Showing posts with label Education Nation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Education Nation. Show all posts

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Bloomberg May Delete DOE and Police Dept Emails as Tweed Mole Speaks to Ravitch

Ed Deform ship listing badly
Bloomberg touts false numbers as “evidence” of “success” while the voices of independent researchers are silenced. For example, Aaron Callas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, was refused access to data after finding that the achievement gap did not close under Bloomberg. ... Tweed Mole
If the UFT is really serious about a truth commission, they ought to file now....Leonie Haimson
I know a mole inside the New York City Department of Education. He/she knows how the DOE manipulates data to burnish the mayor’s image. This is a good reason to oppose mayoral control of the schools. He/she says the mayor’s small schools close with regularity; that the data cannot be trusted; that the Department has shown preference to charter schools but they got lower scores on the Common Core tests than the public schools. Most shocking: the DOE intends to delete all the emails on its computers.  Quick, someone file a FOIL before it’s too late.... Diane Ravitch
They close and open schools, just like a day trader flips stocks. They refuse to take ownership of the schools under their charge and decline to commit to ensuring their success. Of course, in this case, the stock shares are schools with roots in a community and tens of thousands of children. What do the numbers say is the end result all this? The schools opened under Bloomberg are shuttered at the same rate as older schools, leading to an overall profit of zero.  ... The Mole
Leonie Haimson writes:
I know there was an article about the DOE and many other city agencies deleting emails before Bloomberg leaves office, but can’t find it now.  Can someone locate the clip for me?  

DNAInfo: With 3 Months Left, Bloomberg Admin Has No Plan to Save Many City Emails

The UFT or some good govt group with access to legal help ought to file a restraining order before it’s too late!  The only way we found out about IN ed commissioner Tony Bennett’s manipulation of the school grading system to favor a politically connected charter – and to use his office and staff illegally for campaign purposes  --was through emails left on their server that remained after he lost his position in an election.  
Just watch the post-Bloomberg storm that will emerge from former Tweedies looking to get on the right side as the ed deform ship begins to list further than the Costa Concordia — except this ed deform ship cannot be salvaged.

The following is from Diane Ravitch's blog; 

http://dianeravitch.net/2013/09/19/nyc-whistle-blower-how-the-doe-is-like-enron /

The mole writes:
“A Bad Business: The Bankruptcy of Education Policy”
Mike Bloomberg, in his recent interview with the magazine New York, admitted to following the companies run by his friends as economic barometers of New York City’s conditions. According to his website, “Mike has made education reform the focal point of his agenda,” an agenda dominated by applying business ideas to New York City’s schools.

Are the profit margins of huge corporations truly “indicators,” as Bloomberg claims, of how the citizens of New York City are doing? Does his application of business ideas actually improve schools for children? Let’s examine the evidence to see how the next mayor can do better.

Day trader versus business owner. Under Bloomberg, the bureaucrats at Tweed see themselves as “portfolio managers.” Just like day traders, they take no responsibility for the success or failure of the shares in their portfolio. They close and open schools, just like a day trader flips stocks. They refuse to take ownership of the schools under their charge and decline to commit to ensuring their success. Of course, in this case, the stock shares are schools with roots in a community and tens of thousands of children. What do the numbers say is the end result all this? The schools opened under Bloomberg are shuttered at the same rate as older schools, leading to an overall profit of zero. What should the next mayor do? Like a small-business owner who works as hard as possible to ensure her business succeeds, he must put children first and hold the education bureaucrats accountable for the success of each and every school in New York City.

Enron-like accounting practices versus independent auditor. Under Bloomberg, the Department of Education fudges and manipulates numbers to serve their political ends. They refuse to open up their complete data sets to independent researchers at universities who publish results in peer-reviewed journals. Sometimes they release limited data to friendly “think” tanks or to organizations that need to maintain their good will. These paid advertisers publish favorable “reports” in order to continue to have access to the seemingly top secret data. 

Now they plan on deleting all emails from the Department of Education right before Bloomberg leaves office, just like Arthur Anderson and Enron. 

What is the end result of all this? Bloomberg touts false numbers as “evidence” of “success” while the voices of independent researchers are silenced. For example, Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, was refused access to data after finding that the achievement gap did not close under Bloomberg. 

What should the next mayor do? Just like an honest business has its results audited by an independent accounting firm, he must put children first and create an independent panel of researchers who are guaranteed full access to all DOE data. The reports of the panel should be made public and should inform education policy decisions in the city.

Crony capitalism versus fair business practices. Under Bloomberg, select schools are favored and granted unfair financial advantages over other schools. New schools that opened under Bloomberg are given more money per student than other schools. Charter schools are given more money per student, including free-of-charge public school space, than other schools. Favored schools are granted extra money through mysterious appeals and special grants. This is similar to business practices in corrupt countries where relatives and friends of the ruling family are granted monopolies and other unfair advantages in business. 

What should the next mayor do? He should put children first and institute a set of fair business practices under which all schools receive the full share of funding they are entitled to based on the students they serve.

Buyer beware versus fiduciary duty. For years credit card companies and other financial firms used small print and legalese to rip-off customers. Companies are now required to abide by consumer rights laws. Under Bloomberg, a complicated and frustrating high school application process has been deceptively advertised as choice for students. While some parents and students have the time and patience to navigate the process others do not.
What is the end result? Vast differences in student enrollment patterns between schools. The 10% of schools with the highest special education enrollment rates average 27.4% students with special needs. The 10% of schools with the lowest special education enrollment rates average 4.5% students with special needs. The 10% of schools with the highest English Language Learner enrollment rates average 40.8% (not including specialized schools for new immigrants). The 10% of schools with the lowest English Language Learner enrollment rates average 1%. Screened and specialized schools have a student body that is extremely unrepresentative of New York City’s children. 

What should the next mayor do? He must put children first and ensure that every student has the opportunity to attend a quality school with a diverse student body that allows students to build the skills needed to function in our global economy and international city.

False advertising versus truth in advertising. Under Bloomberg, schools were supposedly being run along the lines of a business. It is now clear that this was false advertising and the “business” practices employed have bankrupted many a corporation. Ideology has determined policy rather than data and evidence. 

Charter schools were touted as putting public schools to shame while the data showing that charters do not serve similar student populations and get rid of underperforming students was ignored. Then the test scores of the new common core exams were released and charter schools performed significantly worse than public schools. This data was ignored. 

If Coca Cola had followed a similar “business” approach they would have continued to market “New Coke” and bankrupted the entire company. What should the next mayor do? He must put children first and ensure that all children have access to a quality early childhood education program. The economic data shows such programs have very high returns on investment and more than pay for themselves over time. We need a mayor who is willing to employ honest business practices such as ownership, honest accounting, fairness, and responsibility to the consumer in improving our schools.

All amazing points that the corrupt and corrosive education press like Education Nation will ignore. Not only ignore but laud the ship as it sinks.

Monday, September 24, 2012

Did Education Nation Blacklist Me for a Press Pass?

I have a funny feeling The Wave will not be invited back [to Education Nation] next year. -- Ed Notes, September 30, 2011
Hi Norm,
Unfortunately, I’m way over capacity at the moment for press. I will add you to the waitlist and see if something opens up before Sunday. Everything is streaming on EducationNation.com.
Meghan
"I've never heard of a claim of overcapacity for press before." --- a knowledgeable source.

[See previous post: NBC's Education Nation: [Laughably] One-Sided Once Again? Where is Karen Lewis?]

Education Nation press pass blacklist?
As the Education Editor of The Wave, having received a press pass last year, I figured there would be no problem this time. When I received the email from the Education Nation press office telling me there was no more room, I remembered what I wrote a year ago: I have a funny feeling The Wave will not be invited back [to Education Nation] next year. But to be sure, I asked again today after the teacher town hall and was denied again.

Funny, but I was sitting with people who were not even press who had received passes. It was like they were practically handing them out on the street.

Yes, I shouldn't have been surprised that my prediction of year ago came true. Here is an excerpt from my Sept. 30, 2011 column:
I had a chance to do a WAVE one-on-one with NBC News chief Steve Capus, the major domo of Education Nation. I’ll let Huffington Post education reporter Joy Resmovits [Huffington Post] describe the encounter:
While some lauded the increased balance and depth at this year's Education Nation, retired New York City teacher and Grassroots Education Movement member Norm Scott gave Capus an earful on Tuesday. "People see an absence of the word 'class size' in these debates," he told Capus. "This notion that somehow we're skewed too close to the reformers, I just don't buy it and completely disagree," Capus responded. "How did a guy like Jonathan Alter end up as an expert on Sunday night's panel?" Scott asked. He was referring to the Bloomberg columnist and MSNBC contributor who has taken hard-line stances on charter schools and teacher evaluations. "We had Jonathan Alter and 300 teachers," Capus countered.

I have a funny feeling The Wave will not be invited back next year.
And so it has come to pass. I wonder if the NY Times was told to cover Education Nation by watching the live stream.

After my Capus caper, I entered the world of Rheedom when I saw her on a pane and I was able to get to the microphone. The panel was moderated by Rahema Ellis and she questioned  a former school board member from Atlanta about the cheating scandal. I was incredulous that Ellis only talked about the cheating scandal in Atlanta with super-cheat Rhee sitting right next to her. I asked Ellis how can she was ignoring the cheating scandal in DC under Rhee - Rhee looked like she swallowed a frog and said it was minor and under investigation [which ended up being whitewashed]. Subversives usually don't get to confront her publicly, which might explain why I am on a wait list for a press pass.

More from my Sept. 30, 2011 column in The Wave with a little more background:
I went back to Education Nation on Monday for a panel on teacher evaluation and accountability featuring Michelle Rhee the former Washington DC superintendent who was run out on a rail and now is trying to raise a billion dollars to use to undermine the nation’s public school systems. Rhee calls her organization, ahem, “Students First.” After Rhee left DC, a large cheating scandal emerged but much of it has been pushed under the rug. Another panel member had been on the school board in Atlanta, which has had a massive cheating scandal that was exposed when the state put a major team of investigators on the case. Beverly Hall, the Atlanta Superintendent had pulled down somewhere around 600 grand in bonuses for “raising” the scores. And she won’t have to give it back since she resigned while the teachers who were pressured into cheating will be fired.

NBC’s Rehema Eliis who was chairing the panel raised the Atlanta cheating issue twice with a sense of outrage while sitting right next to Rhee without bringing up her cheating scandal. So when I got to the microphone I asked why not bring up DC? Rhee, on the defensive, claimed it was only a few places (sure, without any real kind of Atlanta-like investigation) and said she welcomed an investigation, knowing full well that will never happen. The former Atlanta school board member challenged her by saying, “even if one child is affected it is an outrage” and pointed to all the good things in Atlanta being overwhelmed by the scandal, putting Rhee, glory be, further on the defensive. I’m glad I played my part.
If you saw our movie, we had an excerpt from a great clip of a 2010 Ed Nation panel with Brian Jones confronting Rhee, Canada, Randi (they love having Randi instead of people like Karen -- see if you find even a hint of Lewis at Ed Nation just one week after she lead one of the most significant ed events in a decade). Brian was NOT on the invite list last year -- or this.

Education Nation has been accused of being extremely biased toward ed deform, though in 2011 bit less biased than in 2010. If you check the panels and schedule, this year looks worse than 2010.

See Ravitch for the Education Nation Schedule

NEXT: MY DAY AT EDUCATION NATION WHERE I GET BRIAN WILLIAMS TO ADMIT HE DIDN'T TALK ABOUT THE FAILURES OF VAM EVEN THOUGH HE WAS AWARE OF IT AND THE RALLY AT "WON'T BACK DOWN."
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The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

NBC's Education Nation: [Laughably] One-Sided Once Again? Where is Karen Lewis?



You won't see Teacher Julie Cavanagh and Parent Lydia Bellahcene (A Real-Life "Won't Back Down" Story) on any Education Nation panel. Or on Anderson Cooper, who issued a call for teachers to comment on "Won't Back Down" but only if they are of the E4E type who will not be critical of the film.

Read my follow-up on how I have [so far] been denied a press pass, as I predicted a year ago, to

But I supposedly have entry to the teacher panel today at noon -- will be wearing my MORE tee to counter the see of green e4es.

The parent town hall of Education Nation:

Diane Ravitch: Please Don’t Laugh
This is the panel for the parent engagement discussion at Education Nation.
Maybe it is a joke. 
·         Rep. George Miller
·         Randi Weingartner [NOTE MISPELLING]
·         Doreen Diaz, Desert Trails Parent Union
·         Michelle Rhee
·         Joel Klein
         ·         Vanessa Bush Ford, Black Star Project/The National PTA

Is Diane laughing that Weingart[ner] would agree to be on this joke of a panel? She could have said she would only appear if Leonie Haimson were on but Randi has to sell her solutions driven-unionism anywhere she can, even if the solutions destroys public education. Just the mispelling should be enough of an insult.

A teacher commented:
Looks like "parent empowerment" is the new deform narrative for turning parents against teachers.
More scorn for education nation from Ravitch:

Will Education Nation Chose a Teacher

by dianerav
Please read Students Last, who noticed the absence of any real, actual teachers at the New York Times conference on "Schools of Tomorrow."
He says there is a rumor that NBC's "Medication Nation" might invite a physician, to add to the panel of pharmaceutical giants.
Well, here is the teacher list -- anyone see one of the 26,000 Chicago striking teachers?

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

NBC Bias on Deborah Kenny HVA Charter Scam and NY Times Trip Gabbriel Trips on Vouchers

NBC's Brian Williams is a shill for charters and ed deform
Student attrition at HVA is huge...the 66 5th graders in 2007-2008 have shrunk to just 16 9th graders in the 2010-2011 school year.  This is a 75% attrition.  In that same time, the district that the school is in went from 904 5th graders in 2007-2008 to 1313 9th graders in 2010-2011.  That is a 45% growth....  Contrary to what she preaches, teachers are her lowest priority
Why would you believe anything reported on NBC? Even more outrageous was the puff piece NBC's Today show and Brian Williams did in an interview with Harlem Village Academy founder Deborah Kenny. Leonie has done a few pieces on the school and today Gary Rubinstein tears it all apart.
An outrageous puff piece NBC's Today show and Brian Williams did on Harlem Village Academy founder Deborah Kenny. Leonie has done a few pieces on the school and today Gary Rubinstein tears it all apart. Really, if you want to see the entire charter sham exposed this is a must read piece.If NBC were fair and balanced they would have Gary or Leonie on to give the counterarguments. But NBC may be even less "fair and balanced" on school deform than even Faux FOX.

Here is Leonie's comment:

Great piece from invaluable Gary Rubinstein on the fraud that is Deborah Kenny and her charter school Harlem Village Academy. Kenny is all over TV promoting her new book, interviewed by the likes of Brian Williams and other reporters who never bother to check the stats or uncover the truth.
I would put quotes around reporter in this case. Just take this stat from Gary:

It takes a village


 Excerpt:
The reason I need to debunk miracle schools is because lawmakers use them as examples of why it is good education reform practice to close down failing schools and fire their teachers.  My purpose is to show that the good test scores, if they really have them, come at an even greater cost.  The more I can show that the ‘miracle’ schools aren’t any better than the failing schools, maybe people will be more outraged when ‘failing’ schools are shut down. The latest ‘miracle’ school getting a lot of attention is Harlem Village Academy Charter School.  The founder of the school, Deborah Kenny, recently published a book about her experience, called ‘Born To Rise.’  The school was featured on NBC with Brian Williams.
 Gary also deals with their bogus claims on regent success and teacher turnover. He contacted a former teacher at HVA who has blogged about the school. Here is her entire comment which reveals ao much.

When a school is truly great, teachers want to keep teaching there year after year.  So it should be telling that in this school over the past three years the amount of staff turnover was 2007-2008 53%, for 2008-2009, 38%, and for 2009-2010, a whopping 61%.  By comparison, the teacher attrition for the entire district in 2009-2010 was just 19%.
To me, this teacher turnover is the most alarming statistic of all.  So I tracked down a TFA alum named Sabrina Strand who taught for one year there.  Sabrina wrote an excellent blog post called ‘I’m no Superman.’  I asked her if she would give more details about her experience, and here is what she wrote:
I am more than happy to tell the truth about HVA, at least how it was when I left after the 2006-2007 school year. I’m really glad you’re dedicated to exposing the truth behind the whole TFA/charter school charade. It is very much a charade, an elaborate, expensive smoke & mirrors. HVA, as I knew it, was one of the worst offenders of creating and sustaining the myth that teachers can solve everything. Waiting for Superman infuriated me because just like HVA – just like Deborah Kenny – it sent the message that good teachers should be martyrs, not people with lives and passions of their own that happen to also be talented and passionate about educating children. I am not a martyr, and as I titled my op-ed, I am also not superman. But yet many would say I am a very good teacher. In Deborah Kenny’s world, that would be impossible.
During the 2006-2007 school year at HVA, I taught huge classes of 5th graders who were poorly behaved. The administration was weak and ineffective. Everyone, including the principal and the dean, was so stressed out that there were often medical problems. I used to take the bus up to Harlem with my co-teacher and best friend at the school, Johanna Fishbein, and we would often cry on our way to work.
The working conditions at the school were plainly unreasonable. They took advantage of young, idealistic, competent teachers; they squeezed and squeezed until there was nothing left to give, even our dignity. Deborah Kenny is LARGELY to blame for this, as we were all desperately trying to play our parts in the Deborah Kenny play – one where she produced and directed but never wrote or starred in the productions. I have zero respect for that woman. The only time she actually came into the trenches is when she was preparing the kids for some dignitary’s visit. At that time, she would talk to them like they were slow kindergarteners, and when she left, they would all ask me who she was. That’s how connected she is to the school. Yet when President Bush came to laud our teachers’ efforts for earning the highest math test scores in the city, it was Deborah who schmoozed and gave the tour, Deborah who took the credit.
Deborah Kenny and her Village Academies take advantage of budding teachers, often crushing their spirits in the process. Though we barely made more than NYC public school teachers while working seven weeks over the summer, teaching on multiple Saturdays, and averaging 12-hour work days during the week, Deborah pays herself the HIGHEST SALARY out of any charter school executive in NYC (that stat was recently published in The New York Post). She makes almost nine times as much as her teachers who are doing all the real work, the hard work, that lands her in the press so often and helps her send her own kids to tony private schools. Her “vision” is a bunch of bullshit – basically, work your teachers to death, and you’ll see results. Sure, and you’ll also see a lot of unhappy teachers, and a lot of people leaving your school and vowing to never come back.
The year I left, my entire fifth grade team left with me. Deborah refused to write letters of recommendation for any of us. Contrary to what she preaches, teachers are her lowest priority and she never has their best interests at heart. In fact, this whole thing started when her husband tragically passed away from leukemia, and she needed a massive project to keep her grief at bay. That project was Harlem and its children. She developed her miracle solution about holding teachers accountable after she had already latched onto this “save the poor black children” project as a desperate attempt to find new purpose in her life. I admire that tenacity and resilience, but not what has become of it.
No school with a 60% teacher turnover rate should be praised in the press as the model for other schools to follow. Now that I’ve taught in a relatively stable independent school for four years, I see that a school’s real success comes from its sense of community. When teachers are leaving left and right because they’re being asked to perform superhuman feats for little compensation, the idea of “community” essentially vanishes. All that holds Village Academies together is Deborah Kenny’s unrelenting ambition and greed.
Feel free to use any or all of this in your blog post. I am absolutely, 100% done with the TFA and charter school world, and I have no fear of burning my bridges. I’m one of the lucky ones; I moved across the country and found a teaching job that calls to my soul instead of giving up on education altogether like many of my peers did after their horrific experiences at HVA.

NY Times weak piece on vouchers
With the news that Michael Winerip is leaving the ed beat at the NY Times we know that the paper has basically abandoned adequate ed coverage on both the local and national ed beats. Today's Trip Gabbriel piece on the Romney Voucher program has so many holes, the space shuttle could have passed through it on its recent journey. How can you write an article on vouchers and totally ignore the failed voucher programs already in existence, as pointed out in Diane Ravitch's book where she has a whole section on the Milwaukee failed voucher program (p. 130-31):
When a team of reporters from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel examined the voucher schools... they uncovered unanticipated problems. Applicants to run voucher schools did not need any particular credentials, nor did their teachers. The journalists visited 104 out of 115 voucher schools (nine voucher schools would not let them in); they found good schools and awful schools. [many religious schools --Ed:  using public money to support religion, a major purpose of the voucher movement]. 
The reporters judged that about 10 per cent... were excellent, and the same proportion showed "alarming deficiencies."
...on the whole, the reporters concluded that "the voucher schools feel, and look, surprisingly like the schools in the Milwaukee Public Schools District."...This was not the momentous result that voucher advocates had predicted."
In other words, let's destroy the fabric of the public school system for no real gain while opening up the ability to open schools by any charlatan or religious entity.

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The opinions expressed on EdNotesOnline are solely those of Norm Scott and are not to be taken as official positions (though Unity Caucus/New Action slugs will try to paint them that way) of any of the groups or organizations Norm works with: ICE, GEM, MORE, Change the Stakes, NYCORE, FIRST Lego League NYC, Rockaway Theatre Co., Active Aging, The Wave, Aliens on Earth, etc.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Join us Tuesday, Sept. 28 to protest Education Indoctrination, NBC's non-stop propaganda

I'm all excited. My co-editor on the new video going up now deals with the GEM/CAPE – Real Reformer rally at the theater showing WFS.

Lots of discussion of the film today at the NBC sham Education Nation. I neglected the issue until today when I focused on Brian Jones' great work sitting right next to Michelle Rhee and a few feet away from Randi Weingarten, with Steve Brill in between and the head of the Gates Foundation along for the ride. Viewers might have thought Brian and Randi were allies, but of course Brian ran with the opposition to Unity and is with Teachers for a Just Contract. And has been somewhat active in GEM. Brian made a stand on merit pay and Randi waffled. Brian is a Real Reformer (he was at our rally on Friday - see my video interview with him in post below). Randi is not. I view her as a quasi ed deformer who in many ways has more in common with Rhee (who actually taught longer than Randi) than she does with Brian.

Many bloggers have been out there on this issue - see my blog roll - Failing Schools, Flowers and Sausages, Accountable Talk to name just a few.

But let's get to Tuesday's events: GEM meeting at CUNY at 4:30
But before that at 4pm:

Join Parents Across America, Class Size Matters, GEM, CAPE, and the NY Charter Parents Association at a press conference tomorrow, to protest Education Nation’s total exclusion of NYC parent voices and its unilateral presentation of views, unrivaled in its propagandistic flavor since the days of the Soviet Union.



Ed Notes will be there to tape it.

Here is a message from Leonie:


Since Sunday, NBC and MSNBC have been running a non-stop series of programs called Education Nation, touting the top-down policies of school closings, privatization, charter school expansion, teacher-bashing and high-stakes testing that have failed so miserably here in NYC to improve the quality of our public schools.  (For more on our recent test score debacle, and how NYC has fallen behind other cities since the Bloomberg/Klein policies were put in place, see my testimony today at the City Council hearings.)

At the very same time as members of the City Council, the Bronx BP Ruben Diaz and the UFT head Mulgrew were lambasting the fraudulent use of data by the DOE and the lack of positive results in terms of student achievement, MSNBC gave Bloomberg 15 minutes of uninterrupted time to read a speech on air, in which he touted the progress of schools under his command, without reporters being allowed to ask a single question.

They have invited not a single NYC public school parent onto any of their panels, and have excluded prominent critics including Diane Ravitch.   Brian Williams spent two thirds of tonight's nightly news, with rosy segments about charter schools and the movie "Waiting for Superman.”

The straw that broke the camel’s back for me was when MSNBC scheduled a show, originally entitled, “Does Education Need another Katrina?”   (For more on this, as well a critique of "Waiting for Superman," see my Huffington Post column, Education Indoctrination)

Please join Parents Across America, Class Size Matters, GEM, CAPE, and the NY Charter Parents Association at a press conference tomorrow, to protest Education Nation’s total exclusion of NYC parent voices and its unilateral presentation of views, unrivaled in its propagandistic flavor since the days of the Soviet Union.

When: Tuesday, Sept. 28 at 4 PM
Where: 50th and Rockefeller Plaza, in front of the ticket booth for the Observation deck; map here . (subway: take the B, D, F, M to Rockefeller Center.)

Please join us tomorrow and make your voices heard! 

And whether you can make it to the press conference, please send a message to  the President of NBC News, by signing the letter from Parents Across America,  here:

Email me at leonie@att.net if you’re interested in making a statement at the press conference tomorrow, and please forward this message to others who care..

Thanks,
Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011
212-674-7320
classsizematters@gmail.com
www.classsizematters.org

Follow me on twitter @leoniehaimson

GEM's Brian Jones on MSNBC at 4:30 - streaming live

Brian Jones who works with GEM and ISO will be on a panel today at NBC - unless they shoot him - with Rhee, Randi and Canada. Ed Deform apologist and slug Steve Brill will be moderating.

Brian was at our rally at WFS on Friday and I did an interview with him and another teacher from his school on how the invasion of one of Eva's schools has impacted on their school.



Brian has written a piece for the International Socialist web site that is as good as it gets. There is so much good stuff in this essay that you have to read it 3 times. He closes with this:

There's a racial dimension to these questions that can't be ignored, either. It irks me to no end to hear hedge fund managers refer to the charter school cause as the "civil rights movement of our generation." Education Secretary Arne Duncan says that Waiting for Superman is a "Rosa Parks moment."
Interestingly, Black voters in Washington, D.C. and in Harlem recently--and overwhelmingly--rejected pro-charter school candidates. That's why I think it's more appropriate to call this a Glenn Beck moment. That is, a moment when we should realize that these people are wrapping themselves in the mantle of a movement to which they bear no relation.
Dr. King once said, "The forces that are anti-Negro are by and large anti-labor." Apparently, Black voters are beginning to think that the reverse is also true.
But folks from the business world have an extremely hard time shaking off their faith in free-market principles and their hostility to unions. Evidence and research be damned.
There is more than a slight element of hypocrisy here. To hear the billionaire school reformers tell it, class size doesn't matter, resources don't matter, and experienced teachers are standing in the way of success. But when these same people spend five figures to send their kids to private schools, what do they insist on? Small classes, excellent resources and experienced teachers.
How can we make every public school a great school? Those three things--the things that the wealthy demand for their children--would be a perfect place to start.

NYC Teacher Brian Jones: What I want to say on NBC today: Stop scapegoating teachers

Answer No. 1: Stop scapegoating teachers

As part of its "Education Nation" summit, NBC invited New York City teacher Brian Jones to participate in a panel discussion on the future of the teaching profession. Joining him on the panel are Michelle Rhee, the Schools Chancellor of Washington, D.C.; Geoffrey Canada, CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone Project, a network of charter schools; Allan Golston, president of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association; and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.
The title of the panel is "Good Apples: How do we keep good teachers, throw out bad ones and put a new shine on the profession?" The discussion will stream live at MSNBC.com today at 4:45 p.m. (Eastern time).
First, though, Brian has a few thoughts to share before the bell rings.
The entire essay at Norms Notes