Leonie Haimson Mashes ChalkBleat's Elizabeth Green Bias

Leonie and Elizabeth used to be pretty friendly - I was also friendly with her.

Chalkbeat “Roundtable” discussion on Eliz. Green controversial piece in which she called Success charters a model educational system.  See what I just tweeted  about it below. 

https://chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2018/01/16/a-chalkbeat-roundtable-the-promise-and-perils-of-charter-networks-like-success-academy/

The incredible bias of this piece in responding to critiques that the original piece was too biased makes me think that Chalkbeat editors must be trapped in a bubble w/o any awareness of how isolated they are. 

	leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson)
1/17/18, 8:15 PM Egregiously biased discussion fr/ 3 charter school founders, 2 who say district schools can be as good as charters (!), 1 parent criticizing both, and not a single charter critic. Biased selection exacerbates problems in @elizwgreen superficial encomium to Success. @carolburris twitter.com/chalkbeat/stat…

Leonie Haimson on Loss of Thousands of Classrooms: What Role Did Charter Influx Play? Where is UFT, Chalkbeat?

Leonie Haimson:  Unfortunately, very few news outlets carried stories about the report, including those that repeatedly report on the non-newsworthy complaints from the charter lobby every time they hold a press conference or send out a press release.  The Walton Foundation and hedge-funder backed charter including Families for Excellent Schools, Students First, and other astroturf organizations, constantly and erroneously repeat the refrain that charters are unfairly deprived of their fair share of space. Why this lack of interest on the part of NYC reporters?  I could speculate but choose not to.... Leonie Haimson

Leonie doesn't name names and reporters but we know she is talking about astro-turf journalism from Chalkbeat which given its other reporting leaves this one alone.

I dare anyone from the press to show this chart

Astute observers of the NYC ed scene know that Leonie Haimson through Class Size Matters has often done the work the UFT should be doing. Here is another example of the wonderful work Leonie has been doing for the past 15 years. Did Bloomberg et al funnel most available seats to charters? Hell yes - don't need no stinkn data to tell us that.

NYC Public School Parents  
How many thousands of school seats were lost during the past decade, how did this contribute to overcrowding and how many went to charter school students? - 

Last  week Class Size Matters released a new report entitled Seats Gained and Lost in NYC Schools: The Untold Story.  For the first time, this study documented that more than 50,000 NYC public school seats were eliminated during the decade of 2004 to 2013.

These seat losses, mostly because of lapsed leases, the removal of trailers and the elimination of annexes, were identified using data from the annual DOE School Capacity and Utilization Reports, known more familiarly as the Blue Books.

Rather than creating net 100,000 seats during this period, as former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Mayor's Management Report claimed, the real figure was less than half that number — only about 45,000, when seat loss is taken into account.

Moreover, of these net seats, the vast majority were filled by charter school students in public school buildings, with only 2,357 net seats filled by district public school students during this decade.

 

These findings help explain the worsening overcrowding that has plagued New York City schools, especially in the elementary grades, with the number of overcrowded elementary school buildings increasing by 17 percent and the number of students in these buildings increasing by 29 percent between 2004 and 2012. 

Meanwhile, the total number of students last year in overcrowded school buildings of all kinds was more than 575,000 --- according to the DOE's own "target" methodology.
In fully half of all districts, elementary school buildings lost net capacity during this period.  Of the 19 districts that experience growth in elementary school enrollment, in only three districts did the net new capacity exceed growth: in districts 2, 11, and 22.  If you'd like to see how many seats your district lost during this period, check out the report here or below.
The report also points out several factors that may make seat loss an even more important concern in the future.  This includes the DOE’s plan to accelerate the planned removal of TCUs or trailers, and the fact that there are no funds allocated in the five-year capital plan towards replacing their classrooms.  Moreover, the amount of funding in the capital plan dedicated to replacing lost leases has sharply declined since 2009.
We suggested some  proposals that the DOE could use to stem the loss of seats and to make the process of school planning more transparent and efficient, so that the problem of overcrowding doesn't worsen,  given the boom in residential development throughout the city and the Mayor's focus on increasing the number of affordable and market-rate housing units.
We also urged an end to any further co-locations, which exacerbate overcrowding; and our figures showing that the vast majority of net new seats went to charter school students over this decade provides an important factual counterbalance to the constant demand from the charter school lobby for more space within our already overcrowded school buildings, and the claim that they have been deprived of their fair share of classrooms. 
Unfortunately, very few news outlets carried stories about the report, including those that repeatedly report on the non-newsworthy complaints from the charter lobby every time they hold a press conference or send out a press release.  The Walton Foundation and hedge-funder backed charter including Families for Excellent Schools, Students First, and other astroturf organizations, constantly and erroneously repeat the refrain that charters are unfairly deprived of their fair share of space. Why this lack of interest on the part of NYC reporters?  I could speculate but choose not to.
Instead, please take a look at the report yourselves, and please let me know what you think in the comments below.  thanks!

