Ed Notes Online: The Portelos Case: A Basic Rights Issue of Our Time

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

The Portelos Case: A Basic Rights Issue of Our Time

Tell Walcott he's full of bullshit when he claims he wants quality teachers. Start with 2 names: Portelos and Lamphere. Where's the press on these stories of political persecution?

From James C:
The plight of Mr. Portelos is another example of retaliation by a vindictive principal. In addition, the former Chapter Leader was working against Mr. Portelos as the principal's confidant.

Mr. Portelos' wows began after he contacted me about School Leadership Team issues in Dec. 2011. It was clear that his SLT Team, of which he was a member, was not in compliance with CR A-655 and State Educational Law.It was a Team of untrained members dominated by the Principal.When he learned about what the Team role was, he began asking about school budget and CEP issues that weren't being done by the SLT in a collaborative manner. The attacks were fast and furious. Additional conflicts also developed that resulted in charges being made against him. In addition,the principal is being investigated for financial discrepancies regarding her per session activity.
Despite being removed from the school (you can read about the fifteen absurd charges on his website), the staff elected him Chapter Leader last June. However, he is not allowed to enter the school, which hinders him from conducting UFT business. He is also not allowed to attend SLT meetings.The DOE has not formally charged him as of yet but has banished him to a "rubber room" in their District Office in Ozone Park ( He lives in Staten Island). He and the few other teachers that are there are isolated from each other.In addition, he is not allowed to use his computer.

Mr. Portelos has a federal lawsuit against the DOE which you can also read about on his site.The Judge recently refused the DOE's attempt to dismiss the case.

I admire Mr. Portelos for refusing to let the DOE destroy his career without a fight and for publicizing all the underhanded actions of the principal and DOE.

There have been two or three articles in the NY Post about this matter.

If anyone can be of assistance to Mr. Portelos, you would be involved in a worthy cause in helping to vindicate a quality teacher while sending a message to principals and the DOE that they will not be allowed to get away with this shameful behavior against teachers..
J.C.

Leonie picks up the case from Francesco:

From: Leonie Haimson <leonie@att.net>
To: nyceducationnews <nyceducationnews@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wed, Oct 3, 2012 3:54 pm
Subject: [nyceducationnews] Portelos' plight: Squeezed into a paragraph

From: Mr. Portelos [mailto:mrportelos@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2012 3:48 PM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: Squeezed into a paragraph

I managed to squeeze the story into a paragraph, but with links.

My name is Francesco Alexander Portelos. I am a parent and educator of Staten Island's North Shore. I was teaching technology at Berta Dreyfus IS 49 for 5 years after I left a 7 year career in the Environmental Engineering/Inspection field. My record, as a teacher and school community member, was stellar. After I became a new father in the community, my focus transcended past my praised classroom and I looked at the issues at the school as a whole. A school that my son would be going to in just 10 short years. As I brought attention to matters, such as discipline, budget and school goals, a hostile work environment was suddenly created around me. Principal Linda V. Hill began calling me a "hindrance to the community" and questioning my classroom instruction that was previously praised. It did not stop me as I knew something was going on and I pushed forward starting investigations on potential financial misconduct and educational neglect. I submitted the allegations on January 26, 2012. Starting on January 30, 2012 18 allegations were made against me, 3 disciplinary letters were placed in my file in just 10 days, I received my first unsatisfactory classroom observation and I was ultimately removed from school on April 26, 2012. I now sit in exile, at an empty cubicle (Rubber Room), 20 miles away at 8201 Rockaway Blvd waiting. Waiting for what? The investigations on the administrators back at Berta Dreyfus 49? The in vestigations on me? My Federal lawsuit? The completion of the 50th Anniversary Celebration?
Now if you have time, and a bowl of popcorn, read the more detailed version of the saga… http://protectportelos.wordpress.com/the-story/

--
-Mr. Portelos
IS 49 UFT Chapter Leader
Parent
Educator
Protectportelos.org
Mrportelos.com

"In the end, we will not remember the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." -Martin Luther King Jr.

Cheers,
Norm Scott

Twitter: normscott1

Education Notes
ednotesonline.blogspot.com

Grassroots Education Movement
gemnyc.org

Education columnist, The Wave
www.rockawave.com

nycfirst robotics
normsrobotics.blogspot.com

Sent from my BlackBerry

2 comments:

Francesco Portelos said...: Thanks Norm, James and Leonie. I'm going to win this. Thanks for your support.; Friday, October 5, 2012 at 12:08:00 AM EDT
Leonie Haimson said...: More on Portelos, including video, since he has been live-streaming his stay in the new version of a "rubber room" without DOE making any of the charges against him public: NBC News: Banished Teacher Live Streams Self Doing Nothing in rubber room http://shar.es/5d2SN and NYP: http://bit.ly/RlKA3c; Saturday, October 6, 2012 at 4:06:00 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

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

The Portelos Case: A Basic Rights Issue of Our Time

2 comments: