Ed Notes Online: Astoria Queens District 30: SUNY CHARTER SCHOOLS INSTITUTE SHOULD REJECT SUCCESS ACADEMY PROPOSAL TO OPEN SCHOOLS IN DISTRICT

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Astoria Queens District 30: SUNY CHARTER SCHOOLS INSTITUTE SHOULD REJECT SUCCESS ACADEMY PROPOSAL TO OPEN SCHOOLS IN DISTRICT

WHEREAS, Success Academy’s average rate of annual student suspensions for the schools for which data is publicly available is well over three times higher than the rate of annual student suspensions in all of District 30,
WHEREAS, Success Academy’s average rate of teacher turnover for the schools for which such data is publicly available is well over twice the rate of teacher turnover in District 30, and such teacher turnover robs students of a stable instruction population and systematically prevents the creation of a stable school community ---- CEC, District 30

Resistance to Eva grows and even if battles are lost, the ability of Success to wage long term war will be affected. Resos like this, while not binding (unless mayoral control is tweaked enough), they count as public anti-Eva comments and eventually wend their way into public consciousness while they also force the Eva publicity machine to put out fires in many locations.

But we are aware of DOE and external forces coming attempts to control the powerless CECs (except for their ability to gain some press) and in fact to start placing charter school adherents onto these boards - as has happened with the ed deform slug Brian Davis in Dist. 6.

At the May 16, 2013 Calendar Meeting, CDEC30 unanimously approved the following resolution:

RESOLUTION #96

CALLING ON THE SUNY CHARTER SCHOOLS INSTITUTE TO REJECT SUCCESS ACADEMY’S PRELIMINARY PROPOSAL TO OPEN SCHOOLS IN DISTRICT 30

AND CALLING UPON NEW YORK CITY TO REJECT ANY REQUEST BY

SUCCESS ACADEMY FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL SPACE IN DISTRICT 30

WHEREAS, District 30 is proud to be host to many excellent and successful public schools, including several well-considered charter schools; and

WHEREAS, on March 21, 2013, Community District Education Council 30 passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on all school closures, phase outs, and charter school co-locations; and

WHEREAS Community District Education Council 30 continues to be opposed to co-locations of charter schools in district schools without the approval of the district; and

WHEREAS, along with adjoining District 24, District 30 is one of the most overcrowded districts in New York City, such that at the request of City Council member Julissa Ferreras the DOE convened a task force to collaborate with the community to establish long-term solutions to address overcrowding, which task force held its first meeting on April 25; and

WHEREAS, District 30 is currently operating with an average building utilization rate of 104 percent; and

WHEREAS, New York City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott has conceded that “Overcrowding is an issue we take seriously,” and

WHEREAS, the overwhelming majority of charter school seats in District 30 are in private buildings which serve to provide additional seats for students in this overcrowded district; and

WHEREAS, Success Academy has stated in its application to the SUNY Charter Institute that it only intends to open a school in District 30 if it can co-locate in a district school, with no acknowledgement that District 30 is already overcrowded and lacking in space for the schools already in the District; and

WHEREAS, serious concerns have been raised concerning student and teacher safety at schools co-located with Success Academy schools as a result of Success Academy’s performance of construction work without DOE approval; and

WHEREAS, District 30 has 13 elementary schools rated an “A” in their most recent New York City Department of Education Progress Report, which is over half of the elementary schools in District 30, and eight schools for which Progress Reports have shown improvement over the past two years; and

WHEREAS, District 30 offers numerous options for parental choice including, but not limited to, no less than five dual language programs, with a sixth opening next year, three district-wide gifted and talented programs, a citywide gifted and talented program, a sought-after NEST program, several magnet schools, and five other charters schools each with its own theme; and

WHEREAS, District 30, along with District 24, has one of the fastest growing populations of immigrant students in the city, with dozens of languages being the native tongues of students and their parents including but not limited to Bengali, Arabic, Chinese, Urdu, Punjabi, Greek, Tivetan, Nepali, Albanian, Philipino/Tagalog, Portuguese, Hindi, Polish, Korean, Serbo-Croatian, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, French, Romanian, Haitian Creole, Thai, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Gujarati, Indonesian/Bahasa, Pashto, Italian, Burmese, Farsi, German, Bosnian, Tamil, Armenian, Slovak, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Czech, Yonba, Belorussian, Telugu, Macedonian, Hebrew, Swedish, Tigre, Dutch, Georgian, Malayalam, Dzonghka, Bihari, Malay, Slovenian, Guarani, Hausa, Lithuanian, Marathi, Uzbek, Visayak, Bambara, Cham, Fulani, Ibo, Malagasy, Mongolian, Niger-Congo, Sindhi, Turkman, Twi, Afrikaans, Azerbaijani, Baluchi, Estonian, Khoisan, Loma, Maltese, Mandinka, Nahuatl, Native American Languages, Norweigan, Romansch, Shluh, Sundanese, Swahili, Tamazight, and Yoruba; and

WHEREAS, Success Academy has not made its petitions, enrollment materials, parent contracts, or other documents available in any languages other than English and Spanish; and

WHEREAS, Success Academy’s average rate of annual student suspensions for the schools for which data is publicly available is well over three times higher than the rate of annual student suspensions in all of District 30, despite the fact that such figures reflect only suspensions of students in grades K-6, whereas District 30’s suspension rate includes students in grades K-12; and

WHEREAS, Success Academy’s average rate of teacher turnover for the schools for which such data is publicly available is well over twice the rate of teacher turnover in District 30, and such teacher turnover robs students of a stable instruction population and systematically prevents the creation of a stable school community; and

WHEREAS, Success Academy has not shown that there has been any significant number of applicants from District 30 to any of its schools.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that Community District Education Council 30 hereby calls upon the SUNY Charter Institute and the New York State Board of Regents to REJECT Success Academy’s preliminary proposal, and any subsequent proposal made by Success Academy to open a school in District 30; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Community District Education Council 30 hereby calls upon the New York City Department of Education, the Panel on Education Policy, and the Chancellor of the New York City Schools to REJECT any request by Success Academy to be co-located in any public school building in District 30.

VOTED AND UNANIMOUSLY APPROVED: May 16, 2013

Regards,

Gail Cohen

Administrative Assistant

Community District Education Council 30

28-11 Queens Plaza North, Room 520

Long Island City, NY 11101

718-391-8380

718-391-8500 (fax)

Visit CDEC30 on Facebook! Just copy and paste the link below.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Long-Island-City-NY/CDEC30/228546964309

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"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

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Astoria Queens District 30: SUNY CHARTER SCHOOLS INSTITUTE SHOULD REJECT SUCCESS ACADEMY PROPOSAL TO OPEN SCHOOLS IN DISTRICT

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