See the report at Leonie's blog:

https://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2017/09/how-many-thousands-of-school-seats-were.html

 

ATR Update - DOE Will Subsidize Salaries -- Chalkbeat

The news that the DOE will subsidize - 50% in first and 25% in 2nd year is an admission that things haven't been going too well -- and we all said that the high salaries -- avg $94 thousand a year -- will keep even the best teachers in the ATR pool. There are supposedly 822 in the pool, averaging 18 years in the system. Experience, you know, doesn't count - unless you are an airline pilot - or lawyer -- or doctor - or anything except a teacher.

Maybe I missed it but I still don't see signs of direct contact with ATRs in this piece. Note how they present the info -- Two thirds of ATRs come from closed schools or budget cuts but CB emphasizes that one third are there for some disciplinary reasons with no attempt to break those numbers down --- this punches holes in the ed deformers attempt to paint ATRs as consisting of bad eggs. We know all too many people under the discipline category who were fined or brought up on some bogus issues. Let me get this clear --one third of 822 is less than 300 in a system of 100,000 personnel  -- think of all the sturm and drang over a handful of people.

They do at least point out that some people leave the ATR pool for a year or more at a time but are not permanently hired and return to the pool. They are doing regular teaching jobs. Too bad they didn't try to get the DOE to give them better numbers on this category.

Of course they have a quote from that Student First idiot Jenny Sedlis -- who supports no certification for teachers.

StudentsFirstNY Executive Director Jenny Sedlis called the move “shockingly irresponsible” in a statement. “There are reasons why no principal has chosen to hire them and this policy is bad for kids, plain and simple,” she said.

I love this closing comment which exhibits a shortage of journalistic pursuit:

27 percent — are licensed to teach in early childhood or elementary school grades. Another 11 percent are licensed social studies teachers, 9 percent are math teachers and 8 percent are English teachers. Questions have been raised in the past about whether the teachers in the pool had skills that were too narrow or out of date. A 2010 Chalkbeat story found that a quarter of teachers then in the pool were licensed to teach relatively obscure classes like swimming, jewelry-making and accounting.

Who exactly raised those questions about narrow skills? Let's do some math -- 9%-math, 8% English, 11% social studies, 27% elementary. That adds up to 55%. Almost half are high school. Are they swimming, jewelry making and accounting? What about science, teach, language teachers, vocational ed licenses, phys ed - which would include the swimming? I suggest they go back to the DOE and find out exactly how people are teaching jewelry making -- there may be a test on that soon.

NYC announces it will subsidize hiring from Absent Teacher Reserve — and sheds light on who is in the pool

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=33431390#editor/target=post;postID=455938775363467224

Chalkbeat, Subsidiary of Ed Deform, Beats the Anti-ATR Drum

...why should they talk to working teachers when Students First and others pay people to spout The Gospel According to Gates and Walmart, both of whom fund Chalkbeat?... NYC Educator

Have you been wondering about the obsession of ed deformers over the ATR question, not exactly the most pressing education issue of our time? I and others have talked about what is behind this. But count on their shills in the press to keep the issue going hot and heavy.

Chalkbeat, that paragon of ed deform journalism, once again leads with the ATR issue in Monday's morning report

Rise & Shine: Who is in New York City's controversial Absent Teacher Reserve?  Five things we still don’t know about who is in New York City’s Absent Teacher Reserve

By Daniela Brighenti  -  

Oh, goody -- they are finally going to talk to ATRs to get some answers. Let's see now:

A 2014 report from the advocacy group TNTP estimated that 25 percent of teachers in the ATR pool then had been brought up on disciplinary charges. 

You mean that TNTP, founded by Michelle Rhee 20 years ago? Now there's a group to believe. I wonder if they contribute to Chalkbeat.

Let's see, maybe after TNTP they actually talked to some ATRs:

Even if teachers are strong performers when excessed from their schools, one principal told us, the time they spend outside the classroom and in the ATR could be harmful, since they are unlikely to receive the same professional development as teachers in full-time positions.

Of course, go talk to principals and cite "some critics":

New York City principals balk at plan to place teachers in their schools; some vow to get around it

More principals' opinions -- this one is a fun one:

some critics have raised concerns that the teachers would be placed primarily in low-income areas of the city, in the struggling schools likely to suffer most from teacher vacancies.

Wow - they are so worried about placing ATRs in low income areas but have no qualms about hiring brand new teachers. Yeah, trust principals.

This is the Chalkbeat lead-in:

Much of the debate around the Absent Teacher Reserve revolves around the qualifications of the teachers in the pool, and what kinds of schools they work in. We rounded up questions we've asked the education department and union officials about the ATR, but haven't gotten answers to. ... Chalkbeat

Really? Much of the ed deform debate we read (here, here, here)
revolves around how ATRs are treated, how they are products of bad ed policy and bad union policy, how fair student funding incentivizes principals to not hire high salaried people, etc.
I think of the great crew of teachers we met last year in the struggle over the closing of JHS 145 in the Bronx. Are some of them ATRs?  Our CPE1 pals could have very easily been ATRs if they were found guilty of even the most minor charge -- their principal was removed the day after they were exonerated - proving she fabricated the charges -- we believe in consort with higher ups at the DOE - yet she is still functioning somewhere in the DOE.

After all, she vus just following orders.

But Chalkbeat must present the anti-ATR position and they do so by raising questions they don't have answers to -- a tactic used to create doubt. They have been criticized for not talking to ATRs -- there are only a thousand and I guess they are hard to find -- though we see them all over the blogs.

DRAIN THE POOL A new policy for placing educators from the Absent Teacher Reserve into schools -- even potentially against a principal's will -- has raised many questions and pushback. Here's what we still don't know about the educators who are in the pool, despite multiple requests for information. Chalkbeat

Look at the title -- Drain the Pool -- remind you of someone we know who was going to drain something but loaded it with more swamp creatures. But then again deformers try to brand ATRs as swamp creatures.

[By the way - at least one reader claimed I was mistaken to say I was an ATR back in 1967-1968 when I was exactly that - we were on the organization sheet under that category- but on one school.]

Arthur did good job of savaging Chalkbeat - read it here:

Monday, August 07, 2017

Reformy Chalkbeat Doubles Down on ATRs, Informs Readers It Knows Nothing

Attacks on ATRs is Spear at All Teachers Plus Why Not Have a Permanent Corps of ATRS

Obviously, this is about more than placing a few hundred teachers out of a system of 80,000 to teach classes that don't have a regular teacher over a month into the school year. Ed deform leaders know that if they finish off our seniority rights, it's basically over for the unionized teaching workforce (see Chicago teachers for some evidence). Ending seniority rights altogether is the holy grail of union busting that Joel Klein pushed for and is still the treasured goal of the zealots who want to destroy our profession. ... James Eterno, the ICE Caucus Blog

The other day I raised the issue of why the billionaire backed ed deform movement - On "Fair" Student Funding, ATRs, Chalkbeat Deformer Reporting with such shill organizations as Families for Excellent Schools (FES), Students First, Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) are so obsessed with the fates of a relatively few ATRS, people who are on the margin of the system - people who have in essence reduced the need for hiring pile of substitute teachers by creating a permanent, though often unwilling, pool of people to do a necessary job.

I mean, why not actually create an ATR pool of volunteers to that job in some kind of organized manner? I was an ATR for a year and a half in one school at the beginning of my career. By covering classes I learned a lot -- it was a good training ground -- and when there was no one absent they assigned me to handle a bunch of other issues that the school never had people to take care --- even helping in the supply room --- remember those days when we had loaded supply rooms?

There is a corps of Homebound teachers who visit kids who are sick. Why not an ATR pool, especially for newbie people who can benefit from a hands on training period?

But of course the attacks on ATRs is part of the decade assault on seniority, teaching as a career, union protections, tenure, etc --- call it---

The Road to Making Teachers Individual Contract Workers 

James Eterno has an important piece delving into the history of that is a must read--

THE REAL AIM OF THE RENEWED ATTACK ON ATRS IS TO BUST UNION

I would not have framed it as just an attack to bust the union -- after all as James points out, the UFT agreeing to the 2005 contract was a peg on the road to the union busting itself.

At pre-2005 city council hearings on education - run by Eva Moskowitz -- Randi testified agreeing with Joel Klein in essence on seniority transfers. Klein at that point claimed that the transfers drained poor schools of senior teachers -- barely true as the rules allowed many loopholes --- a shill ed deform argument -- and then flipped the argument by claiming senior teachers were burned out.

You may hate Klein - but admit he was a genius in running rings around Randi - he is one of the great heroes of ed deform despite proving to be so incompetent in a everything else -- I mean the guy can't hold one job for very long - other than his 8 years in office -- if not for the UFT compliance he would have been an object failure even at ed deform -- his greatest success -- even greater than the victory over Microsoft.

