CAPE: Mayoral Control is Governance By Lawlessness… It is Time to Put an End to the Bloomberg-Klein Ed Deform Agenda!

Mayoral Control is absolute power that corrupts absolutely. It is a license to push destructive and discriminatory policies touted by this Mayor and Chancellor, which will be rubberstamped by a PEP whose majority is selected by the Mayor himself and given the directive to "serve at his pleasure". 
---Concerned Advocates for Public Education

PS 15 in Red Hook was the school State Ed Commissioner Steiner ruled against when he ruled against the expansion of Girls Prep. Here our pals at CAPE respond. I'm cross posting.


Mayoral Control is Governance By Lawlessness… It is Time to Put an End to the Bloomberg-Klein Ed Deform Agenda!
 

The PS 188/94 and PS 15 recent appeals to the State Education Commissioner prove once again that Mayoral Control amounts to nothing more than governance by lawsuit, a construct where parents, students, and teachers will find themselves at a great disadvantage, and will almost always lose, when seeking what is best for the public education of our youth.

Commissioner David Steiner’s decisions in both cases, the Department of Education’s responses in both cases, and the outrageous actions of Klein evoking ‘emergency powers’ in the one of Steiner's findings set dangerous and destructive precedents for our schools and students when it comes to school and space utilization and allocation.

As a result of Steiner’s decision and the responses and actions of the DOE:

· Space allocations are not required for related services for special needs students or for ELL students.
· Stairwells and Hallways are perfectly acceptable spaces for students to receive educational services.
· Negative impacts on existing public school students, specifically removing space for enrichment, intervention, and other mandated and non-mandated services to benefit a charter school, is perfectly acceptable.
· Educational Impact statements do not have to be provided to parents in paper form or through the mail. Notification to families and communities need only be made through the internet or through the school’s principal with no additional resources provided by the DOE.
· Educational impact statements do not have to specifically identify the impacts or losses on students in terms of space or programming due to a co-location.
· Educational impact statements do not have to show how space will be allocated; a space plan can be completed after the co-location is approved.
· Providing opportunities for hearings and public input where no one is actually heard or considered meets the standard of the law.
· When a legal decision is made that favors parents, students, and teachers, the DOE will find a way to get around it.

Mayoral Control is absolute power that corrupts absolutely. It is a license to push destructive and discriminatory policies touted by this Mayor and Chancellor, which will be rubberstamped by a PEP whose majority is selected by the Mayor himself and given the directive to "serve at his pleasure". When in the rare case, the Administration is legally challenged on a issue, there is a loophole to declare emergencies in order to override whatever decision displeases the Chancellor. This is not putting Children First, as their self-heralded initiative claims, this is putting ideology first, an ideology rooted in free-market principles that further reinforce the roles of privilege and subordination in our country and pervert our public education system, the pillar of our democracy. Local and State legislators must take action to end this corrupt governance system and put legislation in place and advocate for policies that protect public schools and our neediest and most vulnerable children.

Join Grassroots Education Movement in the Struggle to Protect and Preserve Public Education! Check in this week for further video and analysis regarding the DOE’s outrageous actions and claims regarding co-locations @ ednotesonline.blogspot.com, capeducation@blogspot.com and grassrootseducationmovement@blogspot.com

Want to create a community-based advocacy group in your school? Contact capeducation@gmail.com for an advocacy toolkit and information on GEM’s school-based organizing committee.

Together we can stop the dysfunctional and discriminatory education policies of Bloomberg and Klein!

Perkins Hearing and CAPE on PEP

Lots of people are heading over to 250 Broadway for NY State Senator Bill Perkins' hearings on charter schools. The UFT has called out retirees to be there at 8. Charter school operators are using their hedge funds to bring out their troops and community activists are breaking open their penny jars to get people out too. We will be there for part of the day with video camera.

I have 45 minutes of great footage of charter school parents speaking out against charter school lack of transparencies, abuse of children through excessive discipline and other transgressions that are getting swept under the rug. They spoke out at Leonie Haimson's Class Size Matters parent outreach session on April 10. I will put up short segments on you tube. Here is the first one:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uglWzOXPd78


Maura Walz at Gotham has a good report on the way the DOE distorts school space issues so they can shoehorn in charters. This was a topic of conversation at the PEP meeting Tuesday night. She opens with:

The head of a national advocacy group for improving school facilities is warning that a Brooklyn school building cannot support a charter school expansion plan that the citywide school board approved last night.

Mary Filardo, executive director of the 21st Century Schools Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit that helps both district and charter schools plan their building space, composed a report on how space is used at Brooklyn’s P.S. 15. The elementary school shares space with PAVE Academy Charter School, which will expand in the building while it awaits construction of its own private building. Filardo’s report, prepared at the request of New York’s Campaign for Fiscal Equity, was submitted as testimony against the city’s plan at last night’s Panel for Educational Policy meeting.

Here is the latest report from CAPE on the PEP meeting.

PEP Meeting: Repeat Performance

With less fanfare than previous meetings, but all of the pointless nonsense, another PEP meeting ends predictably. The police cars outnumbered the fancy buses that brought supporters of the charter school Harlem Success Academy (in their matching orange shirts) which causes one to wonder what the DOE is so afraid of. If you need that much security at a meeting about schools something is NOT RIGHT! And it wasn’t right. It was not right to watch the mayor’s appointees mindlessly vote in favor of every co-location on the agenda. It was NOT RIGHT to watch a DOE representative whisper in the ear of a certain panel member when she did NOT agree with facts shared by P.S. 15 teachers and parents. It was not right when Kathleen Grimm defended the statements of the P.S. 15 EIS by simply parroting the very statement in the EIS. Read more about this and other nonsensical happenings here. Charter school supporters are all about school choice. One audience member compared it to selecting Pepsi or Coke. What no one seems to mention is the fact that the man who insisted on controlling our public schools for the last eight years had a CHOICE to improve all existing community schools and did no such thing. School choice is ultimately the mayor’s choice. He chose to outsource our city’s education reform to any random person/corporation who decides to open a charter school. He allows the chancellor to choose which schools to close and which schools to cram together in buildings not designed to support multiple schools, compromising the learning environment and school climate for all who attend or work in the schools. Coke or Pepsi, really? What about the notion that all parents and students deserve high quality community public schools!?!

Thank you to the PEP members who questioned the faulty Educational Impact Statement and who voted against the co-location of PAVE Academy within P.S. 15K! I wonder how much longer we must wait until this “process” in fully exposed for the sham it is.

CAPE In Action: PS 15/PAVE Redux, UPDATED

UPDATED Jan. 20, 9am:

CAPE Communique:

Oh what a feeling...

Juan Gonzalez on PS 15/PAVE in Daily News:

Nothing Schools Chancellor Joel Klein can say will calm the furor and sense of betrayal parents and teachers at Public School 15 in Brooklyn have felt for the past few weeks.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/01/20/2010-01-20_paveing_way_over_bklyn_school.html


Jan. 19, 11pm

Just back from taping a rigorous debate at the meeting tonight at PS 15 over the extension of PAVE at the school, with an overwhelming majority of people urging the PEP to vote down the PAVE extension. Even the local politicians broke new ground tonight in supporting PS 15 and urging a rejection of the extension. I have 2 hours of video with some very good speeches. Jim Devor was such an amazing prosecutor I was ready to plead guilty. To anything.

A bunch of GEMers (who are also ICEers) showed up to show support and speak, along with parent activists CEC13 Pres. Khem Irby and CEC1 Pres. Lisa Donlan, along Brooklyn College Professor David Bloomfield, who heads the Educational Leadership school that trains principals (we assume in a slightly different manner than the notorious Joel Klein Leadership Academy.) As a retiree, I never cease to be amazed at the working teachers in GEM/ICE/CAPE who show up to meetings and events all the time.

CAPEers sent these notes:
THANK YOU!!! WOW!
You all are an amazing group! What a great GEMTASTIC bunch of people. I am so glad to have met all of you and to be working with you! Thank you for your time, energy and support, you rule!

We want to thank you so much for coming tonight, especially out to isolated, little Red Hook, to support us and 'the cause'. It means so much to all of us to have such amazing people in our lives and behind us. Regardless of what happens in the coming days, it is comforting to know that we have what is just on all of our sides and that we are all committed to fighting the destructive educational policies of this Mayor together. You are all in our fondest thoughts.


A GEMer responded:
The energy, information and commitment that you and your colleagues in CAPE put forth have motivated us to continue on with our united struggle. Thanks to all of YOU.

Press Release

Media Contact: John Battis: JBattis@chpnet.org ,

Lydia Bellahcene: lillytigre@yahoo.com,

Brooklyn, New York
January 19, 2010

Parents and Teachers Fight to Protect Their Community Public School:

Red Hook, Brooklyn’s AAA School, PS 15, The Patrick F. Daly School at the Center of New York City’s Charter School Invasion Struggle

---

When and Where:

· Rally and Public Hearing: 1/19/10, Rally, 4:30 on the corner of Richards and Sullivan Street in Red Hook, Public Hearing, 6:00 at PS 15, 71 Sullivan Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn

Upcoming Events:

· Citywide Rally and March on the Mayor’s Block: 1/21/10, Rally begins at 4:00 on the corner of 5^th Avenue and 79^th Street, the park side, Manhattan.

· Rally and PEP Meeting: 1/26/10, Rally begins at 4:00 across the street from Brooklyn Tech High School; PEP meeting begins at 6:00.

Today concerned parents, students, teachers and community members rallied and made public comment in opposition to a DOE proposal that would continue the placement of PAVE charter school in their public school building, PS 15, beyond the two year agreement made in 2008. The proposal would allow PAVE to remain in PS 15 until 2015, which would cause irreparable harm to the services and programs provided to Red Hook’s students. Assemblyman Felix Ortiz and Councilwoman Sara Gonzales both made statements on PS 15’s behalf noting the destructive and less than transparent actions by the DOE that have promoted the division of the Red Hook community at the expense of our children’s successful public school.

“Expanding PAVE within our school is unfair and detrimental. It does not promote “choice” or “reform”. The EIS is a “cut and paste” job void of any meaningful information about the real impact on our community. We demand an honest and public assessment that dares to identify the real and obvious problems with this proposal.” John Battis, Parent, PS 15

“What the DOE is proposing will hurt my three children who attend PS 15, and in particular our special needs population. Children should not have to receive services in closets and hallways. The DOE should not be treating our children like they can be thrown away like garbage.” Lydia Bellahcene, Parent, PS 15. “The DOE says that special education services, science rooms, art rooms, and intervention are luxuries, parents disagree. PS 15 is an AAA school, and the Mayor and Chancellor should not be setting policies to divide, shrink, and undermine our great school.”

“I have seen PS 15 grow dramatically over the last nine years and know firsthand the valuable services and programs we provide to the Red Hook Community. The proposal to extend PAVE’s stay beyond the two year agreement is an outrage and devastating to our community. It will destroy Red Hook’s AAA public school.” Marie Sirotniak, Teacher, PS 15.

“The policies being put forth by the DOE are a clear attempt to privilege charters at the expense of our public schools. No one at PS 15 questions a charter’s right to exist, but we seriously question the destruction of public education, particularly successful public schools, to benefit charters. It is clear now, that from the beginning PAVE and the DOE intended this stay to be longer. It is also clear they are very connected, as the DOE has just allocated 26 Million dollars to PAVE for a building, which at the earliest would be completed in 2013. This while our school budgets have been slashed and students and families are going without. The implementation of these policies robs Peter to pay Paul; this is not what our education system should be reduced to.” Julie Cavanagh, Teacher, PS 15.

Please find below an open letter from concerned parents of PS 15K:

January 19, 2010
Dear Chancellor Klein, Mayor Bloomberg, Panel for Educational Policy Members, and the Office of Portfolio Development,

We, the parents of PS 15, The Patrick F. Daly School in Red Hook, Brooklyn, respectfully demand that the Educational Impact Statement regarding the extension of the co-location of PAVE Academy in PS 15K be withdrawn. Simply put, the EIS is wrong and cannot be the basis on which PEP members decide the fate of our school. The most glaring and galling error is in the assessment of the building's current utilization percentage. The assessment does not reflect reality. For example, many of our school's rooms are serving children with special needs and current regulations do not allow these rooms to have higher occupancy. Also, the EIS anticipates that PAVE Academy will continue to exponentially expand its enrollment over the next 5 years while our school will be compelled to cut enrollment. Yet the EIS states that no child will be displaced and that there will be "no impact on PS-15." The EIS is contradicting itself! The fact is that the co-location of a charter school within our school's building has already had negative repercussions for our children who attend PS 15.

The Educational Impact Statement posted in December of 2009, for a 45 day comment period leading to a January 26th PEP vote should be deemed invalid. This document simply does not represent the true educational impact of the change in utilization the document supports. Once the EIS is amended, our community will ask for the proper 45 day review period, as required by law. Therefore, we ask that the vote on this proposal be withdrawn from the 26th PEP meeting date so that the Department of Education can not only re-examine the contents of the current EIS, but we also ask the DOE re-evaluate the desire to force a continued co-location on our school community. Our community was promised a 2 year limit on this arrangement. We have already seen the negative impact the co-location has had on scheduling, program offerings, and related service providers. We currently have no empty or underutilized rooms in our school building - should the EIS authors actually visit our school this would be evident to them.

PS 15 is a thriving, successful school. Its great improvement in every realm, over the past decade, has been based on many things: teachers, parent involvement, community support, and a properly sized facility to house all of 15's excellent programs. Cutting our building in half will set back all of our efforts which have resulted in the only successful public school serving Red Hook.
We respectfully ask the DOE to withdraw the EIS, remove the PAVE extension issue from the January 26th PEP meeting, and fully re-evaluate the policy and the ramifications of this proposed change in utilization. We stand united in fully supporting the original two year agreement and ask that PAVE Academy vacate PS 15 in June of 2010. We do not accept further sacrifices at the expense of our children.

A copy of the School Leadership Team’s public hearing presentation is attached to this release.

Friday Night Fights! from CAPE

Our pals at CAPE have been monitoring communications between Joel Klein, PEP member extraordinaire Patrick Sullivan, and parent activists - CEC 1 president Lisa Donlan and CEC 15's Jim Devor. Both were at the fantastic parent conference sponsored by Leonie Haimson's Class Size Matters yesterday (Sat.) I have 3 hours of delicious tape. Norman Siegel wowed them all, as did all the others.

I also want to say a few words about the amazing people at CAPE, who are holding a rally in Red Hook on Tuesday at 4:30 on the corner of Richards and Sullivan followed by the Public Hearing (same day 1/19) which begins at 6, sign ups to speak begins at 5:30. If you can make it show them your love for they are standing up for all. I will be there to tape it.

CAPEers have been willing to put themselves on the line. Amazing when we hear about the fear teachers have. Julie, a CAPEer, was one of the signers of the document that led to the court ruling that gave us the right to walk a picket line this Thursday at Bloomberg's residence. It was wonderful to hear Norman Siegel tell her at a meeting Thursday night, "You have me for life for doing this. If there is one hint of retaliation I will be there for you."

I can't tell you how many people contact me with complaints about the union and the DOE but are paralyzed by fear. What does it mean for a 10 year teacher with a long career ahead to take such action? It means the kind of guts and moxie that has been missing from all too many of our colleagues and certainly from our union.

Also, kudos to GEM and ICE member and 11 year teacher Seung Ok for signing on as a contact person for the rally. It was Seung who followed a parent at Maxwell's lead and proposed the demo at Bloomberg's in the first place. Ironic since the Unity Caucus slugs at Maxwell are urging administrators there to "go after" Seung. (Mark my words. Mulgrew will turn out to be as big a thug as any leader in the past.) Whenever I offer to keep Seung's name out of it, he says, "I'm not afraid." There are times his passion causes him to "lose it" at the DA, but there are few people I've met in the last few years who I have more respect for. He is running on the ICE/TJC slate for VP of Vocational Schools (Mulgrew's old position).

The emergence of Julie and the other CAPEers and people like Seung has provided strongly needed rank and file leadership to THE RESISTANCE. Give us even a hundred people like them and we have a game changer.

CAPE says:

What were you doing on Friday night? PEP member Patrick Sullivan, Joel Klein, CAPE members from PS 15, Lisa Donlan from CEC 1 and Jim Devor from CEC 15 were having a lively discussion regarding the forced co-locations and extensions of charter schools in our public schools beyond the agreements made to their respective communities while knowingly, over crowding, shrinking, and undermining, successful community schools. Please take note as to how Mr. Klein completely ignores the parent letters and voice in this discussion. His narrow view of the issue, and lack of attention to any real substance, only highlights the Orwellian nature of the destructive school policies he and his boss propagate across our great city. The public, Borough Presidents and PEP members should take note of the Chancellor's disregard of stakeholder voices. We should all question BloomKlein and their policies, particularly the school closures-charter invasions-drive to privatize movement that they blindly seek to implement. The time is now! Enough is Enough! We must fight to protect public education, the pillar of our democracy. WE are in this for ALL children.
The full transcript is below.
Friday Night Fights!

PAVE's Spencer Robertson: Billionaire Slimebag...and Liar Too

There is such an important post at the CAPE blog, that I am cross-posting it here below. The parents at PS 15 held a demo yesterday. Spencer (daddy, give me a school) Robertson didn't take it too well.

CAPEers think old Spencer is showing cracks. Head on over to CAPE and add your comments.

Oh the outrage that the NYCDOE gives Robertson $26 million to build his play school because daddy is a billionaire, just a sliver of the massive corruption under BloomKlein. And they talk about the awful old decentralization days when a local school board member took home a dilapidated piano.

As a companion piece, read another brilliant post by Leonie Haimson on the NYC Public School Parent blog titled:

Charter schools: the new polo ponies of the wealthy

Leonie points out that daddy Robertson is the 147th richest man in America. Why should he have to give Spencer a job when he can get we tax payers to foot the bill?

Follow this trail:

....Julian Robertson himself is careful not to pay NYC taxes , by making certain to spend under 183 days in the city. The state recently brought a lawsuit against Mr. Robertson senior for failure to pay taxes, but Robertson won this case, by proving that he had carefully worked out the minimum number of days he would reside in the city and having his scheduler keep records of this:

"...Mr. Robertson designated an assistant, his scheduler Julie Depperschmidt, to keep a careful count of where the Robertsons were from day to day in 2000 and to make sure they did not spend 183 days or more in New York City."

Spencer Robertson's wife Sarah is Director of Talent Recruitment at PAVE , and head of the board of Girls Prep Charter School, which has caused considerable controversy of its own by seeking to expand within a District 1 public school building.

Another member of the Girls Prep board is Eric Grannis, husband of Eva Moskowitz, who makes more than $300,000 a year, operating another string of charter schools and who herself has been eager to expand her schools even further into the buildings of existing public schools in Harlem.

Leonie points to "this article about a "secret" meeting that took place last May, between Bloomberg, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Julian Robertson and other members of the Billionaire Boy's club, about how to coordinate their charity "efforts".

UFT: Silence of the lambs
Before you read the CAPE piece, let me point to the silence of the lambs at the UFT on these type of issues no matter how much Leo Casey whines about real estate grabs. Note the same Bill Gates the UFT is partnering with in a plan that will lead to evaluating teachers.

And note the name Eli Broad as part of the crew above. He gave the UFT charter schools $1 million. And he was a major factor in the publication and publicity campaign for Richard Kahlenberg's "Shanker was right about everything" bio, which was designed to soften teacher unionists up for "the program." (Read Vera Pavone and my review of the book if you want to know more.) So who is in bed with who(m)?

Dammit, I wanted to write a piece that the real mismanagers have been the UFT, not the DOE, where BloomKlein have managed the dismantlement of teacher rights and the take over of swaths of public schools for private interests. Now, Under Assault's assault on the UFT has beaten me to it:

I REFUSE TO BELIEVE THE UFT IS THIS STUPID

"MISMANAGEMENT CENTRAL is Unity Caucus, which is taking us whitewater rafting down a very long and angry river without paddles, lifesavers, or strategic thinkers at the helm."

Finally, one more point made about the UFT leadership by South Bronx Teacher in this post:

....the top 1,400 sycophants working for Joel Klein will be getting raises totaling $12 million dollars, including 475 that already make over $100K. That is bugging me, but not as much as something else I read in the Daily News article.

What is bugging me, perplexing me, annoying me the most is Mike Mulgrew's response. Mulgrew, and I must think of a pet name for him, blabbered, "The chancellor has the right to make his own judgments about what his managers deserve." No outrage Mike? No stern consternation? Not even a tsk tsk?

CAPE: Will the Real Spencer Robertson Please Stand Up
12/19/09

Today a group of parents picketed PAVE. They used their voices to demand accountability and honesty from the DOE and PAVE's founder Spencer Robertson. Teachers stood by on the sidelines, as not to participate in political action on the school block, but wanted to support the parents who braved below 20 degree weather to exercise their civil rights. Spencer Robertson chose to exercise his mouth and showed who he really is.

We should start by noting that Mr. Robertson's cracks began to show earlier this week when he told the school's building council that PAVE had all the money they needed to build their own building and that they would sign a contract for their space in 45 days (interestingly right in line w/ the timing of the PEP vote- maybe we can expect another grand announcement like the one we experienced this fall at the CEC meeting when they fake announced their space plans for the umpteenth time). What is even more interesting is one of PAVE's board of directors announced yesterday, they need an additional six million dollars to build (in addition to the 26 million in taxpayer dollars they have already been awarded by the DOE and the six million they have already fundraised). The board member also noted they already own a property in Red Hook on Henry and Mill Street. So, now we know for sure the real Spencer Robertson in a liar.

It is important to note that all of this discussion about a space or no space, building or no building, money or no money is irrelevant considering the agreement was made to the community for a two year co-location, which expires this June. Instead of acknowledging the fact that they, Spencer and his board, have misled the community and had no intentions of leaving in two years, they act like they are doing PS 15 a favor in assuring everyone they have every intention of leaving... some day, but they can't say when and the details of where and how change daily. Robertson ignores the negative impact his school and his actions have had on the educational programs at PS 15 and further the division it has created in the community. So, we know the real Spencer Robertson believes he is not accountable to the people of Red Hook or the children of Red Hook. We know his only interest is his charter empire.

This morning, as parents picketed outside, Spencer called the police and PAVE parents wrote on blogs demonizing PS 15 parents for standing up for what is best for their children, both denigrated PS 15 parents and teachers calling their actions political and tried to shame them for supposedly involving and scaring children (it is important to note this picket was purposefully set to begin after PAVE students arrived at school so no children would be forced to walk through the picket). What was happening inside? PAVE students were led in chanting, in PS 15's auditorium while our children arrived and our teachers and families set up our holiday fair in the gym next door, ...we are a charter, a mighty, mighty charter, this is our school, you can't move us... So now we know Spencer is not only Orwellian, but he, unlike the teachers and parents at PS 15, actually does indoctrinate his students with propaganda.

During the parent picket, Spencer stood next to the only two white men on the line and presented his case, women and tan people need not be spoken to. He thought he was reaching his good 'ole boy network, instead he got an earful. Apparently this shook him so much, his only recourse was to attack the dedicated teachers, who said and did nothing, who merely stood in silence, separate from the picket, to support parents who were standing in freezing weather, to highlight their true commitment and dedication to this community they proudly serve. As the teachers filed in the building to pick up their students, Spencer turned to them and said, "So this is what it takes for you to get to school on time." Oh no he didn't! Now we know that the real Spencer is a desperate man, a cynical man, and too low for words.

The teachers at PS 15 are one of the most dedicated and hardworking groups of educators in the city. Despite tremendous obstacles, and by every measure, they succeed with their students. You value test scores, take a look. Some of the highest reading and math scores in the city. You want programs; take a look, many teachers volunteer their preps, lunches, and Saturdays organizing and running programs for students, parents and the community. While Spencer Robertson pockets 26 million dollars from the DOE, teachers at PS 15 scrounge for paper and write grants at nights and on weekends to make up for the more than 10% cuts the DOE has placed on our budget in the last year. This man has the nerve to defile our teachers in this way?! We should note this isn't the first time he has done this; in an email earlier this year he called our teachers lazy.

Late and Lazy. Hmmm. How many of his teachers work with parents in the community? How many of his teachers volunteer their time? How many of his teachers have been serving Red Hook for ten years or more? How many of his teachers buy their own supplies? How many of his teachers procure their own funding for the school? Do we see his teachers or for that matter him on Saturdays or Sundays or in the evenings in Red Hook? It is the typical neo-liberal/neo-con strategy: say it is so and so it is. You have to wonder if these people believe their own lies, or if they are so cynical the lies easily slide off the tongue without a second thought.

Spencer Robertson has painted himself as the son of a philanthropist who cares so much about children and inequality he gave up a privileged life to help minority children have access to a better education. The real Spencer Robertson needs to stand up. The truth is, Spencer Robertson is the son of a billionaire who is used to getting what he wants and will protect his own interests and will propagate his own agenda at the cost of anyone or anything that gets in his way. His strategy, along with BloomKlein and the entire charter/privatization movement, is to divide communities, demean and demonize teachers, disenfranchise parents, and dismantle existing successful public schools, particularly in minority communities that have a history of limited organization and mobilization.

Spencer and his cronies picked the wrong school and the wrong community to manipulate and mislead. Regardless of what happens over the next month, as long as this man is in PS 15, and most likely as long as he drives into and out of Red Hook each workday, he will face an outspoken group of people who know who he really is. We will be his mirror, maybe he can hide from himself, maybe he can even hide from the PAVE families who entrust their children to him, but all darkness comes to the light. Eventually the cracks will accumulate to a fracture and the facade will come crumbling down; the real Spencer Robertson will be left standing, most likely alone, on display for all to see. Hopefully the parents and teachers of PS 15 will still be around to pick up the pieces.

Get Out the Swords: DOE proposes to let PAVE stay in P.S. 15 an additional five years

"We will not rest until the truth is exposed and the agreement for PAVE to leave by 2010 is honored. If the DOE or anyone else thinks we will give up; they are mistaken… through the courts through civil disobedience, one way or another- PS 15 and public education will be protected."

Power breeds arrogance. And absolute power breeds absolute arrogance. It was clear from the beginning that when a billionaire hedge fund manager's son wants a public school building for his play school, he will get it from the BloomKlein administration. Remember when Spencer Robertson declared at the Sept. 15 CEC15 meeting that he had found a building and will move out of PS 15 as soon as he could? The PS 15 community guffawed and called him a liar. They had been facing so many lies from PAVE that nothing was believable.

And so it was. And is.

Maura Walz at Gotham posted the news at Gotham last night that Tweed was going beyond the PAVE 2 year request and would allow PAVE to stay at PS 15 until 2015 and add 5 more grades. I forwarded the news to the CAPE crew at PS 15. They are pouring out their outrage in the comments section at Gotham. Join them.

Read the full CAPE response:

The DOE Does it Again

What is clear is that if a school functions too well to close, Tweed will go get them another way: Install a cancer/charter and allow it to grow unchecked while at the same time using your power to squeeze the healthy public schools until it gets sick and dies. It reminds me of those vines that start growing up a healthy tree and feeding off it until it kills the tree and takes over what is left.

Does anyone have a doubt that by 2015, PS 15 will be gone and PAVE will be occupying the entire building?

The CAPE response opens with:

It is unclear what is more disturbing: The Department of Education’s surreptitious school space utilization and formulas, their incompetence in interpreting these very formulas, their damning disregard for what is best for children not to mention parent and community voices, their corrupted charter school movement, their deliberate defiling of public education and community public schools, or their lubricated lies that slide off their tongues dripping and oozing with Orwellian language that loudly proclaims, “we have an agenda, and we fully intend to execute it.”

Near the end, CAPE says:

This is clearly a fight the DOE wants to have: RAISE YOUR SWORDS!!!

And raise their swords they will.

We met with CAPE the other evening, as Brooklyn GEM and CAPE are putting together a series of events on charter schools. There is not one meeting we have with CAPE where we don't come out feeling the entire time was productive. This is one savvy, tough group of public education advocates. That they are in one school gives us hope there are other such groupings around. I mean, earth is not the only planet in the universe with life.

I want to thank Tweed for doing such dumb stuff that led to this group coming together and joining up with other advocates forming around the city. They have uncovered some hornet's nest. As part of a group of organizers so often frustrated by the lack of fight all too many teachers exhibit, I genuflect to Tweed for helping to create CAPE. Keep up the good work. One day you will find thousands of people pounding at your door.

Better start beefing up security. Can you spell C-I-V-I-L D-I-S-O-B-E-D-I-E-N-C-E?

PS 15/PAVE Story Redux

Shared space formulas, not questions about charter schools comes to the fore


CAPE, which was formed to battle the PAVE invasion at PS 15 (and is now working with GEM to reach out to other schools in the same situation) posted an announcement this morning that it ain't over 'till it's over.

The CEC15 has bravely forced the DOE to at least pretend to function within the realm of our republic and has agreed to have a public hearing and have the PEP vote on whether PAVE Academy should be able to extend their two year agreement, an agreement by which this charter was sold to the Red Hook Community who fought it.

Please join in our fight to protect and preserve public education, our children and our school! Sign the online petition and circulate it. Contact the NYC PEP and tell them to vote no in allowing PAVE to break their agreement and stay housed in PS 15's building past June 2010... further, we need to fight to expose the faulty DOE formula that is hurting schools and our children.


While some people thought the battle was over when the DOE ruled, as expected, to give PAVE its 2-year extension, Jim Devor of CEC15, which held a contentious meeting at PS 15 back in September, filed a complaint that under the mayoral control renewal law, the PEP must discuss the issue first and then rule in favor of PAVE. This will happen at the January 26 PEP meeting, which will held in the crater of the moon where water was discovered. I'm guessing the vote will be 9 to 2 for PAVE (money and influence talks) but it all should be a worthwhile event.

Ed Notes covered the story from the beginning and we have lots of video from the Sept. 17 meeting. The single best piece is PS 15 Makes Their Case. (Use the search blog for PAVE to find more coverage.)

Excerpts from the Gotham Schools report:

Responding to protests that it was breaking the new mayoral control law, the Department of Education will hold a public hearing before extending PAVE Academy Charter School’s stay inside a district-owned building. The law passed this summer requires the DOE to issue an “educational impact statement” and hold a public hearing on any proposed changes to the way school building space is used, and then to put changes to a vote before the city-wide Panel for Educational Policy.

Last month, DOE officials notified the principals of Red Hook’s PAVE Academy and P.S. 15 that the charter school would remain in the P.S. 15 building, even though PAVE originally agreed to leave the building at the end of this school year. At the time, DOE spokeswoman Ann Forte said that there was no need to follow the new rules since a hearing had been held before the charter school moved into the building two years ago. But after protests from the district’s Community Education Council members, DOE officials said this week they will follow the new procedure after all.

CEC President James Devor drafted a resolution this week calling on the DOE to follow the new law in the case of P.S. 15. The resolution also states that if the DOE does not follow the new procedure in making space decisions regarding P.S. 15 and PAVE, it would join any lawsuit designed to force the DOE to adhere to the law.

A CAPEr commented at Gotham:

This is a victory for due process, for what we have been fighting for. Now we need to make sure the process is transparent… a hearing is one thing, being heard is another. What is at issue here is not charter schools (although many of us have opinions about them), what is at issue is a faulty DOE space sharing formula that is bad for kids and bad for schools— and not for nothing– both groups of kids and schools!

The DOE formula does not take into account the space demands of our special education population and does not take into account a full prep schedule, as well as the space needed for the enrichment and intervention services that make PS 15 an AAA school. I should also mention we have a medical, dental, and social services program at our school as well that requires space.

We all feel for PAVE parents who fear losing a place for their child’s school, but firstly, this is the fault of Robertson and his poor leadership, planning, and judgement and second of all, PS 15 students should not suffer for his incompetence. He has more than enough money to go and find himself a space somewhere else where he would not be negatively impacting the education of over 350 other students, whose parents choose PS 15. We should not be functioning in a system where we rob Paul to pay Peter. Support our fight in keeping PAVE to their two year agreement!

CAPE Throws it Down

I have this blog from CAPE (Concerned Advocates for Public Education) listed on the sidebar, but I just read it again and it gets better and better. There's a whole lot of strong insights in this piece from a Red Hook based Brooklyn group.

The Traveling Trio on Meet the Press this morning

A few excerpts:

Public education was called for and created because our citizens, many of them first generation immigrants, in the late 1800's, realized that if we did not provide a system where all of our future citizens could share in access to a free and fair education, we would not be able to build a great society. It was realized then, that we are only as strong as our weakest members, that we are judged ultimately by how we treat our children, and that our success as a nation lies in our ability to teach each child to become thoughtful, educated citizens of the world. "Race to the Top" does not even begin to represent the earliest and most important ideals of public education: if this is a race, then there are winners and losers- who will the losers be? Inherent in the components of current reform, is a belief that teachers fail, schools fail, that choice and competition will bring about equality.
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Choice and competition, and private interest and money, the capitalist ideology now driving education reform, has weakened and harmed these important and vital aspects of our country and our social policies. This is not the solution for education. The unwavering belief in a free market ideology in a time of great economic turmoil that has been propagated by these very beliefs is unbelievable to me... how can we be so blind?
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At the foundation of education reform is standardized testing; these tests are the centerpiece of all that reform is to be measured by, all we should be accountable to and for, this is not only a fundamental flaw, but it is outrageous. The current reform movement suggests that, we, and specifically teachers, should accept yearly test-based standards for their students/children, should stop whining about testing because it does no good, that if teachers teach, it will show up on the tests we give... this is a very narrow view not only of what teaching is, but of who our students are. We teach students who are hungry, whose parents did drugs and alcohol while they were pregnant. We teach students with disabilities, language delays, and medical issues. We teach students who are being abused and neglected. We teach students who don't know where they will sleep tonight. We teach students who trust no one, who are afraid, who seek love, who need love. We teach students who have had little to no rich experiences, whose prior knowledge is limited. We teach students without parent advocates, without family, without the safety and security that is a fundamental requirement for learning. These students do not necessarily represent the vast majority of students; but should we ignore their reality? We all know who the losers will be in Race to the Top and in the new Education Reform agenda, it will be these children.
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Read it in full qt The Traveling Trio on Meet the Press this morning

What Happened at PS 15?

Where do we start? There's so many angles on what happened I can't come up with one yet, so check back this afternoon.

I'm digitizing the tape now and will put some stuff up later.

Right now I have to head off to deal with robotics at a bunch of schools.

For now check out the report from CAPE as they clarify a few points about the CEC 15 meeting.


Tonight should be considered a triumph for democracy, for stakeholder voices, and an example of what advocacy is all about. A few main points, that may have been lost in the shuffle, intentionally or not, need to be clarified and addressed:

Read it all http://www.capeducation.blogspot.com/

And Maura Waltz' piece at Gotham Schools with many fiery comments:

http://gothamschools.org/2009/09/18/red-hook-charter-paves-way-out-of-ps-15-but-cant-say-when/#more-23418

CAPE Press Release: Support Red Hook Public School Sept. 17

In the spring of 2008, the Red Hook community was informed that a charter school would be placed in their longstanding successful school, P.S. 15, The Patrick F. Daly School. After the decision was announced, there was community outrage and then, only then, was a community meeting held for members to share their views. In line with the leadership and vision of both Bloomberg and Klein, the decision to place a charter in P.S. 15 was finalized, regardless of the community’s outrage, a decision seemingly already made. The agreement was that this charter school, PAVE Academy, would be temporarily housed in P.S. 15 for two years. This agreement, by the Department of Education and PAVE’s founder, Spencer Robertson, was stated repeatedly to parents, community members, teachers, the building’s administration and to the union.

In the spring of 2009, only a year into their stay, PAVE announced to the Daily News that they requested an extension to stay in P.S. 15 for up to an additional three years. Again, parents, teachers and community members expressed their outrage and questioned the transparency, due process, and accountability of the Department of Education. According to the DOE, no decisions had yet been made concerning the extension request, but it took pressure by parents and teachers throughout the summer demanding due process to get a fair hearing. That meeting, a District 15 CEC meeting, will take place this Thursday, September 17, 2009 at P.S. 15 in the school’s auditorium.

Communities across the city share in the plight of the P.S. 15, Red Hook Community. We have seen community schools across the city forced to building share with charters, have their resources drained, their space limited and their programs negatively impacted. Now beginning to emerge, we are seeing charters put in extensions to stay and further expand into buildings after already announcing an end date for their temporary stay as part of the presentation to, and agreement with, the school communities. Interestingly, the extensions seem to aim to afford these charters free space until the end of their five year state evaluations, even though five years of space was not what was originally requested.

The lack of transparency and due process is an outrage to our democracy and defiles the success and importance of our community public schools. There is no accountability, no one to hold the Mayor’s administration to any kind of agreement or standard because they have a clear agenda and they intend to execute it: close down half of the number of public schools and double the number of charter schools by the end of their third term. What is even more disturbing; they are propagating this agenda on the backs of successful public schools that have served their communities for years. P.S. 15, The Patrick F. Daly School, whose namesake lost his life serving the children of Red Hook seventeen years ago, is an AAA school being unfairly and forcefully pushed out by a charter school that has no success record, is staffed with uncertified and inexperienced educators, and whose students are largely bused in from outside of the school community. Last year, out of P.S. 15’s Prekindergarten graduating class, only two families chose to send their two children to PAVE. The housing of PAVE Academy in P.S. 15 is not serving the best interest of the children in Red Hook, and it has no place in Red Hook’s community public school.

The Bloomberg Administration paints the charter school movement as a way to service children whom public schools have failed while promoting and developing innovative programming. This is cynical and disingenuous. The charter school movement drains school community resources, sets up a system of privilege and subordination, divides communities, and disenfranchises citizens from a truly democratic system that was intended to listen to them and represent them, not impose an authoritative agenda on them. If this charter school movement was really about what was best for children, we would not see building sharing formulas that treat children as numbers and deny them the space to run enrichment and intervention programming. We would not see campus policies that sanction public school principals for not coming to agreements on space usage, while doing nothing to hold charter school leaders accountable to the same standard. We would not see due process skirted and phony meetings held. We would not see successful schools being squeezed out by charters, especially when those charters are not primarily servicing the students from that school and community.

Please join the Red Hook community, its families and teachers, as we fight to protect P.S. 15, The Patrick F. Daly School, and community schools across the city. Public education is the pillar of our democracy; it must be protected and preserved. We should be supporting and using our successful public schools as models, not overextending them and negatively impacting their programming. We should fix our public schools that are not working, not propagate a privatization agenda.

capeducation@gmail.com

District 15, CEC, Community Education Council Meeting

Topic: Schools housed in public schools, PAVE Academy’s extension to continue to be housed in P.S. 15

Thursday, September 17, 2009, 7:00 P.M.

P.S. 15 School Auditorium

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The Resistance Grows: GEM News and CAPE Press Release

GEM finally met some members of Brooklyn-based CAPE at the GEM meeting on July 14. And a group from PS 123 in Harlem. Kismet.

GEM formed committees – a Brooklyn-based committee to fight charter school invasions in that borough and an ATR/Teacher Reassignment Center committee to address those concerns. Also a Harlem-based group to focus on PS 123, the school being invaded by Moskowitz' Harlem Success virus. There were reps from other schools in Harlem dealing with charter schools.

Contact GEMNYC@gmail for details. Or check the GEM or Ed Notes blogs for details of meetings.

Here is the CAPE press release, which could serve as a bible for the resistance.


CAPE: Concerned Advocates for Public Education

Educators and Parents Organize to Protect and Preserve Public Education

“The Bloomberg administration’s long-term goal is to cut the number of public schools in half and double the number of charter schools.” This claim was recently made in a Helen Zelon article quoting long time administrators and DOE officials. It is a claim that is quite disturbing and has motivated a group of educators and parents to organize for the protection and preservation of public schools and public education.

This group, Concerned Advocates for Public Education, seeks to lend their voice to the education policy and reform debate, a voice that has been marginalized and silenced, a trend that we will stand for no longer.

We see public education and public schools as a civic practice, a human right, and the pillar of our democracy. Any policy or ideology that threatens our ability and our right to provide free, fair, and quality public education for our children must be addressed. All too often, especially during the tenure of the Bloomberg administration, parent and educator voices have been silenced in the education reform movement and in terms of policy in general. This silencing has subordinated the voices of the stakeholders in education in favor of the voices of lawyers, corporations, and those most privileged in our society. The perspectives of those whom these policies impact the most are absent and there is no substitute for our perspective. If our voices are not welcomed in the current climate of education reform and policy, we will not be complicit nor will we fight against it, instead we will fight for what we know to be best for our children and we will not be intimidated or undermined by an ideology or administration who insults and threatens those who disagree with them.

At the center of the fight to protect and preserve public education is the Bloomberg administration’s obsession with charter schools. This is not simply a discussion about the merit of charter schools; there is a place in education for any school possibility that opens a door for children. However, we do not believe that this administration’s charter school agenda serves children in any other capacity other than to divert money away from public schools and strain and stress public schools by forcing them to share space with charter schools setting up unfair and unbalanced corporate-style competition. Furthermore, the kinds of charter schools this administration promotes deprofessionalizes the teaching profession through its privilege of prescriptive programs and inexperienced teachers, their militaristic style of discipline and procedures, the silencing and victimization of parents and communities by forcing these schools into areas without due process and community involvement, and the racial implications of targeting minority areas therefore weakening community public schools and marginalizing those who are already most marginalized in our society. This agenda does not promote critical thinking. This agenda does not promote the whole child. This agenda does not promote thoughtful, democratic citizenry. This agenda does promote the systematic deterioration of our public school system in favor of a system that will segregate and underserve our neediest students.

The Bloomberg administration will argue that public schools have been failing our neediest children for years and that teachers and unions do not want competition and simply want to avoid change. Parents and educators are frankly insulted by these claims. While it is true that some public schools have been failing our students, blanket claims are erroneous and dangerous and are the kind of propaganda that promotes extreme executive control and power and disempowers citizen voice and perspective. There are many examples of exemplary public schools that serve underserved populations and have been doing it for years. If the intention is to improve education in the neediest areas, why not access existing successful schools and use their models, techniques, and expertise in a real reform agenda? This administration promotes claims of the success of charter schools, often using test scores as evidence. The scores are not comparable to public schools as they represent a lower number of students in special education, English Language Learners, and our most challenging students who charter schools often discharge at will and send back to public schools. This is a shell game aimed at privatizing education. It comes from a free market mentality that serves the capitalist agenda, but when did capitalism move from an economic philosophy to a social philosophy? There is no place in education, the largest and most important social policy and structure we have in this country, for this kind of corporate ideology that we have seen frankly fail economically in the last year and will certainly fail when it comes to educating our most valuable asset in a democracy: our children.

The second claim, again political propaganda, that seeks to subvert teachers’ unions is simply a power grab and flatly false. Teachers and their unions are by no means a perfect body, but the large majority dedicate their lives fighting for what is best for children and schools and to insinuate that they only want to protect themselves, at the expense of children, is cynical and disingenuous. To further suggest that the solution is to insert business minded folks and inexperienced teachers as a means to best educate our students is simply ridiculous. The Bloomberg administration has an expertise in marketing, but even the best marketing cannot continue to sell a product that is faulty and based on a premise that defies truth and logic.

If you want solid evidence for all of the above claims, make the trip to Red Hook, Brooklyn. There you will find a gem of a school, P.S. 15, nestled in one the largest housing projects in Brooklyn that is a AAA school, has some of the highest test scores in the city, offers a wide range of intervention, enrichment, and health and social services, and has some of the most dedicated administrators, teachers, and staff you could ever hope to find. This school, a successful, well established, corner stone in one our most needy communities is being threatened with a takeover from one of Bloomberg’s hand selected charter schools, PAVE Academy. This charter was placed in P.S. 15’s building, is crippling their ability to best serve their children, and has announced plans to stay put for years to come even though the community, who fought against them coming in the first place, was guaranteed that they would only stay two years. The intent here is clear, push out a successful public school and replace it with a charter school. This does not support an agenda that supposedly addresses claims of what is best for children and communities by closing unsuccessful schools. It does support and highlights an agenda rooted in a clear obsession charter schools as a way to undermine and destroy our public education system.

Concerned Advocates for Public Education seeks to bring an authentic voice to the current policy and reform movement in education. To contact us please email us at CAPEducation@gmail.com or visit us on Facebook and Twitter.

For Immediate Release: Any information provided here may be published on behalf of CAPE.