Ed Notes Online: Debating the Parent Commission Position on Mayoral Control

Monday, June 29, 2009

Debating the Parent Commission Position on Mayoral Control

We are always for a healthy debate. And here is one on the approach to the mayoral control issue. My opinion is way too much time is spent on lobbying and addressing politicians. Scott Stinger so praised for his role in appointing Patrick Sullivan to the PEP was at the PS 57 press conference we were locked out of yesterday. I didn't see him demanding some of us be let in. His presence condoned the phony Learn NY manipulation of young people who were told what signs to hold and what to chant and ordered not to talk to any of us.

I love these points in the letter below:

We don't believe that letting the politicians direct our battle is the most effective way to make change, particularly if for over a year we have been the voice 100% against mayoral control.

Being a critical mass on the outside pushing for what really needs to change can be much more effective even if you don't win the first time around.

See Protesting BloomWeinKlein: GEM/ICE/NYCORE Show Some Muscle and Tweakers Take a Hit: Time Out From Testing Pulls Out of Parent Commission

Leonie Haimson responds to TOFT

The statement released from Time out from Testing regarding the Parent Commission is untrue.

We remain committed to the end of Mayoral control and the creation a new system of partnership between the Mayor, parents and other elected officials, with sufficient checks and balances, and mechanisms for enhanced shared decision-making at the school, district and citywide levels.

That is why the Parent Commission, along with other activist parents and teachers, helped organize a successful protest rally today in East Harlem, at the Mayor's press conference, where we made our position clear.

A response to Leonie

We are sorry to differ with Leonie; however, up in Albany the Parent Commission is not discussing the composition of the Board of Education (also called the Panel on Education Policy) where the real power shift needs to take place.

The Parent Commission is not insisting that Sampson change in his bill support for the Mayor retaining control of the majority of seats and thereby votes of the Board. As long as the Mayor keeps control, the stakeholders, we the parents, will not have a REAL voice.

Maybe the Parent Commission believes that they are against Mayoral Control but they are not actively fighting against it up in Albany. That is not to say that they have given up. However, their focus is on getting an Independent Parent Organization with funding and a Constitution Committee.

Many may believe that you ask for what you think you can get in a compromise. We believe that fighting for this while giving the Mayor control over real decisions will not affect positive change for our children. There were different coalitions created around mayoral control--for mayoral control, for some changes to be made within mayoral control and then the PC against mayoral control.

Sitting at the table up in Albany and making compromises with politicians often ends up with them directing the battle. It's so easy to think that sitting with those considered powerful means you will have an impact, but we believe that needs to be carefully evaluated to see if your goals are being furthered or hampered.

Case in point, the Parent Commission decided to write a statement thanking the sponsors of our bill (Huntley and Sampson) for trying to incorporate some of our demands into the new Sampson bill but letting them know that the Parent Commission fundamentally did not agree with the revised Sampson bill because it did little to change the mayor's control of the Board. The politicians asked that the PC not put out this statement and so they did not. We don't believe that letting the politicians direct our battle is the most effective way to make change, particularly if for over a year we have been the voice 100% against mayoral control.

Being a critical mass on the outside pushing for what really needs to change can be much more effective even if you don't win the first time around.

After considerable thought and deliberation, Time Out From Testing believes that our organization has to continue fighting for an end to mayoral control. Partnership in our view, does mean a drastic change in the power structure of the PEP/Board.

We would encourage all of you to call and fax Senator Sampson now and tell him that you want to see a true partnership on the Board where the Mayor will not have the majority of the appointments or votes.
Senator Sampson Phone #: 518-455-2788 Fax #: 518-426-6806

If you are not already on our mailing list and would like to get updates, please go to www.timeoutfromtesting.org and give us your email address.

Jane Hirschmann and Don Freeman for Time Out From Testing

In the meantime

End of Mayoral Control Celebration

Teachers, Principals, Guidance Counselors, paraprofessionals, secretaries, parents, families and community members will be gathering to celebrate the end of Bloomberg and Klein’s control of the New York City Schools beginning at 4:30 P.M. Tuesday June 30, 2009 in the park on the east side of 52 Chambers Street in Manhattan. At the stroke of midnight, June 30, we will serve eviction papers on Joel Klein to remove himself and his cronies from 52 Chambers Street, The “Boss Tweed Courthouse” immediately.

For more information of this celebration, call Nicola DeMarco at 917-374-5220 or 718-884-2069 or email at nickdmarco@hotmail.com

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"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/cory-booker-clear-and-present-threat-public-education

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

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

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

This chapter looks interesting:

Class struggles: The UFT story, part 3

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

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Of course for another view, check out the review at New Politics of the Kahlenberg Bio on Shanker by Vera Pavone and me: Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:
http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/
I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You can sign up for this free series at :
http://act.bcfed.ca/online-campaigning-for-union-activists/

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

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

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

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

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

Timothy Tyson
Professor of African American Studies and History
Duke University

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

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

Full article with charts here.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

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

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

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

More at Substance

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

On standardized testing in our schools

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

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

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

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

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

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

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

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

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

Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

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

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

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

Ed Notes Extended

Monday, June 29, 2009

Debating the Parent Commission Position on Mayoral Control

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