Breaking News: For Immediate Release
Charges Against David Pakter Dismissed
After A 6 Year "David Versus Goliath" Contest,
A New York State Impartial Trial Arbitrator
Has Dismissed the Absurd NY State Education Dept. Charges Made Against A Former NYC "Teacher of the Year"
A Major Victory for Every Teacher in America
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David Pakter, A NYC Whistle-blower, Decorated by Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani for "Exceptional Achievement" in Education, has fought for years to be vindicated of the Retaliatory, knowingly bogus Charges brought against him after he wrote a letter to Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, on Oct. 2, 2003, alerting him to serious Federal Civil Rights Violations in New York City Schools.
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In a crushing blow to New York City's Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, who had sought for years to have Mr. Pakter fired, the Hearing Officer dismissed such preposterous charges against the Educator of Medical Illustration as the charge he had brought a plant to school, allegedly without getting official permission and awarding fashion watches to high achieving students, something Pakter had been doing for three decades.
He was also charged with giving a gift to a school aide and showing the film, "El Mariachi" by Robert Rodriguez, an Internationally known Director, to one of his High School classes. The film has been the recipient of a multitude of Cinematic Awards around the world and launched the career of Robert Rodriguez.
The charge that Mr. Pakter stopped reporting to a small, windowless, so-called "Rubber Room" after years of being ordered reassigned to such punitive assignments, where Teachers just sit all day, was not considered in today's verdict.
Mr. Pakter was a Lead Plaintiff in a Federal Lawsuit to shut down these teacher "Gulags" which New York City has announced will cease to exist after this school year ends.
These so-called "reassignment centers" were widely seen as a means to punish Teachers as well as instill fear in those who spoke out and reported wrongdoing as well as corruption and unethical behavior within the 23 Billion dollar NYC schools system.
The charge that Mr. Pakter had allegedly tried to influence a Dept of Education employee to furnish him with a printout of his personal work history on an expedited basis was also not considered in today's decision.
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For the past several months the NYC Dept of Education had been attempting to pressure Mr. Pakter to resign by offering to drop all the absurd and contrived charges made against the Award winning Educator- all of which offers were rejected by Mr. Pakter who insisted on a verdict regarding the pending charges alleged against him.
Mr. Pakter has brought Federal Lawsuits against the New York City Dept of Education seeking tens of millions of dollars in Damages.
At one point the City attempted to remove Mr. Pakter from his position for a year claiming he was not Medically "fit for duty", by having Dept of Education doctors intentionally suppress and alter their own Test Results reflecting Mr. Pakter's stellar results of fitness.
That decision was challenged by Mr. Pakter and he eventually was awarded a year of back pay plus interest. Most of the City doctors who were responsible for knowingly Railroading Mr. Pakter have all since left the the NYC Dept of Education Medical Office including the Medical Director who personally signed the letter that falsely claimed Pakter was not "fit for Duty". One year later that same Medical Director recanted that knowingly false and erroneous conclusion in a signed statement.
On March 21, 2010 The NEW YORK POST printed a story that included the statement that Mr. Pakter had been removed from the NYC schools system for quote "sexual misconduct"- a knowingly false statement since the paper had previously written about Pakter in another article about NYC Teachers in March of 2007.
The newspaper attempted to retract the false and Libelous statement one week later on March 28, 2010 by publishing a "Correction" Notice in a later Edition that included the words that the newspaper had, quote:
"incorrectly stated the allegations against David Pakter. The Dept of Education only alleges that he was insubordinate. Pakter claims he brought in a plant and offered watches as honor-roll incentives".
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Mr. Pakter has already filed a $ 10,000,000 (Ten Million) NOTICE OF CLAIM against the NEW YORK POST newspaper as well as the NYC Dept of Education for the publication of false, libelous, defamatory, slanderous statements".
Both the NEW YORK POST newspaper as well as the NYC Dept of Education have been served with papers to appear in NY State Supreme Court on June 16, at 80 Centre Street, Manhattan, Room 328, at 9:30 A.M. before State Supreme Court Judge, the Hon. Cynthia Kern.
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The David Pakter Charges
Please note my response to each charge appears in CAPITAL LETTERS.
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OFFICIAL NYC DEPT OF EDUCATION CHARGES AGAINST DAVID PAKTER
SPECIFICATIONS
( Important Note: Virtually all of the following charges, (except the charges relating to attendance at the small windowless Rubber Room located in Harlem), were shown and proven at Trial to be either outright lies or distortions of fact to such an extreme degree as to make the charges little more than knowing falsehoods.)
NOTE ALL MY RESPONSES & COMMENTS ARE IN UPPER CASE/CAPS
_____________________________________________
Below is a Verbatim Copy of ALL NYC DOE Charges against David Pakter
DAVID PAKTER (hereinafter referred to as "Respondent") is a tenured teacher, under File # 407530, Social Security # XXX-XX-XXXX, formerly assigned to The High School of Fashion Industries in Manhattan. During the 2006-2007 school year, Respondent engaged in misconduct and was neglectful of his duties as follows:
In Particular:
SPECIFICATION 1: In or about October and/or November of 2006, Respondent promoted his and /or his family's watch business during school hours. DISMISSED
I INFORMED STUDENTS (AS I HAVE FOR 3 DECADES) THAT ANYONE WITH A 90% AVERAGE WOULD EARN A WATCH DESIGNED BY PAKTER
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SPECIFICATION 2: In or about October and/or November of 2006, Respondent gave watches as gifts to students during school hours. DISMISSED
YES, YES AND YES- LIKE JOEL KLEIN GIVING OUT CELL PHONES
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SPECIFICATION 3: In or about October and/or November of 2006, Respondent gave a watch to School Aide during school hours. DISMISSED
ABSOLUTELY YES- I GAVE A WATCH TO A SCHOOL AIDE DURING MY LUNCH BREAK
ISN'T THAT MY CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT OR DO I NEED THE PERMISSION OF THE NYC DOE EVEN TO GIVE SOMEONE A GIFT.
The official New York City Ethics Charter states I violated no Rule or Regulation but I was charged despite that fact.
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SPECIFICATION 4: In or about October and/or November of 2006, during class time, Respondent:
(a) Talked about his and/or his family's watch business.
DISMISSED
(b) Provided the watch website address.
DISMISSED
(c) Showed students a book and/or a brochure and/or a catalog of watches.
DISMISSED
(d) Said words to the effect that he would give a watch to any student who achieved a gradepoint average of 90% or better.
DISMISSED
(e) Showed two watches to students.
DISMISSED
(f) Talked about his personal life.
DISMISSED
(g) Said words to the effect that he was fired from The High School of Art and Design for being a whistleblower.
DISMISSED
I STRONGLY ENCOURAGED STUDENTS TO STRIVE TO GET ON HONOR ROLL AND PROMISED THEM FASHION ACCESSORIES AS AN INCENTIVE AS I HAVE DONE FOR THE PAST 30 YEARS TO THE DELIGHT AND DEEP APPRECIATION OF COUNTLESS NYC DOE SCHOOL PRINCIPALS.
ALL ABOVE FALL WITHIN MY FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS RE FREE SPEECH.
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(h) Showed the class an "R" rated movie.
DISMISSED
FILM WAS R-RATED EXACTLY FOR THE SAME REASONS AS "SCHINDLER'S LIST", "SAVING PRIVATE RYAN", "THE PIANIST", ETC ETC ARE, R-RATED AS WELL AS THE DOZENS OF AWARD WINNING FILMS I HAVE SHOWN TO CLASSES FOR 37 YEARS WITH THE FULL KNOWLEDGE OF PEERS AND COUNTLESS NYC DOE PRINCIPALS I SERVED WITH DISTINCTION WHO RESPECTED MY GOOD JUDGEMENT TO SCREEN FILMS THAT CONTAINED STRONG LIFE LESSONS.
IMPORTANT NOTE: THE ABOVE ABSURD CHARGE ALSO BRINGS UP POSSIBLE CONSTITUTIONAL VIOLATIONS PERTAINING TO CENSORSHIP. ALSO TARGETTING TEACHERS BY ACCUSING THEM OF SHOWING A FILM IS AN OLD AND TIRED TACTIC OF THE NYC DOE.
THUS SUBCHARGE (h) VIOLATES AND GIVES RISE TO AT LEAST TWO CLEARLY SERIOUS CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES.
IMPORTANT NOTE: THIS CHARGE WAS WITHDRAWN BY THE CITY
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SPECIFICATION 5: In or about November of 2006, Respondent had two trees delivered to the school despite being previously told by Assistant Principal Giovanni Raschilla to wait until he discussed the matter with Principal Hilda Nieto. DISMISSED
THE ABOVE TOTALLY AND INTENTIONALLY DISTORTS FACTS
- I HAND CARRIED TWO SMALL ARTIFICIAL PLANTS IN WICKER BASKETS TO SCHOOL ON MY LUNCH HOUR WHICH I PLACED OUTSIDE DOORS TO THE SCHOOL AUDITORIUM WHERE EVERYONE AGREED THEY LOOKED TOTALLY GREAT AND VASTLY IMPROVED THE AMBIANCE OF THE SCHOOL LOBBY.
VERY INTERESTINGLY NO WHERE IN RICHARD CONDON'S SPECIALLY PREPARED SCI REPORT PREPARED FOR CHANCELLOR JOEL KLEIN IS IT MENTIONED THAT ON THE SAME DAY I PLACED THE TWO PLANTS OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL AUDITORIUM I ALSO HAND DELIVERED A LARGE BEAUTIFUL SILK PLANT, ALSO IN A WICKER BASKET TO PRINCIPAL HILDA NIETO'S OFFICE AND GAVE THE PLANT TO HER SECRETARY, MS. TUCKER REQUESTING SHE GIVE THE GIFT TO THE PRINCIPAL TO DECORATE HER OFFICE.
THE PLANT GIVEN TO THE PRINCIPAL WAS NEVER MENTIONED IN THE SCI REPORT AND I WAS NEVER CHARGED WITH GIVING PRINCIPAL HILDA NIETO A SILK PLANT BUT I WAS CHARGED WITH GIVING A GIFT TO A MINIMUM WAGE SCHOOL AIDE.
NIETO NEVER THANKED ME, VERBALLY OR IN WRITING BECAUSE SHE KNEW THAT IT WOULD PREVENT ANY PLANT CHARGES FROM BEING MADE AGAINST ME.
ALSO THE SCI REPORT TO KLEIN DID NOT MENTION THAT I BOUGHT AND HAND DELIVERED MYSELF, SEVERAL PLANTS IN BASKETS TO THE MAIN SCHOOL OFFICE WHERE I HAD TO SIT ALL DAY WHEN I WAS NOT COVERING CLASSES AS AN ATR SUBSTITUTE TEACHER.
ON THE DAY I WAS REMOVED, THE PLANTS I HAD PERSONALLY PURCHASED, PAID FOR AND PERSONALLY DELIVERED AND INSTALLED AT THREE DIFFERENT LOCATIONS IN THE SCHOOL WERE STILL THERE EXACTLY WHERE I HAD PERSONALLY PLACED THEM
NOTE THAT THE PLANT GIFTS TO THE PRINCIPAL'S PRIVATE OFFICE AND ALSO TO HER MAIN SCHOOL OFFICE ON A DIFFERENT FLOOR IN THE SCHOOL BUILDING, WERE NOT INCLUDED IN THE 3020-a SPECIFICATIONS.
THINK ABOUT HOW EVIL AND MACHIAVELLIAN THAT MAKES THESE PEOPLE AND THE NYC DEPT OF EDUCATION IN GENERAL.
BUT IN ANY EVENT ISN'T IT MY CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO BE TREATED IN THE SAME FASHION AS ANY OTHER TEACHER IN NYC WHO DECIDES TO DECORATE HIS/HER CLASSROOM AND/OR SCHOOL.
IN SHORT WE ADDRESS HERE THE CONCEPT OF EQUAL TREATMENT AND EQUAL PROTECTION UNDER THE LAW AND THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION
SHOULD SOME TEACHERS BE ALLOWED TO BRING A PLANT TO SCHOOL AND NOT OTHERS?
NOTE: THE WEEK I WAS REMOVED I WAS ABLE TO GET GIOVANNI RASCHILLA, MY A.P. ON TAPE ADMITTING TO UFT CHAPTER LEADER JACK SANCHEZ THAT HE, RASCHILLA, KNEW THE WHOLE PLANT BUSINESS WAS ILLEGAL AND THAT HE WOULD REMOVE THE PLANT LETTERS FROM MY FILE IMMEDIATELY AS UFT SANCHEZ DEMANDED.
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SPECIFICATION 6: Respondent's actions caused widespread negative publicity and notoriety to the High School of Fashion Industries and the New York City Department of Education in general when his unprofessional behavior was referenced in the UFT Newspaper.
THIS IS THE FAMOUS CHARGE THAT RANDI WEINGARTEN ORDERED NYSUT TO WRITE A PROTEST TO CHANCELLOR JOEL KLEIN ON OCTOBER 24, 2007 TO WHICH KLEIN NEVER RESPONDED BUT WHICH THE NYC DEPT OF EDUCATION LATER WITHDREW RATHER THAN BE FORCED TO FIGHT THE UFT IN COURT OVER A FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUE.
WITHDRAWN
SPECIFICATION 7: During the 2006-2007 school year, Respondent was absent ninety-eight (98) times from work. (Rubber Room)
SPECIFICATION 8: During the 2006-2007 school year, Respondent worked a partial day fifteen (15) times. (Rubber Room)
HARLEM RUBBER ROOM WAS A VERY SMALL ROOM ON 125TH STREET, WITH NO WINDOWS, NO IMMEDIATELY AVAILABLE DRINKING WATER, BARE WALLS UNTIL I TRIED TO HANG A FEW PICTURES AND WAS ORDERED NOT TO DO SO AND THE MUSEUM PRINTS REMOVED.
AND WORST OF ALL THIS SMALL ROOM CONVEYED TO THE PEOPLE HOUSED THERE A SENSE OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA AND INCARCERATION
A UFT HIRED AIR SPECIALIST, HIRED BY UFT SPECIAL REP-KLAUS BORNEMANN, USING SOPHISTICATED AIR TESTING EQUIPMENT WROTE IN HIS AIR QUALITY REPORT THAT THE CEILING VENTILATORS AT TIMES WERE BLOWING AIR OF SUBSTANDARD AIR QUALITY INTO THE ROOM.
THE ABOVE AMOUNTS TO CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT UNDER THE US CONSTITUTION AND IS THE REASON I STOPPED REPORTING TO THE SMALL WINDOWLESS RUBBER ROOM IN HARLEM.
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Please Note: The fact that the DOE would certainly deny that any, or all of these charges do not violate any of my Constitutional and/or First Amendment rights, (which is to be totally expected), does not make such an assertion and/or position true. It is only by challenging established customs and perceptions of what does and does not violate the Laws of the Land, that "old" laws are struck down, and new Laws and new legal precedents- established.
David Pakter
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Posted by A Teacher In The Bronx at 5:04 PM
Reactions:
Labels: 3020a, David Pakter
1 Strong Opinions:
Anonymous said...
Rubber plants and watches? The kids that win city track meets get gold watches. Who the heck cares? Should we charge the track coaches? This is a completely bad faith operation. This is the most ridiculous 3020a I have heard of and it is so ridiculous DOE is probably afraid to drop it knowing that is tantamount to admitting they never should have charged David in the first place. Nothing about his teaching and nothing about misconduct.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query david pakter. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query david pakter. Sort by date Show all posts
Friday, June 11, 2010
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Pakter Whacked Her
The David Pakter open 3020a hearings continues today and tomorrow and it's a show that is worth the price of admission. Open hearings are rare, so this may be a rare opportunity. It's all about giving out watches for achievement and buying plastic plants for the school. Serious matters that require 2 DOE (or more) lawyers. I'm sorry I can't make it tomorrow. And probably not Thursday either, but if someone does go send a report. I'm sure there will be other chances - right until the next century, most likely.
I wrote about a previous visit to Pakter hearing (David made them open to the public) at which the Principal of Fashion Industries HS, after telling just slightly distorted stories, suddenly realized upon cross examination that there was a transcript of a meeting with David and went rigid as she asked, "You mean he taped the meeting?" (June 3rd.) (Note to all teachers who have to meet with principals under weird conditions, get a flower with a mic. Check out these I Spy stores.)
I also commented here. And in more places on this blog.
I went back a few weeks later and heard the Assistant Principal testify about Pakter putting trees in front of the auditorium doors, thus blocking their access. He gave the impression they were giant redwoods. In fact, they were plastic plants David had carried over himself from Home Depot, a few blocks away. The plants kept shrinking as the AP testified. So did he.
I made a return visit July 23. I am sorry I missed the road trip the day before when the hearing officer Douglas Bantl -- a gentleman and nice guy who is being axed as a hearing officer after this case for being too fair -- and the lawyers all went up to Harlem to visit the rubber room.
You see, another serious charge is that Pakter refused to report to the RR because he said it was pointless to sit there and do nothing and the place was harmful to people's health. He didn't mind not getting paid and the DOE didn't mind not paying him. But they are still charging him with not reporting. I guess they really do want to pay people for doing nothing even if they don't want to be paid. But watch the NY Post scream about the awful waste and blame the UFT.
There was a new DOE lawyer who was barely familiar with the case. His name is Phil Oliveri. And there was another DOE lawyer named Wilson Sia with him. You see, it takes two lawyers to talk about watches and plastic plants.
I was only able to stay for the morning and there was one witness - a guidance counselor who testified he saw Pakter showing some watches to a student monitor in the main office while the counselor was heating up his lunch in the microwave.
He thought it odd but not enough to say anything to anyone, until a week later when at a guidance meeting chaired by AP Olivier Poor, who mentioned that some teacher had bought plants for the school. The GC spoke up asking if it was the same guy who was showing watches. Poor perked up and asked him about it.
Soon after Poor wrote an email to the principal Hilda Nieto that the GC has told her he saw Pakter selling watches to a school aide in the school store.
Poor poor. She made 3 errors of fact in one sentence. But the day before she testified that what she wrote was true. Unfortunately for her, when the GC was shown the email, he stuck by his original story that Pakter was just showing the watches to a student in the main office. "Did it seem he was trying to hide that he was doing it," asked NYSUT lawyer Chris Calergy? "No," said the GC.
Now we must remind you that one of the major charges against Pakter is that he was selling watches to the kids. Nada.
That these events took place in November 2006 and it's now -- hmmm, I think August 2009.
That all this time has passed is a sign of
a) dysfunction at the DOE
b)a willingness to spend whatever it takes and however how long to snuff Pakter, who is way past retirement and has ooodles of moolah with his watch company (skip the intro - if you dare) but is way too stubborn to give up.
I wish he'd show me some of them watches. But first I have to look for my high school report cards to prove I had a 90 average.
Damn, just checked and it came to 89.7 over my last 3 years at Thomas Jefferson HS in East NY Brooklyn from 1959-1962. Can I get marked on a curve like they seem to be doing today? Better yet, how about giving me some of that credit recovery stuff? I can fog a mirror with the best of them.
I wrote about a previous visit to Pakter hearing (David made them open to the public) at which the Principal of Fashion Industries HS, after telling just slightly distorted stories, suddenly realized upon cross examination that there was a transcript of a meeting with David and went rigid as she asked, "You mean he taped the meeting?" (June 3rd.) (Note to all teachers who have to meet with principals under weird conditions, get a flower with a mic. Check out these I Spy stores.)
I also commented here. And in more places on this blog.
I went back a few weeks later and heard the Assistant Principal testify about Pakter putting trees in front of the auditorium doors, thus blocking their access. He gave the impression they were giant redwoods. In fact, they were plastic plants David had carried over himself from Home Depot, a few blocks away. The plants kept shrinking as the AP testified. So did he.
I made a return visit July 23. I am sorry I missed the road trip the day before when the hearing officer Douglas Bantl -- a gentleman and nice guy who is being axed as a hearing officer after this case for being too fair -- and the lawyers all went up to Harlem to visit the rubber room.
You see, another serious charge is that Pakter refused to report to the RR because he said it was pointless to sit there and do nothing and the place was harmful to people's health. He didn't mind not getting paid and the DOE didn't mind not paying him. But they are still charging him with not reporting. I guess they really do want to pay people for doing nothing even if they don't want to be paid. But watch the NY Post scream about the awful waste and blame the UFT.
There was a new DOE lawyer who was barely familiar with the case. His name is Phil Oliveri. And there was another DOE lawyer named Wilson Sia with him. You see, it takes two lawyers to talk about watches and plastic plants.
I was only able to stay for the morning and there was one witness - a guidance counselor who testified he saw Pakter showing some watches to a student monitor in the main office while the counselor was heating up his lunch in the microwave.
He thought it odd but not enough to say anything to anyone, until a week later when at a guidance meeting chaired by AP Olivier Poor, who mentioned that some teacher had bought plants for the school. The GC spoke up asking if it was the same guy who was showing watches. Poor perked up and asked him about it.
Soon after Poor wrote an email to the principal Hilda Nieto that the GC has told her he saw Pakter selling watches to a school aide in the school store.
Poor poor. She made 3 errors of fact in one sentence. But the day before she testified that what she wrote was true. Unfortunately for her, when the GC was shown the email, he stuck by his original story that Pakter was just showing the watches to a student in the main office. "Did it seem he was trying to hide that he was doing it," asked NYSUT lawyer Chris Calergy? "No," said the GC.
Now we must remind you that one of the major charges against Pakter is that he was selling watches to the kids. Nada.
That these events took place in November 2006 and it's now -- hmmm, I think August 2009.
That all this time has passed is a sign of
a) dysfunction at the DOE
b)a willingness to spend whatever it takes and however how long to snuff Pakter, who is way past retirement and has ooodles of moolah with his watch company (skip the intro - if you dare) but is way too stubborn to give up.
I wish he'd show me some of them watches. But first I have to look for my high school report cards to prove I had a 90 average.
Damn, just checked and it came to 89.7 over my last 3 years at Thomas Jefferson HS in East NY Brooklyn from 1959-1962. Can I get marked on a curve like they seem to be doing today? Better yet, how about giving me some of that credit recovery stuff? I can fog a mirror with the best of them.
Related
South Bronx School had been tracking the Pakter case.
And NYC Rubber Room Reporter did a long piece back in December chronicling the case up to that point.
Out takes:
Follow up to this morning's post on my new suits.
I already got invited to a school but if they see another suit in any way related to the UFT they will get out the tar and feather. I guess its back to jeans. Anyone got a Bar Mitzvah to invite me to?
South Bronx School had been tracking the Pakter case.
And NYC Rubber Room Reporter did a long piece back in December chronicling the case up to that point.
Out takes:
Follow up to this morning's post on my new suits.
I already got invited to a school but if they see another suit in any way related to the UFT they will get out the tar and feather. I guess its back to jeans. Anyone got a Bar Mitzvah to invite me to?
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
David Pakter Has Advice for Whistle Blowers
After the Lehman HS whistle blower blow-up a few weeks ago (see links below), where teachers supposedly slipped proof of the principal tampering with grades, I was contacted by some of the Lehman whistle blowers for advice (and a lawyer.)
To know one's surprise, Tweed announced they would investigate the
teachers who blew the whistle. They went to the press because they had notified Joel Klein last March and an investigation was supposedly begun, but they hadn't heard anything for 5 months and figured it went nowhere.
I think they seem to be in the clear, but I consulted with whistle blower supremo David Pakter.
He responded with this essay, posted at Under Assault, who also posted a photo of one of the plastic plants Pakter bought for the school, one of the charges against him in his endless 3020a hearings (which are wrapping up with two dates in
December) after the DOE has spend an enormous amount of money trying to get rid of him. I was at the hearing when the school supervisors testified and they made the tree sound like a giant redwood. When Pakter told us he bought 3 of these at Home Dept and carried them to the school in a shopping bag, I fell off my chair.
It would have been much cheaper to just place Pakter in charge of putting together arts programs all over the city if they wanted him away from kids - you know, giving out $200 watches from a company you own to kids earning over 90 on their report cards is seditious., even though it dovetails perfectly with the market-based ed deformers.
Here is an excerpt:
So what else is new. Cheating went on in every school I ever taught in and at the High School where I taught for twenty five years, mark altering / "improving"/ "updating" - was raised to a virtual "art".
I wonder if Principals demand Kickbacks for all the gallons of "white-out" they order every June to ensure that their graduation totals will look even better and rosier than the previous year's stellar "improvement".
As for using a "Passing" Regents grade as an excuse to ignore a Failing Class Grade score- how the heck do you think they come up with those "regents scores".
At my former school, and I am sure many would not be surprised to learn, at 99 % of the NYC High Schools, all Regents Scores are referred to as a student's "Raw Regents Score". That is to say- the actual grade the student earned on the actual Regents Examination.
I have my own advice for whistle blowers. DON'T DO IT! Unless you have a crew of people with you. Expect to be more of a target yourself than the people you are blowing the whistle on. One area I disagree with Pakter's essay. That is his assumption it is the newer teachers who whistle blow. In my experience, it is the people with years in the system who have the understanding to know when to blow the whistle. It usually takes years to build up the anger and passion to be willing to risk your career.
Ed Notes Lehman stories
Education Notes Online: Lehman HS, School for
What Did Klein Know About
Lehman Story Gets Legs
To know one's surprise, Tweed announced they would investigate the
teachers who blew the whistle. They went to the press because they had notified Joel Klein last March and an investigation was supposedly begun, but they hadn't heard anything for 5 months and figured it went nowhere.I think they seem to be in the clear, but I consulted with whistle blower supremo David Pakter.
He responded with this essay, posted at Under Assault, who also posted a photo of one of the plastic plants Pakter bought for the school, one of the charges against him in his endless 3020a hearings (which are wrapping up with two dates in
December) after the DOE has spend an enormous amount of money trying to get rid of him. I was at the hearing when the school supervisors testified and they made the tree sound like a giant redwood. When Pakter told us he bought 3 of these at Home Dept and carried them to the school in a shopping bag, I fell off my chair.It would have been much cheaper to just place Pakter in charge of putting together arts programs all over the city if they wanted him away from kids - you know, giving out $200 watches from a company you own to kids earning over 90 on their report cards is seditious., even though it dovetails perfectly with the market-based ed deformers.
Here is an excerpt:
So what else is new. Cheating went on in every school I ever taught in and at the High School where I taught for twenty five years, mark altering / "improving"/ "updating" - was raised to a virtual "art".
I wonder if Principals demand Kickbacks for all the gallons of "white-out" they order every June to ensure that their graduation totals will look even better and rosier than the previous year's stellar "improvement".
As for using a "Passing" Regents grade as an excuse to ignore a Failing Class Grade score- how the heck do you think they come up with those "regents scores".
At my former school, and I am sure many would not be surprised to learn, at 99 % of the NYC High Schools, all Regents Scores are referred to as a student's "Raw Regents Score". That is to say- the actual grade the student earned on the actual Regents Examination.
I have my own advice for whistle blowers. DON'T DO IT! Unless you have a crew of people with you. Expect to be more of a target yourself than the people you are blowing the whistle on. One area I disagree with Pakter's essay. That is his assumption it is the newer teachers who whistle blow. In my experience, it is the people with years in the system who have the understanding to know when to blow the whistle. It usually takes years to build up the anger and passion to be willing to risk your career.
Ed Notes Lehman stories
Education Notes Online: Lehman HS, School for
What Did Klein Know About
Lehman Story Gets Legs
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Final Days of Pakter Hearing- Monday and Tuesday
Ed Note:
For those who have not seen a 3020 hearing, here is your chance. This is a special case in that the hearing officer is Douglas Bantle who is fair minded and gives the defense a chance. There's a lot of back story here about DOE attempts to settle on certain conditions. It seems they know they have a good chance to lose this one. So they are pulling out every stop. I'm not sure what it is safe to write about, so I will be cautious at this point. An important note is that with all the backlog of cases and the need to resolve many of them under the new rubber room agreement with the corresponding need to hire many more hearing officers, Bantle is being "fired."
Note also that there are no penalties for DOE officials caught in lies.
As I have been warning people, start taping EVERYTHING. Pre and post observations and even your own lessons where you are being observed.
PLEASE POST - Reporters, Journalists and Bloggers - PLEASE POST
For Immediate Release
On Monday, May 10, at 10 AM --
For the first time in the history of NYC Dept of Education Teacher Trials, a State Hearing Officer has requested and will allow an accused NYC Teacher to play secret tapes in his possession to prove his innocence.
This is a ground breaking event and will prove beyond any doubt that former
'Teacher of the Year', David Pakter, was falsely accused of wrongdoing by the NYC DOE.
No member of the media, Legal community or anyone interested in Justice can afford to miss this unique, first ever milestone in the history of the long struggle by NYC Educators to receive fair treatment and "Due Process" at the hands of the 23 Billion Dollar New York City Dept of Education.
Where: 49 Chambers Street, Manhattan 6th Floor
When: 10 A.M.
Who: Hon. Douglas J. Bantle, Esq. - Presiding
Christopher M. Callagy, Esq. - for the Defense
Philip Oliveri, Esq. - Prosecuting for NYC
*************************
Note: New York City teachers have been removed from their classrooms and schools for decades based on the flimsiest heresay, fabricated allegations and bogus charges. Often the teacher is totally innocent of the accusations but is at the mercy of a system that makes proving one's innocence difficult if not impossible.
The NYC Dept of Education will present Witnesses who despite being under Sworn Oath, will lie with impunity and not hesitate to commit the most outrageous acts of Perjury knowing that there is virtually no price to be paid if caught.
On Monday, May 10, at 10 A.M.
for the first time in history, a courageous and independent Hearing Officer, sitting in Judgement to decide a highly Decorated Educator's fate, will allow David Pakter to have a fair shot at Justice.
The Honorable Douglas J. Bantle, Esq. will permit the accused to let the entire public learn the Truth by playing a tape recording proving "who" said "what" and "where" and "when".
The Hearing Officer and the Attorneys will all hear what those who accused Mr. Pakter said - or did not say- from their own lips.
The great French writer,Victor Hugo, once said:
"There is no force on Earth so powerful as an Idea whose time has come."
That time is 10 A.M. on Monday, May 10
at 49 Chambers Street, 6th Floor, Manhattan.
Be a Witness to History.
_______________________________________
Warning: the 6th Floor Receptionist has been known to falsely inform the Public there is NO Pakter Hearing scheduled.
Do Not Leave. Demand to speak to an Official. mily:Times New Roman;font-size:180%;" >"There is no force on Earth so powerful as an Idea whose time has come."
For those who have not seen a 3020 hearing, here is your chance. This is a special case in that the hearing officer is Douglas Bantle who is fair minded and gives the defense a chance. There's a lot of back story here about DOE attempts to settle on certain conditions. It seems they know they have a good chance to lose this one. So they are pulling out every stop. I'm not sure what it is safe to write about, so I will be cautious at this point. An important note is that with all the backlog of cases and the need to resolve many of them under the new rubber room agreement with the corresponding need to hire many more hearing officers, Bantle is being "fired."
Note also that there are no penalties for DOE officials caught in lies.
As I have been warning people, start taping EVERYTHING. Pre and post observations and even your own lessons where you are being observed.
PLEASE POST - Reporters, Journalists and Bloggers - PLEASE POST
For Immediate Release
On Monday, May 10, at 10 AM --
For the first time in the history of NYC Dept of Education Teacher Trials, a State Hearing Officer has requested and will allow an accused NYC Teacher to play secret tapes in his possession to prove his innocence.
This is a ground breaking event and will prove beyond any doubt that former
'Teacher of the Year', David Pakter, was falsely accused of wrongdoing by the NYC DOE.
No member of the media, Legal community or anyone interested in Justice can afford to miss this unique, first ever milestone in the history of the long struggle by NYC Educators to receive fair treatment and "Due Process" at the hands of the 23 Billion Dollar New York City Dept of Education.
Where: 49 Chambers Street, Manhattan 6th Floor
When: 10 A.M.
Who: Hon. Douglas J. Bantle, Esq. - Presiding
Christopher M. Callagy, Esq. - for the Defense
Philip Oliveri, Esq. - Prosecuting for NYC
*************************
Note: New York City teachers have been removed from their classrooms and schools for decades based on the flimsiest heresay, fabricated allegations and bogus charges. Often the teacher is totally innocent of the accusations but is at the mercy of a system that makes proving one's innocence difficult if not impossible.
The NYC Dept of Education will present Witnesses who despite being under Sworn Oath, will lie with impunity and not hesitate to commit the most outrageous acts of Perjury knowing that there is virtually no price to be paid if caught.
On Monday, May 10, at 10 A.M.
for the first time in history, a courageous and independent Hearing Officer, sitting in Judgement to decide a highly Decorated Educator's fate, will allow David Pakter to have a fair shot at Justice.
The Honorable Douglas J. Bantle, Esq. will permit the accused to let the entire public learn the Truth by playing a tape recording proving "who" said "what" and "where" and "when".
The Hearing Officer and the Attorneys will all hear what those who accused Mr. Pakter said - or did not say- from their own lips.
The great French writer,Victor Hugo, once said:
"There is no force on Earth so powerful as an Idea whose time has come."
That time is 10 A.M. on Monday, May 10
at 49 Chambers Street, 6th Floor, Manhattan.
Be a Witness to History.
_______________________________________
Warning: the 6th Floor Receptionist has been known to falsely inform the Public there is NO Pakter Hearing scheduled.
Do Not Leave. Demand to speak to an Official. mily:Times New Roman;font-size:180%;" >"There is no force on Earth so powerful as an Idea whose time has come."
That time is 10 A.M. on Monday, May 10
at 49 Chambers Street, 6th Floor, Manhattan.
Be a Witness to History.
_______________________________________
Warning: the 6th Floor Receptionist has been known to falsely inform the Public there is NO Pakter Hearing scheduled.
Do Not Leave. Demand to speak to an Official.
*************************************
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Two Press Conferences, a 3020 Hearing, a Brooklyn GEM Meeting and a Bloomberg Watch Meeting
There are lots of activities to check out today.
First up will be the continuation of the ridiculous attempt to terminate David Pakter at his 3020a hearing over his giving kids with 90 averages expensive watches from his own watch company and his buying of artificial plants for his school. Hearing date after hearing date. Paying a hearing officer and lawyers and taking principals and APs out of their schools for days at a time. Across the street from Tweed. (See David's note below.)
If you noted the comment in the side bar on Frank McCourt, he would be as likely to have been sent to a 3020a hearing as David. Imagine the hearing. "You mean you tell kids stories? How will THAT close the achievement gap?) In the world of BloomKlein, there is no room for iconoclastic teachers.
Then at 12:30 there will be a press conference at City Hall with the state senators who Bloomberg compared to Chamberlain (Neville or Jaba?) or Nazis or something like that. For the best summary out there of what has transpired so far, read Jason Horowitz at http://www.politickerny.com/4593/bloomberg-dives-steaming-pile-alban
Following that will be a rally/demo at Tweed over the charter school invasions in schools in Harlem. 1:30.
See, I never have to leave the area. Up to this point.
Then it's off to a meeting in Brooklyn of the brand new Brooklyn GEM committee which is meeting with the crew from CAPE at 5pm.
The final event is the Fed UP NY Bloomberg Watch meeting where they will be distributing news letters. See Mike Dang's comment below. 6pm
Leonie writes about the City Hall and Tweed events and has some comments on other issues.
There will be a press conference tomorrow, Thursday July 23, at 12:30 PM with the Senators who are fighting for changes in the Padavan/Silver bill that would rubber stamp mayoral control. Please stand up for those who are standing up for a better school system, one that’s based on listening to parents, teachers, and actually improving classroom conditions rather than based on expensive and wasteful private contracts and inflated test score results.
At 1:30 P.M. tomorrow, there will be a rally with the parents and staff from PS 123/PS 197/PS 375 on the steps of Tweed, where charter schools are being forcibly inserted into their buildings – creating adverse learning conditions for the children in those schools.
Come join us at these two events!
In recent days there have been two important audits from the City Comptroller’s office as regards the manipulation of graduation rates, and lax monitoring of the test score results. For the graduation rate story, read this article in today’s Daily News, and check out the audit itself here; http://www.comptroller.nyc.gov/bureaus/audit/07-21-09_ME09-065A.shtm
The audit found that in the cases of 20% of the students sampled who were reported as having graduated, they did not have the required attendance rate of 90%. In 30% of cases, their transcripts had at least one change made in their original grades or credits.
The changes generally reflected improvements in students’ grades; some of them resulted in students passing classes that they were previously recorded as having failed,” the audit said. The DOE does not dispute any of the above findings, but claims that in most cases of changes in grades or credits, students performed “make up work” or “independent study” after failing the course, as solely verified by the principal’s statement.
When a principal’s bonus or continued employment depends upon rising graduation rates, this should not be considered sufficient proof. In fact, this audit reveals that the practice of credit recovery is far more widespread than originally suspected. More than 20% of the students had changes in their transcripts within a month of graduation — sometimes for courses taken in previous years. Some of these changes were made after the student had already graduated!
For today’s test score audit, check it out here: http://www.comptroller.nyc.gov/bureaus/audit/07-22-09_MD08_102A.shtm I haven’t had a chance to read it carefully yet, but one finding is especially interesting. The DOE refuses to do any computer analysis to track and identify possible cases of systemic cheating at schools. Moreover, the old BOE testing unit under Bob Tobias used to regularly do erasure analysis, also to identify possible cases of cheating; but apparently stopped this routine practice in 2002 – just when Bloomberg came into office. And they claim heightened accountability under Mayoral control!
Leonie Haimson
Mike Dang of Bloomberg watch
Just a reminder that we are holding our next grassroots meeting tomorrow:
What: Second Meeting to Organize Against Bloomberg
Date: Thursday, July 23, 2009
Time: 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Where: The LGBT Community Center — 208 West 13th Street, New York, NY 10011 (13th St and 7th Ave). Kaplan Assembly Room 101.
Several people will be speaking for 2-3 minutes on how the Bloomberg administration has affected our communities in a range of issues. If you intend to speak, but haven't notified me, please let me know. We'll be having these stories recorded, uploaded and shared via YouTube.
Thanks,
Mike Dang
mike@bloombergwatch.com
bloombergwatch.com
David Pakter writes
The Trial continues Thursday, July 23 and then on Wed and Thurs August 5 & 6 Location: 49 Chambers Street, 6 th Floor at 10 AM on all Trial Days.
First up will be the continuation of the ridiculous attempt to terminate David Pakter at his 3020a hearing over his giving kids with 90 averages expensive watches from his own watch company and his buying of artificial plants for his school. Hearing date after hearing date. Paying a hearing officer and lawyers and taking principals and APs out of their schools for days at a time. Across the street from Tweed. (See David's note below.)
If you noted the comment in the side bar on Frank McCourt, he would be as likely to have been sent to a 3020a hearing as David. Imagine the hearing. "You mean you tell kids stories? How will THAT close the achievement gap?) In the world of BloomKlein, there is no room for iconoclastic teachers.
Then at 12:30 there will be a press conference at City Hall with the state senators who Bloomberg compared to Chamberlain (Neville or Jaba?) or Nazis or something like that. For the best summary out there of what has transpired so far, read Jason Horowitz at http://www.politick
Following that will be a rally/demo at Tweed over the charter school invasions in schools in Harlem. 1:30.
See, I never have to leave the area. Up to this point.
Then it's off to a meeting in Brooklyn of the brand new Brooklyn GEM committee which is meeting with the crew from CAPE at 5pm.
The final event is the Fed UP NY Bloomberg Watch meeting where they will be distributing news letters. See Mike Dang's comment below. 6pm
Leonie writes about the City Hall and Tweed events and has some comments on other issues.
There will be a press conference tomorrow, Thursday July 23, at 12:30 PM with the Senators who are fighting for changes in the Padavan/Silver bill that would rubber stamp mayoral control. Please stand up for those who are standing up for a better school system, one that’s based on listening to parents, teachers, and actually improving classroom conditions rather than based on expensive and wasteful private contracts and inflated test score results.
At 1:30 P.M. tomorrow, there will be a rally with the parents and staff from PS 123/PS 197/PS 375 on the steps of Tweed, where charter schools are being forcibly inserted into their buildings – creating adverse learning conditions for the children in those schools.
Come join us at these two events!
In recent days there have been two important audits from the City Comptroller’s office as regards the manipulation of graduation rates, and lax monitoring of the test score results. For the graduation rate story, read this article in today’s Daily News, and check out the audit itself here; http://www.comptrol
The audit found that in the cases of 20% of the students sampled who were reported as having graduated, they did not have the required attendance rate of 90%. In 30% of cases, their transcripts had at least one change made in their original grades or credits.
The changes generally reflected improvements in students’ grades; some of them resulted in students passing classes that they were previously recorded as having failed,” the audit said. The DOE does not dispute any of the above findings, but claims that in most cases of changes in grades or credits, students performed “make up work” or “independent study” after failing the course, as solely verified by the principal’s statement.
When a principal’s bonus or continued employment depends upon rising graduation rates, this should not be considered sufficient proof. In fact, this audit reveals that the practice of credit recovery is far more widespread than originally suspected. More than 20% of the students had changes in their transcripts within a month of graduation — sometimes for courses taken in previous years. Some of these changes were made after the student had already graduated!
For today’s test score audit, check it out here: http://www.comptrol
Leonie Haimson
Mike Dang of Bloomberg watch
Just a reminder that we are holding our next grassroots meeting tomorrow:
What: Second Meeting to Organize Against Bloomberg
Date: Thursday, July 23, 2009
Time: 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Where: The LGBT Community Center — 208 West 13th Street, New York, NY 10011 (13th St and 7th Ave). Kaplan Assembly Room 101.
Several people will be speaking for 2-3 minutes on how the Bloomberg administration has affected our communities in a range of issues. If you intend to speak, but haven't notified me, please let me know. We'll be having these stories recorded, uploaded and shared via YouTube.
Thanks,
Mike Dang
mike@bloombergwatch.com
bloombergwatch.com
David Pakter writes
The Trial continues Thursday, July 23 and then on Wed and Thurs August 5 & 6
Request Hearing Room of the Hon. Douglas J. Bantle, Esq.
I have several Federal Lawsuits pending against Chancellor Joel Klein, Esq. in the Federal Court for the Southern District which include 14 other DEFENDANTS.
They can run but they cannot hide.The Wheels of Justice turn slowly but they grind exceeding small. In time the DOE will lose the present battle.But far more seriously and significantly. former Federal Prosecutor Joel Klein, Esq. is going to lose a far larger war. However it is a war he chose to initiate. He will rue he did so.
They can run but they cannot hide.The Wheels of Justice turn slowly but they grind exceeding small. In time the DOE will lose the present battle.But far more seriously and significantly. former Federal Prosecutor Joel Klein, Esq. is going to lose a far larger war. However it is a war he chose to initiate. He will rue he did so.
David Pakter
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
"You Mean He Would Tape a Meeting?" A Termination Hearing Experience
You hear an awful lot about how hard it is to terminate a tenured teacher and how much it costs. You only get the horror stories from the perspective of the anti-tenure crowd. What is often neglected is the issue of why a school system would choose to take a route to terminate in spite of the costs. The David Pakter case is a prime exhibit. I dropped in on David's 3020a hearing yesterday. You could write a book.
There were the lawyers - NYSUT for David and someone from the DOE. The arbitrator down from upstate. And the principal who had to be pulled from the school for two days. At least. Maybe more. And at least 12 days of trial. All to fire a teacher who has been in the system for 40 years. And not one word has ever been uttered negatively about his teaching.
What was yesterday all about? David had given watches from his watch company to students as an incentive for getting 90 averages on their report cards. Five watches. And one to a school aide for assisting him. That makes six.
David certainly knows how to get noticed. He started at the school on Oct. 18, 2006 upon release from slavery in the rubber room for years and was sent back on Nov. 25. Mostly over the watches. (There were more charges for which he was exonerated by the investigators.) That they are going forth with 3020a hearing sat extraordinary expenses to terminate him is bizarre, bizarre, bizarre.
When I left they hadn't even gotten to the large potted plants he brought as a donation to the school and placed in front of the auditorium. They deemed them a fire hazard and had them removed. Twenty lashes. The school puts on lots of shows. I bet they could have found some use for them. But I'll get more info later on this caper.
There was lots of discussion on the visit UFT's NY Teacher reporter Jim Calahan made to the school when he was writing an article on David. And David's offer of a $10,000 donation to the school. David is a well-known artist and owns watch companies and he is not doing any of this for the money.
The key questioning in a superb cross examination of the principal by the NYSUT attorney was about a meeting held on Nov. 3 to discuss the issue. The principal's memory was sketchy. But on direct examination she indicated that David was trying to market his watches in the classes he taught by giving out catalogues and his web site. On cross it came out that he was giving the kids a place to go to choose the watches they wanted. The arbitrator, one of the most respected I hear, perked up. Not marketing, but offering choices of watches. An ah-ha moment.
There was a lot of detail that I'd love to go into in the future as the process is very enlightening as to the thought process administrators go through. There came a point when after repeated questionning about the details of the things that were said at the Nov. 3 meeting were raised - things that David said there that would go a long way towards exonerating him– the principal said, "This seems like you are reading from a transcript."
The NYSUT attorney smiled and nodded. The principal issued a gasp. "He taped the meeting," she said incredulously? "Why would he tape an innocuous meeting called to discuss the issue," she asked in shock?
The NYSUT attorney smiled and said, "Well, we are at a 3020 hearing looking to terminate him."
The DOE attorney quickly asked for a few minutes to discuss the issue outside.
There were the lawyers - NYSUT for David and someone from the DOE. The arbitrator down from upstate. And the principal who had to be pulled from the school for two days. At least. Maybe more. And at least 12 days of trial. All to fire a teacher who has been in the system for 40 years. And not one word has ever been uttered negatively about his teaching.
What was yesterday all about? David had given watches from his watch company to students as an incentive for getting 90 averages on their report cards. Five watches. And one to a school aide for assisting him. That makes six.
David certainly knows how to get noticed. He started at the school on Oct. 18, 2006 upon release from slavery in the rubber room for years and was sent back on Nov. 25. Mostly over the watches. (There were more charges for which he was exonerated by the investigators.) That they are going forth with 3020a hearing sat extraordinary expenses to terminate him is bizarre, bizarre, bizarre.
When I left they hadn't even gotten to the large potted plants he brought as a donation to the school and placed in front of the auditorium. They deemed them a fire hazard and had them removed. Twenty lashes. The school puts on lots of shows. I bet they could have found some use for them. But I'll get more info later on this caper.
There was lots of discussion on the visit UFT's NY Teacher reporter Jim Calahan made to the school when he was writing an article on David. And David's offer of a $10,000 donation to the school. David is a well-known artist and owns watch companies and he is not doing any of this for the money.
The key questioning in a superb cross examination of the principal by the NYSUT attorney was about a meeting held on Nov. 3 to discuss the issue. The principal's memory was sketchy. But on direct examination she indicated that David was trying to market his watches in the classes he taught by giving out catalogues and his web site. On cross it came out that he was giving the kids a place to go to choose the watches they wanted. The arbitrator, one of the most respected I hear, perked up. Not marketing, but offering choices of watches. An ah-ha moment.
There was a lot of detail that I'd love to go into in the future as the process is very enlightening as to the thought process administrators go through. There came a point when after repeated questionning about the details of the things that were said at the Nov. 3 meeting were raised - things that David said there that would go a long way towards exonerating him– the principal said, "This seems like you are reading from a transcript."
The NYSUT attorney smiled and nodded. The principal issued a gasp. "He taped the meeting," she said incredulously? "Why would he tape an innocuous meeting called to discuss the issue," she asked in shock?
The NYSUT attorney smiled and said, "Well, we are at a 3020 hearing looking to terminate him."
The DOE attorney quickly asked for a few minutes to discuss the issue outside.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Pakter Vs. NY Post/NYCDOE: Supreme Court June 16 Hearing at 9:30 AM before Justice Cynthia Kern
We know how teachers feel about the NY press, but they have a particular feeling about Rupert Murdoch's NY Post. For those who can make it to this hearing, the big UFT rally at City Hall is the afternoon of the 16th so make it a twofer.- Norm
On March 21, 2010 The NEW YORK POST printed a story that included the statement that Mr. Pakter had been removed from the NYC schools system for quote "sexual misconduct"- a knowingly false statement since the paper had previously written about Pakter in another article about NYC Teachers in March of 2007.
The newspaper attempted to retract the false and Libelous statement one week later on March 28, 2010 by publishing a "Correction" Notice in a later Edition that included the words that the newspaper had, quote:
"incorrectly stated the allegations against David Pakter. The Dept of Education only alleges that he was insubordinate. Pakter claims he brought in a plant and offered watches as honor-roll incentives".
_______________________________________________________________
On March 21, 2010 The NEW YORK POST printed a story that included the statement that Mr. Pakter had been removed from the NYC schools system for quote "sexual misconduct"- a knowingly false statement since the paper had previously written about Pakter in another article about NYC Teachers in March of 2007.
The newspaper attempted to retract the false and Libelous statement one week later on March 28, 2010 by publishing a "Correction" Notice in a later Edition that included the words that the newspaper had, quote:
"incorrectly stated the allegations against David Pakter. The Dept of Education only alleges that he was insubordinate. Pakter claims he brought in a plant and offered watches as honor-roll incentives".
_______________________________________________________________
Mr. Pakter has already filed a $ 10,000,000 (Ten Million) NOTICE OF CLAIM against the NEW YORK POST newspaper as well as the NYC Dept of Education for the publication of false, libelous, defamatory, slanderous statements".
Both the NEW YORK POST newspaper as well as the NYC
Dept of Education have been served with papers to appear in
NY State Supreme Court
on June 16, Wednesday
at 80 Centre Street, Manhattan,
Room 328, at 9:30 A.M.
State Supreme Court Justice, the Hon. Cynthia Kern, PresidingSaturday, May 17, 2008
Rubber Room News: David Pakter's 3020a Hearing (Number 2)
Make sure to read David Pakter's essay over at Norm's Notes on his upcoming 3020a hearing - this is the hearing that can lead to a tenured teacher's firing. The kind of hearing being attacked by anti-tenure people who want to be able to fire people for things like not brushing their teeth.
3020-a trials always begin with a pre trial conference between the opposing lawyers
and the Hearing Officer where technical matters are argued over such as the Demands for Discovery. Both sides state reasons for what they will and will not surrender into evidence etc. Lots of technical arguing over the specifics of the charges.
One of the charges is he brought in a large plant to decorate outside the auditorium without permission. Was it a Venus flytrap that ate kids? Or named Audrey?
David said in an email:
...the hearing officer was fairly amazed the DOE would pull something so insane as to make it a charge that the NEW YORK TEACHER ran a story on my case which the DOE claims embarrassed them if you can believe such insanity.
The story is at http://www.uft.org/news/teacher/top/axed/
3020-a trials always begin with a pre trial conference between the opposing lawyers
and the Hearing Officer where technical matters are argued over such as the Demands for Discovery. Both sides state reasons for what they will and will not surrender into evidence etc. Lots of technical arguing over the specifics of the charges.One of the charges is he brought in a large plant to decorate outside the auditorium without permission. Was it a Venus flytrap that ate kids? Or named Audrey?
David said in an email:
...the hearing officer was fairly amazed the DOE would pull something so insane as to make it a charge that the NEW YORK TEACHER ran a story on my case which the DOE claims embarrassed them if you can believe such insanity.
The story is at http://www.uft.org/news/teacher/top/axed/
In any case because the Hearing officer realized this case contains major Constitutional issues involving the Bill of Rights, especially the First Amendment, he said this case could last a very long time involving countless witnesses and therefore he does not want to even start the actual calling of sworn witnesses without holding several more private Pre-Hearing Conferences.
I believe it is the first 3020-a in the history of New York in which the DOE had the chutzpah and the unbounded Hubris to think they could defecate on a teacher's Constitutional Rights so openly and brazenly. It really is an amazing situation.The other charges are equally ludicrous of course.
David has asked for an open 3020a, which all people have a right to do, and we'll be posting the dates in case anyone wants to see the show. I hope to make a few of them myself and will report back.
More rubber room news:
Sorry, I can't say without getting some people in trouble. But I hear at least one bizarre story a week. Like the one about a teacher recognized as being excellent who is in the rubber room for having an altercation with a child - her own. Can a parent complain about the actions of a teacher when she herself is the teacher?
or - a child charges an extremely competent teacher (the entire staff has been horrified that this could happen to this long-time senior teacher with a great rep) with saying "you're an idiot" when the teacher really said "you didn't get it." So far, 4 months in the rubber room, the entire class that the teacher taught in total chaos as subs come and go. Why did the principal do it when it would have been so easy to believe the teacher's version? Senior teacher with a higher salary? Or just Another
Leadership Academy Loon? (A-LAL?)
Oh, and has anyone seen that UFT Rubber Room SWAT (right) team around lately? If you spot them let us know.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Rubber Room Movie and Harlem RR Report - UPDATE
Filmmaker and former teacher Jeremy Garrett a filmmaker and former teacher, who got the idea for the Rubber Room Movie when a colleague was unfairly assigned there, asked me to post a message that someone from the movie will be outside 52 Broadway at 4pm to ask people their opinions. I will try to be there with them to assist.
The movie has been long in the making and kudos to Five Boroughs Productions for being on the case before anyone else. The UFT gave them permission to film a discussion at an Executive Board meeting and they attended an ICE meeting to film one of our discussions. Check out their site at http://www.rubberroommovie.com/ where a trailer will be posted soon.
Also, see a report from the Harlem Rubber Room by David Pakter below Jeremy Garrett's as David refuses to remove Van Gogh prints he bought and hung to liven up a windowless, drab space. David will be at the UFT meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 30 and it should be a lively event.
We want to point out that while we remain skeptical, we support the attention being paid at long last to this issue by the UFT leadership, which all too often gave RR people the impression they felt they were guilty, giving one the sense the UFT only wanted to touch them with a 20 foot pole. Now that the mainstream press has picked up the story with some level of sympathy for a change (began when ICE's Jeff Kaufman's stint in the RR was featured in the NY Times and the NY Post), the UFT is trying to take the lead. They are welcome to the struggle and hopefully their advocacy and the pressure of the press will embarrass the DOE into changes.
Greetings Norm,
I have tried to contact the UFT in order to be granted permission to shoot at the Rubber Room Summit meeting that is taking place tomorrow (Tues, Oct. 30 at 4pm). I have e-mailed Randi Weingarten and spoken with [UFT Public Relations chief] Chris Policano but I have yet to receive a response.
Could you please post this notice on your blog to let people know that Five Boroughs Productions will be outside 52 Broadway tomorrow if we are not granted permission to shoot inside? We wish to speak with folks both before and after the meeting to address issues surrounding the Rubber Room and discuss what the UFT is finally doing to address the needs which are specific to reassigned teachers.
Obviously we are aware of the sensitivity surrounding reassignment, so we can grant anonymity to those individuals who have something to say but fear retribution.
Thanks for your continued support,
--
Jeremy Garrett
Executive Producer
Five Boroughs Productions
www.rubberroommovie.com
347-834-5206
Rubber Room Update from David Pakter
As of today it was ordered that the Metropolitan Museum Prints be removed from the prison like walls of the Harlem Rubber Room. I have refused to comply. Can you possibly get this IMPROVED VERSION published all over the universe tonight because Randi Weingarten is holding a special meeting at the UFT, tomorrow, Tues at 4 PM for all 700 prisoners of the various Rubber Rooms. I want as many members of the press and public AS POSSIBLE to know about the situation in the Harlem Rubber Room before that massive UFT meeting begins tomorrow at 4 PM. The order to remove the Van Gogh prints is totally "Arbitrary and Capricious" and intended to make the RR's as painful/oppressive/uncomfortable as possible.
LATEST- Breaking NYC DOE Education News
For Immediate Press Release - Monday, October 29, 2007
Attention: Museum Art Curators, UNESCO, Cultural Organizations Worldwide
The New York City Dept of Education "Art Police" Demand
Metropolitan Museum Vincent Van Gogh Prints Be Removed
From A New York City Dept. of Education "Rubber Room".
Is It Because the Flowers Are Nude?
Please see previous Press Release attached below.
_______________________________________________________
Regarding: The New York City Board/Dept. of Education
"From Inside the Harlem Rubber Room"
Open Letter To Chancellor Joel Klein, Esq.
Will A Teacher Be Charged With Hanging A Museum Poster?
____________________________________________
Picture a small room without windows or even a water cooler on the 6th floor of a nondescript government building on West 125th Street in Harlem in New York City. Now imagine that you cannot reach that floor without being accompanied by a uniformed Security Guard and that once you enter that small windowless room, you are greeted by two uniformed Security Guards with badges, shoulder patches and the whole nine yards.
Is this a secret FBI uptown office or a local branch of the Homeland Security Administration? Hardly. Just one of the ten, (going on one hundred, at the present rate of expansion), NYC DOE teacher "reassignment centers", better known as "Rubber Rooms". These are centers set up by the NYC Board of Education to warehouse teachers who the DOE, in their infinite wisdom, has decided should not be in a school setting.
Some may perhaps deserve to be removed from their schools. But more often than not a huge percentage of these "reassigned educators" end up there for political reasons. In short removed from their positions due to being Whistle-blowers or having some type of disagreement with their immediate supervisor about what is in the best interest of the children in their care and who they have a fiduciary obligation to nurture, educate and protect.
In the NYC Dept of Education those in charge expect teachers to accept the premise that you surrender your First Amendment Rights once you pass through a school's front door. Most NYC schools now have metal detectors which can detect when a student is attempting to smuggle a knife or a loaded pistol into a school building.
Presumably, the way things are going, the NYC Board of Education may soon be installing "First Amendment Rights" detectors at the entrance to every school building just to ensure that no teacher becomes audacious enough to believe that he/she can successfully get away with smuggling a "First Amendment Right" into a school.
But getting back to the business at hand, it must be said that the term "Rubber Room", referring to the padded holding rooms in hospital psychiatric wards, (for the incarcerated person's own protection of course), is a term that was never so appropriate and fitting, as it is used by the NYC Board of Education. In particular to the teacher Rubber Room in New York's Harlem, which is in a space so absolutely perfect, whether by intentional design or not, to get the incarcerated teachers there to sooner or later start feeling claustrophobic, utterly cut off from the world and hence likely to start bouncing off the walls, sooner or later, figuratively speaking.
And to think the NYC DOE totally forgot to install the obligatory Federally Approved rubber padding that rubber rooms are required by law to contain, permanently affixed to the walls with Federally Approved, non-toxic glue and/or other approved adhesive material.
I realized this past week, as I enter my second year as an inmate of the 125th Street Harlem Rubber Room, that those four barren walls, with no windows, were definitely beginning to play tricks on my brain. At times there were days when I was even beginning to think that Chancellor Joel Klein, Esq. and the NYC Dept of Education did not like me. Was I becoming paranoid? Or what? Maybe I really did belong in a Rubber Room, medically speaking.
But then I had to remind myself that two years before, the Director of the NYC DOE Medical Office had tried to advance such an idea by knowingly claiming I was medically "not fit for duty" only to later incur a massive degree of public humiliation when the City's own hand picked Final Binding Medical Arbitrator, quickly saw through the knowingly false claims of the NYC DOE Medical Office. In fact the NYC DOE was forced to compensate me a full year's salary plus interest for that very foolish indiscretion and the last I heard the Medical Director involved has taken a "leave of absence for 'personal reasons' ".
(Sadly, I have been informed, however, that this same DOE Medical Office is continuing to Railroad innocent teachers out of the system on knowingly false Medical claims. This will all be leading to a $ 30,000,000 Lawsuit in due course. The "Official Notice of Claim" has already been filed with three separate government offices).
But returning to the question of whether the Harlem Rubber Room was beginning to take a toll on its inhabitants, that thought alone was sufficient to make me realize I had better take action before I went over the edge and got sucked into a Black Hole in DOE inner or outer space from whence there is no escape, ever.
I made the decision that I either had to paint, (as an experienced artist, see www.OldMasterPortraits.com ) virtual windows on those four barren walls. Or else have real window frames installed, with built in flat screen monitors, continuously showing refreshing French Riviera scenes of gorgeous beaches with their foaming waves lapping at the sands or perhaps views of Venice with romantic gondolas, gracefully gliding by on azure waters.
But then common sense and a reality check rudely stepped in and made me realize that I might very well go over the edge long before I completed such an ambitious project. Then I recalled that my residence was just a two minute walk, (passing Mayor Michael Bloomberg's stately townhouse at 17 East 79th Street), from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, whose many gift shops offer no end of ravishingly beautiful, full color, luxury posters of paintings from their immense Art collection.
But there was one glitch in my anticipated solution to making the 125th Street windowless Harlem Rubber Room relatively inhabitable. Just recently one of the building custodians who is responsible for our Rubber Room, a gentleman named "Caesar", (no-you cannot make these things up), had informed the inmates that no person was to hang anything on our Rubber Room's pristine and glaringly barren walls, "under penalty of death", or worse still, having yet another charge added to his/her Official 3020-a Specifications, thus leading even more swiftly to that teacher's permamnent termination.
But it seems to me, coming from a long line of first rate lawyers, that there really is such a thing as "cruel and unusual punishment". Did not the United States Supreme Court issue such a finding just this very week? Are there not times and situations in Life when the punishment does not fit the crime and where the punishment imposed is so far in excess of what the alleged perpetrator, (in this instance- educators), deserves, that exception must be made lest our entire system of American Law become a mockery of Justice in the eyes of the entire civilized world.
So this past Friday afternoon, when all those teachers who are incarcerated in the 125th Street Rubber Room departed for the weekend, having more or less survived another week of "cruel and unusual/inhumane punishment", I put my survival plan into action.
I carefully unrolled the stunningly beautiful, large full color posters of paintings by Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, et al which I had purchased at The Metropolitan Museum gift shop and proceeded to install the high quality prints on the barren, (nervous breakdown inducing) walls of the NYC DOE 125th Street Rubber Room.
I could hardly believe my tired Rubber Room eyes. Suddenly I felt I had been magicly transported to Southern France to a kinder, gentler, lovelier, more peaceful age. Each wall in that formerly drab and barren Rubber Room seemed to have come alive as if they now contained real windows, looking out on beautiful green cypress trees being kissed by the wind and blue skies and floating gardens punctuated with shimmering, iridescent water lilies of every imaginable kind and color. All the flora of the world greeted one's eyes as one turned his gaze from one Rubber Room wall to the next.
North, South, East and West, has suddenly been transformed into a world that a reassigned teacher could live in, and even survive in, and miracle of wonders, even thrive in as they waited for months or even years for their "Trials" to begin.
"Was it a vision or a waking Dream- fled is that Music. Do I wake or sleep." as a great poet once said.
But that was late Friday afternoon and early on Monday morning, Caesar and two uniformed Security Guards, assigned to be our full time "KGB like minders", will make the astounding discovery that an inmate of the 125th Street Rubber Room has done "the unthinkable". That one of the prisoners has taken it upon himself to make that NYC DOE gulag liveable- just as millions of detained prisoners in US prisons do all the time by hanging whatever it is they paste on their own prison cell walls.
Will Caesar and the NYC DOE uniformed Security Guards be so cold hearted and such unforgivable cultural Philistines as to remove the greatest glories of French Art from the walls of that formerly barren and "cruel and unusal punishment" windowless incarceration room?
And will Chancellor Joel Klein, Esq. and the NYC Dept/Board of Education decide that in addition to the already insane and preposterous charges already leveled against a former "Teacher of the Year", including SPECIFICATION 6, which violates the United States Constitution and The Bill of Rights, yet one more preposterous charge.
Shall I not save them the time and expense of paying high priced lawyers, (at tax payer expense), the trouble of drafting the new and additional charge against me, that of posting prints of famous paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, on the walls of my/our prison cell.
ToWit:
SPECIFICATION X : Respondent, David Pakter, did knowingly and willfully, on or about October 26, 2007, cause a barren, drab, windowless, NYC DOE Rubber Room, (on the 6th floor of a building on 125th Street in Harlem), to become a moderately, liveable space in which to reside, six to seven hours per day, by posting and/or hanging on the four walls of that formerly cold and uninhabitable room, full color prints of famous and celebrated European paintings from the permanent collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
__________________________________________________________________
David Pakter, M.A., M.F.A.
New York City, October 27, 2007
"Teacher of the Year", Decorated by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in New York's City Hall
for "Exceptional Achievement in Education"
For further information see: http://www.uft.org/news/teacher/top/axed/
The movie has been long in the making and kudos to Five Boroughs Productions for being on the case before anyone else. The UFT gave them permission to film a discussion at an Executive Board meeting and they attended an ICE meeting to film one of our discussions. Check out their site at http://www.rubberroommovie.com/ where a trailer will be posted soon.
Also, see a report from the Harlem Rubber Room by David Pakter below Jeremy Garrett's as David refuses to remove Van Gogh prints he bought and hung to liven up a windowless, drab space. David will be at the UFT meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 30 and it should be a lively event.
We want to point out that while we remain skeptical, we support the attention being paid at long last to this issue by the UFT leadership, which all too often gave RR people the impression they felt they were guilty, giving one the sense the UFT only wanted to touch them with a 20 foot pole. Now that the mainstream press has picked up the story with some level of sympathy for a change (began when ICE's Jeff Kaufman's stint in the RR was featured in the NY Times and the NY Post), the UFT is trying to take the lead. They are welcome to the struggle and hopefully their advocacy and the pressure of the press will embarrass the DOE into changes.
Greetings Norm,
I have tried to contact the UFT in order to be granted permission to shoot at the Rubber Room Summit meeting that is taking place tomorrow (Tues, Oct. 30 at 4pm). I have e-mailed Randi Weingarten and spoken with [UFT Public Relations chief] Chris Policano but I have yet to receive a response.
Could you please post this notice on your blog to let people know that Five Boroughs Productions will be outside 52 Broadway tomorrow if we are not granted permission to shoot inside? We wish to speak with folks both before and after the meeting to address issues surrounding the Rubber Room and discuss what the UFT is finally doing to address the needs which are specific to reassigned teachers.
Obviously we are aware of the sensitivity surrounding reassignment, so we can grant anonymity to those individuals who have something to say but fear retribution.
Thanks for your continued support,
--
Jeremy Garrett
Executive Producer
Five Boroughs Productions
www.rubberroommovie.com
347-834-5206
Rubber Room Update from David Pakter
As of today it was ordered that the Metropolitan Museum Prints be removed from the prison like walls of the Harlem Rubber Room. I have refused to comply. Can you possibly get this IMPROVED VERSION published all over the universe tonight because Randi Weingarten is holding a special meeting at the UFT, tomorrow, Tues at 4 PM for all 700 prisoners of the various Rubber Rooms. I want as many members of the press and public AS POSSIBLE to know about the situation in the Harlem Rubber Room before that massive UFT meeting begins tomorrow at 4 PM. The order to remove the Van Gogh prints is totally "Arbitrary and Capricious" and intended to make the RR's as painful/oppressive/uncomfortable as possible.
LATEST- Breaking NYC DOE Education News
For Immediate Press Release - Monday, October 29, 2007
Attention: Museum Art Curators, UNESCO, Cultural Organizations Worldwide
The New York City Dept of Education "Art Police" Demand
Metropolitan Museum Vincent Van Gogh Prints Be Removed
From A New York City Dept. of Education "Rubber Room".
Is It Because the Flowers Are Nude?
Please see previous Press Release attached below.
_______________________________________________________
Regarding: The New York City Board/Dept. of Education
"From Inside the Harlem Rubber Room"
Open Letter To Chancellor Joel Klein, Esq.
Will A Teacher Be Charged With Hanging A Museum Poster?
____________________________________________
Picture a small room without windows or even a water cooler on the 6th floor of a nondescript government building on West 125th Street in Harlem in New York City. Now imagine that you cannot reach that floor without being accompanied by a uniformed Security Guard and that once you enter that small windowless room, you are greeted by two uniformed Security Guards with badges, shoulder patches and the whole nine yards.
Is this a secret FBI uptown office or a local branch of the Homeland Security Administration? Hardly. Just one of the ten, (going on one hundred, at the present rate of expansion), NYC DOE teacher "reassignment centers", better known as "Rubber Rooms". These are centers set up by the NYC Board of Education to warehouse teachers who the DOE, in their infinite wisdom, has decided should not be in a school setting.
Some may perhaps deserve to be removed from their schools. But more often than not a huge percentage of these "reassigned educators" end up there for political reasons. In short removed from their positions due to being Whistle-blowers or having some type of disagreement with their immediate supervisor about what is in the best interest of the children in their care and who they have a fiduciary obligation to nurture, educate and protect.
In the NYC Dept of Education those in charge expect teachers to accept the premise that you surrender your First Amendment Rights once you pass through a school's front door. Most NYC schools now have metal detectors which can detect when a student is attempting to smuggle a knife or a loaded pistol into a school building.
Presumably, the way things are going, the NYC Board of Education may soon be installing "First Amendment Rights" detectors at the entrance to every school building just to ensure that no teacher becomes audacious enough to believe that he/she can successfully get away with smuggling a "First Amendment Right" into a school.
But getting back to the business at hand, it must be said that the term "Rubber Room", referring to the padded holding rooms in hospital psychiatric wards, (for the incarcerated person's own protection of course), is a term that was never so appropriate and fitting, as it is used by the NYC Board of Education. In particular to the teacher Rubber Room in New York's Harlem, which is in a space so absolutely perfect, whether by intentional design or not, to get the incarcerated teachers there to sooner or later start feeling claustrophobic, utterly cut off from the world and hence likely to start bouncing off the walls, sooner or later, figuratively speaking.
And to think the NYC DOE totally forgot to install the obligatory Federally Approved rubber padding that rubber rooms are required by law to contain, permanently affixed to the walls with Federally Approved, non-toxic glue and/or other approved adhesive material.
I realized this past week, as I enter my second year as an inmate of the 125th Street Harlem Rubber Room, that those four barren walls, with no windows, were definitely beginning to play tricks on my brain. At times there were days when I was even beginning to think that Chancellor Joel Klein, Esq. and the NYC Dept of Education did not like me. Was I becoming paranoid? Or what? Maybe I really did belong in a Rubber Room, medically speaking.
But then I had to remind myself that two years before, the Director of the NYC DOE Medical Office had tried to advance such an idea by knowingly claiming I was medically "not fit for duty" only to later incur a massive degree of public humiliation when the City's own hand picked Final Binding Medical Arbitrator, quickly saw through the knowingly false claims of the NYC DOE Medical Office. In fact the NYC DOE was forced to compensate me a full year's salary plus interest for that very foolish indiscretion and the last I heard the Medical Director involved has taken a "leave of absence for 'personal reasons' ".
(Sadly, I have been informed, however, that this same DOE Medical Office is continuing to Railroad innocent teachers out of the system on knowingly false Medical claims. This will all be leading to a $ 30,000,000 Lawsuit in due course. The "Official Notice of Claim" has already been filed with three separate government offices).
But returning to the question of whether the Harlem Rubber Room was beginning to take a toll on its inhabitants, that thought alone was sufficient to make me realize I had better take action before I went over the edge and got sucked into a Black Hole in DOE inner or outer space from whence there is no escape, ever.
I made the decision that I either had to paint, (as an experienced artist, see www.OldMasterPortraits.com ) virtual windows on those four barren walls. Or else have real window frames installed, with built in flat screen monitors, continuously showing refreshing French Riviera scenes of gorgeous beaches with their foaming waves lapping at the sands or perhaps views of Venice with romantic gondolas, gracefully gliding by on azure waters.
But then common sense and a reality check rudely stepped in and made me realize that I might very well go over the edge long before I completed such an ambitious project. Then I recalled that my residence was just a two minute walk, (passing Mayor Michael Bloomberg's stately townhouse at 17 East 79th Street), from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, whose many gift shops offer no end of ravishingly beautiful, full color, luxury posters of paintings from their immense Art collection.
But there was one glitch in my anticipated solution to making the 125th Street windowless Harlem Rubber Room relatively inhabitable. Just recently one of the building custodians who is responsible for our Rubber Room, a gentleman named "Caesar", (no-you cannot make these things up), had informed the inmates that no person was to hang anything on our Rubber Room's pristine and glaringly barren walls, "under penalty of death", or worse still, having yet another charge added to his/her Official 3020-a Specifications, thus leading even more swiftly to that teacher's permamnent termination.
But it seems to me, coming from a long line of first rate lawyers, that there really is such a thing as "cruel and unusual punishment". Did not the United States Supreme Court issue such a finding just this very week? Are there not times and situations in Life when the punishment does not fit the crime and where the punishment imposed is so far in excess of what the alleged perpetrator, (in this instance- educators), deserves, that exception must be made lest our entire system of American Law become a mockery of Justice in the eyes of the entire civilized world.
So this past Friday afternoon, when all those teachers who are incarcerated in the 125th Street Rubber Room departed for the weekend, having more or less survived another week of "cruel and unusual/inhumane punishment", I put my survival plan into action.
I carefully unrolled the stunningly beautiful, large full color posters of paintings by Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, et al which I had purchased at The Metropolitan Museum gift shop and proceeded to install the high quality prints on the barren, (nervous breakdown inducing) walls of the NYC DOE 125th Street Rubber Room.
I could hardly believe my tired Rubber Room eyes. Suddenly I felt I had been magicly transported to Southern France to a kinder, gentler, lovelier, more peaceful age. Each wall in that formerly drab and barren Rubber Room seemed to have come alive as if they now contained real windows, looking out on beautiful green cypress trees being kissed by the wind and blue skies and floating gardens punctuated with shimmering, iridescent water lilies of every imaginable kind and color. All the flora of the world greeted one's eyes as one turned his gaze from one Rubber Room wall to the next.
North, South, East and West, has suddenly been transformed into a world that a reassigned teacher could live in, and even survive in, and miracle of wonders, even thrive in as they waited for months or even years for their "Trials" to begin.
"Was it a vision or a waking Dream- fled is that Music. Do I wake or sleep." as a great poet once said.
But that was late Friday afternoon and early on Monday morning, Caesar and two uniformed Security Guards, assigned to be our full time "KGB like minders", will make the astounding discovery that an inmate of the 125th Street Rubber Room has done "the unthinkable". That one of the prisoners has taken it upon himself to make that NYC DOE gulag liveable- just as millions of detained prisoners in US prisons do all the time by hanging whatever it is they paste on their own prison cell walls.
Will Caesar and the NYC DOE uniformed Security Guards be so cold hearted and such unforgivable cultural Philistines as to remove the greatest glories of French Art from the walls of that formerly barren and "cruel and unusal punishment" windowless incarceration room?
And will Chancellor Joel Klein, Esq. and the NYC Dept/Board of Education decide that in addition to the already insane and preposterous charges already leveled against a former "Teacher of the Year", including SPECIFICATION 6, which violates the United States Constitution and The Bill of Rights, yet one more preposterous charge.
Shall I not save them the time and expense of paying high priced lawyers, (at tax payer expense), the trouble of drafting the new and additional charge against me, that of posting prints of famous paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, on the walls of my/our prison cell.
ToWit:
SPECIFICATION X : Respondent, David Pakter, did knowingly and willfully, on or about October 26, 2007, cause a barren, drab, windowless, NYC DOE Rubber Room, (on the 6th floor of a building on 125th Street in Harlem), to become a moderately, liveable space in which to reside, six to seven hours per day, by posting and/or hanging on the four walls of that formerly cold and uninhabitable room, full color prints of famous and celebrated European paintings from the permanent collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
__________________________________________________________________
David Pakter, M.A., M.F.A.
New York City, October 27, 2007
"Teacher of the Year", Decorated by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in New York's City Hall
for "Exceptional Achievement in Education"
For further information see: http://www.uft.org/news/teacher/top/axed/
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
SPECIFICATION 6
SPECIFICATION 6: Respondent's actions caused widespread negative publicity and notoriety to the High School of Fashion Industries and the New York City Department of Education in general when his unprofessional behavior was referenced in a UFT Newspaper.
Thus reports David Pakter on one of the charges against him by the DOE. David asks Randi Weingarten in an open letter (read it in full here at Norm's Notes.)
David asks:
Did you or I or any of the millions of other citizens of this great city ever think in our wildest imagination that a day would arrive when a former Federal Prosecutor, appointed by a NYC Mayor would, while in control of the largest school system in America, decide that the United States Constitution applied to everyone but him. But that stunning fact has now come to pass. For despite the fact that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution specifically guarantees freedom of speech and more important in this instance, freedom of the press, a decorated educator and loyal UFT member of 37 years is now being charged with the crime of having the long and ruthless vendetta perpetrated against him, reported in the UFT Newspaper, The New York Teacher.
Ed Notes will watch the response of the UFT, in an era of Tweed/UFT collaboration, on an issue that, if allowed to pass, will put any teacher who is quoted in the NY Teacher in jeopardy. Maybe a "Dear Joel" note to the chancellor?
NOTE: David sent me a note asking me to publish an open letter to me as he wanted to make it clear he received a lot of help and support from the UFT and Randi Weingarten. I did so at norms notes at this link.
David asks:
Did you or I or any of the millions of other citizens of this great city ever think in our wildest imagination that a day would arrive when a former Federal Prosecutor, appointed by a NYC Mayor would, while in control of the largest school system in America, decide that the United States Constitution applied to everyone but him. But that stunning fact has now come to pass. For despite the fact that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution specifically guarantees freedom of speech and more important in this instance, freedom of the press, a decorated educator and loyal UFT member of 37 years is now being charged with the crime of having the long and ruthless vendetta perpetrated against him, reported in the UFT Newspaper, The New York Teacher.
Ed Notes will watch the response of the UFT, in an era of Tweed/UFT collaboration, on an issue that, if allowed to pass, will put any teacher who is quoted in the NY Teacher in jeopardy. Maybe a "Dear Joel" note to the chancellor?
NOTE: David sent me a note asking me to publish an open letter to me as he wanted to make it clear he received a lot of help and support from the UFT and Randi Weingarten. I did so at norms notes at this link.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
NYC Chancellor Joel Klein, Esq.'s Dirty Secret For Purging Teachers
The New York City Board of Education's Infamous "Rubber Rooms"
by David Pakter
guest column
A highly respected commentator's remark about stopping by the Chapel Street Rubber Room recently certainly brought back many memories for me. I cannot refer to them as "bitter-sweet". Those heady days three years ago when I was stationed there (which now continues, somewhere else, by the way), defy placing any sort of understandable descriptive term to them, at least to the non Rubber Room detainee or graduate.
Like the Lotto, "You have to be in it- to win it", or at least comprehend it. Surrealistic, bizarre, self-contradictory, humorous, pathological. One or even all of these terms, alone or fused together in any which way one chooses, hardly can convey what it means to experience the process of being placed and then "surviving", in one of Chancellor Joel Klein, Esq.'s Rubber Room gulags.
During all the decades I taught, now approaching four decades, I, as all teachers were aware that from time to time a fellow teacher in a school would suddenly, as often occurred during Argentina's darkest years, be "disappeared".
Suddenly there is that "Space in the Air", as Jon Silkin once described it in a powerful poem, an empty vacumn, where a colleague, perhaps respected and/or beloved, once stood but stands no more. Wherever did he/she go?
Even thirty years ago teachers were from time to time suddenly "disappeared". But most teachers did not give it that much thought, at least not in the way they do today. Of course for a few days we all shared and passed on the ridiculous and predictable gossip and preposterous rumors that inevitably spread around the school when something out of the ordinary happens.
"Maybe Mr. Jones was caught kissing Miss Baker in the store room of the school Library"
( Note: The term "Ms." had not yet been invented.)
Lions and Tigers and Bears-oh my!
We imagined, so very long ago, that poor Mr. Jones was sitting in some district office at an empty corner desk next to some pathetic looking wilting potted plant, near the window, under the watchful eyes of some grey suited Assistant Superintendent, awaiting his well deserved Fate.
Obviously such types of fraternizing as "kissing" in a public building, no less a school, could not be tolerated.
What if children actually realized that grown adult human beings were capable of having real feelings? What would the world come to?
But certainly no teachers imagined that people were "disappeared" due to some dark and malevolent grand scheme hatched by high ranking school officials meeting behind dark oak paneled doors in Board of Education conference rooms "downtown",wherever"downtown"was supposed to be.
But now fast forward a few decades. And what a difference a few decades can make. As the years passed and the world continued to turn and change, things in the city's schools became quite different.
The frequency with which teachers became "disappeared" increased, at first slowly and then escalating ever more quickly, into a steady drumbeat. In schools where a teacher was at one time "disappeared" once in a blue moon, say once in ten years, it became once in five years, then once in two years, then every six months and then, was it even possible, once in three weeks.
Was it possible some virus had arrived on our American shores, that was suddenly causing so many teachers to start sneaking clandestine kisses in Library storage rooms. Or was the blame to be placed on all the spores of dust on those old library books, extolling the achievements of Christopher Columbus who had supposedly "discovered" The New World. Though I never quite figured out how you "discover" a place where people have already been residing for thousands of years.
But now here we are in the present. The newest age of Enlightenment in which whatever is sufficiently old- is now magicly "new". If the tactics of the Spanish Inquisition were good enough for the friends of Christopher Columbus, then they are surely good enough for we who live in these "modern times".
And thus "my friends", (if I may borrow a term from my friendly neighborhood library, often employed by a man who is convinced he is qualified and prepared to become President of the United States of America), behold the latest reincarnation of the largest urban school system in America.
Can anyone be surprised that so many more teachers are being "disappeared" at a time when the person appointed to be the Chancellor of the School System is a former Federal Prosecutor whose job was to- surprise of surprises-"prosecute" people.
And so any person, reporter and/ or curious visitor who happens to visit the now famous detainee center known as the "Chapel Street Rubber Room" cannot be surprised that this very large and long room, in spite of its generous dimensions, is bursting at the seams with its continuously ballooning prisoner population of "disappeared" former educators.
How ironic that when, from time to time, these "disappeared" teachers look out their prison windows, they find themselves staring down at an old historic Brooklyn Church whose claim to Fame is that a Pope once visited that ancient House of Worship. An engraved plaque next to the entrance says so.
"Get thee there to that Chapel, all ye teachers, with all due deliberate speed and ask, perhaps beg, for Forgiveness. And for all ye former educators who may have a tinge of guilt upon your Souls for having offended Mr. Chancellor/ Prosecutor and his countless stooges, lapdogs, lackeys, and assorted hatchet people, may the Good Lord, in his Mighty Mercy, have pity on your sinning Souls.
"There is yet time to repent of your Sins. Grovel and search for Redemption if ye have it in you to still do so, for you have sorely offended the New York City Board of Education."
And let us now bow our undeserving heads, and pray.
_______________________________________________________________________
David Pakter, M.A., M.F.A. (Artist and Instructor of Medical Illustration)
Decorated by former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in New York City Hall
as "Teacher of the Year" for Exceptional Achievement in Education
contact at: david@OldMasterPortraits.com
by David Pakter
guest column
A highly respected commentator's remark about stopping by the Chapel Street Rubber Room recently certainly brought back many memories for me. I cannot refer to them as "bitter-sweet". Those heady days three years ago when I was stationed there (which now continues, somewhere else, by the way), defy placing any sort of understandable descriptive term to them, at least to the non Rubber Room detainee or graduate.
Like the Lotto, "You have to be in it- to win it", or at least comprehend it. Surrealistic, bizarre, self-contradictory, humorous, pathological. One or even all of these terms, alone or fused together in any which way one chooses, hardly can convey what it means to experience the process of being placed and then "surviving", in one of Chancellor Joel Klein, Esq.'s Rubber Room gulags.
During all the decades I taught, now approaching four decades, I, as all teachers were aware that from time to time a fellow teacher in a school would suddenly, as often occurred during Argentina's darkest years, be "disappeared".
Suddenly there is that "Space in the Air", as Jon Silkin once described it in a powerful poem, an empty vacumn, where a colleague, perhaps respected and/or beloved, once stood but stands no more. Wherever did he/she go?
Even thirty years ago teachers were from time to time suddenly "disappeared". But most teachers did not give it that much thought, at least not in the way they do today. Of course for a few days we all shared and passed on the ridiculous and predictable gossip and preposterous rumors that inevitably spread around the school when something out of the ordinary happens.
"Maybe Mr. Jones was caught kissing Miss Baker in the store room of the school Library"
( Note: The term "Ms." had not yet been invented.)
Lions and Tigers and Bears-oh my!
We imagined, so very long ago, that poor Mr. Jones was sitting in some district office at an empty corner desk next to some pathetic looking wilting potted plant, near the window, under the watchful eyes of some grey suited Assistant Superintendent, awaiting his well deserved Fate.
Obviously such types of fraternizing as "kissing" in a public building, no less a school, could not be tolerated.
What if children actually realized that grown adult human beings were capable of having real feelings? What would the world come to?
But certainly no teachers imagined that people were "disappeared" due to some dark and malevolent grand scheme hatched by high ranking school officials meeting behind dark oak paneled doors in Board of Education conference rooms "downtown",wherever"downtown"was supposed to be.
But now fast forward a few decades. And what a difference a few decades can make. As the years passed and the world continued to turn and change, things in the city's schools became quite different.
The frequency with which teachers became "disappeared" increased, at first slowly and then escalating ever more quickly, into a steady drumbeat. In schools where a teacher was at one time "disappeared" once in a blue moon, say once in ten years, it became once in five years, then once in two years, then every six months and then, was it even possible, once in three weeks.
Was it possible some virus had arrived on our American shores, that was suddenly causing so many teachers to start sneaking clandestine kisses in Library storage rooms. Or was the blame to be placed on all the spores of dust on those old library books, extolling the achievements of Christopher Columbus who had supposedly "discovered" The New World. Though I never quite figured out how you "discover" a place where people have already been residing for thousands of years.
But now here we are in the present. The newest age of Enlightenment in which whatever is sufficiently old- is now magicly "new". If the tactics of the Spanish Inquisition were good enough for the friends of Christopher Columbus, then they are surely good enough for we who live in these "modern times".
And thus "my friends", (if I may borrow a term from my friendly neighborhood library, often employed by a man who is convinced he is qualified and prepared to become President of the United States of America), behold the latest reincarnation of the largest urban school system in America.
Can anyone be surprised that so many more teachers are being "disappeared" at a time when the person appointed to be the Chancellor of the School System is a former Federal Prosecutor whose job was to- surprise of surprises-"prosecute" people.
And so any person, reporter and/ or curious visitor who happens to visit the now famous detainee center known as the "Chapel Street Rubber Room" cannot be surprised that this very large and long room, in spite of its generous dimensions, is bursting at the seams with its continuously ballooning prisoner population of "disappeared" former educators.
How ironic that when, from time to time, these "disappeared" teachers look out their prison windows, they find themselves staring down at an old historic Brooklyn Church whose claim to Fame is that a Pope once visited that ancient House of Worship. An engraved plaque next to the entrance says so.
"Get thee there to that Chapel, all ye teachers, with all due deliberate speed and ask, perhaps beg, for Forgiveness. And for all ye former educators who may have a tinge of guilt upon your Souls for having offended Mr. Chancellor/ Prosecutor and his countless stooges, lapdogs, lackeys, and assorted hatchet people, may the Good Lord, in his Mighty Mercy, have pity on your sinning Souls.
"There is yet time to repent of your Sins. Grovel and search for Redemption if ye have it in you to still do so, for you have sorely offended the New York City Board of Education."
And let us now bow our undeserving heads, and pray.
_______________________________________________________________________
David Pakter, M.A., M.F.A. (Artist and Instructor of Medical Illustration)
Decorated by former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in New York City Hall
as "Teacher of the Year" for Exceptional Achievement in Education
contact at: david@OldMasterPortraits.com
Monday, August 24, 2009
Steven Brill Leads Major Assault on ATRs and Rubber Room
Whenever I have had the opportunity at PEP meetings where I could address Joel Klein directly, I have pointed out that as long as even one teacher was hounded into the rubber room for political reasons, he would have more difficulty in removing even those teachers who should be removed. I called on him to monitor these political cases carefully to protect the integrity of a process to remove teachers who should be removed. And let's make no mistake about it, there are teachers who should not be teaching. I always make the point that if teachers were given power over running the schools, these people wouldn't last long at all.
NOTE: Check comments section where comments on the article from listserves are inserted.
Was Steven Brill commissioned as a hit man on the rubber room and ATRs?
A long article in the New Yorker by Steven Brill (posted on Norms Notes Biased and One Sided Article on Rubber Room and ATRs) goes after the rubber room people and ATRs. Brill uses selective interviews with principal Anthony Lombardi and Joel Klein with comments thrown in by Randi Weingarten.
The article is clearly designed as the opening salvo in a PR blitz to pressure the UFT to give up some protections in the current contract negotiations. The problem for the UFT is how to do it without causing members to go crazy. One way out for the UFT is to put up a weak fight to keep tenure law from being weakened by claiming they couldn't stop the state legislature from wanting to get some of the Obama/Duncan stimulus money. The contract supersedes the state law I believe and was already weakened in previous negotiations (thus, teachers have less protections that they would under current state law).
We have been predicting the coming assault on the ATRs and rubber room. We laid out the plan for ATRs over the weekend: Creating ATRs a Key Part of Privatization Plan pointing to the various phases. Though expensive, Bloomklein made an initial investment by agreeing to pay ATRs for a period of time with the goal of using the press and public opinion to force the UFT to give up something in exchange for raises.
Clearly, Brill was allowed access to rubber rooms. (When filmmaker Jeremy Garrett of "The Rubber Room" movie attempted to enter Brooklyn's Chapel St.rubber room he was arrested.) He selectively interviewed certain people who could help make his case. He even attended an open hearing. Note that he did not attend the most famous and often advertised open hearing, that of David Pakter.
Let's look at the writer who is making these judgements.
Brill (I'm assuming this is the guy, but correct me if I am wrong) himself has had some controversy. Hamilton Nolan wrote this past June in The Persistent Failure of Steven Brill. Check the site directly for the links, but here is the text.
Steven Brill has a reputation for being a media wise man—a deep-thinking mogul who's always spotting the opportunities of The Future. Which is kind of strange, since the majority of his projects have been ostentatious failures.
Brill's latest company, "Clear," which was supposed to save rich people a half hour standing in security lines at airports in exchange for $128 a year, is shutting down. Let's do a quick and dirty balance sheet of Brill's successes and failures—keeping in mind that to do your best is all your mom really asks.
Successes
The American Lawyer: Brill launched what would become the nation's leading legal magazine in 1979. This is not an unqualified success, though, since American Lawyer Media (now Incisive Media) is having problems right now.
Court TV: Brill created the network (now truTV) in 1991. After receiving a huge popularity boost from the OJ Simpson trial, it was sold it to Time Warner in 1997. For which Brill got a tidy sum.
Emily Brill: Steven's daughter, the ultimate narrator.
Failures
Brill's Content: Launched in 1998, this mediacentric mag was supposed to capitalize on America's insatiable thirst for news about the news! Turned out not that many people really care about the news about the news. Not enough to pay money, at least. Stopped publishing in 2001.
Contentville.com: A website selling "a variety of content ranging from thesis papers to ebooks." Closed in 2001.
Inside.com: The legendary media site that launched the careers of many top media reporters and also failed to make any money. The magazine version of Inside was merged with Brill's Content, and the website was part of a convoluted plan with Primedia to corner the market on media trade publications, but the whole thing was shuttered in 2001.
Clear: In the post-9/11 world, Brill noticed, airport security sure was a hassle. People would pay to be "verified" beforehand so they could breeze right through! Right? 165,000 people did, reportedly, and Clear raised more than $100 million from investors, but now it's dead, unable to afford to keep going.
Brill also wrote a couple books which didn't sell all that well and a column for Newsweek, but you can judge those on their own merits. He's not out of the game, though—his other ongoing venture is Journalism Online, a company that plans to help various magazines and newspapers charge readers for online access. Bet on it!
Hmmm. Steven Brill with a persistent record of failure, now reduced to writing about rubber rooms and ATRs.
If they had rubber rooms for the things people like Brill do, he'd be writing about himself.
The hearing Brill doesn't want to cover:
3020-a Teacher Trial of David Pakter
Continues Sept 8, 2009
49 Chambers Street, 6th Floor, 10 AM
Please request Hearing Room of the Hon. Douglas J. Bantle, Esq.
Thanks to Jeff Kaufman for posting the article.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Doing Guidance at Bayard Rustin HS
Dear Randi:
I know you're busy, but I wanted you to know that things are becoming intolerable at Bayard Rustin. Half of the Guidance staff (the senior half) are being subjected to harrassment and asked to do things that make no sense. The upper school kids have holes in their programs and the four of us are being forced to write paper programs in the auditorium (not in our offices) from a master list of courses that is outdated (1/31/).
The result is chaos – students don't have complete programs, classes are not in session. On Friday I asked to do my work in my office which was filled with students. Because I didn't go down fast enough I was informed that I'm being charged with insubordination. All this while other Counselors who were asked also refused. I'm the only one being charged. This morning
again we were asked inexplicably to "fill program holes" in the auditorium with kids using the same master course list from 1/31 to make programs for classes that don't exist. Counselors were allowed to walk in and out, the AP. J. Serna, making an effort to keep them there whenever they tried to leave. It is absolute harrassment. I stayed there for 2 hours, unable to
do the rest of my work, leaving kids unserviced. I came back to find a memo asking for a list of promotion in doubt students by 10:00am tomorrow morning.
It is obvious they want to U rate me again and put me through a hearing and get me out of the system. This is abuse, it is torture. The other half of the guidance staff (the younger half) is currently at a Retreat upstate in the Catskills courtesy of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that is backing the small school initiative. They are returning on Thursday. A
four-day vacation while the rest of us suffer. This is outrageous and as our union someone needs to come in and protect us from these abuses.
We need help. This is beyond wrong, we need some kind of protection.
I hope to hear from you soon.
A
Note: Last June, the principal of Bayrad Rustin sent A for a psychiatric exam, a common tactic used by principals to go after people. The most famous example is David Pakter who, after being judged unfit by a doctor doing the bidding of the DOE, bought along his own doctor, the well-known Dr. Albert Goldwasser and the medical office eventually reversed itself and Pakter won a significant victory. He has filed suits against a whole bunch of the people involved and may be suing the doctor who initially ruled on his case for malpractice.
When A sent out a call for help on the weekend before her medical, Pakter came to her rescue and paid Goldwasser out of his own pocket to appear with her. With Goldwasser along, the DOE quacks backed off and A was found to be ok and out of there in no time. (The UFT has been urged to put Goldwasser on retainer to assist teachers in this situation, but without success.) The principal, not being able to get his pound of flesh, has renewed his assault this year.
The DOE and old BOE have used psychiatric exams by the corrupt medical office as a weapon for years. Francine Newman exposed this in her book "The Cannibals at 110 Livingston St." The UFT has provided little backup or support, all too often assuming the position [and YES, I mean it THAT way] - where there's smoke there's fire, if not actually taking the DOE's position, but playing a neutral role.
I know you're busy, but I wanted you to know that things are becoming intolerable at Bayard Rustin. Half of the Guidance staff (the senior half) are being subjected to harrassment and asked to do things that make no sense. The upper school kids have holes in their programs and the four of us are being forced to write paper programs in the auditorium (not in our offices) from a master list of courses that is outdated (1/31/).
The result is chaos – students don't have complete programs, classes are not in session. On Friday I asked to do my work in my office which was filled with students. Because I didn't go down fast enough I was informed that I'm being charged with insubordination. All this while other Counselors who were asked also refused. I'm the only one being charged. This morning
again we were asked inexplicably to "fill program holes" in the auditorium with kids using the same master course list from 1/31 to make programs for classes that don't exist. Counselors were allowed to walk in and out, the AP. J. Serna, making an effort to keep them there whenever they tried to leave. It is absolute harrassment. I stayed there for 2 hours, unable to
do the rest of my work, leaving kids unserviced. I came back to find a memo asking for a list of promotion in doubt students by 10:00am tomorrow morning.
It is obvious they want to U rate me again and put me through a hearing and get me out of the system. This is abuse, it is torture. The other half of the guidance staff (the younger half) is currently at a Retreat upstate in the Catskills courtesy of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that is backing the small school initiative. They are returning on Thursday. A
four-day vacation while the rest of us suffer. This is outrageous and as our union someone needs to come in and protect us from these abuses.
We need help. This is beyond wrong, we need some kind of protection.
I hope to hear from you soon.
A
Note: Last June, the principal of Bayrad Rustin sent A for a psychiatric exam, a common tactic used by principals to go after people. The most famous example is David Pakter who, after being judged unfit by a doctor doing the bidding of the DOE, bought along his own doctor, the well-known Dr. Albert Goldwasser and the medical office eventually reversed itself and Pakter won a significant victory. He has filed suits against a whole bunch of the people involved and may be suing the doctor who initially ruled on his case for malpractice.
When A sent out a call for help on the weekend before her medical, Pakter came to her rescue and paid Goldwasser out of his own pocket to appear with her. With Goldwasser along, the DOE quacks backed off and A was found to be ok and out of there in no time. (The UFT has been urged to put Goldwasser on retainer to assist teachers in this situation, but without success.) The principal, not being able to get his pound of flesh, has renewed his assault this year.
The DOE and old BOE have used psychiatric exams by the corrupt medical office as a weapon for years. Francine Newman exposed this in her book "The Cannibals at 110 Livingston St." The UFT has provided little backup or support, all too often assuming the position [and YES, I mean it THAT way] - where there's smoke there's fire, if not actually taking the DOE's position, but playing a neutral role.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
UFT Candlelight Vigil Snuffed While PEP Meets
Update2: Fri. Nov. 30, 10 am
Norm's School Scope column appears biweekly in The Wave
www.rockawave.com
This is a rewrite of what I wrote after little sleep, hopefully making it more literate.
Upadated Weds, Nov. 28
This is mostly a new post that includes the column I just submitted to The Wave for this Friday's publication, which goes into more of the history of the PEP and a rewrite some of the UFT stuff. I'll add a video link later to my statement about using the Workshop model for PEP meetings. Hear Klein cut me off on the 2 minute button. I also have video of how Betsy Combier pushed Klein's buttons and got an angry response.
The Panel SAYS
The Panel for Educational Policy replaced the old Board of Education when the state legislature gave the Mayor control over the schools in 2002, which will sunset in 2009 – thankfully. Now we all know about the disfunctionality of the old BoE. But the PEP is non-functional, being only an advisory body with Klein himself being a member and 7 members appointed by the Mayor, serving at his pleasure.
We found out what “his pleasure” meant at the famous Monday Night Massacre, chronicled in our March 26, 2004 column (“Beware The Ides Of March – You’re Fired”) where Bloomberg, that Julius Caesar pretender, fired 3 members of the PEP for opposing BloomKlein’s 3rd grade retention policy on March 15. Not that we are wishing the same fate for the Mayor that Julie suffered, though the thought probably has passed through the minds of more than one classroom teacher as they spent useless hours working solely for the purpose of “let’s show outside visitors how we follow Tweed dictums” on their word walls, flow of the day, bulletin boards, et al, often into the late afternoon, long after the kids have gone home.
I often go to monthly PEP meetings as penance for my sins. These events are required by law (not my penance) as a minimal attempt to keep the public informed, which Bloomberg and his hand-picked “I know about education because I once went to school” Chancellor, Joel Klein, do their utmost to keep minimally informed. The members of the panel are basically somnambulant and the meetings are often deathly, other than the 2 minutes allotted to members of the public who get the chance to “lay one on.” I use this time to avail myself of the opportunity to educate the Panel and Klein as to what constitutes a quality teacher. Doing this, 2 minutes at a time, I figure I’ll be in the nursing home before I finish. But there’s always Access-a-Ride.
Let’s not accuse our state legislators, members of one of the most corrupt political bodies in the nation, if not the world, from doing the wrong thing in handing over the largest school system in the nation with no oversight, to the whims of one man. They did provide that each borough president could appoint one PEP member, five people that would still be a minority on the Panel. The mayor could appoint anyone, his entire family or his dog, while the borough people must have children in the public schools. I think the dog must also have puppies.
Even if these five were appointed to represent the interests of parents, the relationship of the borough president to Bloomberg must be factored in. The Staten Island borough president fired his rep when she said she was going to vote against Bloomberg at the Monday Night Massacre. Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz supported his appointee Martine Guerrier when she voted NO. As he cemented his relationship to Bloomberg, her criticisms of Klein began to wane. She was eventually appointed by Klein to the 150K a year job as Chief Parent Muck-a-Muck in February 2007, and she had to leave the PEP, which is considered so inconsequential, Markowitz didn’t even bother to appoint a replacement until recently.
This summer, Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer appointed Patrick Sullivan to the PEP. Sullivan has been active with Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters in putting issues of true educational import on the table, so his appointment was a pleasant surprise and a tribute to Stringer’s agenda of putting his constituents ahead of Bloomberg.
Sullivan, who comes from the corporate world, which gives him a credibility educators don’t receive in this business-oriented educational environment, has galvanized the PEP meetings as he questions Klein and his minions in depth on their policies. I’ve videotaped some of these encounters and you can view them on my blog where there are also videos of teachers and parents doing their 2 minutes, including my own.
I remember meeting Queens borough president Helen Marshall at the Monday Night Massacre. She expressed dismay at the firings. So one would have hoped the Queens PEP reps since then would express even a modicum of independence and oversight. Not much, so far.
But Michael Flowers, who had shown some promise, has resigned as Queens PEP rep. The last time I saw him he voted with Sullivan against Klein on the DOE’s military recruitment policies. Did the long arm of BloomKlein reach out to Marshall and snuff Flowers? I hope not.
Marshall has the opportunity to make an appointment that will result in the same kind of kudos Scott Stringer has received and at the same time provide an accomplice to Sullivan in challenging Klein. There are Queens parents who are very knowledgeable about the schools and hopefully Marshall will do the right thing by putting someone on the panel who will stand up for the parents, who have been so marginalized (or bought off) by Bloomberg. There are some top-notch candidates emerging, so…
Go Helen!
UFT Candlelight Vigil Snuffed
School Scope wrote about David Pakter back in June 2006 (All Psyched Up With No Place To Go). He has been in and out of the rubber room for things like buying a plant for his school or making a videotape of a music class in is school building. Recently, he proposed taking an idea that was brewing among rubber room people and ATR's (mostly senior teachers forced to become subs from schools that have closed or from positions that have been cut) to use the steps of Tweed as a rallying point on a regular basis on the evenings of PEP meetings before going in and speaking (which people have been doing sporadically over the past few years) and turning it into a larger "Thousand Points of Light" event. At one point, David said, "I will be there with my candle even if I am the only one."
If it had happened that way, the one-man rally would have had more impact than what took place at the UFT rally on Monday night, November 26.
David asked Randi Weingarten to jump on board, but soon after sent out an email that the UFT would not support such a rally. This was in early November. So, what happened to make Weingarten change her mind a few weeks later (Nov. 16 to be exact) and jump on board? The utter outrage coming out of the schools after Joel Klein announced a witch-hunt to go after teachers as an excuse to shift the blame from his own failures. There was a need to put on some kind of show for the members.
The rally was filled with the usual suspects – Randi’s Unity Caucus/union employees, members of the opposition and some rank and file teachers who came out. Plus some rubber room people. Very similar to the idiotic John Stoessel protest at ABC a few years ago. Maybe a thousand people in all. With no press coverage at all. Basically, a ZERO. The Weingarten act is wearing very thin.
All this was predictable, as the UFT did not want too big a protest, intending to use this as a photo op/PR move to make the members feel something is being done. And to deflect what would have had an anti-UFT tinge from people who have felt the UFT has left them in this position in the first place.
Deflection and Dilution – Deflection of militancy and Dilution of the UFT critics in a sea of Unity Caucus.
The idea of holding an event at Tweed on this particular day (which has been a consistent theme of some of us over the years) was the opportunity to make a statement at the PEP meeting at 6pm where BloomKlein's rubber stamps – other than Patrick Sullivan – endorse anything Klein puts forth. Thus, I was more interested in the PEP meeting than the rally.
Why bother? Because the BloomKlein machine has made it look like they are doing wonderful things and the national press have jumped on the bandwagon. When parents and teachers get up publicly to expose the sham, it is one way to fight back. Certainly with the UFT not fighting back, there is a need to make a stand.
On Monday, Patrick Sullivan raised questions on the school report cards and the NAEP test results that were turned from straw into gold by Tweed spinners. Leonie Haimson was there and spoke about how the DOE has violated state law in refusing to post a viable class size reduction plan.
It is noteworthy that with a rally outside, the UFT totally ignored the fact that there was a meeting taking place and had no presence at all. If Weingarten was so upset at the witch-hunt for teachers, why not inundate the PEP meeting with people speaking against it publicly? It was left to teachers from TAG, Teachers Advocacy Group – which sprang up this summer to counter the lack of UFT protection – to play take that role. And don’t think that hasn’t has an impact on activating the UFT – to some extent.
At the meeting, after watching mind-numbing presentations from Klein’s Chief Accountability Officer James Liebman and Marcia Lyles - who read us 12 pages of a PowerPoint presentation - this from the chief teaching and learning person at the DOE, who replaced Andres Alonso who was even more mind numbing – (these people were teachers?) – I got my 2 minutes.
I suggested they use the Workshop model for PEP meetings, where each presenter gets 7 minutes; the audience breaks into groups and does "turn and talk.” A test should be given at the end of the meeting. If the audience didn't learn the material, the presenter gets fired. Or sent to an internal rubber room for Tweedles – maybe to serve as an aid at the Ross Charter School in the basement.
Even Klein smiled at that one. No one knows better than he the absurdity of it all.
To get a much better analysis than I can give, check out Reality-Based Educator's post at the NYC Educator blog and make sure to check the comments where our theme of "the UFT as collaborator with BloomKlein" is being echoed.
But I did get a UFT poncho and a light stick out of it before I went into Tweed for the meeting to keep my video camera from getting wet, though I did get some sound bites from some of the non-Unity people. (I'll post the video later this week.) And I met NY Sun reporter Elizabeth Green for the first time. It's nice to know someone who could pass for a high school student can have such an impact.
One of the ralliers who also attended the meeting sent this response to the rally:
Norm,
I never, ever, ever will attend a unity coordinated event again. What did Randy prove:
1) That she could jump on other people's ideas and initiatives and would not let herself be upstaged.
2) That she round up a small hoard of people and wax at will. In other words, line up a group of people and get them to make their own small fire as they marched. Not my favorite kind of image, thank you, as I try to train myself never to be lined up and avoid fire, gas and all small chambers where to which any crowds are being led.
3) That she could take signature songs of the civil rights movement in vain. This is especially awful as, by right, we should have much more power and money than the folks in Selma, did. Perhaps a little less money on the sound system and on the glow sticks.
But Unity will never round me up again for one of their Nazi pep rallies.
No way, no how. Not ever.
No way, no how. Not ever.
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