Ed Notes Online: Busy Days

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Busy Days

Some busy days coming up - almost too busy to do this blog. I didn't even get to write about last week when I debated a NY Charter School Center guy at Hofstra followed the next day by the screening of our film at NYU and the follow-up discussion which led to the invitation below.

Dear Norm Scott,
I'm writing as a member of an NYU student group organizing in support of Occupy Wall Street. For the past few weeks we have been holding open forums that we are calling the People's University in Washington Square Park, bringing teachers and activists out into public spaces to talk about current social issues.

Last Thursday I attended the GEM screening of An Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman at NYU (which was really great, by the way). I was wondering if you would be interested in coming out to a People's U this Saturday, 11/5 at 1:30pm.
The session will be on public education in NYC, and we would be thrilled to have you speak about your work as an NYC public school teacher and activist. Our events on Saturday have drawn upwards of around 75-100 folks, and our speakers have generally used the people's mic and talked for 10-15 minutes or so. (Here's our website with past events, if you're interested: http://peoplesu.tumblr.com/ .)

The session on public education will see a mix of public school teachers, parents, students, and activists speaking about their experiences under mayoral control, and (if they are inspired to do so) on the connections between education activism in NYC and the OWS movement.
If this would interest you, and/or if you have any recommendations for others who could speak at the People's U, please let me know. Thanks for your time!

Sincerely,

If you are around Washington Square Park on Saturday afternoon around 1:30 come join the crowd. If you would like to speak at People's U email me
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Screenings Galore of GEM Film as UFT Continues to Boycott

There are some screenings of the film coming up. Nov. 7 at Teachers College, Nov. 9 at PS 261K. There is a big organizing drive going on for the Nov. 9 screening as a way to inform the community that Eva is looking to invade about charter schools using our film as a tool.

I will be flying up to SUNY Cortland on the 9th (also a DA which I will thankfully miss) for a panel on the film. Here are the nitty gritties. We need to RSVP for the TC screening so email me if interested.

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And then a special event at SUNY Cortland where I will be on a panel - they actually sent me a plane ticket to fly up on Nov. 9th for an overnight stay, so I will miss the screening at PS 261 in Cobble Hill (see below).

FREE FILM SCREENING

Eva Moskowitz wants to bring her Success Charter Schools to District 15!

What does that mean for our neighborhood public schools?

What happens when charter schools are given space in public school buildings?

Why is the DOE supporting charter schools and cutting the budgets for public schools?

Learn more by joining us for a screening of “The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman”, produced by The Grassroots Education Movement.

Followed by a panel discussion featuring:

Becky Alford

NEST program teacher & parent, PS 32

Ina Pannell-St. Surin

MS 447 PTA Co-Vice President

Khem Irby

1st Vice President, District 13 CEC & co-founder of The MANY

Leonie Haimson

parent & director of Class Size Matters

Brian Jones

teacher at PS 261 & member of GEM

Wednesday, Nov 9, 2011
6:00 PM

PS 261 Auditorium
314 Pacific Street (between Smith & Hoyt)
Brooklyn, NY

Sponsored by PS 261 Unite
Contact 261Unite@gmail.com for more information
==============

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on the right for important bits.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: I sent the information about the documentary showing at Cortland to my friend's mother and sister (Syracuse City School teacher and prospective teacher) who live in Cortland. They are interested.; Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 7:51:00 AM EDT

"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

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Busy Days

1 comment: