Ed Notes Extended

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Striking Back at Sharpton/Klein/Bloomberg

AT LAST.
Community groups in the black community making a stand against mayoral control and the Al Sharpton/Joel Klein/Bloomberg unholy alliance. And stories are emerging about just how much money was funneled to Sharpton to buy him off. Word is he is very nervous about these protests and behind the scenes has been trying to make some deals. Once Sharpton is exposed within the community, his little cushy deals and exploitations could come crashing down. Don't let him off the hook. Our own emerging Save the Public Schools group is reaching out to these groups and we will talk about it at today's meeting. One day, who knows, we may actually hold a rally that may be smaller than the one the UFT held recently, but with much wider impact as we take on the true purposes of charter schools, something the UFT wouldn't touch because of its own involvement with charters.

If you're free Friday afternoon, or happen to be sick and take a day off, sign up- lunch is free and it's a duty free lunch at that. Other than booing, that is.


EDUCATION DEMOCRACY ACTION ALERT !!!!

ORDERLY CHALLENGE!!!

AGAINST MAYORAL CONTROL and Collaborators at the National Action Network--NYC Department Of Miseducation Conference—Luncheon Panel


FRIDAY, APRIL 3, 2009 11am

The Sheraton Hotel

811 7th Ave. (West 53rd St. And 7th Ave)

This convention, sponsored by the mis-named ‘Education Equality Project’ and the National Action Network, is orchestrated by Klein/Bloomberg/Sharpton.

The panel-luncheon spotlights Joel Klein, Mayor Bloomberg, Rev. Al Sharpton and others. They intend to keep the myth going that NYC is an educational “Miracle” under Mayoral Control rather than the DISASTER it actually is.

THE Panel AND THE LUNCH are FREE. But REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED FOR ATTENDANCE

WE MUST BE PRESENT IN NUMBERS AT THIS CONFERENCE. PLEASE SIGN UP TO ATTEND AND JOIN US. – at: http://www.edequality.org/AttendTheConvention

A NEWLY-CONSTITUTED GROUP CALLED NO TO MAYORAL CONTROL COALITION (NTMCC) - which BNYEE (Black New Yorkers for Edudation Excellence) and the New York Coalition for Neighborhood School Control (NYCNSC) are part of - IS PLANNING TO ATTEND ON FRIDAY TO HEAR THE PANEL BELOW AND EAT LUNCH TOGETHER.

IF YOU INTEND TO JOIN US, MEET IN THE LOBBY OF THE SHERATON AT 10:30. LET’S SIT AS A GROUP.

ATTEMPTS ARE BEING MADE TO INCLUDE A PARENT AND AN EDUCATOR ON THE PANEL BECAUSE AS PLANNED RIGHT NOW, THE PANEL ONLY CONTAINS THOSE IN SUPPORT OF THE BLOOMBERG/KLEIN TEAM.

WE KNOW THIS IS SHORT NOTICE BUT IT IS AN IMPORTANT OPPORTUNITY TO SEND A POWERFUL MESSAGE OF DISAPPROVAL ABOUT NYC’S EXPERIMENT WITH MAYORAL CONTROL -- where among numerous outrages of the past 7 years there are such educational fatalities as a 52% high school dropout rate!!! See the Fact Sheet below for more details of the “miraculous” bloomberg-klein regime.

AFTER YOU REGISTERED FOR THE CONVENTION PLEASE let BNYEE and/or NYCNSC know.

***********************

The Mis-education Mayor

In two terms NYC mayor, Bloomberg has made one of the most segregated and unequal public school systems, even WORSE. Through centralized Mayoral Control, Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Klein (Bloomberg-Klein) restructured the Public Schools into a mayor-chancellor-school principal educational dictatorship.

BLOOMBERG-Klein has…

1. …trapped most Black and Latina/o (B&L) students in a 21st century system of educational apartheid. You should know that in NYC:

· Many B&L students are ‘tracked” to dropout before 9th grade

· Less than 50% of B&L 9th graders graduate

· Less than 30% of B&L students graduate with regents diplomas

· B&L students in “gifted” programs have been reduced by more than half.

· B&L students comprise 72% of the school population, yet constitute less than 17% of the students in the specialized-test high schools

· B&L students are about 13 times LESS LIKELY than Asian & White (A&W) students to attend a specialized-test high school

2. …increased the suspension and criminalization of Black and Latina/o students in their schools; accelerating the genocidal school-to-prison pipeline.

3. …dismantled the district “School Boards” and disempowered the Community Education Councils (CECs) as well as the school leadership teams (SLTs).

4. …thoroughly disenfranchised parents and community residents from their human right to shape public school policy.

5. …systematically “disappeared” Black teachers & administrators (student role models) into “rubber rooms” or completely out of DoE.

6. …aggressively recruited and funded a large majority of new, untrained white college graduates to teach predominantly B&L students.

7. …silenced the UFT leadership and the CSEA leadership.

8. …squandered billions of taxpayer dollars in contracts, and millions in jobs to Wall Street cronies to maintain a racist system. Yet NYC DoE eliminated ALL Black and Latina/o public school vendors by requiring a minimum of $5 million in sales to do business.

9. …failed to comply with state and federal legislation requiring the (teaching and) learning of Black History by all students.

10. …refused to allocate the Campaign For Fiscal Equity (CFE) Funds equitably.

11. …deceived many parents by portraying NYC’s generally mediocre group of charters as an honest path to educational equity. Since less than 1-in-25 students can even attend a charter, Bloomberg-Klein’s disinformation has simply served to confuse some parents and weaken solidarity on the powerful demand: “Educational excellence for ALL.”

Two Terms have been too many! He CAN’T have Three!!!

5 comments:

  1. I don't agree with #7.......the UFT leadership silenced themselves as soon as some shady under the table deals were made where senior teachers were thrown under busses and ATR's lost their appointed status. The UFT and the CSA are even more culpable than the DOE in creating this farce of an education system since they talk out of both sides of their mouths and do not support their rank and file. They chose to "collaborate" with the DOE.

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  2. Remember Ms. T, this is coming from non-teacher groups who have not followed things as closely as we have. BloomKlein seemed to have silenced many of their voices as well and this may be an awakening. One thing we know for sure, there will not be an awakening from the UFT.

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  3. I do not mean to diminish the efforts of this grassroots true reform movement; the latter is far more democratic than any governing body in this city or state. The gratifying part of this is that there is a growing grassroots movement to counteract UFT "collaboration". There is hope in rising voices of the community, parents, and journalists like Juan Gonzalez.

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  4. I wanna go so much!!! (but it would cost me about $800 in airfare)

    You'll just have to boo extra loud for me!!!

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  5. I can't make it either. Email me at around 11-11:30 NYC time on Friday and we'll do an online boooooooo!

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