Saturday, April 13, 2013

"I Am Not a Crook," Rhee Heading for Perp Walk?

I imagine some of you think this Rhee "head on Nixon body" photoshop I keep up on the Ed Notes sidebar was just done.

In fact David Bellel did it for me many years ago fairly early in her reign as DC supt. I was so sure it would come in handy time and again.

I think we did them for Joel Klein, Chris Cerf, John White. We never thought of Beverly Hall but should have. In fact I know so much about who cheated and when in some districts here in NYC, cheating going back way before BloomKlein years, there would be many indictments.

For instance, the DOE has been sitting on a story for years about a high school principal who openly forced her teachers to cheat under threat of U ratings. And many did. There are tapes and whistleblowers but silence.
The DOE fired the principal for some semi-bullshit excuse while covering up the cheating and in fact going after some of the teachers who were under threat of losing their jobs.

Best of all, the network people knew exactly what was going on and no one has paid. In fact, one of the awful network people was recently put in charge of one of the few remaining large high schools as a "closer." Meaning she will use her "skills' to make sure that school can become prime real estate foe Eva Moskowitz (who as far as I am concerned is also eligible for a perp walk just for lying about the wait lists which are used to steal public money.)

And the press? Too busy worrying about where Leonie sends her kids to school.

I think I wrote sometime around 2004 that one day Joel Klein will be taken out of Tweed with his coat over his head. I wasn't thinking only of cheating scandals but of all kinds of money being funneled to funny places. Just look at the ed scandals on cheating the city. (I can't list them all). One of my failed predictions, but if we had an ed press corps that would dig as deep as some reporters are digging at Leonie Haimson, we would have seen that happen.

Now while we see every indictment in Atlanta with some extraordinary investigations and also some extraordinary punishments being meted out, all the people indicted are black or Latino/a. Don't think the race issue will not surface -- I know Rhee is also not technically white, but.....

I posted this Bruce Dixon Black Agenda report last week

Why Was Atlanta's Beverly Hall Indicted For Racketeering While Michelle Rhee Won't Be?

We know the ed deformers will make excuses for the darling Rhee. And so it has begun, as RBE reports at Perdido:

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Fordham Institute's Flypaper Makes Excuses For Rhee

You knew they would, right?

Since the John Merrow report of the secret cheating memo the Rhee story has snowballed. Here are a slice of reports (Excuse the formatting, I'm off to the MORE meeting.)

Diane Ravitch has been all over the story:

Diane Ravitch's blog

What John Merrow Told Education Writers

A City Council Hearing Is Not Enough

By dianerav

April 13, 2013 //

Will the cover up succeed?
Read this in the New York Times.
The DC City Council will hold hearings. But hearings are not the same as a professional investigation as was conducted in Atlanta.
Rhee deserves the same scrutiny as Hall.
Given the fear and intimidation reported by John Merrow, hearings will not get to the bottom of this mess.
Who will investigate?

Are the Data Scrubbed and Cooked?

By dianerav

Strauss: Time to Subpoena Witnesses in DC Cheating Scandal

John Merrow on Chris Hayes Discussing Rhee

By dianerav

April 12, 2013 //

A reader sent this comment and a link to Chris Hayes’ interview with John Merrow:
“MSNBC’s Chris Hayes had John Merrow on his 4/12 evening show, ALL IN and the conversation was simply brutal towards Rhee….Chris very articulately pointed out how M Rhee rose to the top of the Ed Reform movement with only 3 years of limited personal experience in education. He ended his commentary by noting, in detail, how DC schools are in far worse condition today because of Rhee’s questionable policies……… like a cool breeze in a desert!
John was fabulous….Chris Hayes noted he would be following up with John Merrow in the future…stay tuned! “
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/all-in-/51362794#51523921

Perdido Street School

Michelle Rhee And MSNBC
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Jersey Jazzman

Michelle Rhee's Day Has Finally Come

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Michelle Rhee's Terrible Awful Day

By Charles P. Pierce

at 10:00AM

1 comment:

Ira Goldfine said...: The NYC Department of Education from the 1980's on did an erasure analysis(how many changed answers go from wrong to right) of all standardized tests. This was one of the first things Mayor Bloomberg put an end to upon taking control of the Department. He claimed it was too costly even though I believe the Department owned the software. When might the NYC media write a story on this? Keep in mind that this whole developing story about Rhee and Hall became possible because of erasure analysis.

Ira; Saturday, April 13, 2013 at 10:40:00 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 Online

Ed Notes Extended

Saturday, April 13, 2013

"I Am Not a Crook," Rhee Heading for Perp Walk?

Why Was Atlanta's Beverly Hall Indicted For Racketeering While Michelle Rhee Won't Be?

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Fordham Institute's Flypaper Makes Excuses For Rhee

A City Council Hearing Is Not Enough

Are the Data Scrubbed and Cooked?

Strauss: Time to Subpoena Witnesses in DC Cheating Scandal

John Merrow on Chris Hayes Discussing Rhee

Michelle Rhee's Day Has Finally Come

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Michelle Rhee's Terrible Awful Day

1 comment: