Friday, October 4, 2013

Another Whine From Peter Goodman, Who Supported Unity and Much of Ed deform

After the Department announced the closing of Thomas Jefferson a request for proposal (RFP) resulted, about two dozen organizations attended a series of workshops assisting the applicants... Peter Goodman. Ed in the Apple
What Goodman leaves out is that he was a member of the state commission and voted to close Jefferson (my alma mata) -- the replacement schools have also been a disaster in most cases.
Every closing public engagement meeting is crowded with angry parents objecting to the latest school closing or co-location. Rejecting neighborhoods and establishing a system that abjures neighborhood schools is arrogant. I would hope the new guys/gals will be sensitive to communities, will establish policies to build communities, to coordinate services.
This made MORE's Lisa North practically gag:

Peter Goodman, retired Unity spokesperson writes a letter to Walcott below. He infuriates me. WHERE was the UFT when all this was happening? ...Paying for a few buses for teachers and parents to attend the PEP meetings so that they could let off some steam that their school was being closed? a PEP that the UFT agreed should be the mayoral control body to make those decisions? Oh yeah.....the UFT filed a few law suits.....that of course mostly just delayed the closings. At the September chapter leader meeting Mulgrew had the nerve to say that it was the union and members sitting at the meeting who had helped make the DOE polices so unpopular (I can't remember his exact words). It was GEM and then Occupy DOE that attended just about every school closing hearing (as well as charter colocations) at the school level and organized the fight back at the PEPs....the UFT was missing in action. NOW that Bloomberg is on the way out, the UFT wants to speak up???....Lisa
 Here is a link to Goodman's post:
DUHHHH Peter. Nothing has been working -- all the stuff you guys supported. How is that 2005 contract working out for public education? UFT support for closing schools until 2010? Merit pay? Charters? I've been telling you Unity guys that the stuff wouldn't work from the day Bloomberg took over -- and even before.

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