Ed Notes Online: Patrick Sullivan Warns on DOE/PEP Violations on Contracts as Walcott openly Flouts Law

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Patrick Sullivan Warns on DOE/PEP Violations on Contracts as Walcott openly Flouts Law

UPDATE: Daily News on Verizon $60 million contract

Verizon Scam and DOE $60 Million Contract

This letter to parents from Manhattan PEP member Patrick Sullivan outlines many of the issues which are sparking a rally/protest at Bergtraum HS this Weds. at 5pm preceding the PEP meeting. If you missed the background briefs we posted read these firs in reverse order:

Read the report detailing Verizon's theft of money that should have gone to our children.http://www.nycsci.org/reports/04-11%20Lanham%20Rpt.pdf www.nycsci.org

How is Patrick's insistence that law be followed under Walcott the snake regime? Where is the press on outright violations of the law? A teacher sneezes on a kid and it makes the front page of the NY Post.

I was on the Contracts Committee when we started with the new law. I fought to get access to the actual contracts. It was only with sustained pressure from Stringer and a letter from AMs Nolan and O'Donnell that they relented.

Under Walcott we've lost all that ground and then some. The contracts are not drafted until after the PEP approves them.
When I complain loudly they say I am "inappropriate" and ask Stringer to remove me.
Monica -yes, they have the votes so they figure nothing matters.

Dear Parents,

I have received many emails with inquiries or concerns about the contracts agenda for the Panel for Educational Policy meeting on Wednesday the 17th. I'd like to update everyone on my understanding of these issues based on my discussions with DOE:

First, one comment on process.   When the PEP was first granted approval authority over contracts we established a committee to review the contracts in detail. The Contracts Committee met publicly to question DOE staff and discuss contract specifics.   Recently, Dear Parents,

I have received many emails with inquiries or concerns about the contracts agenda for the Panel for Educational Policy meeting on Wednesday the 17th. I'd like to update everyone on my understanding of these issues based on my discussions with DOE:

First, one comment on process.   When the PEP was first granted approval authority over contracts we established a committee to review the contracts in detail. The Contracts Committee met publicly to question DOE staff and discuss contract specifics.   Recently, the chairs of the Contracts Committee, mayoral appointees selected by the PEP chair, have refused to hold the public meeting. The Committee has not met at all under Chancellor Walcott.   The DOE has also begun asking for PEP approval before contracts are drafted. In effect, rather than ask for approval of a contract, we are asked for blanket pre-approval of a potential contract based upon an outline of what's envisioned. This reduction in transparency has hampered the PEP's ability to assess the contracts and carry out our responsibilities under state law.

Verizon Contract

The DOE has explained that rather than conduct a procurement for a provider of fixed line and data telecom services, they've decided to piggyback on an existing city contract with Verizon. My concerns with this contract are two-fold:

First, there has been no resolution of the overbilling issue stemming from the alleged fraud perpetrated by a DOE consultant. The Special Commissioner for Investigation's report explained that Verizon, through it's silence facilitated the fraud. Verizon has agreed to return any inappropriate profit but has not yet done so.   I don't believe we should enter into a new agreement with Verizon until they resolve this issue to our satisfaction. The sums involved are considerable, especially compared to the significant budget cuts to the classroom.

Second, Verizon and the unionized workforce of the landlines divisions that would deliver services to our classrooms are engaged in a protracted labor dispute.   I have concerns about whether Verizon can actually provide the services we need given this dispute. I am skeptical that with limited staff to maintain landlines and data services that our schools would get appropriate priority compared to Verizon's commercial customers.   A failure of telecom services would present a considerable risk not only to the smooth functioning of our schools but a safety risk to our children.

Given these issues, I have asked DOE to defer consideration of this contract and instead initiate an procurement exercise to identify the best provider of the needed services in the present circumstances.

EPO Contracts

The Chancellor has announced his intention to outsource management of a limited number of schools to Educational Partnership Organizations. The Chancellor has this ability under Ed Law 211-e.   That law requires the relationship with an outside entity to be strictly delineated in a contract. DOE procurement staff have asked the PEP to vote on these contracts without actually seeing them. Citing a lack of time, they have told us no contacts will be available before Wednesday's vote.   This excuse is not acceptable. The DOE needs to draft the contracts, come to terms with the EPOs and then provide them to the PEP for approval. I will not allow our children and staff to be placed under the leadership of outside management without the DOE and their partners demonstrating absolute adherence to the terms of the law.

Borough President Stringer's office and I will continue to engage the DOE on these issues and I hope to have a more encouraging update in the near future.

Patrick J. Sullivan
Manhattan Member,
Panel for Educational Policy / NYC Board of Education

No comments:

"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

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Patrick Sullivan Warns on DOE/PEP Violations on Contracts as Walcott openly Flouts Law

Read the report detailing Verizon's theft of money that should have gone to our children.http://www.nycsci.org/reports/​04-11%20Lanham%20Rpt.pdf www.nycsci.org

No comments:

Read the report detailing Verizon's theft of money that should have gone to our children.http://www.nycsci.org/reports/04-11%20Lanham%20Rpt.pdf www.nycsci.org