Ed Notes Online: In Defense of IS 318

Monday, March 5, 2012

In Defense of IS 318

On this item from Gotham Schools:
A principal with many low-rated teachers blamed the ratings, inaccurately, on budget cuts. (Daily News)

Anna Phillips wrote at Schoolbook:

The Daily News looks at another Brooklyn school, Intermediate School 318 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn where families compete for seats and applicants have to submit a report card and a recommendation from a teacher in order to get in. "

I've been involved with schools in District 14 for 45 years. Parents in the district have fought to get their kids into IS 318 for 20 years. Ok, so being the national chess champions doesn't count for some. But the programs IS 318 has offered and its stable leadership team has been a mainstay within the chaos of the Bloomberg era reforms. Fortunato (Fred) Rubino, its former long-time principal, who spent his entire career as teacher, AP and principal in that school and was often pulled to mentor struggling school, has become the D. Supt, a miracle given the insanity coming out of Tweed. I've known Freddie Rubino forever and he is the kind of guy I would come out of retirement to work for.

I wish the new principal, Eric Windley, the best of luck one week after stepping into this hornet's nest. I worked with Eric in my last full year in the system 10 years ago when he was a classroom teacher and we set him up with a robotics program, which continues to this day at the school.

One of my oldest pals teaches there and had a very low rating. I met her 20 years ago when she was a step-parent of one of the kids in my school and she came up to volunteer in my computer lab. I watched her spend years working her way through college, then become a para and finally a teacher. One of the most conscientious people I've ever met. She received an awful rating for teaching reading when she has a Spanish license and I believe that was what she mostly taught. What, no published rating in the area which she is actually trained to teach?

And the UFT is willing to even give 20% credence to this crap?

Read this at Schools Matter which perfectly expresses what the position the UFT should be taking instead of caving.

Don't Sue to Keep Scores Out of the Papers: Sue to End This Sham Evaluation Scheme

---------

March 10 - STATE OF THE UNION PART 2: TIME TO FIGHT BACK ----

See 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.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...: My daughter received an excellent education at IS 318 and one of my sister's went there when the school was new. The teachers and staff are excellent. Families throughout Williamsburg and Greenpoint bang the doors down to get in. They also have a magnificent program for special needs children.; Monday, March 5, 2012 at 11:37:00 PM EST
Anonymous said...: Leander Eric Windley has a name that fits him perfectly, for he is full of hot WIND.
In a Daily News analysis, Intermediate School 318 in Brooklyn, New York was rated as having the highest percentage of teachers rated below average in Brooklyn, but teacher Mr. Windley had to put his illogical two cents into the disclosure, and made himself appear as cognitively challenged. It appears that a closed mind wrongly opened a big mouth.
As for the 'Anonymous' comment above, times change. Yes, your daughter and one of your sisters went to I.S. 318 when the school was new, as you said, but how many years ago was that? Teachers there at that time have since retired and have been replaced by ineffective teachers...and maybe unruly students.; Tuesday, March 6, 2012 at 7:26:00 PM EST
Anonymous said...: This is a very rude and disrespectful comment about a man and a school you don't seem to know about firsthand.; Tuesday, March 6, 2012 at 11:14:00 PM EST
Anonymous said...: Not "rude and disrespectful," as you wrote, Anonymous. Mr. Leander Eric Windley is sticking up, speaking out, against facts that I am sure, have been proven--or the gatherer of the info could be sued, in today's world.
Mr. Windley proves that arrogance often covers a minimum of intelligence!; Wednesday, March 7, 2012 at 12:30:00 PM EST
Anonymous said...: Listen, some people will always talk bad about others, it's what they live for in today's society.This goes to the person who spoke without a clue about the daily lives of the principle, Mr. Windley or the teachers at I.S.318. All my siblings,nephews and nieces, friends have attended I.S.318. We are all in professional careers, helping in the community in which we live. All because of people like Mr Rubino and Mr. Windley and the teachers, yes teachers at I.S.318. Teacher ratings were filled with inaccurate info. and the media had the time of their life bashing teachers to sell newspapers.; Wednesday, April 4, 2012 at 8:57:00 PM 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

Monday, March 5, 2012

In Defense of IS 318

5 comments: