Ed Notes Online: Assessing the Impact

Friday, February 10, 2012

Assessing the Impact - Part 1

UPDATE: Fri. Feb. 10, 11AM
Leonie has posted videos on her blog with this important comment on press. Note that she gives the Post's Yoav Gonen a top mark plus the Gotham live blog (Live-blogging the PEP: 23 school closure votes on the agenda).

Videos here: http://goo.gl/SgRFx

TV reports of Thursday night massacre: protests vs. the closing of 23 schools

None of the newspaper articles capture the full rage and bitterness expressed last night by thousands of parents, students and teachers at last night's hearings, at which the Panel for Educational Policy, controlled by the mayor, rubberstamped the closing or truncation of 23 schools. Best among the print accounts was live-blogging by GothamSchools and the NYPost article by Yoav Gonen (GS, Post).

The videos do a far better job at conveying the atmosphere, if not the substance, of what happened last night. Below are the reports from Channel 2 news (CBS), Channel 7 (ABC), Channel 4 (NBC), Fox News, and a short video by Michael Galinsky, maker of the Atlantic Yards documentary, Battle for Brooklyn.

Last night was one more skirmish in the battle for our public schools, and for the future of this city. Whether it will prove to be a turning point in the history of mayoral control, brought down by the administration's arrogant disregard for the views of parents, students, and community members, remains to be seen.

Friday, Feb. 10 1AM
Got home at midnight and too tired to say much so I'll let others do it -- for now.

One report from an ODOE person

I'm struck by how many of these articles make mention very clearly of the various possibilities of open meetings law violations concerning both the volume and the lockout in the lobby, and also of the police presence. And while Fox 5, for example, does lead with the "division" between the UFT and Occupy the DOE, they also mention that the two groups "came together in the end."

The DOE and Bloomberg look really bad in all these reports, and Occupy looks, well, provocative and militant, if also chaotic. And well, we knew that about the movement already. I'm sure there'll be plenty of negativity flung at us over the next 48 hours or so, but so far the media is better than I expected.

Another:

The more I read the media coverage the more successful I think we were. I don't want to sugarcoat it; we definitely did not achieve what we wanted. But if it's true that 1,800 people showed up and less than 100 signed up to speak, that means our message of boycotting got through to a whole lot of people. And the fact that the UFT marched back and we had all forces united in one room is also a major accomplishment. And the coverage makes clear that there was mass opposition. Not what we wanted but not a bad start.

And a short film by Battle for Brooklyn film director Michael Galinsky: http://vimeo.com/36526142

from NY1:

http://www.ny1.com/content/top_stories/155700/protesters-rally-against-closures-to-no-avail

Fox 5 called it a "family scene"

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/educational-policy-meeting-protest-20120209

Gotham Schools live-blogged it:

http://gothamschools.org/2012/02/09/live-blogging-the-pep-23-school-closure-votes-are-on-the-agenda/#more-77000

The NYTimes also live blogged:

http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/02/09/another-school-closing-vote-and-another-protest/?ref=nyregion

Anna Phillips' report in NYT.

Daily News:

Tension high as thousands crash Brooklyn hearing for closing of 23 schools

Panel for Education Policy expected to approve the shutdowns despite outcry

By Ben Chapman AND Rachel Monahan / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Thursday, February 9, 2012, 11:29 PM

Description: A raucous meeting on the controversial closing of 23 schools takes place at Brooklyn Technical High School.

Anthony Lanzilote for New York Daily News

Meeting was raucous, and Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott blasted the teachers union for helping fill

MORE THAN 2,000 protesters swarmed a contentious hearing Thursday night on the city’s plan to close 23 struggling schools.
Despite the protests, the Panel for Education Policy was expected to approve the closures before the end of the meeting at Brooklyn Technical High School in Fort Greene.
“People are getting fed up,” said teachers union president Michael Mulgrew told the Daily News. “They’re sick and tired of schools being blamed for the failure of the city.”
Inside the meeting the protesters chanted and drowned out officials who attempted to direct the meeting.
Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott took aim at the union for working with Occupy Wall Street demonstrators to disrupt the hearings.
“There are important proposals up for discussion,” Walcott said. “If all the (teachers union) wants to do is bus in Occupy Wall Street protesters . . . then we will just have to work around that.”
The panel, the majority of whose members are appointed by the mayor, have never voted down a school closing.
The Bloomberg administration has approved closing 117 failing public schools since 2002, and it has opened 396.
Over 100 people were scheduled to speak at the hearing, including dozens of activists and elected officials who blasted the city for closing schools.
bchapman@nydailynews

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/tension-high-thousands-crash-brooklyn-hearing-closing-23-schools-article-1.1020238#ixzz1lxBlN9oK

4 comments:

Anonymous said...: An NBC news anchor was also at the PEP covering the story live for the 11:00 news. She was standing outside reporting and this WAS THE FIRST BREAKING NEWS STORY for the half hour. It was actually a good story for the people, and not so positive for the DOE.; Friday, February 10, 2012 at 7:47:00 AM EST
ed notes online said...: I think the coverage has been decent from our point of view. The press got the ODOE/UFT yin-yang -- which actually plays out well for the UFT in some ways as they can't be pinned as the rads. Lots to do for ODOE as in some ways this was the coming out party.; Friday, February 10, 2012 at 8:03:00 AM EST
Anonymous said...: I think having a press spokesperson from ODOE may be a good idea. The news anchors have been mostly stating that the protesters are causing 'chaos' and the DOE is known for rubber stamping decisions. No one is really focusing in on that the protests at these events are actually more than organized with an actual focused agenda. The media has been mentioning more and more that the last time decisions have been voted against school closings and phase outs, Bloomberg removed those people within minutes. This is the good news. The more and more people from coalition groups fight back, more people will start to see 'the iron wall'. Or at least 1 can hope.; Friday, February 10, 2012 at 5:29:00 PM EST
Anonymous said...: Yes, Tracie...the major "anchors, and MSM typically dumb everything down to either a shouting match, or opinions (marching orders) masked as objective journalism. During the Wisconsin fiasco last year, I didn't see any of the major sources taking ,say, five minutes, to tell of the labor history in this country- so the avergae viewer could get some perspective on the issues.

Here, you can see the "iron wall" of propaganda at work. Issues are not discussed-just pure emotion.; Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 10:31:00 AM EST

"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