Thursday, December 31, 2009

Rally to save Paul Robeson High School

I received this email from Adele Pham, who made a very professional video for Robeson:

Hi Norm,

I made this video about the rally to save robeson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kyh3h1lr_w

I am interested in helping kids organize their own documentation of what is happening but in an organized way that connects students from all of the closing schools. There would need to be some kind of united front if you will on video production.

Best,
adele

2 comments:

AnonymousJan 30, 2010 10:34 AM
I think the gov. should close down this school.poor grades,bad attendance rate and low graduation rate.
ReplyDelete
AnonymousApr 4, 2010 07:05 PM
How can we help?
ReplyDelete

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TDR Response Links

There are so many great post and articles coming out it is hard to keep up. I'll toss a few key ones up here for the next week or so. I am focusing on NYC teachers. If you have more suggestions email me.

The Assailed Teacher ‏ @AssailedTeacher

20%: The Difference Between Sucking and Really Sucking wp.me/p1ljf6-cr

Univ of Chicago Economist Derek Neal: measuring teacher performance based on student scores is like household cleaner that’s also a dessert topping;

Neal, a professor in economics and the Committee on Education, insists it’s a “logical impossibility” that standardized tests, as they’re most often administered, could assess both teachers and students without compromising teacher integrity, student learning, or both.

http://goo.gl/1weIt

Failed tests

Arthur Goldstein at Schoolbook
No Way Out of the Evaluation Trap

Gary Rubinstein's TFA Blog

Analyzing Released NYC Value-Added Data Part 2
(Make sure to read part 1 also)

Follow Perdido on the blogroll and NYC Educator

Link to On Point:

With Jodi Rudoren of the NYT, Carol Burris, Diane Ravitch and Doug Harris of Univ. of Wisconsin, who said:

Value-added scores are “Widely seen as the least accurate” of evaluation methods. Also, even if accurate it shouldn’t be publicized; why don’t private organizations do this if it is helpful to their organization. (Opposite of what King said to Karen Sprowal and me in Albany.)

Carol and Diane are great!

http://www.kcrw.com/news/programs/tp/tp120228evaluating_teachers

Parent Leader on Pedro Noguera Resignation as SUNY Trustee

To order the DVD "Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman"

https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dF96cXlyaUE0NlBDRlJxNTZ2VFFkVGc6MQ

SUPPORT THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE FILM
GEMers have put in thousands of dollars to get the message out. No one is looking to make a dime off this but mailing costs add up. We need your help to spread the word.

The movie has been funded by NYC teachers and parents and the DVD is being given away for free. A donation to cover costs and fuel future work is appreciated.

Make checks out to:

Ed Notes, Inc.
518 Beach 134 St.
Rockaway Park, NY 11694

PAY PAL

or use the Pay Pal DONATE Button at the GEM blog: gemnyc.org

And, yes, steal the film - go forth and reproduce as many copies as you like.

Sneak a peek:
http://www.waitingforsupermantruth.org/

Reviews and stories:

Brazilian journalist Beatriz Rey
http://beatrizprey.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/education-is-a-complex-issue/

Video from premiere

Substance Story

Huffington Post: http://goo.gl/2dIDI
NEW GEM BLOG: http://gemnyc.org/

ATRs report from their new assignments

Today I was given a full schedule. 5 one hour classes, one free period and a 45 minute lunch. I explained that ATRs are supposed to be assigned a Professional period and a Prep period as well as a duty free lunch.

The Principal ignored this and let me know i could speak to Chapter leader. I will try to grieve this and seek payment of a per session.

Left (Dist Rep) Charley Turner an email and voice message, he still hasn't got back to me as promised on the issue of principals lending ATRs to each other in a multi site school.
------------
This school has to be a training ground for Leadership Academy principals. - there are three here!
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You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

New EDU Movie: EDUCATION ADVOCACY: The Voice of Real Reform

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOy8LeoBOFs

Independent education advocates are the only option for many parents seeking to find solutions as they navigate their way through an increasingly complex public education system.

EDUCATION ADVOCACY: The Voice of Real Reform is a forthcoming documentary featuring Education Perspectives' Executive Director, Sandra Hammond, and several of her clients (parents and students), fellow non-profit organization leaders, and supporters as they traverse issues which affect the lives of children and the community at large: high stakes testing issues, Special Education controversies, and Zero Tolerance disputes.

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading.

This chapter looks interesting:

Class struggles: The UFT story, part 3

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor (brother of Art & Design CL Larry) is coming out with a book focused on the old Teachers Union.

Of course for an alternate view, check out Vera Pavone and my review of the Kahlenberg Bio on Shanker.

At Least Walcott knows where the men's room is: Jeez, I'm quoting the NY Post

Bloomberg brought in Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott to clean the mess. Compared to Black's rich-gal cred and prickly personality, Walcott is a likeable public-school grad who worked briefly as a teacher and still beds down in Queens. But . . .

"He knows the system. He knows where the men's room is. But he's not a manager," groused one City Hall source. "So the system will continue to be mismanaged."

Interesting commentary on Bloomberg Model

"The Bloomberg model has positioned parents as customers, and principals as CEOs, with student outcomes as the product. But the backlash that the mayor has faced is from parents who don't see their schools that way. Test scores aren't always what parents care most about in a school. Many care just as much about having teachers they can connect with, places they and their children feel comfortable and respected, a school's history in the community—things that aren't quantifiable o a standardized exam."

CAPITALBeta

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

Ex-HSA Teacher has left a new comment on your post "Fear and Loathing at Evil's Harlem Success Empire ...":

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy Tyson
Professor of African American Studies and History
Duke University

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.
- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Full article with charts here.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

More at Substance

Teach for America Summit Blogger (Now M.A.B.)

M.A.B. Sums up:
Teach for America 20th Anniversary Alumni Summit: ...

On Saturday, Feb. 12, a Real Reformer member of the Grassroots Education Movement went down to DC for the TFA 20th Anniversary Summit. The blogs came through all day with extensive coverage from the perspective of someone who is not a true believer. Let me say that Summit Blogger is still teaching a self-contained elementary school class years after most TFA's have gone on to other things.

Diane Ravitch tweeted: "hilarious/depressing"

Part 1: Live Blogging from Teach for America 20th Anniversary Summit

Part 2: Live Blogging from Teach for America 20th Anniversary Summit - Randi Weingarten

Part 3: Live Blogging from Teach for America 20th Anniversary Summit, - Afternoon Session

Part 4: Live Blogging from Teach for America 20th Anniversary Summit, With Closing Plenary

Two great posts by Yong Zhao

Why did Waiting for Superman get snubbed and Exit Through the Gift Shop get nommed?

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/blogs/race/top-5-oscar-nomination-mysteries-76467

Davis Guggenheim’s doc about poor kids and charter schools got 11 major film award nominations and won four, including the National Board of Review and Sundance Audience Prize. Most pundits thought it a shoo-in. He won an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth, and had major help from Bill Gates, Oprah and Obama. Some fear prankster Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop is all a hoax.

Why it happened: Guggenheim’s big backers may have actually irked independent-minded Academy members. Worse, his teacher’s union-bashing film was embraced by conservatives, one of whom said his Oscar snub is “the price a political apostate pays in Hollywood for straying off the liberal plantation.” Education expert Diane Ravitch trashed it as inaccurate. A more dispassionate expert says, “The first response to the movie was that it’s about poor black kids, and it’s from the Gore guy, so it must be liberal and good-hearted. And then Ravitch and others portrayed it as basically right-wing propaganda, which unsettled the liberal members of the Academy. I don’t think the movie is as reactionary as Ravitch portrayed it, but I also don’t think it’s very good.” An Oscar doc voter agrees. “It was a great deal of hype. I felt like I’d seen the story before.” “It also tanked at the box office, relative to what was spent on promoting it,” adds the education expert. “The true unforgivable sin in Hollywood!”

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.
Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/12/on-growing-use-of-corporate-test.html

Must See Video Re: Chicago Treatment of NYC ATR equivalents

During the summer of 2010, Chicago Public Schools terminated over 1300 teachers without regard to qualifications or seniority. In August 2010, Congress passed the Education Jobs Act Funds to restore teaching positions across the nation. Chicago Public Schools received $104 million for that purpose however according to CPS accounts, $30 million remains unspent while over 400 illegally fired teachers remained without jobs. This Chicago Teachers Union press conference was held on Wednesday, October 20, 2010.This program was recorded by Chicago Access Network Television (CAN TV).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwVuhjdIpnI

Picked up from Mike Klonsky blog.
http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/

Will Firing 5-10% of Teachers Make Us Finland?

The 5-10% Solution, was written by Matthew di Carlo, and originally published on the Shanker Blog, and then reposted on Valerie Strass' The Answer Sheet.

In the world of education policy, the following assertion has become ubiquitous: If we just fire the bottom 5-10 percent of teachers, our test scores will be at the level of the highest-performing nations, such as Finland. Michelle Rhee likes to make this claim. So does Bill Gates.

The source and sole support for this claim is a calculation by economist Eric Hanushek, which he sketches out roughly in a chapter of the edited volume Creating a New Teaching Profession (published by the Urban Institute). The chapter is called “Teacher Deselection” (“deselection” is a polite way of saying “firing”)

To read the rest, please visit the Shanker Blog or The Answer Sheet.

And will it make a substantive difference if the new chancellor "listens"?

No difference at all.

In 2003, soon after Joel Klein was installed, Weingarten told DRs around the city to choose 3 or so people from their districts to meet with Klein so he could "listen" to educators working in schools. I believe Weingarten asked for certain people specifically. We all convened, can't remember where, and Klein listened all right: to 3 hours of some of the most vivid and heart-wrenching testimony from people in the trenches.

I had prepared a written statement about cuts to the arts — esp. disastrous in such an artistically iconic city such as ours — and the widespread dismissal of state mandates. Weingarten called on me, I spoke, then handed Klein my written statement.

What a colossal waste of time.

That meeting was a perfect example of three things: UFT collaboration (the whole thing engineered and set up by WeinKlein), UFT naivete (Weingarten to us after he left: "This chancellor really listens!"), and a taste of the charade that was going to come down from Bloomberg and corporate rule.

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

Published on Sunday, March 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Response to Dem Exhortations to Vote

From a NYC parent:

I will never NOT vote. Nevertheless, here is my latest response to the plethora of Dem exhortations

for money and to get out the vote. PLEASE DO LIKEWISE!!! Just hit "Reply." Who knows if anyone is reading it, but if they are, so much the better!

Dear Mr. Carville,

Please tell President Obama how much parents HATE his warmed-over Bush-era education policies.

BEFORE the election, let him announce that he wants to meet with parents ALL OVER THE COUNTRY (not just hand-selected charter school parents!!) after the election, to find out what WE want him

to do to help our schools and our children.

That is your best hope for attracting disaffected Democrats.

Haimson on Class Size Myths at Washington Post

Retinking Schools on CORE Victory in Chicago

A Cauldron of Opposition in Duncan’s Hometown • Rank-and-File Teachers Score Huge Victory

Fall 2010

Illustration: Randall Enos

An Interview with Karen Lewis and Jackson Potter

In a stunning victory, a group of rank-and-file teachers won election to leadership of the powerful Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) this past June. Karen Lewis, a high school chemistry teacher, defeated the two-time incumbent president, winning 60 percent of the vote. Lewis led a slate of candidates from the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators (CORE), all of whom were swept into office.

For the past two years, CORE has led a growing grassroots movement against the school closings, charter schools, and “turnarounds” that are Arne Duncan’s Chicago legacy. They now face the daunting task of leading the CTU, which represents more than 30,000 educators—including teachers, clerks, substitutes,and teaching assistants—serving more than 400,000 students.

Rethinking Schools editors Bob Peterson and Jody Sokolower interviewed Karen Lewis and Jackson Potter, who is a co-founder of CORE, high school social studies teacher, and newly elected trustee of CTU.

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/25_01/25_01_petersonsokolower.shtml

Norm on the radio at "The Mind of a Bronx Teacher"

I was asked to cover for a guest too chicken to appear by Bronx Teacher on his penetrating weekly internet radio show (every Tuesday night at 9pm).

"The union has consistently been giving back since 1968."

He asked some great questions and I had a chance to get into issues in terms of historical context of the UFT - the '68 strike, the '75 massive cuts to schools and other issues to help prove my point that Randi Weingarten DID NOT CHANGE DIRECTION but continued and amplified the policies set in motion by Al Shanker.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bronx-teacher/2010/07/28/the-mind-of-a-bronx-teacher

HOW NYCDOE IT SUCKS!

Comment on "Online learning; no more teachers necessary!":

I am a NYC teacher currently teaching online summer school in a PLATO classroom. The DOE's network can not handle this kind of traffic. In a building of nearly 3000 students and staff there is only one full time network person. The network is so unreliable that it just took me 30 minutes to reset a student's password on PLATO. This means it just cost the taxpayers of NYC $21 for me to reset a password. I have to believe that I could have been more effective in a traditional setting for those funds. Don't believe that education and the public sector are the same. How many people work in your IT department?

Teachers at PS 193 Fight Budget Cuts in a Special Way

Teachers at PS 193 in Brooklyn decided to rewrite the lyrics to a well-known song from Grease. They performed it on the morning of June 23, 2010 in front of the school. Some arriving parents and students got a great kick out of seeing their teachers fighting for them. Ed Notes was there to cover. Click on the link below to see the film:

Teachers at PS 193 Fight Budget Cuts in a Special Way

ED NOTES MAKES YOU AN OFFER YOU CAN'T REFUSE:

We offer to come down and video your school performance-based protest.

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Bonfire of the Ed Deform Vanities

Almost fifteen years ago, Neil Postman published his book, The End of Education, an ambiguously phrased title whose wording "End" suggested both education's raison d'etre as well as its possible demise. Herewith lies further evidence of that second meaning coming to pass, and doing so as a modern-day version of Savonarola's infamous 1497 "bonfire of the vanities." One can readily imagine Klein, Duncan, and Rhee, joined by swarms of hedge fund managers, charter school chain owners, test preparation company executives, and the rest of the education corporacracy, gleefully dancing around the flaming remnants of what used to be called "the American public education system."

It should not come as a surprise that this tsunami-like "reform" movement has gained such strength in the last few years. A billion in pump-priming here from Gates, a billion there from the Walton family (unfortunately, not the "Good night, John-Boy" Waltions) or the Scaifes or the Broads, mixed in with a Bush-inspired economic catastrophe, and you have precisely the conditions delineated by Naomi Klein in "The Shock Doctrine."

Neil Postman gave it a name, Naomi Klein foretold exactly how it would happen. All, as usual, while the public (and, in this case, the unions) slept.

Steve Koss, posted on the NYCEdNews listserve

Goldstein, Higgins Nail Gates

Newsweek article on AFT has link to ed notes -

Some union bloggers said Weingarten felt compelled to heat up her rhetoric after hearing Van Roekel’s speech, as well as that of the new president of the AFT’s Chicago local, Karen Lewis, who ran on an anti-reform platform. But it’s worth noting that the bulk of Weingarten’s speech emphasized collaboration and her determination that the AFT would “lead and propose, not wait and oppose.” AFT members, she said, must be "constantly searching for solutions we believe will work, even if those solutions force us to think outside the box or make us feel uncomfortable."

Note how Lewis is portrayed as anti-reform when she is anti Deform but definitely pro progressive reform. We must challenge them when they contract Randi and Karen that way.

Go and leave a comment.
http://www.newsweek.com/blogs/the-gaggle/2010/07/09/could-teachers-unions-growing-anger-at-obama-duncan-inadvertently-be-strengthening-weingarten-s-hand.html

Ravitch on teachers and her critics

Here is a twisted story that came in from EIA's Mike Antouncci who criticizes Valerie Strauss for turning her Washington Post blog over to Diane Ravitch to respond to Education Week reporter Steven Sawchuk (who I sat next to in the press section this morning) who wrote a piece critical of Ravitch saying that some view her research as "selective" after she received her award at the NEA. Who did Sawchuk cite —AndyRotherWonk. Now there's a reliable unbiased source.

Diane left this comment on Sawchuck's blog:

Steve, why so snide? I summarized my research. Who finds it "selective"? Look at the evidence. Is the CREDO study on charters not credible? What about the Mathematica study? or NAEP score comparing charters and regular public schools? or the Univ of Arkansas study on Milwaukee vouchers? Or NAEP scores for African American students in Milwaukee after 20 years of choice (lower than NAEP scores for African American students in Mississippi or Louisiana? Please, Steve, tell me where I am wrong?

Maybe I'll ask him later.

Antonucci (also not exactly unbiased, but neither am I) is a bit over the top with this headline:
Adulation Not Unanimous, Ravitch Attacks Ed Week Reporter

How easy to turn a defense into an attack - after reading Mike's headline I thought she used a knife.

Sort the gory details out for yourself:

Strauss' Blog

Sawchuk

EIA

Sharon Higgins on New Orleans Charters

The conversion of New Orleans' schools to charters is up to about 70% now. Community members are watching every single last one of their historical neighborhood schools get wiped away and, at the same time, are becoming increasingly disenchanted with charters. http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2010/03/new_orleans_parents_complain_t.html:

When Vallas stated at Monday's meeting that charters are doing "a heck of a job" educating public school students, the mostly African-American audience responded with jeers. Many speakers called for the return of neighborhood schools and expressed fears that many charters accept only students with high test scores.

NYC Public Schools Slated To Close

From NY1

The Department of Education revealed on Friday that the following 23 schools are likely to close:

Manhattan
• High School of Graphic Communication Arts
• Norman Thomas High School
• Washington Irving High School

Bronx
• Christopher Columbus High School
• Fordham Leadership Academy for Business and Technology
• Grace Dodge Career and Technical Education High School
• Jane Addams High School for Academics and Careers
• John F. Kennedy High School
• Monroe Academy for Business/Law
• P.S. 065 Mother Hale Academy

Brooklyn
• Boys and Girls High School
• John Dewey High School
• Metropolitan Corporate Academy
• Paul Robeson High School
• Sheepshead Bay High School
• W.H. Maxwell CTE High School

Queens
• August Martin High School
• Beach Channel High School
• Grover Cleveland High School
• Jamaica High School
• John Adams High School
• Newtown High School
• Richmond Hill High School

Randi Tries to Gain Cover Over Rhee Praise

Randi says:

Vouchers, charter schools, mayoral control, the power to "abolish" individual teaching positions and chancellor-controlled teacher evaluations - all of these have been part of the school landscape in Washington for years. Even the latest national fad, dismissing the value of teachers' experience, is nothing new to Washington."

Gee Randi, glad to see we in NYC haven't had any of these things (except for vouchers -which by the way I see as having come here through the charter schools).

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/06/17/2010-06-17_dc_deal_has_few_lessons_for_ny_union_head_says_washington_contract_shouldnt_be_a.html#ixzz0r6thuJ4a

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

SEE MY VIDEO ON HARLEM SUCCESS RALLY 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEp7rg_L5JI

Angel and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

I am a current teacher at a Believe school

Dear Ms. Ohanian,

Thank you for posting the story "Students at $100 a Head?" from the New York Times blog. I saw your note that the CEO of the school wrote threatening emails after you posted the story.

I am a current teacher at a Believe school, and a commenter on Ms. Medina's blog. I implore you to publish Melendez's comments, or to comment on Ms. Medina's blog. It may seem small or irrelevant to spend more time thinking about this single charter school, but I assure you that it matters to me, my fellow teachers, and most of all, to our students, that Melendez's misdeeds do not continue to go unnoticed.

Sincerely,

Louise (not my real name)

See all comments posted at the CityRoom blog

Diane Ravitch Comment on the New Teacher Evaluation System...

James,

You are right. This approach will promote narrowing of the curriculum, teaching to the test, cheating and gaming the system. We should be removing high stakes for students and teachers, not making them higher.

Diane Ravitch

In response to this point by James Calantjis:

This [the UFT explanation/propaganda] does not provide much of an explanation. Student test scores will be part of the process as will observations.There has always been a process to help weaker teachers that includes the UFT's Peer Intervention Program. This sounds like double talk to justify the decision.

Did you know?

A Teacher at a Closing School Comments

Here are the main problems.

1. Inexperienced/ Inept leadership at principal level

2. Failure to accept that all students do not want/ are unable to be college graduates

3. Failure to realize that without qualified electricians, plumbers, carpenters, mechanics, etc we are totally screwed.

4. Failure to realize that students learn best with students of similar abilities and interests.

5. Failure to understand that social skills are a better predictor of success and happiness than academic aptitude.

6. Failure to realize that as students grow their abilities and interests change and that continual reevaluation of their potential is both appropriate and necessary.

7. The above is true for teachers and administrators as well.

8. Everything that worked 40 years ago may not work today but some of it probably will.

If you cannot read you cannot lead. If you cannot lead no one will follow. If no one follows you are alone.

Don't think the DOE has given up for an instant.

Eterno Tells History of Undermining of Jamaica HS, Student Rachel Ali Supports School

The Class Size Matters emergency parent conference on Saturday Jan. 16 attracted a spirited group of people. Norman Siegel was the keynoter. Here is a segment from a panel featuring Jamaica HS Chapter leader James Eterno and student leader Rachel Ali. See our earlier video where Siegel discusses the protest at Bloomberg residence coming up on Jan. 21.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFzx5MJ2jmw

Columbus HS Student and Maxwell HS teacher defend their schools:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K5JzqEh3nI

Charter Schools and Tracking

Lisa has left a new comment on your post "What's wrong with charter schools?":

Thanks for getting this posting some of the air it deserves, Norm.
I think ceolaf is right about a great number of things, and particularly appreciate his systemic, meta-view of these hot button issues.

I want to substantiate a few of the points raised in this post:

1. "Charterness" is not a condition for school innovation.

Just as the reverse is not true(a a charter school is by definition innovative), public schools that are NOT charters can be innovative.
The original small schools movement of the late 80's and early 90's (now coopted and transformed by Gates/DoE)spawned a number of pedagogically innovative schools.
In District One, educators, administrators and community members started a handful of still popular and sucessful small schools within schools to pull back the fleeing local residents into public schools.
Those Dewey-based, child-centered schools offered curriculae based on whole language, constructivist math, mixed age groupings, integrated curriuculum projects and portfolio evaluation

2. Tracking on a large scale does indeed exist.
Gifted and Talented and CTT programs are used as sorting hats that are increasing racial isolation in many schools and communities.
I would like to be able to substantiate this trend in the latest round of admissions, but as usual, have no access to that data from DoE yet (believe me I try)!

3. Special Ed service availability is, as ceolaf suspects, one more way to segregate and track:
The two (soon to be 3) charter schools serving the District One community offer NO CTT or self contained classes.
The "other public" district schools operate with plenty of both (w/ the exception of a few elite schools- a citywide K-12th G and T , a "dual language" Manadarin pre-k through 8th grade program and an elite selective HS), yet the charters offer no more than SETTS services to students.
Despite the rhetoric of least restrictive environments and innovative methods for servicing students with special needs that you may hear from the OCS patricians, parents with kids with IEPs that require more services or more restrictive environments know that they need not apply to these schools.

I'd be happy to share more information on or off line on any of this.

Related:
NYC Educator:
Charter School Deems Kid Too Dangerous to Be Around Students or Faculty, Sends Him to Public School

Great Post on Teacher Quality at the Morton School

Charter School Watch in NYC

Charter Schools Debated after Arthur Goldstein article on PS123/Harlem Success - at Gotham Schools
http://gothamschools.org/2009/07/14/a-question-i-have-heard-of-the-success-of-charter-schools/#comments

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Do Charters Cream? Try The Intake Game
proofoflife has left a new comment on your post "Why Black and Latino Parents Need To Be Leery of C...":

I recently had a conversation with a friend ( teacher) who works at a charter. She is doing the intake. This means a group of teachers go to the house of the "choosen" few to read them the "riot" act on expectations for behavior and for academics. She said that several of the parents lied about their child having an IEP to get their foot in the door. Once in, the school is unable to provide the services mandated on the IEP. I asked if the school would then "kick" the kids out. She said they weren't allowed to do that , but they would then send the "troops" back into the home to convince the parents that their child was in the wrong setting. In this sense I smell segregation, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

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Posted Aug. 4
Join the debate at Gotham on the PS 123/HSA controversy
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July 28, 2009
Using the crisis to push charters

Gillian Russom, a member of United Teachers Los Angeles, describes how budget cuts are being used to push the charter school agenda. We got to hang out with Gillian in LA at the MultiCityTeacherConf. from July 29-31, 2009.

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Do Charter Schools Cream? Does Gravity Exist?

Read the report of a rally at PS 123 at the GEM blog.
PS 123 and Harlem Success: not separate, not equal.

This follows the Daily News report about charters tossing certain kids back into the public schools:

Charter schools pawn off flunking students, says public school principal

There were principals speaking up at the Brooklyn Dreams charter school hearing. They seems as disturbed as anyone at the charter school invasion.

DOE Press chief David Cantor again jumped into the fray at the NYC Ed listserve and the back and forth over there has been fun to watch, as usual.

History/structure of the UFT

One of the fun things about doing this organizing thing is meeting young teachers who are interested in how the UFT operates. The tough thing is knowing where to start and putting it all in context.

I did a presentation for the NYCORE Labor Study ITAG, part of a 6 week examination of the role of teacher unions and labor in general. There was just to much material to spill out in 2 hours as I tried to cover the entire history of the union from the 1920's (thanks to Bruce Markens for his superb memory.)

I am developing materials for further refinement which will be posted at Norms Notes. I'm starting with a flow chart and will add text later. This is a work in progress that will be refined to hopefully make it useful to use with teachers who want to know more about the union.

The first chart is a monster on the formal structures of the UFT: AdCom, Ex. Bd., DA and how they all get chosen. Sitting on top of it all is an institution not mentioned in any formal UFT materials: Unity Caucus.

Ed Notes Online

Ed Notes Extended

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Rally to save Paul Robeson High School

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