Ed Notes Online: Rockaway Update: Singin' in the Rain

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Rockaway Update: Singin' in the Rain

But perhaps most disturbing of all, when I heard that the bridges supporting the shuttle train tracks to Rockaway Park had been completely wrecked, I got a chill. It took 6 years to get the bridge rebuilt and train service restored, after the trestle fire of May, 1950. Let’s not even think about it… Vivian Carter at Oy Vey Rockaway blog.

Well, it doesn't look like we will have train service to Rockaway for a loooong time. How about starting over with a monorail of some sort similar to the link to the JFK? Service often sucked anyway --

Some people might think it is a bad sign to pick up a new car in lousy weather. Not me. Yesterday's full day of fresh water cleansing rain was a welcome sight. It hasn't rained in the month since Sandy and the sense of freshness washing away some of the muck was invigorating. I almost felt like standing naked in front of my house but luckily for all passed on that, especially as PS 114 reopened yesterday.

Plus it gave me a day off from the crap I had to do outside. Besides, the new Honda CRV was ready to be picked up at noon and I was rearing to go. I got an exact replica of the car I bought at the end of June so it was like being right at home. Andy Feldman didn't have to review how the car works and due to the rain didn't even have to wipe it down. And paying was just so easy --- deposit the check from Geiko and take the money right back out again. Other than some of the taxes I broke even.

Monday was an active day out here with two sets of workers -- Pat the plumber sent his guys to finish installing the new burner -- other than wiring up the thermostats -- he has to send his own electrician, so we still don't have our regular heat. And Mike the air conditioning/heating guy sent his crew to replace the compressor which was hanging only 2 ft off the ground. The removed all the old inside and outside stuff and today may be back to hang the new units which will also pump some heat -- except I still need Ken the electrician to come back and run a new line since the old one was covered with salt water in my basement. Their hanging it 8 ft off the ground like the one on the other side of my house --- ugly but until the predicted 25 foot sea rise comes --- and maybe sooner rather than later it seems -- I am good for a while.

My fellow Wave columnist Vivian Carter is back up and running at Oy Vey Rockaway (http://rockviv.wordpress.com/) with some wonderful commentary and pics where she points out the important fact so many of us who figured we wouldn't die from 4 feet of water missed: fire. The only moments of panic we felt was the smell of smoke -- we thought it was our house -- and looking out at the ocean surrounding our house there seemed to be no way out. We finally realized it wasn't us and didn't find out until the next morning that almost a whole block had burned down 4 blocks away. Many of our friends saw the flames from their houses and watched them jump from house to house, terrified that it would burn the neighborhood down like happened in Breezy Point. Vivian was closer to the fire.

I survived Hurricane Sandy, which struck the Northeast coast of the United States at about 9 p.m. on Monday, October 29. I sent a panicked text message to a friend a few minutes later that said: ”the entire basement and first floor is flooded, and the house is shaking. My car is filled with water up to dashboard. The whole 400 block here has water half way up first floors!” That panic was nothing compared to how I felt a few hours later as I watched the embers of the Harbor Light Restaurant fire blowing hard to the north, landing on the Maroneys’ house, just across the back yard. I only managed to sleep once I was assured that Bulloch’s gas station was not going to blow up, as tanks are always sealed off from such catastrophes, these days. The risk of fire was something the OEM brochure on hurricanes didn’t mention. Something few of us had thought of.

Read Viv's wonderful account of the impact on the commercial district and her fabulous pics of which these are only a sample.

http://rockviv.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/we-demanded-the-sand-but-this-is-ridiculous/

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Today I might actually take a shot at going to the Delegate Assembly and the MORE planning committee meeting following for a change of pace. I took the great Accountable Talk piece - Real Questions for our Unity Leaders a and made a quick 2-sided leaflet. If I get there early I may make some copies and distribute some. MORE has lots of stuff to give out but I feel there is a need for some stronger stuff attacking Unity.

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

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Rockaway Update: Singin' in the Rain

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