre Street east of City Hall to have a speakout rally and another night of sleeping out and protesting the budget cuts. We need your help to make it even bigger and better than tonight! The Rude Mechanical Orchestra will be here and will provide some musical entertainment for us. Even if you can't sleep out, come for the rally, tell your friends, and spread it on Facebook

(http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=154974931237705) and Twitter

(#bloombergville). And check out the awesome Bloombergville blog,

http://bloombergvillenow.org/

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Video of Fight Back Friday Press Conf at Christine Quinn Office as Post Cards Delivered

2011-06-14T12:46:00.000-07:00

Below is the video I shot at the PC but soon after we heard this:

"We have to fight like hell to make sure Quinn has no chance of becoming Mayor. At least she says she is holding strong to layoffs, all be it while throwing seniority rules under the bus."

----Comment from a teacher after reading article with these comments:

As for how to conduct teacher layoffs, should they be necessary, Quinn said that selecting instructors for dismissal solely through seniority, rather than on teacher effectiveness, is plainly nuts. Bloomberg had pleaded with Albany to end the so-called last in, first out system, but Albany told him to take a hike.
"Having a system that is based exclusively on seniority does not make any sense," Quinn said.
She also backed the concept of letting go teachers who are paid to do nothing because they were excessed from positions and have been unable to find new jobs in the school system.
Quinn said they should be removed from the payroll after they have had a fair chance to look for work - perhaps after a year, certainly after two.

I would have delivered more than postcards. Quinn is a Bloomberg sucking slug. Today's Times
Unions Weighing New Plan to Avert Teacher Layoffs has an article about how her influence is growing and she is the leading candidate for mayor. UGH!

Fight Back Friday

Press Conference at City Council President Christine Quinn's Office

June 10, 2011

On June 10, 2011 parents and teachers held a press conference in front of NYC City Council President Christine Quinn's mid-town office to deliver post cards calling for no cuts to education. This was the culminating event of a Fight Back Friday with schools around the city participating.

Quinn, the leading candidate for mayor who has backed Bloomberg came out against following seniority for layoffs.

http://youtu.be/OEGfptIQY4s

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn understands hard budget choices she, Mayor Bloomberg must make

Editorials
Friday, June 10th 2011, 4:00 AM

Corkery/News

Christine Quinn says the city's books are out of balance by $700 million, requiring serious trims.

There has been a fantasy abroad that Mayor Bloomberg's plan to lay off more than 4,000 teachers and close 20 fire companies is but political theater by a billionaire politician crying wolf.
United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew has been a leading propagator of this pernicious fable, but even Gov. Cuomo lent it some credence.
But now that the City Council and mayor have only three weeks to adopt a budget, reality has begun to bite.
Visiting the Daily News Editorial Board yesterday, Council Speaker Christine Quinn said that, after herculean efforts, the city's books for the coming fiscal year still are out of balance by some $700 million, an amount that will necessitate serious trims.
"You can't promise New Yorkers a budget that has no pain in it," Quinn said, adding that her priority is to find savings elsewhere in city government to avert teacher layoffs.
She would need $270 million for that, plus $90 million to keep fire companies in operation, but she's not yet close to finding that kind of dough. All the more power to her if she can pull it off.
To her credit - and this is something that Mulgrew and municipal labor leaders in general should note - Quinn ruled out a wholesale raid on the city's health care trust fund.
Already, Bloomberg is dipping into that pot for $700 million, and Quinn rightly said it would be irresponsible to go much further.
She posited that, as an absolutely last-ditch measure, she might grab $20 million or even higher into the double digits, then added definitively:
"You certainly couldn't do $270 million for the teachers from there in a way that I would say is responsible."
As for how to conduct teacher layoffs, should they be necessary, Quinn said that selecting instructors for dismissal solely through seniority, rather than on teacher effectiveness, is plainly nuts. Bloomberg had pleaded with Albany to end the so-called last in, first out system, but Albany told him to take a hike.
"Having a system that is based exclusively on seniority does not make any sense," Quinn said.
She also backed the concept of letting go teachers who are paid to do nothing because they were excessed from positions and have been unable to find new jobs in the school system.
Quinn said they should be removed from the payroll after they have had a fair chance to look for work - perhaps after a year, certainly after two.
Finally, Quinn said New Yorkers are going to get hammered unless municipal labor leaders are willing to make sacrifices.
"The unions are going to have to come to the table," she declared, and she was dead-on right.

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Are Leadership Academy Grads Trained to Go After Chapter Leaders? Are UFT District and Special Reps Trained to Ignore Pleas for Help?

2011-06-14T08:38:00.000-07:00

It's as if the UFT are afraid to act. I don't understand this. They seem to have simply ceased fighting back and accept whatever these insane principals say and work from there -- as far as you can work from there. You know, like a boxer who lays down on the mat before the opening bell. --- a UFT Chapter Leader under attack by a Leadership Academy Principal

Before I begin, here are notes for tomorrow's events - Wednesday, June 15 - A busy day:

4PM: UFT Delegate Assembly

6PM: Leonie Haimson honors James Eterno and Julie Cavanagh at the Skinny (not Broad) Awards. Sorry, all sold out. But you can read all about it: Get the Skinny From Leonie. I will be there to tape it. And yes, I'll include the footage from the UFT honorees.

10PM: Lisa Donlan and Norm Scott on WBAI- Weds., June 15...
Yes, you can hear my raw Brooklyn dulcet tones on WBAI as Lisa and I borrow Gov. Christie's helicopter to head over to the radio station to talk about - what am I talking about again?

Another big rally and march is planned today over the Brooklyn Bridge by the UFT and I and all the activists in the various groups will be there - GEM, Teachers Unite, ICE, TJC, NYCORE and the Fight Back Friday coalition. March over the bridge with other Fight Back Friday Schools!! Tuesday, 4pm

Add this to the UFT/NAACP law suit on closing schools and readers and critics of my usual stand on the UFT as Vichy might ask: Norm, what's the beef?

Well, this stuff is macro and I am still not sure they won't sell out - check out this morning's story to see where I was going on that issue. Powerful Voices of Parents and Teachers Condemn Separate and Unequal at Press Conference

But this is about micro, not macro. Sort of like the "you can reduce crime by stopping graffiti" argument. Stop the attacks on chapter leaders before doing the big stuff.

If you've been following my series of articles on the UFT abandoning the fight to protect chapter leaders under assault - Did UFT Undermine Chapter Leader at MS 216Q by Sending in Incompetent Rep to Hold SBO Vote? other than to tell them to hush it up and promising to try to parachute them out of harm's way - and what kind of message does that leave to the chapter members who had elected them and now feel that fighting an abusive principal is useless - you can tell that at at the root level the union is in trouble.

Now it is funny that when I was a Delegate in the late 90's there were stories of a principal abusing a chapter leader and I used Ed Notes to put forth a resolution calling for more protections for CLs. The leadership adamantly opposed it and the Unity clones went along - it got only a handful of votes. Maybe that will give you a clue to my pissed off attitude at Unity and the leadership. I mean, this was years before BloomKlein and the Leadership Academy.

I was recently contacted by another chapter leader who is under attack. My first question was:
Is your principal a Leadership Academy grad? Of course. The pattern is clear that there is some training going on on how to attack the union at the school level. The union is not offering any counter measures on how to fight back. My advice to many prospective chapter leaders with an unfriendly principal (even friendly principals often quickly turn unfriendly when confronted) is to tread very carefully. No matter what the union promises in terms of protection they just won't and can't do it.

The CL wrote back

Yes there is a pattern. The other pattern is the UFT doing next to nothing to protect its own soldiers -- on whom the entire union depends -- after they surrender thousands of hours of labor and put their careers and families at risk . It's unreal. It's as if the UFT are afraid to act. I don't understand this. They seem to have simply ceased fighting back and accept whatever these insane principals say and work from there -- as far as you can work from there. You know, like a boxer who lays down on the mat before the opening bell. Surely, it wasn't always like this, no ? I mean, under these conditions who would be a chapter leader ? For what ? To lose your job for a union that will not protect you ?

It's insane. And pathetic.

But I'm mystified. What is the benefit to UFT to do next to nothing when you see some of your hardest working CL's thrown to the dogs ? I simply don't understand. If this continues the UFT will wind up with no chapter leaders -- or worse still, plenty of chapter leaders and every single one of them working for the principal.

I am equally mystified by the entire issue of Bloomberg's Leadership Academy -- as well as the nationally based Broad's version. How are these ridiculous places accredited ? They are worse than University of Phoenix. How are they even legal ? Has any one looked into the legality of this ? Maybe it's time for a lawsuit.

To be sure, every Leadership Academy idiot is trained to divide and conquer and undermine the union.

What is my answer? Complicated and I'll try to address this further another time. But if your prime directive is to hold onto power and there is no force out there threatening your power, why do anything? The other angle is the wish to be a partner in ed deform and being too militant will endanger that. Also - if you are too militant some people might start asking more questions about the state of democracy in the UFT and how one party has held overwhelming power for a half century.

Add On:
Another issue is the number of people being denied tenure and forced into an extension - 9 out of 10 in one school, 4 out of 6 in another. Many are so distraught they are just up and leaving - that is why I think there will be many more vacancies than people expect. See this blog post by Tales of a Sweet Girl on this issue. I will blog about it soon.
http://talesofasweetgirl.blogspot.com/2011/06/i-am-not-going-to-blow-50amp-but-80amp.html

Powerful Voices of Parents and Teachers Condemn Separate and Unequal at Press Conference

2011-06-14T05:49:00.000-07:00

I put up notice of yesterday's press conference at Tweed (New York City Parents and Community Stakeholders To Convene Press Conference Supporting NAACP Lawsuit) and taped the entire event. It's a long video and I will start cutting it up into individual statements but I wanted to get the entire raw video up for those who have the time to see it - cull some of the quotes for your own articles. Video is on Vimeo with this description:

Parents and teachers gather on the steps of the Tweed Courthouse (NYCDOE HQ) to support the NAACP/UFT lawsuit on school closings and to announce their own suit. Interesting how reports are surfacing that a deal between the DOE and NAACP/UFT may be in the works that will allow them to close the schools. If there is such a deal it will have to be a sellout even if on the surface the DOE promises to do A, B and C. We know this only gives them cover and I would brand any deal a sellout since every single settlement with the DOE has turned sour. Remember last year's settlement on closing schools?

http://vimeo.com/25070672

Parent, Teacher Voices Support NAACP/UFT and Condemn Separate and Unequal from Grassroots Education Movement on Vimeo.

Parents and teachers gather on the steps of the Tweed Courthouse (NYCDOE HQ) to support the NAACP/UFT lawsuit on school closings and to announce their own suit. Interesting how reports are surfacing that a deal between the DOE and NAACP/UFT may be in the works that will allow them to close the schools. If there is such a deal it will have to be a sellout even if on the surface the DOE promises to do A, B and C. We know this only gives them cover and I would brand any deal a sellout since every single settlement with the DOE has turned sour. Remember last year's settlement on closing schools?

Here is part of the Gotham Schools reports on the issue:

Parent group says it will file separate suit challenging closures
by Geoffrey Decker

More litigation could be targeted at Tweed’s plans to close struggling schools, even as one lawsuit seems to be headed toward an amicable settlement.

Make sure to read about the "amicable" settlement. I view it as the NAACP and UFT feeling the heat and instead of standing firm are blinking. Gotham continues:

The New York City Parents Union announced this afternoon that it plans to file a separate lawsuit against the Department of Education, charging that its policy of closing low-performing schools and co-locating charter schools in district space was illegal. The lawsuit, according to the announcement, would effectively stop all school closure and co-locations from moving forward.
“We, the public school parents, challenge the cynical chicanery of Chancellor Walcott and the DOE. We reject the privatization agenda supported by Mayor Bloomberg and his appointees. Our children deserve the best education and a supportive administration, and we will fight for all children to receive equal access to a quality education,” the statement said.
The lawsuit would also seek to reverse charter school co-locations because they aren’t charged market rent for space in district school buildings. (more…)

So with all the carping you will see about Mona Davids looking for publicity, this law suit can't do any harm.

March over the bridge with other Fight Back Friday Schools!! Tuesday, 4pm

2011-06-13T19:54:00.000-07:00

Fight Back Friday Coverage :

http://carrollgardens.patch.com/articles/the-education-mayor-some-local-schools-think-not-4

http://eastvillage.thelocal.nytimes.com/2011/06/10/park-protest-over-teacher-layoff-plan/

If you or folks you know are marching over the bridge and plan to meet at Brooklyn UFT Office . . . (335 Adams street, 2,3,4,5 to borough hall, A,C,F, R to Jay street/metro tech)

. . .Come march with the Fight Back Friday Banner!! 4PM!!!

Then meet up with other FBF schools and grassroots teacher groups at the corner of Chambers and Center, 4:30.

Over 50 schools have participated over the last few months!

Show your support for grassroots, school based organizing of teachers, students and parents!!!

That is what Fight Back Friday is all about!!

Check out Pictures and videos of some of the actions from last Friday

Sam,

for the FIght Back Friday Committee

Video from Lehman HS, Bronx http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb6aORwHHLs

PS 157

Lyons School

Graduating (former struggling) Student Voices Opinion on Beach Channel HS

2011-06-13T05:13:00.000-07:00

Here are a series of comments left by chilenkon, a student who just graduated after what looks like years of struggle (note the change in point of view from blaming the school to taking some responsibility). BCHS is a school the DOE is trying to close but is part of the NAACP/UFT suit. I live in Rockaway Beach, a barrier penninsula that is not easily accessible. This is my local neighborhood school and its closing forces students to do a lot of traveling to mainland schools, putting the most at-risk, non-motivated students in a precarious situation. Stories like these are part of the underlying reasons for the law suit. I will be at the press conference today supporting the NAACP (New York City Parents and Community Stakeholders To Convene Press Conference Supporting NAACP Lawsuit).

chilenkon has made a comment on Beach Channel High School:
well, am a recent graduate at BCHS class of jan 2011....to tell u the truth i dnt think this school should be closing... i call this school a 2nd chance school, why?..because i should've been graduated in '08 from FRHS....in '08 i just began to start doing good at Far Rock and when i was 4 credits away from graduating from FR they slam the doors on me saying they cnt give me the classes i needed...
believe it or not once they said that i though that i was gonna end up on the streets with no diploma, no shot on going to college, work on a low paid wage flipping burgers or w.e..... i been judging this school all my life thinking it was a bad school i always said that the teachers, guidance, and staffs are just like from FR....
.but i was wrong BCHS i believe the 2nd baddest school, welcomed me with open arms and helped me with what i was supposed to do.. in '10 i gave up on this school thinking i should take the easy step and went for my G.E.D. after all that i felt like i gave up 2 easy only being 4 credits away and BC didnt gave up on me....they still had all my info and i came back to the school..and wit having almost 20 staff members behind my back pushin me to get through, i have successfully graduated.......
hopefully the DOE or BOE see this comment, and see that this school does its best to have a better graduation % rate (it is upto the students if they want it or not)..its a great school.....like a quote i read ''dnt judge a book by its cover'' so i say....dnt judge BC from the outside or from what the papers say or the graduation % rate is, give it a chance like they gave me the chance to be successful

You can reply to this comment by visiting the comments page.

____________
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

New York City Parents and Community Stakeholders To Convene Press Conference Supporting NAACP Lawsuit

2011-06-12T21:37:00.000-07:00

NYC Parents Union Press Conference

Time: Monday, June 13 · 5:30pm - 6:00pm
Location: DOE Headquarters, 52 Chambers

WHAT: Parents, Students & Educators Press Conference in support of the lawsuit to stop school closings & inequitable charter school co-locations

WHO: NYC Parents Union, Coalition for Public Education, Alliance for Quality Education, Concerned Advocates for Public Education, Grassroots Education Movement and New York Communities for Change

WHY: We believe every child must have equal access to a quality education. Separate and Unequal facilities are unacceptable and foster divisiveness in our communities.

WHEN: Monday, June 13 at 5:30PM

WHERE: Department of Education Headquarters, 52 Chambers Street

Rhee-Action

2011-06-12T11:07:00.000-07:00

Got this from Leonie Haimson and Parents Across America.

If you haven’t already seen this today, Michelle Rhee played a role in passing an anti-union bill in Tennessee. She co-authored an op-ed with Former Republican Senate Leader Bill Frist. The bill is pretty broad and eliminates collective bargaining for teachers. Rhee’s ex-husband, whom she is close to, was recently appointed by the Governor as the state commissioner of education. This is her bill and should be seen/exposed as such. This is a good chance to review Rhee’s record on the national stage for the last six months.

Although Michelle Rhee has gained fame for her tenure as a DC School Chancellor under Democratic Mayor Adrien Fenty, her record and policy positions are very right wing. Since her resignation as Chancellor, she has travelled the country appearing with Republican Governors and advocating for anti-union policies. She has also been nominated for right wing awards and embroiled in local scandals. Here is a rundown of some of her recent activity:

Wisconsin – Republican Governor Scott Walker ignited the current anti-union push with a budget that cut state worker pay, eliminated collective bargaining rights for public employees, and contained other measures to weaken unions.

·         Rhee appeared on Fox News in support of Walkers plan to limit bargaining rights for teachers.
o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KEpMMA8j3o
o   http://www.alternet.org/story/150183/reactionary_'education_refomers'_fenty_and_rhee_support_scott_walker's_attack_on_teachers
·         Rhee appeared on a local news channel where she said that teachers losing their right to collective bargaining is the beginning of something very important.
o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6waSfhkN9Dc

[NOTE: Rhee's organization is now disavowing her Walker support but here is an item from Diane Ravitch:

Rhee has been standing by the side of every Tea Party governor as they cut the budget for public education, stripped teachers of any job protection, and expanded vouchers and charters. So far as I know, she does not deny accepting an award, with Scott Walker, from the far-right, anti-public school group called American Federation for Children.

Ohio – Republican Governor John Kasich pushed through SB 5, which is expected to face a ballot referendum. The bill severely limits collective bargaining rights for public employees, including teachers.

·         Rhee’s organization, Student’s First, lobbied on behalf of the bill.
o   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/24/michelle-rhee-ohio-teachers-bill_n_866252.html
o   http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/26/978992/-Rhees-Students-First-lobbied-on-OhiosSB5?via=blog_616729
·         Rhee appeared with Governor Kasich for a screening of the debunked “documentary” Waiting for Superman
o   http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/03/29/dc-education-reformer-to-join-kasich-for-documentary-screening.html?sid=101
o   http://www.rheefirst.com/?page_id=978
o   http://blog.cleveland.com/letters/2011/05/john_kasich_michelle_rhee_push.html
o   http://www.examiner.com/government-in-columbus/kasich-rhee-movie-night-latest-scene-epic-battle-of-public-private-schools#ixzz1MoUaHLhW

Florida – Republican Governor Rick Scott’s anti union policies have tanked his approval rating. Recent polls have shown him to be the least popular governor in the country. One of Scott’s first actions was to appoint Rhee and advisor for education policy. She has also teamed with former Republican Governor Jeb Bush on education issues.

·         Rhee advises Rick Scott
o   http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2010-12-02/news/os-scott-education-transition-team-1220101202_1_transition-team-world-of-education-reform-charter-schools-usa
o   http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/michelle-rhee-cozies-rick-scott-ardent-scho
o   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-thompson/the-michelle-rheejeb-bush_b_807157.html

New Jersey – Republican Governor Chris Christie made overtures to Rhee after she quit as DC School Chancellor. She has also expressed support for his budget cutting policies.

·         Christie woos Rhee
o   http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/christie_woos_ex_dc_ed_big_rq9UBBoSz1jKn2nSjSRnRM
·         Rhee appeared on Fox News to support Christie’s budget cuts
o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK88nd9uLUs

Indiana – Republican Governor Mitch Daniels joined forces with Michelle Rhee to support a school voucher bill.

·         Rhee appears at a rally for the voucher bill.
o   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU_A6guPN7o
o   http://www.edchoice.org/Newsroom/News/Indiana-House-Passes-Nation-s-Largest-Voucher-Bill-as-1-000-Gather-Supporting-School-Choice.aspx
·         Rhee’s appearance at the rally coincides with a cheating scandal in DC
o   http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20110330/BLOGS13/110339960/1002/LOCAL

Nevada – Republican Governor Brian Sandoval recently met with Rhee and she supports his education policies.

· Rhee states: "I feel very, very strongly that on the policy side the governor is absolutely pushing the right (education) agenda and the right set of policies that have the ability to create the right foundation and to put the state on a different trajectory moving forward."
o http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/former-d-c-chancellor-michelle-rhee-pushing-for-big-changes-to-schools-122793333.html

Right Wing Awards – Rhee has been nominated for right wing awards for her fairly partisan, anti-union efforts.

·         Rhee was nominated for an award by the Sam Adams Alliance. The two other nominees were Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and anti-gay Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.
o   http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/looselips/2011/04/01/local-girl-makes-good/
o   http://www.samadamsalliance.org/programs/sammies/the-finalists.aspx
·         The right wing American Federation for Children hosted a policy summit in DC, where they gave awards to Michelle Rhee, Scott Walker and Pennsylvania Republican Governor Tom Corbett. AFC is AFC is a Koch and Devos funded organization focusing on school vouchers
o   http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/09/974560/-Hundreds-protest-Walker,-Corbett,-and-Rhee-at-DeVos-funded-policy-summit

Cheating scandal – In the midst of her crusade against teachers, Rhee was embroiled in a cheating scandal. USA Today released a report stating that many DC public schools has abnormally high wrong to right erasures on standardized tests. Rhee was aware of the problem but declined to act.

·         Rhee embroiled in scandal
o   http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-03-28-1Aschooltesting28_CV_N.htm?csp=34news
o   http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2011/04/rick_scott_education_adviser_michelle_rhee_cheating_scandal.php
·         Local groups called for an investigation
o   http://www.change.org/petitions/end-the-test-driven-culture-of-dc-public-schools-2

Film Screening in Vegas as Part of SOS March Weekend in July

2011-06-12T04:02:00.000-07:00

Can't make it to Washington for the Save Our Schools march on July 30? Got to Vegas instead.

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

More on Friday Protests at Lyons School and Lehman HS

2011-06-11T04:21:00.000-07:00

I posted pics last night from 2 rallies. Here is a followup from a GEMer who was present on the arrest of a teacher for writing on a mailbox with chalk.

I didn't know who the teacher was. I was caddy corner so i don't know if he was cuffed, but I think not. He was taken in a car to the 90th Pct. The principal immediately went over to the police stattion. She was out rallying too. Then the head honcho officer spoke with some folks and said he was going to find out what happened and explained the rules of demonstrating to the group that was left. Many others went to the precinct. The group was given a warning by a detective who was going around in a car. They were not blocking the street or traffic. In fact cars were honking in agreement. Anyway I think this teacher wrote on the mailbox with chalk and then erased it. Well they were on him as if he committed a crime. it seems like harassment. The head officer seemed to think he was going to be held and then let go. We will know by Monday what happened unless you have an e-mail of someone from Lyons to inquire. The group was well organized and calm, but needless to say very upset. We joined them because the school is across the street from my house. This school could lose quite a few teachers because of the cuts and it would devastate them.

Lehman HS follow-up
Here are some excerpts from a wonderful email from a former student of Fordam's Dr. Mark Naison who was a major speaker at the rally at Lehman. It was her first rally. I've been on a listserve with Mark and he is one powerful voice against Ed Deform and for Real Reform. I really have to start blogging some of his posts.

Hi Dr N

It was good to see you this afternoon at the UFT-organized Rally against Budget Cuts at Lehman HS- The coverage from News 12 Bronx is up online as well -

http://www.news12.com/articleDetail.jsp?articleId=283880&position=1&news_type=news

Although I'm not a NYC public school teacher, it was important to me to attend because of what I learned from your Senior Values Seminar several years ago - never let others stand alone. Support isn't about large and grand gestures, but its in the simple human camaraderie of not letting anyone stand up alone-

The most memorable parts of the rally, aside from the much-welcomed passing shower to cool the marchers down, was when a Fire Truck and later a Con Edison Service truck assed by honking their horns! The firemen, who are also facing severe budget cuts, were enthusiastically throwing their hands in the air cheering along with us. Although I was a bit hesitant at first (since this was my first rally), the longer I marched the more I found it to be "really exciting" as you put it.

You mentioned that there was another rally taking place this afternoon in downtown Brooklyn with public school professionals from all around the borough. Although the size and scope of that rally surpasses the gathering this afternoon at Lehman, what's most impressive was to see the positive response from the community. I don't consider myself to be a social justice activist, but this was a small step to add a voice in my community. As I mentioned, I'm not a public school teacher, I'm not an alumna of Lehman HS, and I'm not a member of a union. But I have friends, family and colleagues that are public school teachers and I am the product and beneficiary of the NYC public education system - it is these people with whom I stand beside in this fight. I believe that we are in the midst of a challenging time, a time when traditions, values, and systems are being tested and re-evaluated.

Although the conversation and policies are shifting towards a more corporate nature with focus on business efficiency and returns on investment, I believe that my Fordham education instilled in me that the pursuit of excellence should never come at the expense of respect for humanity and ethics. You're right that the education system has become distilled into performance measurements, exams, bonuses, and new investments in charters - but there is still the possibility of making it right. Education is about service - service to the students, no matter what age, gender, ability, religion, socioeconomic standing, parental education background of the student.

------------------

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Pics From Fightback Friday at Lyons School/Cops Arrive Over Teacher Writing With Chalk/Pics From Lehman HS Rally

2011-06-10T18:40:00.000-07:00

I got back at noon from my 3 day trip to FIRST HQ in New Hampshire for the annual robotics conference just in time to head into the city for the Fight Back Friday press conference at City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's 30th St. offices (video will be up tomorrow). There were lots of activities going on simultaneously. Here are pics from 2 locations:

The Lyons School (East Williamsburg - actually at the old IS 49 building a few blocks from where I taught. As these pics came into the Blackberrys there were rumors a teacher was arrested for writing in chalk on the ~~sidewalk~~ mailbox (and erasing it). ~~(there goes Skelly and other chalk-driven memories of childhood.)~~

Pics below the fold

Lehman HS in the Bronx