Ed Notes Online: Advice for de Blasio: ASAP - Make Patrick Sullivan Your First PEP Appointment

Monday, January 6, 2014

Advice for de Blasio: ASAP - Make Patrick Sullivan Your First PEP Appointment

...here is a chance for Patrick Sullivan to bring his considerable talents in service of NYC parents, students and teachers by working with the majority at long last. What a shame to deny Patrick this opportunity. ... EdNotesOnline

Scott Stringer also deserves a lot of thanks for sticking by Patrick and letting him vote his conscience even after being pressured by Bloomberg’s minions to fire him.... Leonie Haimson

Stringer's support for Patrick is why I voted for him. If you attended any PEP meetings the only member to consistently get applause from the audience was Patrick. W

When people took over the August 2010 PEP meeting, Patrick came off the stage to stand with the people while the rest of the PEPs scurried for cover. Here is a video with Patrick speaking from the floor at around 4:30.

Also See: The anti-chancellor: Scott Stringer’s education-board appointee objects to Dennis Walcott, again and again

Patrick was an immense supporter of our film (see tab at the top of the blog) and we used some important footage of him.

Patrick Sullivan resigned from the PEP once Scott Stringer's term of Manhattan Borough President expired. That does not mean he is not interested in the PEP. Under BloomKleinBlackCott Patrick had to play the role of obstructionist to try to stop the destruction and undermining of the public school system.

But here is a chance for Patrick to bring his considerable talents in the service of NYC parents, students and teachers by working with the majority at long last. What a shame to deny Patrick this opportunity.

However, I do not think Patrick should have to go begging to new Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer. Let's see where she stands on education as revealed by her PEP appointee. de Blasio should show support for the work Patrick did by appointing him to one of the 8 positions (out of 13) he controls.

Here is the link to the ednotes piece when Patrick announced his resignation: Patrick Sullivan resigns from NYC Board of Educati...

And here's Leonie Haimson's supportive piece and call for people to leave comments on the blog she and Patrick run supporting Patrick.

Happy New Year to all.

I just returned from a trip last night, but if you’d like to add your thanks and appreciation to Patrick for an incredible job on the PEP for the last 6 ½ yrs please put your thanks on the blog here, where he posted his resignation letter to Stringer:

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2013/12/sullivan-thanks-scott-stringer-for.html

Scott Stringer also deserves a lot of thanks for sticking by Patrick and letting him vote his conscience even after being pressured by Bloomberg’s minions to fire him.

As I commented on the blog, if Patrick’s advice had been listened to, we would have been spared hundreds of damaging co-locations and school closures, and millions of dollars down the drain in wasteful and sometimes outright corrupt contracts.

Also, you might mention if you think de Blasio should appoint him to the new and hopefully independent NYC Board of Ed to be a voice for parents.

Thanks,

Leonie Haimson

NOTE- Another thing de Blasio should do immediately is to get rid of Bloomberg's PEP nomenclature -- really should have been PERPS--- and replace it with______ - let's have a contest.

See these links on Patrick:

Ed Notes Online: Why Scott Stringer? Patrick Sullivan on the PEP ...

ednotesonline.blogspot.com/.../why-scott-stringer-patrick-sullivan-on.ht...‎
Aug 30, 2013 - Patrick Sullivan on the PEP and Beat Evil Eva Mosowitz. It was not small feat for Scott Stringer to give us the gift of Patrick Sullivan on the PEP, ...
Patrick Sullivan commands the stage at the PEP | NYC Public ...

thediariesofalawstudent.blogspot.com › ... › Patrick Sullivan‎
Check out this video of Manhattan member of the Panel for Educational Policy Patrick Sullivan, fearless and brilliant, at the PEP December 20 meeting in the ...
Patrick Sullivan/James Liebman Joust at the PEP - YouTube

► 7:59► 7:59

www.youtube.com/watch?v=11q3uZtePCE

Nov 23, 2007 - Uploaded by norscot2
PEP Manhatan appointee Patrick Sullivan and Tweed Chief Accountability Officer James Liebman joust at ...
Patrick Sullivan at the PEP Dec 09.mov - YouTube

► 8:39► 8:39

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn_UnhQ0ALc

Dec 21, 2009 - Uploaded by norscot2
The NYC so-called rubber stamp Board of Education is known as the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP). Most ...
Patrick Sullivan commands the stage at the PEP - NYC Public ...

nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/.../patrick-sullivan-commands-stag...‎
Dec 22, 2009 - Check out this video of Manhattan member of the Panel for Educational Policy Patrick Sullivan, fearless and brilliant, at the PEP December 20 ...
Manhattan Borough Pres Scott Stringer and PEP Rep Patrick ...

iceuftblog.blogspot.com/.../manhattan-borough-pres-scott-stringer.html‎
Aug 31, 2011 - Manhattan Borough Pres Scott Stringer and PEP Rep Patrick Sullivan at Tuesday's Press Conference on Verizon Contract.

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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 Online

Ed Notes Extended

Monday, January 6, 2014

Advice for de Blasio: ASAP - Make Patrick Sullivan Your First PEP Appointment

Ed Notes Online: Why Scott Stringer? Patrick Sullivan on the PEP ...

Patrick Sullivan commands the stage at the PEP | NYC Public ...

Patrick Sullivan/James Liebman Joust at the PEP - YouTube

Patrick Sullivan at the PEP Dec 09.mov - YouTube

Patrick Sullivan commands the stage at the PEP - NYC Public ...

Manhattan Borough Pres Scott Stringer and PEP Rep Patrick ...

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