BloomKlein WIN!

BloomKlein WINNNNNNNNN!!!

Say the above using your best John Sterling "Yankees Win" voice!


You can fool most of the people most of the time


But not all...



David Quintana rains on the parade

As one of the four (4) parent participants in a focus group held at Tweed for researchers from the Broad Foundation, I am disappointed in the fact that NYC received the Broad Foundation prize today.

This group of parents, handpicked by Martine Guerrier of the Department of Education (DOE), expressed uniform disappointment with the various changes put into place by DOE, the lack of transparency and accountability, and the lack of consideration given the views of parents about what their children really need to succeed.

Clearly the Broad Foundation did not take parents views into consideration when awarding this prize to NYC today.

I feel that the DOE is totally dismissive of parents views and makes short shrift of our concerns for our children (i.e. - class size reduction, cell phone ban, school bus fiasco, numerous reorganizations of the DOE, et al)

Thank you.

David M. Quintana

District 27 Presidents Council - Recording Secretary; District 27 Representative to Chancelors Parents Advisory Council, Queens Community Board 10 - Education Committee and Queens Borough President's Parents Advisory Council member

http://davidmquintana.blogspot.com/

"never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; it's the only thing that ever has" - Margaret Mead

Why is Joel Klein Broading?

Joel Klein has headed down to Washington for the announcement of the Broad Prize. He is expected to come home with a check for $1 million. At least he stays even with the UFT which got its own one mil from Broad last year for its charter school. (Wouldn't Broad be doing a lot more for American education if he spent his money buying a sports teams like other billionaires?)

Here are a bunch of articles, posts, etc. on Eli Broad on Norm's Notes with direct links. Graphic shamelessly copied from the NYC Public School Parents blog.

Eli Broad's article "System Failure" in "Democracy" reveals the shallowness of his vision for American ed. Read our quick and dirty critique here along with his complete article.

Diane Ravitch comments on Broad in her regular featured conversation with Deb Meier on Ed Week. She thinks based on Broad's narrow view of education, BloomKlein do deserve the Broad prize. I wish Ravitch would expand her criticisms to address the national assault on urban public schools.

Leonie Haimson and 50 NYC parents take the position that NYC doesn't deserve the Broad Prize and have sent a letter to that effect to the Broad Foundation.

Deborah Meier responds to Ravitch where I include her comments on how mayoral control was a gimmick in the NY Times in Sept. '02.

George Schmidt, editor of Substance, comments on how Broad's vision leads to totalitarian school systems (did Broad really write that article for a mag named "Democracy"?) with the creation of all sorts of expensive job titles.

In his inimical style, Sean Ahern savages Ravitch et. al. endorsed the schools takeover which they now bemoan. Could it be that the ("Recall that Ravitch and the UFTeducrats were promised a secure perch that has at least for the moment been pulled out from under them? Maybe they hitched their wagons to the wrong horse?").

I do not agree with Sean's point of view at this time in history. While a feel the UFT still backs mayoral control and are enablers and collaborators, I give Ravitch the benefit of the doubt. I commented:

Diane Ravitch has enlisted in the NYC school wars - on the right side. While she focuses on BloomKlein, her nationally recognized voice is very welcome as a counter to the BloomKlein spin. As she continues to reexamine her positions I expect we will be hearing a lot more.

Broad Jumping

There are lots of warning signs in this post. Even if the governance law in NYC is changed to allow for more oversight, it is clear the takeover artists who have captured so many urban public school systems and put them under what is in essence private management (Broad, Gates, et al decide public ed policy) will never allow their poster boy in NYC to fall from their grasp. So watch the money pour in to assure a continuation of BloomKlein (with new surrogates) in perpetuity.

The BloomKlein gang at Tweed are suffering rotator cuff fatigue from patting themselves on the back for their expected victory for the Broad [pronounced Brood] prize, which will be announced Tuesday, Sept. 18 at high noon in Washington DC. Some people are saying they do not deserve the prize. But if you follow Broad's anti-union, simplistic business model of education, it is clear that BloomKlein and Broad are perfect together. Want to have some fun? Watch the UFT dance around this one. Broad is a major benefactor of UFT partner Green Dot charters. And they also received $1 million from Broad for their own charter school. And, oh yes, Broad is a lifelong Democrat. Emphasis on the large D. I've posted a whole bunch of Broadisms on the Norm's Notes blog.

Here are some more resources sent by John Lawhead culled from Susan Ohanian.
http://susanohanian.org/


Gary Stager's "Bill Gates and Eli Broad Go Gangsta" makes for some great reading.

You may have heard by now that bad boy billionaires, Bill Gates and Eli Broad, are kicking it together. They invested $60 million (lunch money) in the Strong American Schools Project, also known as ED in ’08. They hope that this charitable non-profit organization “will catapult the need for improved public education to the top of the 2008 presidential candidates’ agendas.”(Heszenhorn, 2007) One can hardly criticize an effort to get presidential candidates discussing critical education issues, but it is unclear if Gates and Broad should be steering the agenda.

It is disingenuous that Gates and Broad are investing $60 million just to inspire spirited debate.

“One complication, however, is that ED in 08, isn't just pushing candidates to have some real education agenda; it also wants them to support a specific trio of policies: more learning time for students, common academic standards across states, and tying teacher pay to things like subject specialty, performance, and working in high-poverty schools.” (Education_Sector, 2007)

Read the full article (with videos)
http://districtadministration.com/pulse/commentpost.aspx?news=no&postid=48233

Also check out:

An 2004 article from San Diego Reader.com on Eli Broad's impact on the San Diego schools. Guess who was instrumental in running them? Our old friend and former chancellor Anthony Alvarado (playing the role of Diana Lam to Superintendent Alan Bersin's Joel Klein). He had a Leadership Academy which was Klein's model and installed his then girlfriend (and now wife) Elaine Fink as the head (at a cool $250 grand a year). Those numbers ought to warm Eli Broad's cockles as a sign of the efficient management he loves so much.

The article shows how even when there is public school board oversight, the Broad forces will go to no end to gain contol over the schools by pumping lots of money into school baord elections while trying to hide that this is what they are doing.

Here is an excerpt:

A champion of public school "reform," Democrat Broad, a longtime Bersin ally, has a history of hiding his financial support of the superintendent's efforts to retool the school district.

Broad's involvement in San Diego school politics dates back to summer and fall 2000, when Padres owner John Moores (along with Moores's partner, downtown real estate mogul Malin Burnham) and Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs spent more than $720,000 on a campaign of television spots attacking Democratic board incumbent Frances Zimmerman and her opposition to Bersin's policies.

More than two years later, after the foundations filed 2000 tax returns, it became clear that Eli Broad had used his own nonprofit, tax-exempt foundation to funnel his contributions to the two eastern charities that had given the money to the anti-Zimmerman advertising campaign.

A May 2001 tax return showed that in 2000, the Broad Foundation contributed $110,000 to Essential Information, according to a letter signed by Broad himself. "I am pleased to inform you that the Broad Foundation has approved your recent grant request to support Essential Information's efforts to encourage citizens to become active in public education issues in their communities.

LA Weekly had a great article in July 2006 on how Broad operates, in this case vis a vis LA Mayor Villaraigosa's attempt to gain control of the LA school system in an attempt to mimic Bloomberg. But there's a very different dynamic in LA with a reform teachers union putting up a bit more resistance than the UFT in NYC. Plus the fact that the Mayor's old job was not a billionaire entremanure, but a union organizer.

Here are a few excerpts:

Broad, who made his fortune developing the outer sprawl of Southern California, has long fancied himself something of a policy maven on public schools, telling anyone else who would listen that the mayor needs control over the school district’s budget, its curriculum and — most importantly — its salary talks with the powerful teachers union.

With all that behind-the-scenes advocacy, it wasn’t a surprise that Broad sounded a bit betrayed in his June 30 letter to Villaraigosa in which he admonished the mayor for playing footsie with the unions and reaching a compromise that allows the elected school board to keep a few duties, including contract negotiations. Read more at:

http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/where-did-the-love-go/14052/


Broad is all over the place – at least where he can steal an urban school system. Here's one more from Willamette Week in Portland, Or. Why doesn't he take a shot at Scarsdale? Oh, right, those schools work -and they spend 20 grand per schild with low class sizes - not in Broad's lexicon.

While Portland Public Schools loudly debates closing some schools and reconfiguring others, teachers and parents are worried about a much quieter but significant long-term development for local education.

They're troubled by how entrenched billionaire Eli Broad's Los Angeles foundation, which is devoted to making schools more businesslike, has become in Portland schools.

They're raising red flags about the private Broad Foundation's payment for all seven Portland School Board members to take weeklong training sessions in Utah and its help with funding two key district positions.

But it's not just the teachers union that's alarmed by the foundation's influence.

Parents like Anne Trudeau of the Neighborhood Schools Alliance, a grassroots parents group, see a right-wing tilt to Broad's ideas that she considers a poor fit for progressive Portland.

"I don't think our school board are puppets of Broad," Trudeau says, "but I think the influence is insidious."

[Broad] Foundation spokeswoman Karen Denne rejects any charge that the foundation is right wing, noting that Broad is a "lifelong Democrat."

http://www.wweek.com/editorial/3226/7507/

Bloomberg/Klein Solve Iraq War

Mayor Bloomberg and Joel Klein have unveiled their plan to end the war in Iraq.

Each terrorist will be paid $50 for each bomb they do not throw.

Potential suicide bombers will get an extra bonus - a number of volunteer virgins have been signed up to substitute for the ones they would have received.

Al Quida members will be allowed to enroll in the Leadership Academy if they renounce terrorist activity and be put on a fast track to become principals. "Al Quida members have demonstrated the perfect traits we are looking for in our principals," said a spokesperson for Tweed.

Osama bin Laden has been offered Christopher Cerf's position if he comes out of his cave. "We love his new look," said the Tweed spokesperson. "He will be in charge of making sure School Leadership Teams have no teacher input."

The Eli Broad Foundation has promised BloomKlein they are guaranteed to win the Broad Prize, which will be announced on Sept. 18, when Bin Laden is installed in his new office space in Tweed.

Can we collaborate? Pleeeeeeeeze

I've been calling the UFT collaborators for years.

Now they are actually using that word in their commercials.

They say the umpteenth reorganization by BloomKlein that gives power to the principals (all too many of whom are either power hungry, ego-driven, and manipulative or incompetent or just plain nuts) is an opportunity for teachers to collaborate. See, all you have to do is just ask. And spend probably a million bucks to do it.

Pleeeeeeeeeze! Will you let us collaborate?

You see, things like holding a rally and using political muscle to demand there be penalties when teachers are denied the right to sign off on basic decisions go too far.

ICE's James Eterno, chapter leader of Jamaica HS, has posted a good piece on the ICE blog about how BloomKlein are trying to give principals total control over the Leadership teams.

James faults the UFT for not waging a stronger fight:

"We should be mobilizing to bombard the DOE with emails to A655comments@schools.nyc.gov opposing any change to A655 that would weaken shared decision making. Wasn't the revitalization of the School Leadership Teams, not their weakening, one of the gains we supposedly made in negotiations to "postpone" the big rally last spring with the teachers, parents and students? It looks like the UFT is waging an extremely low key opposition to yet another attack on us."

My guess is that Tweed is just formalizing a fait accompli.

Even when I was chapter leader in the mid-90's my principal, when told at a district principals' meeting she had to had a Leadership Team with me on it, got up and practically screamed, "But I have the chapter leader from hell!"

She recovered quickly by using the parents on the team to get the AP appointed as head of the LT. (Some of my teacher colleagues did not exactly distinguish themselves either as it took them about 10 seconds to cave when I tried to stop it.)

That's why all these years I have felt that something much stronger was needed to give teachers a role in basic school level decision making.

Like running commercials that say, "Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze!"

So I would say to James that bombarding the DOE with emails is not the way to go.

Just say —

PULEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZE!



Note:
The Tweedies removed the principal a few days before the start of the school. There's a smart move. Declare Jamaica an impact school - DANGER! DANGER! - wait all summer and get rid of the guy at the worst time possible. How would you like to be his successor?

Yesterday I got a call from CNN looking for James' contact info. James said a lot of press was looking for him. Apparently the ban on 911 calls has hit home when the family of the girl who had a stroke is suing. Read the Daily News article here.

"Former Jamaica Principal Jay Dickler could not be reached. He was removed from the school this summer because crime there was too high, Klein said. "I met with him on numerous occasions about safety at the school, and that's why he was removed," Klein said."

Let's see now. Think that very threat has anything to do with the ban on 911 calls?

"This happened because statistics are more important than anyone's life," the girl's lawyer said. Randi Weingarten made a similar allegation. "This is a tragic result of what happens when everything comes down to data," she said. "If there's only a hammer when people report crime, then people are going to continue to hide their incidents."

I agree with Randi. I'm getting nervous.

You can bet that someone connected with the school will take a hit while BloomKlein walk away clean.

A few years ago I facetiously wrote that one day Klein would be taken out of Tweed with his coat over his head. If we had a fair system of justice, we would be closer to that day.

Comments on NY Times Lovefest

...with BloomKlein

Joel Klein has been doing a media blitz, even saying he wants to remain beyond Bloomberg’s term in office to finish the job of driving the entire NYC school system into oblivion so it could be “rescued” by privateers. (Thousands of teachers had to be talked down from their roofs upon hearing this news.)

Boy, all you have to do is write a critical piece about the NY Times and it gets noticed. In particular the comparison of the coverage of education to the way the Times covered the weapons of mass destruction story in Iraq.

Vera Pavone, a former NYC teacher and school secretary, responded with this comment, but it deserves a post all its own.

I should point out that everyone who knows Vera and Leonie agree that these are two of the most respected, clearheaded people they know. Just to emphasize the point that critics of the NY Times are not just coming from fringeville (as a certain ed reporter from the Times once characterized me.)

“My blood started to boil when I read the article, especially because it shows the Times and their lackey reporters continuing to give credibility to the big lies:

1. "He [Klein] has sought to break what he regarded as a vise grip by the teachers' union on work rules”;
“Can't experienced reporters Herszenhorn and Medina find anyone (union leaders, teachers, other people in the educational community) who can explain how work rules actually benefit students and the educational environment?

2. "To divide large failing schools into small schools" and "to put traditional public schools into competition with charter schools"
“Couldn't H & M read their own publication to find out all the questions that have been raised about small schools and charter schools actually being more successful: getting a higher achieving pool of students and eliminating students with special needs; getting a disproportionate share of resources; forcing the larger, traditional schools to be even more overcrowded and receiving those students who have the least chance of succeeding.

3. "To end what he viewed as a monopoly by the mostly white, middle and upper middle class on good public education services"
“Do H & M really believe that Klein and Bloomberg are the champions of the non-white, non-middle class children just as the Bush administration and NCLB really want to equalize educational opportunity nationwide? Has their investigative reporting shown that quality educational services exist only in white, middle and upper middle class public schools? Do they believe that test scores tell the whole story? Even if it's true that on average teachers in higher achieving schools have more "credentials", this doesn't explain why so many highly skilled, educated, talented, and hardworking teachers don't produce higher test scores in failing schools. Both H & M have been writing about education for some time now and should be able to recognize that "good public education services" have to be suited to the needs of the students, something that is very rare now for any of our students, rich or poor, white or non-white.

“And did I miss it, or did they forget to mention class size?”

Rating BloomKlein: The True Picture

Posted on ICE-mail, Aug. 24, 2007. The identity of the author is being kept secret due to the police state mentality that exists in the NYC school system.

Once again, school starts next week.

It's been a wonderful summer- catching up on my sleep, seeing family and friends, having good times at the beach and other summery activities.

I actually feel HUMAN again! The past two summers, I worked summer school, found it to be a terrible experience ( hot overcrowded classrooms, little supplies, administrators that did not give the students or teachers much support), so that's something I won't be doing again.

Now, about this year- Am I ACTUALLY looking forward to returning? I DEFINITELY have mixed feelings, given my DOE experience ( now going into my fifth year).


From what I've seen of the DOE, it is one bloated and unorganized bureaucracy. Never mind that Bloomberg and Klein seem to feel that they are doing a good job. Being in the trenches, I know they are NOT. How easy to deceive oneself, when the heads of the organization
are not doing the daily work that we as teachers do. Witness the grades that the Chancellor has received on the News 1 poll. Apparently, he and the Mayor are the ONLY ones that feel they are doing a good job. Is THIS any way to run an educational system??? I think not....

Will this be another year of NO textbooks, no supplies, poor or little direction from the administrators? Not to mention the endless paperwork that seems to be the norm with the DOE. Are there appropriate disciplinary procedures set in place for students that I will not be able to control in the classroom, for whatever reasons? Sure, I can set the structure and tone of the classroom, but, realistically there is just so much that I can do with classes that have thirty five students or more.... Each with their own unique personality and issues that they are bringing into the classroom from outside of the school walls.

In addition, in my time with the DOE, I have seen how teachers AND students alike are treated so poorly by the administrators ( myself included- I'm a Lafayette High survivor- 'nuff said). Aren't we supposed to be PROFESSIONALS? As I write this, I am thinking of the many stories I have heard from my colleagues that are now ATR's, can't get jobs through the Open Market System, are being harassed by their respective administrators, if they still have a position in
the school they are working in. How about those that I know that are in rubber rooms, not knowing WHY they are in there? So far, in spite of my travails, I still have managed to keep working. This is no cause for celebration- the other shoe could drop at any time!

My question to myself and others- WHY are we willing to put up with this harassment? I remember a day when Principals, teachers, students, and staff actually WERE working together, and school was a place for learning and activities ( admittedly, this is what I remember from growing up on Long Island, NOT the city). Still, shouldn't there be some sense of esprit d' corps in the schools? How did the situation in NYC schools degenerate to this US vs. THEM mentality? Sad for everyone, mostly for the students to have to live with these shenanigans.

Anyway, I'm just venting- In my case, I'm going to see how this year plays out. If it's just more of the same, my mind will be made up to leave the NYC/DOE system. It's not worth the constant aggravation. This is NOT why I wanted to be a teacher- to play CYA games with
administrators and my colleagues. I was hoping to be able to make a contribution to society, and give back by teaching.

Sadly, the reality of working for the DOE/NYC and the ideals are incongruous. What a pity for our society.

Monday's PEP: Patrick Sullivan Reports on...

.....Middle Schools Initiative, School Safety & Cell Phone Ban

at the NYC Public School Parent Blog

Let's reform middle school with more Lead Teachers and professional development but ignore recommendations to reduce class size. Of course, that fits into the "it was the teachers fault all along" theme of the BloomKlein administration. Just more of "let's make it look like we're trying to solve the problem rather than actually finding solutions that will work."

Patrick provides a unique perspective as the only truly independent member of the PEP - Panel for Educational Policy (BloomKlein's bogus replacement for the old Board of Education) - who can report from the inside.


NYC Teaching Fellow and author Dan Brown explodes the Joel Klein and his Tweedledee approach in his post "Solving the Middle School Mystery" at the Huffington Post.

Aug. 14, 2007

Why do standardized test scores drop -- sharply, in many cases -- when students hit middle school?

Today, The New York Times reported on NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg's answer to the $64,000 question of education:

"Generally speaking, those in elementary school do what you tell them to do. And I think it's also true by the time they get to high school, they don't. It's in those middle years where they transfer from one to another."

He went on to present a maddeningly misguided and half-hearted plan of dedicating $5 million toward 50-performing New York City middle schools.

The mayor of New York City's distillation of our urban education crisis is baffling and offensive. Firstly, how can he be so sure that "what you're telling them to do" is actually in their best interest? Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002, NYC elementary schools have fixated on testing, testing, testing. Today's middle school students have lived with counterproductive mania for this their entire scholastic lives.

Urban kids in sixth and seventh grade are hip to the fact that the test preparation craze that has dominated their years in school is actually a superficial, bureaucratic charade that has nothing to do with their own personal futures. An alarming number of sixth graders taught English Language Arts by my wife in the Bronx pointedly told her last January: "The test is over. I'm done." Scores are dropping now because those children have been failed repeatedly since Day One, and their foundation of enduring skills and understandings was never built in the interest of manufacturing short-end bumps on test score graphs.

Rather than making school a nurturing and personal experience, kids, as early as kindergarten, are jammed into overcrowded classrooms, denied support services like fundamental skills tutoring, denied much-needed counseling, and are supervised by administrators more worried about test scores than their real needs. It's no wonder that they "stop doing what you tell them to do," as the mayor says. Bloomberg is blaming the victims here. (And also, who is the "you" that Bloomberg mentions? Does "you" contain the families of the Bronx, for example? It doesn't seem so.)

Students don't spontaneously combust in middle school. When a student's "achievement" on the line graph tumbles, something undetected has been wrong for a long time. Solving the mystery of the middle school decline will require a genuine look at dedicating real resources to truly support every student -- from birth through high school graduation day.

Bloomberg shows little interest in such a difficult, expensive yet crucial undertaking. The New York Times reports:

"But the mayor shied away from adopting the most far-ranging changes recommended in the reports, like significantly reducing class sizes, creating a special middle school academy to train teachers about early adolescence, and removing police officers from city schools to create a more welcoming atmosphere."

How will voiceless public school students get real solutions, not stunts, from their elected leaders?

Dan Brown is a writer and teacher in New York City. His memoir of his first year teaching, The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle, is being released this month by Arcade Publishing.

The More Things Change….

Updated (thanks to DB for finding typos.)
I wrote this column for the upcoming special edition on education in The Wave due out August 24.

So this email comes in from Wave editor Howie Schwach asking for a column for the Wave’s “Back to School” special edition. Back to School? It’s not even the middle of August. And then I remembered - teachers have to go back in August. Two days before Labor Day. Oh, The humanity!

Some have told me of all the indignities of the 2005 contract this may be the worst. Those daye last week before school began and coming back on Labor Day are gone. Some people now feel they have to go in two days before the two days to set up their rooms, as the other two days will be used for professional development, which obviously, every teacher need globs of. The little butterflies that used to start to gnaw away in mid August now show up a week early and grow bigger as the month goes by till they turn into dragons. (By the way, the only way to conquer these dragons is Twinkies, lots of them.)

Well, off to the task at hand. Howie wanted something on how schools are opening without supervision from districts or regions or whatever. All new school years begin with a review of old material. So let’s see what you remember. There will be a high stakes test at the end of this column where your car will be confiscated if you don’t pass, so pay attention kiddies.

In 2002, new Mayor Michael Bloomberg led a charge to give total control of the system to the mayor, a practice that has been growing nationally. This effort was supported by the UFT. Joel Klein, a lawyer without any experience as an educator (other than a supposed 6 month teaching stint in the late 60’s when the draft board was breathing down his neck – my reason for getting into teaching too) was appointed Chancellor joining the national trend to choose non-educators to head large urban school systems. The smell was in the air: Don’t trust educators to make basic decisions about education. What’s next? Having bureaucrats at HMO’s make medical decisions?

In a major move, BloomKlein changed the name from the BOE to the DOE. There was no more BOE. This was replaced by the PEP (Panel for Educational Policy – mostly appointed by the Mayor). In a major reorganization, all districts were combined into 10 regions, some even crossing boroughs. The special ed district was kept intact. All power emanated centrally.

The result? Disaster! Disaster beyond anyone’s imagination as teachers and parents were totally shut out of the system (previously they had been only 90% shut out but it was by people supposedly trained to some extent as educators) no matter how bizarre the decisions coming down from central. I won’t go into the gory details since they require a multi-volume book. Let’s just say experience as an educator didn’t count. And the Klein lawyer/MBA whiz kids types were now in charge. Massive changes in curricula and teaching methods were forced down everyone’s throat as the baby was thrown out with the bath water. Even great ideas were mangled in translation. I won’t even get into the immense amounts of money that was thrown down the tubes as privateers flocked to the DOE. To sum up: almost universal incompetence as everything they touched turned to doo-doo.

Witness the latest exercise: the implementation and follow-through of the Kahil Gibran International Academy with the predicted resignation of the respected educator Debbie Almontaser, who had run interfaith healing meetings after 9/11 and the appointment of a Jewish successor – to run an Arabic language school. We won’t even get into the discussion of whether such schools should exist. But for those people out there who like to jump on anything related to Arabic or Muslims (i.e., the NY Post), someone should check out what’s been going on in Williamsburg for the past 35 years where there have been bi-lingual Yiddish classes in public schools with all Hassidic teachers and kids. Guess the Post is not all that bothered by the concept.

Come 2006, guess what? Bloomberg and Klein (forever joined at the hip in these columns as BloomKlein) decided to reorganize again. Regions were out, districts back in. High schools were now out of the local districts and back into five borough districts, which is how they have been organized from say, 1890 ‘till 2002. The more things change….

But there were some major twists as BloomKlein institute a management system that has not been used anywhere. (If Bloomberg ran his business this way he would probably have ended up working as a clerk. Or maybe teaching 4th grade.) All power now resides in the hands of individual principals with supposedly little oversight from above – unless something goes wrong.

All principals were required to choose a support network from the following: Four networks led by former regional Superintendents (including Region 5’s Kathy Cashin), a centrally managed Empowerment Zone - a network of over 300 schools, or from a list of 9 private support agencies. How do you spell M-E-S-S?

Schools will now be giving 6 tests a year to prepare them for the BIG ONE. It is all about data and outcomes, saith BloomKlein. And outcomes do not mean that a teacher manages to do wonders with a difficult child in terms of their behavior. Or hold kids in an oversized class in check. Nada. Outcomes mean solely the results of these tests. Schools will graded from A-F and principals with an F will be fired (but probably recycled into some other bureaucratic job.) Attempts will be made to use the outcomes on these tests to evaluate the performance of teachers. Results will be used by principals to deny teachers tenure and U-rate teachers with tenure as being incompetent because Johnny can’t move from a Level One to Level Two. The UFT (who are they again?) will put on a show of objecting. But only a show. They will tell teachers to file grievances which will take a year to be heard. And teachers that are fired will not be recycled but blacklisted from ever working in the system again.

District superintendents will function mainly to evaluate schools based on the results of tests and will have no role in support. Just in evaluation.

I spoke to Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters who has the best handle on what is happening in Tweedledom. “The separation of support from evaluation is a model that has not been tried in any educational system I know of, and from what people tell me, not even the corporate world. Usually, the person evaluating is also responsible for helping to fix what is wrong.” District Superintendents will not even be evaluating schools in their own district and will not know the specific needs of the schools they should be most familiar with.

“The $80 million IBM Aris system will be inputting and spitting out data. But the data will be severely circumscribed and will not include factors such as class size or overcrowded conditions. Principals are supposed to be able to manage them. Haimson pointed to Murray Bergtraum HS, one of the large schools that have been affected by the closing of other large schools and the placement of small schools in their place. It is 125% over capacity, with triple shifts and maximum class sizes, with many more needy kids pushed out of closed schools, while the favored small schools and charter schools have lower class size limits that allow Tweed to brag about higher grad rates (don’t get me started on how these numbers have been arrived at.)

“Their strategy of fixing problems by shutting down schools and opening new ones rather than actually providing these schools with a chance to improve demonstrates the emptiness of their vision of school reform,” Haimson said.

“They only push problems from school to school. Their refusal to cap enrollment at large schools at least as a start to fix these schools instead of closing them is an admission they do not know how to do it. They absolve themselves of responsibility when they refuse to go beyond the idea that all it takes is proper management of a school and good instruction. In other words, failures are the fault of principals and teachers, not systemic. They claim they have changed the system from bad to good. To get to great all they have to do is unleash the entrepreneurial spirit of individual school leaders. It is the wild west.”

It is also the free market and competitive system brought to the schools, which will prove to have the same impact as if it were brought to firefighting (a bonus to the first fireman up the ladder?)

Haimson points to some obvious outcomes based on principals’ fears of being fired or the incentive to earn bonuses if “successful.” Poor performing students will be forced out or discouraged from attending the school in the first place. Cheating on tests and pressures on teachers to pass failing students to inflate the graduation rates will be rampant. Since schools get grad credit for kids passing the much easier GED (about an 8th grade level) students will be channeled in that direction. Things will appear to look much better. In reality, the more things change…

(Note: While the outer surface of the system may have been changed mucho times, for the overwhelming majority of students, the long-term results will not be much different.)

Additional material:

Historical background
Until circa 1968 schools were centrally controlled but with some oversight by a board of Education. But it was pretty much under the control of the mayor. There were districts for managerial purposes and superintendents appointed centrally.

In 1968, power over K-8 schools was taken over by locally elected school boards divided into 32 geographical districts. These boards had to hold public meetings every month. Nobody cared. Few voted. Few attended unless there was a pressing issue. The performance of the districts varied greatly depending on – guess what -- the abilities the kids brought to the table when they entered school. Duh!

High schools remained under central control divided into roughly 5 districts. There was also a centrally controlled special ed district though local districts had their own special ed operations. Geez, I’m tired already.

There was some hanky panky in some districts that resulted in demands for more oversight at the central level. In the late 90’s, some power was given to the Chancellor (did I say there was a revolving door for this position?) to choose the district superintendents. There was a different level of hanky panky in the centrally controlled high schools but no one bothered to mention this.


Demonstration supporting Debbie Almontaser at Tweed, Aug. 21

Daily Doins: Aug. 9

A fairly new chapter leader is very serious about getting a complete picture of UFT history and sharing it with the teachers in his school as a way to foment a higher level of union consciousness. He has been going over some of the old issues of Education Notes and has found them very helpful. But he doesn't have a complete set.

So I spent the morning pouring through 10 years of issues, which pretty much correspond to Randi Weingarten's tenure as UFT President. So reading them will provide some historical perspective. Now I'm the first to say that my point f view is particular and may not always reflect reality. But certainly the official UFT position is so often more about appearance that reality that if he balances mine and theirs he may come up with some point in between.

But here are some basic truths:
From the first editions class size was #1 on the agenda. I had a regular feature called Class Size Matters even before Leonie Haimson got her organization going.
Another issue from Day 1 was a call for more protections for UFT chapter leaders.
Calls for NO MERIT PAY under any circumstances.
Constant refrains on the impact of high stakes testing.

And lots of satire. Good satire. I don't know where that has gone. Maybe things aren't so funny anymore.

Other issues today

Asian Population of NYC grows...
....was the report in today's Times. obviously BloomKlein's secret plan to raise reading and math scores and improve the grad rate. Part 2 of their plan is to have the Partnership of NYC raise funds to by Level One readers condos -- in Peoria.

The AFL-CIO ...
frees member unions to endorse Democratic candidates of choice. The Times says the AFT is "leaning" towards Hillary. Leaning? With Randi Weingarten working full time to get Hillary elected, I would say more than leaning. Like how about horizontal? No simple Tower of Pisa here. The Times naively says that strong support for Obama in midwest could prevent the AFT from endorsing Clinton. A basic misunderstanding that the AFT is controlled by the UFT and will do whatever Randi wants it to. When Randi takes over the AFT in July 08 she will put the entire structure in the service of Hillary.

No End in Sight - the supposed anti war movie on Iraq
We saw it last week and I didn't find it anti war but a critique of the Bush implementation of the post-war Iraq. Talk about to hell and (not) back. Even conservative pro-war critics could like this movie. Someone sent me a hard copy of a good review from The Nation. I have no links but check it out if you can.

Go Barbara Morgan
I was one of 16,000 teachers who applied to go into space in 1985 for the Jan. '86 flight that ended in disaster. I read with jealousy about Christa and Barbara. I became big fans of theirs. Barbara was supposed to go on the flight after the Endeavor. She worked all these years to become an astronaut. The idea of a teacher in space was a real PR move on the part of NASA and many people feel the money could be spent on many more worthwhile projects. But I'm a space junkie and have a hard time taking a critical look at the space program.

I was in Antigua when the Challenger went down. A friend had sent me a post card a day or two before the flight saying "Sorry you didn't get to go." I got it the day after the crash. With Friends like these....

Just heading out for some volunteer work at the NYC International Fringe Festival. 200 plays for over 2 weeks all in the Village area and tickets are all $15 starting tomorrow (Aug. 10). Some of us are going to see Pedagogy written by a NYC teacher (Can working for the NYCDOE be worth more than just a $10 co-pay?) on Aug. 22 at 5:30 at the Center for Architecture on LaGuardia Place and then out to eat afterwards. Fringe HQ are at the corner of Varrick and Carmine St.

Barry, Mike and Joel: It Ain't Tainted

The connections is so obvious, this post can pretty much write itself. Barry and BloomKlein have been using the same cream(ing) to get similar results - pumped up everything - home runs, grad rates, test scores. Tweed has been slipping the cream into Leadership Acad. water coolers.

Barry is significantly more honest and up front than Mike and Joel. No one got hurt. Teacher and student lives weren't ruined. Just a few extra home runs. Didn't Babe Ruth spend whole nights in whore houses drinking and carousing? Give him an asterisk for using artificial stimulants.

If Joel and Mike get the Broad prize on Sept. 18, as expected (Broad giving BloomKlein a prize is like Halliburton giving the Bush administration an award for fiscal responsibility) we need to prepare an asterisk the size of the Goodyear blimp to put next to Mike and Joel's "achievements."

(Any photoshoppers out there want to take a shot at this?)

What Tweed Hath Wrought

Fleeing the coop

While critics of the BloomWeinKlein reforms of the schools in NYC often focus on the big picture, a snapshot of what happened in 1 school can offer a great insight.

I got such an insight last night when I had dinner with a group of colleagues from my old school where I spent 27 years as a teacher and 5 more in district tech support. I won't go into all the gory details, but you might have read in this space about the teacher of 22 years removed in handcuffs by 5 cops in front of the entire community on trumped up charges of a parent instigated by the principal.

Yes, the principal was the focus of my former colleagues' wrath. Leadership Academy and all that - following the Lead. Acad. Princ. (LAP - dogs) pattern to get rid of every person in the building who preceded her. Only about 7 people remain from when I was there. The departed are in no way poor teachers but the best and most experienced. I was glad to hear the person who I considered one of the best teachers I ever saw (I spent serious time in her classroom) has just flown the coup. She absolutely despised this LAP and was one of the few willing to demonstrate her disdain. Of course the LAP is probably very glad to see this great teacher, who was so beyond excellent that any attack on her would have been laughed at, be gone.

The irony is that even the people handpicked by the LAP are also leaving. I hear so many of these stories repeated from LAP schools. One teacher at another school told me 28 teachers have left in 3 years. In the old days the departure of so many experienced teachers was a warning sign of a principal out of control. In the world of Tweedledee these principals get a bonus.

But the really "fun" stuff were their descriptions of the willy-nilly ways teachers have been forced to teach. The TC model with rugs taking up half the room while kids at their desks were forced into such tight spaces that discipline became so much more of an issue. From a massive binder where all kids of "data" -- yes the big word - that will never be used - are kept. This principal, being in the empowerment zone was able to design her own assessment. So now teachers have to do 5 report cards and spend enormous time filling out useless paper work instead of teaching. Oh yes, there is an Aussie trainer in the building doing more spying than instruction.

One story is that another teacher who left the school and has since left teaching knows someone who was involved in the creation of the balanced literacy training videos Lucy Calkins made. Teachers have complained that there are too many kids that cannot function in this environment and that many more discipline problems result but have been told to shut up and that these problems are the result of their poor teaching. When these video were made, whenever there was a kid who could not focus, Calkins ordered he/she be replaced with a more docile, cooperative kid.

Well, the upshot is that there is not all that much difference in the school's results before the arrival of the LAP when the obvious easier rubrics, easier tests and questionable marking procedures - -the hallmark of the improvement of scores under BloomKlein and discipline is a mess. This LAP has managed to alienate teachers, parents and children with a heartless and arrogant treatment of all.

I could go on - and they did for a few hours last night. They told of teachers with 18-21 years being excessed when the LAP complained that special ed kids brought down the scores. They have avoided ATR status -- not through the Open Market System which failed them utterly - but through personal contacts at other schools. One teacher asked the union how he could be excessed since the contract says if you have 20 years this can't happen. He was told to file a grievance. He asked why he has to go through this since this is such an obvious violation of the contract and he is still left with having to look for jobs since the vicissitudes of the grievance procedure are well known. The union should be able to pick up a phone and get an instant response. They shrugged.

For decades we have called for penalties for administrators who engage in obvious violations -- cut into those bonuses -- but the UFT/Unity leadership just laughed at us.

The hiring halls were a joke as the excessed were separated from the new teachers. Excessed people were given a sheet telling them how to interview. New teachers were given shiny red folders (so it was obvious to the interviewer which group people were in) with maps of districts listing openings.

We ended the evening of ribs and beer with a toast all who have escaped, hopefully to better place, and a wish that the 55-25 retirement package (which we called bogus since it was not to cost the city anything) promised by the UFT/Unity leadership to sell the '05 contract will one day come to pass (probably at the expense of the teachers themselves who will be willing to pay just about anything) to free the rest to go to the promised land of retirement.

How "Open" is the Open-Market?

... the title of a post by blogger Syntactic Gymnastics, indicates that even newer teachers are having trouble with the much bragged about (by the UFT) Open Market System. Check the "Do You Hear Snoring" guest post on this blog and note the defensive "myth- fact" post by an obvious UFT official.

They trash a system that they set up and maintained for 40 years before BloomKlein and brag about the system they replaced it with. They supported the BloomKlein myth that the problems with the school system were due to the right of teachers to take seniority transfers, which everyone knew were often manipulated by principals. Like people with long commutes waited forever to get jobs in Staten Island while all these young teachers who were politically connected on the Island were filling up schools. Naturally, the weaknesses of this system were exacerbated by the looseness of the language of the contract and the lack of UFT enforcement of the existing contract at the time.

I worked in a school for 27 years and never saw one case of someone taking a UFT transfer into my school. And our colleagues who took transfer to "better' schools because they grew wary of teaching the most difficult children, found it so much easier to teach when they made the move to middle class schools and often overcame initial principal resistance when they proved to be among the best teachers in the school. Discipline certainly was not a problem for them.

But this became the big BloomKlein argument - that the UFT contact forced principals to take people they didn't want. (I wonder of they give police precinct or fire house captains or any city agency head total leeway in who ends up working or them? There is such a thing as civil service rules for a reason -- to prevent the very corruption we are seeing.) Klein claimed he wanted the right to transfer senior teachers into poor performing schools and then with UFT assistance set up a system where these schools would be penalized by hiring these more expensive teachers.

I know a licensed high school math teacher in his 60's (only teaching a few years, stil with a fairly low salary, an indication more of age discrimination) who has not been able to get a job for the past year when he was an ATR. The UFT will say, "Hey you're getting paid." He said he physically just cannot do another full year as an ATR and will probably quit.

Aren't we being told all the time that there is a drastic shortage of licensed math teachers?

But this is just another case of spinning reality by the UFT (and BloomKlein too). It's an old theme we studied in college in a course on Shakespeare - appearance and reality. UFT officialdom is all about appearance and spins reality to shape it to put themselves in the best light. And of course, we see the same from BloomKlein. Both the UFT and the DOE have massive PR departments.

Here is a reality check:

What is Randi Weingarten most preoccupied with? (choose one)

a. Protecting the rights of teachers in the schools who are under attack, dealing with the problems of ATR's, senior and excessed teachers?

b. Assuring that Hillary Clinton gets elected by planning on taking over as AFT President and using the national platform to assist Clinton?

Too Little, Too Late on Class Size...

....UFT uses borough hearings as "Do Nows" to let out a little gas as a way to control militancy.

While we all appreciate the eloquent comments from so many people like John Elfrank-Dana (see post below this one), the reactions of parent groups and the UFT is a case of too little too late.

David Quintana commented on this blog:
I never understood why Randi and most of the other coalition members believed the empty promises of the Tweedies and allowed Bloom/Klein to effectively disrupt and cancel our original rally...We had the Tweedies nervous and they were on the run...Parents got little or nothing in return...Lets be honest...Our side blinked...I know many CPAC members wanted the rally to go forward, even after the UFT bailed out...A parents rally is needed now more than ever...

Our April 20 post titled, "A Unique Opportunity had been missed," was a reaction to the bitter disappointment over the cancellation of what was expected to be a massive rally on May 9th that was killed by the deal between Mayor Bloomberg and a coalition of parents and teachers, but it is clear it was Randi Weingarten's dealings with Bloomberg that killed the rally.

Why? Because Weingarten has the same alliances as BloomKlein do: Eli Broad, the Clintons, Green Dot charters, etc. She can get away with rhetoric criticizing Bloomberg (and note how the UFT has focused on Klein, as if he is independent from Bloomberg), but any street action that actually would have results is too dangerous. The enthusiasm at the Feb. 28th rally at the church that was the precursor to the excitement among teachers and parents in planning the May 9th demonstration scared Weingarten as much as Bloomberg.

Ironic, since she had so much to do with building a good coalition of groups that for the first time was a credible threat to BloomKlein. I never believed she ever intended to hold the demo May 9th in the first place. Her role is not to lead any street movements but to make backroom deals that would prevent any possibility of militancy getting out of the hands of the leaders.

Think of it as a bottle of gas. The leadership keeps things under control by letting out a little at a time and then shutting it once some steam is let out. The current storm of testimony in front of the bogus borough panels set up by Tweed is a perfect example. Busy work and Do Nows for the activist people in the UFT, including the opposition. I can' tell you how many of my colleagues who are opposed to Unity raced down to speak. To what end?

Would you be surprised if you found out that these borough events were part of a plan hatched by Bloomberg and Weingarten as a way to let out that gas just enough to shut people up and distract them from calling for a demo?

When the deal in April was announced, I posted the following on the issue of class size to the influential NYC Education News listserve, which is dominated by activist parents in the NYC area:

"On class size, I don't care what they say or what committees they form. They do not believe that reducing class size will have the same impact spending money on professional development will. That is their mantra... They will say one thing and do another. To put any trust in Tweed given their record is a mistake."

Many other posts to the listserve made similar points. NYC High School Parent Council head David Bloomfield: Promises of consultation on class size, drop out prevention, and middle school reform seem little more than crumbs.

The leaflet put out by the Independent Community of Educators (ICE) at the April Delegate Assembly said on the class size reductions in the deal:
"Expect spinning the wheels. ICE’s position has always been that there will be no reductions in class size without contract negotiations."

The reactions of the UFT and parent advocacy groups - attend press conferences, write politicians, speak out at the borough meetings are all fine. But if all they do is let off steam then it is just a case of marking time - more of the same old, same old.

Forget all of this and start building for a rally at City Hall this fall. We have been told all along by Weingarten when we kept calling for the May 9th rally to be held (the UFT rescheduled it's Delegate Assembly on May 9th) and when the Manhattan HS chapter leaders' call for a rally was rejected by Weingarten and Unity Caucus at the DA (see video of the DA here) with the argument that we will hold a rally if the DOE goes back on its deal.

Holding that rally on May 9th would have been the best way to get class size reduction and many other items on the agendas of parents and teachers. But the age-old reliance on politicians and the leadership of Randi Weingarten has misdirected all too many people away from the understanding that street action works. No one seemed to learn the lesson that was made so strongly at the February 28 rally that frightened BloomKlein into sitting down at a table that was heavily tilted in their direction. But when the very person supposedly leading the movement is really in alignment with Bloomberg, the chances of putting something together that will actually have an impact is very unlikely.

Only when there is a movement of teachers independent of the yoke of Unity caucus and a corresponding movement of parent groups not under the dominance (and fear) of the UFT leadership, will there be a chance to have an impact.


Follow ups:
An article and leaflet handed out by ICE "What was gained and what was lost" and the "Top 10 reasons to oppose the reorganization".

A Parable

Joel Klein was challenged by his counterpart in Tokyo to a canoe race between the highest performing schools on standardized tests in their respective school systems. The race would be held on the Hudson River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

Klein decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A senior management team from Tweed was formed to recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing.

Feeling a more professional study with statistics was in order, Klein hired the Alvarez and Marsal consulting company, paying $15 million for a second opinion. Their conclusion: too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing, but it would take another $15 million for them to come up with a solution.

Klein gladly paid, telling critics of the high fee that the people at Tweed just didn't have the expertise needed and besides, these critics were just afraid of change and that a victory over the Japanese was essential as a demonstration of the success of his Children First initiative. A&M recommended that the rowing team's management structure be totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.

Tweed's top management implemented a new performance system that would give the one person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program.' The program included after school meetings, new rowing standards and free pens to motivate the rower. Suggestions from the school to get new paddles, canoes, and extra money for practices were rejected on the grounds that "just throwing money at a problem does not lead to a solution."

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Klein blamed whatever was left of seniority protection in the teacher contract for the loss and the rower was U-rated for poor performance. All capital investments for new equipment was cancelled and the money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year's racing team would be staffed from a Charter School jointly managed by Green Dot and the UFT.

Thanks to Benna G. and Beth K.

New Appointee on Panel for Educational Policy a Noted Klein Critic

Special to The Wave
by Norm Scott

Patrick Sullivan, co-founder of the NYC Public School Parents blog that has been extremely critical of many of the initiatives of Joel Klein and Mayor Bloomberg, has been appointed by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer as the Manhattan representative to the Panel on Educational Policy. The PEP is the successor to the Board of Education that was eliminated in the shake-up that brought mayoral control of the schools. Each borough president gets to appoint one rep. The mayor appoints the rest of the panel.

Sullivan, who was sworn in at the PEP meeting at Murray Bergtraum HS on June 18, has been a board member of Class Size Matters, the organization founded by Leonie Haimson, a noted parent who has been critical of Bloomberg and Klein, often due to their resistance to addressing the high class sized in New York City, which are as much as 30% larger than the rest of the state. She reported to her listserv on June 18th:

At tonight's PEP meeting, Patrick immediately became the most incisive member on the panel, with pointed remarks to [James] Liebman and Klein about the interim assessments and the so-called "fair funding" reforms. He pointed out that Liebman's claim of no-stakes tests had been contradicted by the recent announcement that kids would be paid for acing the tests; Liebman also admitted that schools might choose to count the results of these "no-stakes assessments" in students' grades.

To Klein he pointed out that under the FSF proposal, about half of failing schools would have had substantial budget cuts if fully implemented-- and instead would see no extra funding at all. He also asked why the funding changes would not undercut the professional status of teachers, encouraging principals to try to get rid of their most experienced staff.

Klein had no convincing answers to any of this, and was clearly flustered by the unaccustomed level of sophistication of the questions. Finally, Patrick was the only member of the PEP to vote against the proposal.

Other than a revolt over 3rd grade retention in March 2004 when dissenters were removed by Bloomberg (known as the Monday Night Massacre), the panel has functioned as a rubber stamp for Klein/Bloomberg policy, rarely dissenting or raising probing questions. Former Brooklyn PEP member Martine Guerrier, the most notable PEP member who questioned some of the policies and the only survivor who voted against the 3rd grade retention, was appointed Feb. 28 to the $150,000 a year CEO of Parent Engagement by Klein. Despite asking some probing questions, Guerrier generally voted along with the panel. It has been surmised that she was under some constraints due to the alliance between Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and Bloomberg.

Sullivan, a parent who lives on the East Side, has become an increasingly strong voice in educational circles, building bridges between parents and teachers. He appears to be the first member of the PEP who will provide some level of resistance to the "monkey-see, monkey-do" mentality of the PEP and his appointment may reflect the sense that the Bloomberg/Klein days are waning. The question of the day is: Will Bloomberg and Klein exert political pressure on Scott Stringer to keep Sullivan under control and will they be successful?

The Cashin Lobby Lives - The Wave

by Norm Scott
Education Editor, The Wave
June 15, 2007
www.rockawave.com
(The Wave, published since 1893, comes out weekly in the Rockaway Beach area of NYC.)

Education historian Diane Ravitch, who was Assistant Secretary of Education and Counselor to Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander under President George Bush the First from 1991-1993, writes on a listserv:
“[Kathleen] Cashin's ‘Knowledge Network’ will be training principals to teach the Core Knowledge program, which includes the arts, science, history, geography, literature, and other subjects in every grade, beginning in kindergarten. Many of the teachers don't know what they are expected to teach. The professional development is absolutely necessary to make sure that everyone knows the program. PD is provided, I believe, by the UFT Teachers Center. From my perspective, this is the richest, most coherent program that any of the LSOs have to offer--not just a smorgasbord of disconnected programs, but a coherent, sequential, developed curriculum that adds up to a rich liberal education for all kids.”

At a recent right-wing think tank Manhattan Institute luncheon attended by educators from around the city honoring US Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings where Reading First’s Reed Lyon and Ravitch served on a panel, the moderator, conservative writer and education critic Sol Stern made a point of praising the program being offered by Cashin and urging schools to adopt it.

The NY Times had a major article focusing on Cashin in December 2006:
…with studies showing little progress in narrowing the achievement gap between minority and white students, the question of how best to improve schools in places like Region 5 is the most critical issue in American education. And Dr. Cashin has the numbers to stake a claim as the best turnaround artist in town. In 2003, 33.2 percent of her students in grades three to eight could read on grade level and 34.6 percent were proficient in math. Today, 50.6 percent read on grade and 56.9 percent are proficient in math. No other region starting below 40 percent has crossed the halfway mark in either subject. “We are relentless,” Dr. Cashin said in a recent interview. “The secret is clear expectations. Everything is spelled out. Nothing is assumed.” She provides her principals, for instance, with a detailed road map of what should be taught in every subject, in every grade, including specific skills of the week in reading and focus on a genre of literature every month.”

Of course, if you talk to teachers you get a different picture, pointing to Region 5 as not being much different than the rest of the city – lots of test prep and rigidity.

The Times went on to praise Cashin for going against the grain of BloomKlein by preferring traditionally trained principals over Leadership Academy grads and by cooperating with the UFT - the UFT charter schools have space in Region 5. And note who will be doing the training in the Knowledge Network – UFT Teacher Centers, (proving the UFT IS a business.) The Times pointedly pointed to how few of the schools in Region 5 signed up for Klein’s Empowerment schools, his baby.

Despite all the praise, Cashin had the least number of schools sign up with the Knowledge Network, gathering only 7%, while Region 3 Queens Superintendent Judy Chin, got 27%. Chin has been portrayed as the anti-Cashin because she has shown a lot of flexibility in dealing with the schools. Most of Cashin’s schools came from Brooklyn (55) and only 35 from Queens. “You have to be kind to people,” Cashin said in the Times article. “If people feel they don’t have a voice, they are going to strike back at some point.” Hmmm!

Talking to some teachers, they said basically about the Cashin program, “been there, done that.” Overly rigid programs quickly lead to boredom on the part of teachers and kids.

Cashin fans Stern and Ravitch have been amongst BloomKlein’s strongest critics, so there’s certainly some interesting stuff lurking beneath. But worry not! You have Uncle Normie to explain it all to you.

In the Times article, there were signs of sniping at Cashin’s record from some Tweedles. But she was still chosen as one of the four Region heads to lead a Learning Support Network (as chronicled in my alphabet city column a few weeks ago where I listed the acronyms of the millions of options offered to schools). When I attended a press conference at Tweed where Klein introduced the “winners” amongst all the organizations trying to get a piece of the action and told them they all they now could compete, Cashin and the others looked like they were making a hostage tape.

The BloomKlein team has received accolades from around the nation for disrupting the school system and basically ending the power of the UFT at the school level (but don’t feel sorry for the union leaders, as they are doing very nicely leading an organization with a head but no body, while fueled by a massively regressive dues structure.) The withering criticism directed at BloomKlein coming from parents and educators here in NYC has generally been ignored nationally and by the local Ed press. Ravitch has criticized BloomKlein from A-Z as part of Class Size Matter’s Leonie Haimson’s wonderfully informative listserve, consisting of some of the sharpest parent/activists in the city. Led by Leonie, they have been on top of BloomKlein’s every misstep.

But Ravitch’s major focus has been on the BloomKlein supposed “progressive” curriculum. (Using the word “progressive” in the same sentence with any reference to anyone at Tweed takes the non-sequitor to new heights.)

Now keep following the bouncing ball. Ravitch’s web site states, “She led the federal effort to promote the creation of state and national academic standards.” Some high stakes test resisters refer to her Ravitch a “standardista” as they feel slavish devotion to a narrow range of standards help put us on the road to testing mania. Progressive educators are certainly not happy with the role she has played.

Now what do I mean by “progressive” educators? Generally, that philosophy of education has come from the Bank Street/Teachers College at Columbia U where the web site proclaims, “The Bank Street approach, also known as the ‘developmental-interaction approach,’ focuses on child-centered education and improving the quality of classroom instruction.” It often includes non-traditional ways of teaching (the anti drill and kill), whole language, which has evolved into balanced literacy and various workshop models. To implement these approaches adequately one needs small class sizes and critics say that this approach only works with kids who are not struggling academically and is a disaster with kids who are behind.

Manhattan’s Tony District 2 under former Chancellor Anthony Alvarado and Park Slope’s District 15 were the leading lights of this approach - not surprising looking at the neighborhoods. When anointed Chancellor, Klein meet with Alvarado who was in San Diego destroying that school system and adopted Alvarado’s program almost totally, including the Leadership Academy, which was run by Alvarado’s then girlfriend and future wife at a quarter of a mil a year. The “progressive curriculum was then regressively forced down the throats of the entire school system by Klein’s educational guru Diana Lam (who was forced out in disgrace) who was followed by true believer Carmen Farina, the former Superintendent of District 15 and then Region 8 after reorganization #1 (who was told by Tweedles she didn’t have the skill set for the job). Can you guess that the Farina and Cashin educational philosophies were just a bit diametrically opposed? Farina has taken the wrath of critics who I call “The Phonics Police.”

When the counter revolution and the discrediting of the progressive curriculum which was implemented by Lam and Farina in such an insane manner takes place in the wake of BloomKlein’s departure, we will never ever see it again. And it is critics like Stern and Ravitch (and our esteemed editor Howie Schwack) who are leading the attack, unfortunately, for all the wrong reasons. But I believe they will prevail.

Thus, enter, or re-enter, Kathleen Cashin, who still has influential people like former Chancellor Frank Macchiarola who was her guardian angel and should exert some behind the scenes influence in the power vacuum of BloomKlein’s departure. There are loyalists among some leftovers in her old District 22 (south/central Brooklyn), District 23 in Brownsville, plus some of the people she brought over to Region 5 with her from Brooklyn, many of whom did sign up with her more out of loyalty than to devotion to the concepts of the Knowledge Network. And fear of her relentless vindictiveness may have played just a tiny role.

As we move toward the end of BloomKlein, expect to see the Cashin lobby’s voices, aided and abetted by the UFT’s cozy relationship with her, grow louder and the possibility of Cashin as a future Chancellor will loom. The Sterns and the Ravitches may see the educational value of the Knowledge Network as the reason, when in reality it will be all about politics, as usual.

Never a fan of Cashin, that I feel a sense of relief at the prospect of having a chancellor who actually taught and ran a school indicates the depth of alienation created by the non-educator Tweedles. I guess it’s the old “devil you know” thing.

The Only Teacher Left, Has Left

The departure of Andres Alonso from the DOE to head the Baltimore school system (and WOW, it seems he was chosen and will be responsible to a Board of Education instead of a dictatorial mayor) has been viewed by some as sad. After all, he actually was a teacher. Special ed in Newark. They say for a decade before he went on to bigger things. He even became the legal guardian of one of his kids. Now there's a level of intervention. He was a Harvard grad lawyer, then on to Wall St. before he tried teaching. Compared to Joel Klein who once spent about 6 months teaching before running back to law school, Alonso made a difference at the only level where one can have an impact directly on children - in the classroom. That should be enough. But people get seduced by the bigger things. "I can make a bigger difference as a principal, a superintendent, running a school system." Sorry. If you love teaching children, the classroom is the place to be. And even then the teacher's impact is not as great as people think - unless you become the legal guardian of all your kids.

People who came across Alonso found something very likable about him. I saw him at the Javits convention center back in March when he stopped by to see the FIRST robotics tournament. He came alone. No entourage. Something sad and lonely about him.

At PEP meetings or press conferences he would speak at length with an awful lot of EduBabble. Klein seemed oh, so bored and often fiddled with his Blackberry. Some NY ed scene observers (NYESO's) felt he was being used. But I wouldn't let him off the hook so easily. He accepts the "No excuses" argument- in other words, it is the teacher's fault. Hard to fathom coming from a real teacher. Like, does he really believe paying teachers bonuses for getting higher scores is a good thing for kids, teachers, schools, education? We'll measure how much of the EduCrap thrown out by BloomKlein he really believed by what he does in Baltimore. But if he follows the script, expect massive problems with the teacher union. I bet he doesn't have the stomach for those type of confrontations. He just doesn't seem as mean as the likes of BloomKlein. But maybe they'll send him to mean school for a PhD.

It was clear that with the reorganization the Deputy Supt for Teaching and Learning, or whatever they called the job, has no real function. His replacement - Marsha Lyles. Nice lady. My former boss, once removed, for a year. Hope she brings some crossword puzzles to work. They were cheering at the announcement in the offices of Region 8 and in District 16 (do they think she is taking them all with her?), one of the most incompetently run districts in the history of the NYC school system. Lyles once ran that district. But no one could have done very much. Maybe Joe Stalin, who if he were alive today, would be given serious consideration for chancellor of a large urban school system.

At the press conference where Klein introduced all the SCHMOS who will be doing what Alonso was supposed to do (and looked like they were making a hostage tape,) he was standing alone looking for some reporter to ask him something. So your intrepid Wave reporter went up to him to chat. "Come, sit down and talk. I have some time," he said. I bet he did.

For a few minutes it was 2 former teachers just chatting - until I tried to tell him what teachers really thought - like how can Tweed implement plans if just about the entire cadre of teachers - the implementers -- were so alienated. He wanted to know even though they make mistakes, if Tweed had done ANYTHING right and how come they do not get credit for what they do right. Like, did he think the NYC press corps, led by the cheerleaders from the NY Times, were against BloomKlein and for the UFT? I didn't have the heart to tell him that when the intention is evil, the result is distorted based on the view of the observer -- sort of Einstein theories applied to the world of Tweedledom.

But the conversation quickly turned into EduBabble as he talked about studies this and studies that, all showing teacher quality is the most crucial element in education., the same line Cerf and Klein and Weingarten throw out all too often. Jeez, I thought, I had an awful lot of stinkers as teachers growing up. I probably would have been an Einstein if they had more PD when I went to school. I tried to tell him that most teachers I came across were pretty good and we learned more from each other than PD. But he was no longer listening to what a teacher had to say. He taught, he left, went to Harvard and the Leadership Academy and is stuffed full of EduBabble.

Good luck Baltimore.

For an extremely favorable piece on Alonso, see the Baltimore Sun:

Alonso gets ahead by putting kids first
New schools CEO works hard on behalf of his No. 1 concern