Klein owes oh so much to Randi Weingarten.

Farina to Principals - Wink, Wink - Go Get Em - Schools With Placed ATRs Must Absorb Salaries

At the very least, one Bronx principal said, he’d be wary of the hire. “If someone automatically puts an ATR into my school,” he said, “I would go in there and observe them quite a bit.” --- Chalkbeat

Chalkbeat as usual doesn't get to the heart of the matter. That the DOE is making sure not to provide financial backing to schools taking ATRs - schools I am betting will be chosen based on the ability of the principal to be especially vicious. Note not one contact from the reporter with a comment from an ATR.

They are walking in with targets on their backs.

Mulgrew of course is exposed as a sham supporter of ATRs - instead of screaming about the fair student funding formula he says this:

Principals have historically exaggerated the impact on their school budget of hiring someone from the ATR pool,” he said in a statement. “We have found the impact of hiring a more experienced teacher, whether from the open market or the ATR pool, does not derail a school budget.”

What a crock - of course the higher salary impacts a school budget -- that was the very purpose of Fair Student Funding in the first place -- to incentivize principals to do salary dumps. As usual the UFT comes up on the wrong side of the issue.

The article does at least point up the UFT flip-flop in providing financial support to the school.

Ironically, this is an issue the UFT set out to tackle in its 2014 contract with the Department of Education. A provision in the contract states that schools that hire an ATR teacher would not have that teacher’s salary included in the school’s average teacher salary calculation. That agreement stood for both the 2015–16 and 2016–17 school years. 

“Principals no longer have a reason to pass over more senior educators in favor of newer hires with lower salaries,” the UFT promised in a statement on the 2014 contract posted online.

During the 2016–17 school year, the DOE also offered two options for subsidizing the salaries of ATR members. The first subsidized the costs of permanent ATR hires by 50 percent the first year and 25 percent the next. The second allowed principals to have the full cost of the teacher’s salary subsidized for the 2016–17 year. Ultimately, a total of 372 teachers were hired with those incentives last year. 

But starting in the upcoming school year, neither of those policies will be in place. Schools will not receive the incentives and the salaries of ATR teachers will be included in a school’s average teacher salary once they are permanently hired. 

The UFT declined to comment on the apparent flip-flop, and neither the UFT nor the city’s Department of Education could estimate the average number of years of experience of teachers in the pool.

The article by Daniela Brighenti is oh-so leaning in the direction of the ed deform attacks on ATRs -- behind which is an attack on teacher tenure protections. Daniela might have reached out to some ATRs to get their take -- maybe she thought she would catch something.

This is the lead blurb.

ATR FUNDING When members of the Absent Teacher Reserve are placed this fall, schools will incur the full cost of the new hires, without incentives the city has provided in the past. Chalkbeat

Did Chalkbeat funder Families for Excellent Schools (I'm guessing here) write this piece?

At the top of their article it says: support independent journalism -- my biggest laugh of the day - so far.

Look at the photo that leads their piece -FES gets 20 people out - probably paid - and that becomes the lede.

Look at their headline:

draining the pool [echo of Trump draining the swamp]

New York City’s plan to place teachers from its Absent Teacher Reserve pool could take a bite out of school budgets

Here is the complete article:

 http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2017/08/03/new-york-citys-plan-to-place-teachers-from-its-absent-teacher-reserve-pool-could-take-a-bite-out-of-school-budgets/

Buying the So-called Ed Press: Bill and Melinda Drop a Half Million on Chalkbeat

Purpose: to inform low-income parents and parents of color in Newark, Detroit, and New York about K-12 education

Amount: $525,042

Sure -- to really "inform" low-income parents of color or to propagandize for ed deform policies of Bill Gates?

I remember back when I used to go to Gotham/Chalkbeat events when we raised questions about their donors the response was that Randi also gives them money and even that I had given them $50. Trying to equivocate what Randi and I might give with Gates alone makes the reporting more than suspect.

I think it important to understand and analyze what biased coverage is and Chalkbeat must be looked at as much as what they don't cover as what they do and how they do or don't do it. We know Gates is against opt out so watch CB coverage of that issue - it will be subtle how they lean in to Gates' issues. And you will never see a word of criticism about all the Gates failures in ed policy. We know Gates is not pro-Trump so we might see a more aggressive crit of Betsy DeVos than we saw about Duncan and King -- even though when you shake those trees a lot of the same crap comes out of the leaves.

Gates Foundation: How We Work

Grant

Chalkbeat, Inc.

---

Date: October 2016
Purpose: to inform low-income parents and parents of color in Newark, Detroit, and New York about K-12 education
Amount: $525,042
Term: 18
Topic: Global Policy & Advocacy
Program: United States
Grantee Location: New York, New York
Grantee Website: http://www.chalkbeat.org
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database/Grants/2016/10/OPP1159098

Chalkbeat Desparate to Prove Charter Co-locos work by ignoring those that don't

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Although some members of the community objected to Success Academy’s co-location, as school leaders, we felt it was our responsibility to make the best of sharing our space. When our schools work together, we’ve found that our students reap real rewards.”

— Jonathan Dant and Erin Lynch, whose schools share a building in Bensonhurst --- Chalkbeat

One of several posts that CB has run praising the purported benefits of co-locations. A function of their Gates grants?

I was at the PEP last week where another charter was shoved into a public school - 100 people from the school showed up to show this was inappropriate.

Here are the first 3 stories from the June 30 CB Rise and Shine where the negative story on Eva and charter co-locos is bracketed by positive stories. Note how they first present something that tries to make Eva look good - I don't believe it. I know what people at Seth Low think of Eva.


CO-LOCATION VICTORY The principals of Success Academy Bensonhurst and I.S. 96 Seth Low explain how a formerly contentious co-location ended up helping both schools. Chalkbeat
CO-LOCATION CONCERNS Williamsburg's J.H.S. 50 is a Renewal school showing signs of improvement. But its principal says it is being squeezed by the space demands of a Success Academy charter school that shares its building. New York Times
CHARTERS GET A BOOST Editorial: Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, argues that changes to state funding and a major national grant from the Walton Family Foundation will help charter schools thrive. New York Post

MORE CB pro-coloco posts.

http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2015/06/26/raise-your-hand-where-are-co-located-schools-working-well-together/#.V3bMupD3arU


http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2015/08/28/what-makes-a-school-co-location-work/#.V3bNIJD3arU

http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2016/06/29/first-person-years-after-co-location-fight-two-principals-say-sharing-space-has-made-both-schools-better/#.V3bNQpD3arU

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/media-center/press-releases/2012/12/gates-foundation-invests-nearly-25-million-in-seven-cities

Chalkbeat Bias: A litany of Anti- Opt out editorials

Take a look at this morning's Rise and Shine and what do you see? All anti-opt out but not much from the other side -- and there is so much out there I can't even keep up. But we know the so-called press supports the ed deform agenda. The deformers have not only bought Cuomo.

These in particular, expose the bias at Chalkbeat:

Errol Louis writes that the teachers union's call for parents to withdraw their children from taking the tests threatens to undermine the movement, which he argues is wrongheaded anyway because "high-stakes testing is, for better or worse, the norm in our complex modern society."

• NY Daily News

The Buffalo News weighs into the debate, also tying the opt-out movement to one that is being "driven by" the state teachers union.

• Buffalo News

Really? I know the people at Chalkbeat know full well the union, in particular the UFT, has played little role in what is a grassroots parent movement (as opposed to the astroturfs so often promoted by Chalkbeat). Yet this headline without comment allows the lie to go out -- a distortion of the real world. Chalkbeat reporters contact Change the Stakes asking for opt out information. (They won't get that from the UFT, which has done nothing to assist the opt out movement - and in fact, has obstructed it - see the turn down of the MORE testing reso at the March DA.)

In fact, CTS has so much info unbiased reporting would lead to offering the alternative view.

They can't use the excuse that they are just listing articles in the news without any comment -- in the old days of Gotham they at least used to offer the counter arguments from the blogs in their evening report.

I would tell you to go comment but really, why bother?

gut check

Parents who have been outspoken critics of the state's testing policies say they won't go so far as to opt their children out of taking the exams when they are administered this week.

• New York Times

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie raised concerns the growing push by parents to keep their children from taking tests, questioning "if the system can be looked upon fairly if some kids are taking (tests) and some are not.”

• Buffalo News

In an editorial, the Daily News offers a similar argument, writing that tests "are the sole apples-to-apples tool" for comparing teacher quality and "the only way to know whether 1.1 million kids in city public schools, including many hundreds of thousands who are in veritable educational wastelands, are really learning."

• NY Daily News

UPDATED: 1250 Broadway - den of ed deform - Chalkbeat Cozy With Ed Deformers: Chalkbeat NY and New Classrooms (Joel Rose's company) all share office space

Hi Norm,

Your post about Chalkbeat's office space gets a few significant things wrong. Here's what's actually happening:

1. Chalkbeat rents a room from New Classrooms. No special arrangements. We're paying tenants of office space. 

2. Lightsail no longer works in this space, and hasn't for as long as we have. 

3. We have disclosed our rental arrangement with New Classrooms wherever the organization has appeared in Chalkbeat since we moved here, including the Rise & Shine that you say didn't note that link. Not sure how you could miss it. I quote: 

Class Size Matters' Leonie Haimson is criticizing a $420,000 city contract for New Classrooms, a personalized math program that was developed inside the Department of Education and now operates as an independent nonprofit. (Disclosure: Chalkbeat rents office space from New Classrooms.)

We did the same in a recent story about the iZone, which you can read here. 

I'd appreciate it if you would quickly correct your post. If you have any questions, as always, you can reach out to me directly.

Thanks, 

Sarah Darville

 ===

EXCLUSIVE: Ex-Education Department official’s $420K contract violates ethics rules, critics say --- New Classrooms, started by [Chalkbeat roomie] Joel Rose, was granted a one-year contract for $420,750 in federal grant money to operate a learning program Rose created while working for the city. Critics say Rose promised the services free of charge in a previous deal... Daily News

I guess things still might get sticky when Chalkbeat people run into Joel Rose, who ran the School of One (another scam) under Joel Klein, at the water cooler if they did actual reporting.

Chalkbeat, Lightsail and New Classrooms all share offices in the same building.  Lightsail is selling itself as the ELA online platform as New Classrooms is doing for math....

Gideon Stein is the the CEO of LightSail and treasurer (!) of the board of Chalkbeat, on the board of New Classrooms, GreenDot, Teach Plus, Stand for Children; former VP of Success Academy Charters, and still apparently on the Upper West Success board.  Also, on the board of  Moriah Fund,^[9] a private foundation.

So as Sarah points out Lightsail is not in that space but the connection to Stein seems to still be there.

Gideon Stein is a top-level ed deformer. Note that when Gotham went to Chalkbeat all the nightly reports of the blogs, which were the only places to read exposures of ed deform, were dropped.

Joel Rose is giving them a deal on the space? Is that corrupt?

But you all knew that Chalkbeat was not independent journalism. But then again neither is the NY Times -but there is no reason not to believe that Chalkbeat is an agent of ed deform.

Here is an interesting example regarding the conflict of interest over Joel Rose and his company, New Classrooms. Rose used his position as a Joel Klein hire at the DOE to make his bundle. Here is how Leonie Haimson, who has been on the Joel Rose case for years, reported the story.

Joel Rose and School of One get new NYC contract that violates conflict of interest rules and the terms of his earlier contract

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2014/10/joel-rose-and-school-of-one-get-new-nyc.html.

NY Daily News reported that last month, the Panel for Educational Policy approved a contract for New Classrooms to teach math in city middle schools via an online program called the School of One.  The contract  charges the city nearly $200 per student for the licensing fee: “An estimated 2,220 students will be enrolled in the School of One program at a cost of $420,750 for license fees ($191.25 per student)."  This is the second contract granted New Classrooms; the original one was granted in January 2012.

Joel Rose, a former chief of staff to Deputy Chancellor Chris Cerf, created School of One while at DOE, starting in February 2009.  He developed the algorithm and the program along with Chris Rush, a consultant then working for Wireless Generation, now headed by former Chancellor Joel Klein for Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp.   

Really, Mulgrew can crow all he wants about change of tone at Tweed and the PEP, but the games go on.

Of course the algorithm and methodology inherent in the School of One program was developed by Rose while he worked for the DOE – and would remain fully confidential.  The city’s Conflict of interest rules also say a former employee “may never work on a particular matter or project that you were directly involved in while employed by the City.” 

Yet somehow, despite the fact that Rose is head of the company and his company would clearly benefit from the contract, the conflict of interest rules were waived. 

Chalkbeat had a link to the Daily News story featuring Leonie in Rise and Shine: http://ny.chalkbeat.org/2014/10/20/rise-shine-state-expected-to-approve-career-focused-regents-exam-swap/#.VEkqfsm2Wk0

The link was buried near the bottom - with no mention that the conflict of interest was about one of their roomies.

Here is the DN link: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/exclusive-ex-ed-dept-official-420k-contract-violates-ethics-rules-critics-article-1.1979272

And some financials on the interlocking directorates of ed deform.

http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=251769438

LightSail Inc., an ed tech company, provides a tablet-based literacy platform for grades K-12 that combines tools to drive student growth. Its LightSail includes a personalized library of books for each student drawn from various acclaimed titles; an interactive e-reader with tools to support active reading and fast feedback; Lexile and Common Core-aligned assessments embedded in every text; real-time and actionable data for teachers and administrators; and Common Core State standards scaffolding for students and teachers. LightSail Inc. has a strategic partnership with Clever. The company was founded in 2012 and is based in New York, New York.

Mr. Gideon Stein

Chief Executive Officer

Ms. Marian Pho

Director of Operations

Ms. Jessica Marshall

Chief Strategy Officer

Ms. Jessica Reid Sliwerski

Chief Academic Officer

Ms. Melissa Loeffler

Director of Professional Learning

Address: 1250 Broadway
30th Floor
New York, NY 10001

LightSail Education Signs Strategic Partnership with Clever to Seamlessly Integrate Student Information System

Feb 25 14

LightSail Education announced that it signed a strategic partnership with Clever to seamlessly integrate student information system (SIS) data with its LightSail literacy platform. The collaboration will make it easier for schools to expedite and manage access to LightSail's expansive eLibrary containing thousands of digital books from virtually every major publisher as well as hundreds of smaller ones. The LightSail platform provides students with tablet-based libraries and embeds assessments and analytics in students' texts, monitoring their Lexile measures, Common Core State Standards progress and reading habits. For teachers, it delivers real-time data along with tools designed to support best literacy instruction practices in classrooms. The Clever integration allows effortless sign-on to LightSail, no longer requiring teachers to track multiple log-ons. It also provides a secure connection to a school's SIS, pulls student enrollment rosters and demographic data, and automatically syncs that data with the LightSail literacy platform.

http://brfny.org/community/gideon-stein/

Gideon Stein, CEO of LightSail, has raised over $50 million for education reform-related not for profit organizations and serves on the board of a foundation with an endowment in excess of $100 million that funds education reform around the globe. He is Vice Chairman of the Education News Network, Green Dot New York Charter High School, and New Classrooms, the nation’s leading organization focused on delivering individualized instruction. He co-founded and was formerly President of Future Is Now Schools, and was founder, Chairman, and CEO of the enterprise messaging company Omnipod, Inc. (now a division of Symantec.

New Classrooms | LinkedIn

www.linkedin.com/company/new-classrooms?trk=top_nav...

LinkedIn

Headquarters. 1250 Broadway New York, NY 10001 United States ... Gideon Stein · Gideon Stein: Director. Robert "Swan" Swanwick [linkedin@swanwick.com].

Chalkbeat Overview - Company Information - aiHit

endb-consolidated.aihit.com/01134933/overview.htm

Oct 14, 2014 - ... currently serving in an advisory capacity: Sue Lehmann, Gideon Stein, and Jill Barkin. ... 1250 Broadway, 30th floor New York, NY 10001 ny ...

Parent Activists Expose Chalkbeat Bias in Letter to Editor

We are concerned that your inadequate and one-sided coverage of the forced privatization of our schools has been unduly influenced by the same forces that have biased the Governor – the huge pocketbooks of the organizations and financiers that back them.  ...

Is Chalkbeat a wholly owned subsidiary of Walmart?

Chalkbeat’s failure to assign a reporter to the event  glaringly contrasts with your close and detailed coverage of every move made by the charter operators and their backers.  Indeed, you published two different stories on the charter march across the Brooklyn Bridge, three different stories on the Albany rally for charters (though you failed to disclose that Gov. Cuomo was actually behind it) ,  and  on March 29  you ran two stories on reactions to the budget bills, BOTH from the point of view of the charter operators.  ...Letter from parents elected to public school community education councils

We know all about the bias at Charter - er - Chalkbeat - even worse then when they were Gotham. Look at the lame response that they can't cover everything -- the hypocrisy of which this letter notes. But also note how they tried to bury this letter from parents who are actually elected in their local Community Education Council school districts. Compare this to the coverage charters, which often don't even allow PTAs, get.

Some disagree with calling on Chalkbeat to attend and report on our events because they will shade them to look inconsequential. "Better no coverage than Chalkbeat coverage" is one mantra. Let them spend their time reporting on their fellow ed deform fundee, E4E.

Leonie commented

Interesting no mention of the words of “charters” or “co-location” in the title.  A very thin and unconvincing response.  No mention or link to the letter on the homepage, in their morning newsletter, or anywhere else that I can find. 

Read the letter and comment -- if you can (I couldn't)
.
http://ny.chalkbeat.org/2014/04/23/email-to-the-editor-state-budget-protest-coverage-inadequate/

Here is the entire letter and Chalkbeat response. 

Two weeks ago, members of the city’s Community Education Councils protested the state budget deal outside the New York Public Library and then marched to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s New York City office. Chalkbeat covered the event with a short post (“Rally against state budget draws hundreds to midtown“) and received the following letter to the editor in response:

Dear Chalkbeat:
We are writing to protest your inadequate coverage of the April 10th rally and march on the Governor’s office. Outraged by the charter giveaway that Governor Cuomo engineered with the help of the Legislature in this year’s state budget bill, many hundreds of parents, teachers and students gathered on the steps of the NY Public Library before marching  to the Governor’s office.

This unprecedented rally, organized primarily by Community Education Council members citywide, in just a week,grew out the anger and betrayal felt by parents and community members at the way the Governor and legislature essentially gave away NYC public schools  to millionaire education investors.

Rather than sending one of your reporters to cover this event, you only posted a short blurb clearly taken from the press release after the fact.

Chalkbeat’s failure to assign a reporter to the event  glaringly contrasts with your close and detailed coverage of every move made by the charter operators and their backers.  Indeed, you published two different stories on the charter march across the Brooklyn Bridge, three different stories on the Albany rally for charters (though you failed to disclose that Gov. Cuomo was actually behind it) ,  and  on March 29  you ran two stories on reactions to the budget bills, BOTH from the point of view of the charter operators.

Even more importantly, you have failed to cover any of the substantive issues and reasons behind our anger, including how unprecedented these charter provisions are, how they apply only to NYC, how they will  detract from the city’s already underfunded capital plan and cost the taxpayers millions of dollars, while thousands of public school students will continue sit in trailers or in overcrowded classrooms, without art, music, science or therapy and counseling rooms, or on waiting lists for Kindergarten.

The very headline on the short ex-post facto blurb you ran on the  rally omitted any mention of the charter school issue, Your summary of the charter provisions in the budget bill as “safeguards for charters” was biased enough to have been written by the charter lobby itself.  In reality, the bill forces PREFERENTIAL treatment for charters, not safeguards.  There are overcrowded school communities in NYC that have been waiting for over 20 years for a public school to be built for their children, and they will continue to wait, while hedge-fund backed charters will now automatically receive space, on demand and free of charge.

It has not escaped our attention that the Walton Foundation helped finance the expansion of GothamSchools into Chalkbeat, and that the same organization is a prominent backer of the school privatization movement and contributed to the virulent $5 million ad campaign that directly led to the preferential provisions in the state law.  Your organization also counts among its financial backers many other prominent charter school supporters and board members, including the Gates Family Foundation,  Whitney Tilson, Boykin Curry, Paul Appelbaum , Ken Hirsch, Charles Ledley,  Kate Shoemaker and others.

In order  to appear unbiased by the sources of your funding and safeguard any journalistic credibility, your organization  should  cover the  point of view of the thousands of NYC public school parents who, though we may not be wealthy,  feel that our children have been dispossessed, displaced, and potentially evicted from their public schools, cheated out of their fair share of space.  We, too, represent an important constituency in the debate over privatization, and constitute an important voice to be heard.   We are concerned that your inadequate and one-sided coverage of the forced privatization of our schools has been unduly influenced by the same forces that have biased the Governor – the huge pocketbooks of the organizations and financiers that back them.

We urge you to publish this letter in your blog and respond to it.
Yours sincerely,
Shino Tanikawa, CECD2
Leonie Haimson, Class Size Matters
Lisa Donlan, CEC1
Teresa Arboleda, CCELL
Eric Goldberg, CECD2
Deborah Alexandar, CECD30
Theresa Hammonds, CECD3
David Goldsmith, CECD13
Ann Kjellberg
Valerie Williams, CECD75
Rachel Paster
Angela Garces, CECD6
Beth Cirone, CECD2
Ellen McHugh, CCSE
Victoria Frye, CECD6
Miriam Farer, CECD6
Isaac Carmignani, CECD30
Eduardo Hernandez, CECD8
Amy Shire, CECD13
Michelle Kupper, CECD15
Jordan Margolis, CECD14
Debbie Feiner, CECD14
Organizational affiliations for identification purpose only

Chalkbeat responds - ho, hum

The bottom line is that the protest was clearly well-attended and unique in its CEC-wide organization, and we wish we had been there.

We make decisions about coverage every day based on the fact that we can’t be at every relevant event in the city or it would be impossible for us to provide any deeper coverage of these issues. We regularly attend, and skip, events that reflect a variety of viewpoints. That’s why we work to keep readers informed about events we don’t make it to with posts like the one we wrote about this protest.

Those decisions have everything to with our sense of how we can best add to the “education conversation” happening across the city, and nothing to do with our funders—who make it possible to do what we do, but don’t influence our coverage.

Other feedback? We’re all ears.