Ed Notes Online: Helen Gym

Showing posts with label Helen Gym. Show all posts

Thursday, May 10, 2012

AFT PA Offcial Helped Sell Out Philly School District

A pox on Jerry Jordan and especially former President Ted Kirsch of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers for allowing the Commonwealth of PA to take over the School District of Philadelphia.

A special mention to the wife of Ted Kirsch who had the second Charter School in Philadelphia; especially so since Ted was still "advocating" for the rank and file of the PFT as our President.

Please note Ted Kirsch, President of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, quit the very next day after Paul Vallas left Philadelphia for New Orleans to assume leadership of the PA AFT.

----- Message from Philadelphia teacher to NYCED News listserve

How many incidents do we need to show that teacher union leaders are in bed with the enemy? So here is Ted Kirsch, the President of the Philly union whose wife opens a charter school and then he becoems head of the state AFT. I don't know anything about him but I will bet he is an ally of Randi and Mulgrew and crew. Thank goodness for CORE in Chicago as the lone bulwark against handing over our public school system to privatizers. And of course the amazing parent activists connected to Parents Across America, with Helen Gym (see below) in Philly as a great rep.

I remember meeting someone from the Philly union at the AFT convention in Seattle who was an undercover dissident and told us how similar the union leaders there were to Unity Caucus. Yes, there are Unity Caucus Klones all over the nation – Vichyites – Quislings. If you are not aware why I use these terms go and check them out.

I am more and more convinced that those who stay on the sidelines inside the union are in essence supporting the Unity sell-out because silence is used by Unity as evidence of support. [AD: MORE meets in an open and democratic process this Saturday at CUNY -- help build a democratic alternative to Unity.]

Later I'll post some of my back and forth tweets with Randi Weingarten which might make you pull your hair out.

Here is the full post.

Dear Leonie,

Thank you for putting this on the listserv again.

Special thanks to my dear friend Helen Gym of AAU for being one with whom the powers that be must reckon.

A pox on Jerry Jordan and especially former President Ted Kirsch of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers for allowing the Commonwealth of PA to take over the School District of Philadelphia which passed Act 96 which prohibited ONLY Philadelphia teachers from striking; an unconstitutional law gone unchallenged since 1996.

A special mention to the wife of Ted Kirsch who had the second Charter School in Philadelphia after St. Sen. John Perzel's wife right after Act 22 was passed; especially so since Ted was still "advocating" for the rank and file of the PFT as our President.

Please note Ted Kirsch, President of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, quit the very next day after Paul Vallas left Philadelphia for New Orleans to assume leadership of the PA AFT.

Thanks for the millions spent on outside consultants, outside unaccountable District SRC's, (School Reform Commissions), unaccountable CEO's brought in to privatise the School District and their buy-out packages for them and their cronies who promoted and protected them against us at our expense.

Thanks for selling off the School District's valuable Art Collection to persons unknown, our headquarters in an Art Deco building and refurbishing a former plant that printed TV Guide magazine and making District Headquarters into something reminiscent of "HBO's Series 'Oz.

Thanks for ignoring highly successful Philadelphia Public Schools, (Central High and Masterman) rated top schools in the US over and again.

Thanks for wanting to close primarily schools with African-American schools who have been successful since before NCLB because Universities and Realtors have plans to gentrify the neighborhood they occupy and not because they are failing schools.

Finally, thanks for giving whatever crumbs that were left to Charter Schools who squandered them and used them for self-aggrandizement and enrichment. This is why we teachers have to buy paper, printer toner, software to protect our students from thinking all is not well.

After all the money spent, the sole alternative is to dismantle the School District of Philadelphia; and so it goes.

At LEAST, I kicked serious tail today for my final observation. My kids came through like the best ELLs in the world. Love them.

Here is a post by Helen Gym on the PAA web site:

Dear parents and PAA colleagues:

It’s taken me a while to talk about what’s happening in Philadelphia because of the destructive forces threatening public education in our city.

In case you haven’t read the news, Philadelphia’s Chief Recovery Officer – a gas industry executive paid $150K over six months – hired the Boston Consulting Group for a cool $1.4 million to create a “Blueprint for Reform”. The Blueprint sets out a five year course of action which calls for closing one-fourth of Philadelphia’s schools, 40 alone next year (64 total), placing 40% of students into charters, and dividing up the remaining schools into NYC-inspired “achievement networks” run by third party operators under a five year performance contract.

There are of course the standard union-busting threats, the exclusion of parent and community voices, and the consolidation of political interests, large charter operators, and voucher supporters. There is also terrible shock and awe rhetoric to silence Philadelphians into accepting this plan. Our Mayor for example said the school district was on the verge of imminent “collapse” and said the plan was something Philadelphians needed to “grow up and deal with.” Our Chief Recovery Officer just last week stated that schools may not open in September unless Philadelphians funded the plan with $94 million in increased property taxes.

And all of this is happening in a state where a Republican Governor has slashed $1.1 billion from public education in the last two years.

Parents United is up and running and working with clergy and community groups across the city. Last night over 1,000 people gathered for an education dialogue at one of Philadelphia’s most influential churches. Our radio ads with our teachers union will start running this week. We’ve reignited a Protect Public Education Coalition of student organizing groups, labor and others to work on City Council and launch a media campaign. But of course we’re outfunded and fighting an uphill battle against local and national forces that have completely lost their moral compass about the public in public education.

We’re asking for your help to publicize what’s happening to almost 200,000 children in public and charter schools here. Philadelphia is the poster child for the disasters of national education reform – we’re reeling from a state takeover, EMO’s like Edison Schools, privatizing and contracting out, unchecked charter school growth, massive education budget cuts, and constant turnover in leadership. We’re not unlike many cities across the country, but we are quite possibly the largest city to date to propose an effective dissolution of public education in the name of so-called “reform.”

Below is some basic reading. Feel free to share and spread the word.

The Philadelphia Public School Notebook: City Paper: “Who’s Killing Philly Public Schools?” http://www.citypaper.net/news/2012-05-03-whos-killing-philly-public-schools.html
Diane Ravitch on what’s happening here : http://dianeravitch.net/2012/04/26/my-visit-to-philadelphia/
Helen Gym’s response to Philadelphia Chief Recovery Officer Thomas Knudsen, , reprinted in the WashPost Answer Sheet: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/parent-to-schools-chief-you-dont-understand-schools/2012/04/27/gIQA1vLFlT_blog.html
Local student groups respond to the District’s “plan”: http://home.phillystudentunion.org/pdf/20120425300/PSU-Blog/Philadelphia-Student-Union-Youth-United-for-Change-Respond-to-District-s-Plan.pdf

Thanks everyone!
Helen Gym, Parents United for Public Education
parentsunitedphila@gmail.com

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"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/cory-booker-clear-and-present-threat-public-education

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

This chapter looks interesting:

Class struggles: The UFT story, part 3

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Of course for another view, check out the review at New Politics of the Kahlenberg Bio on Shanker by Vera Pavone and me: Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:
http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/
I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You can sign up for this free series at :
http://act.bcfed.ca/online-campaigning-for-union-activists/

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

Ex-HSA Teacher has left a new comment on your post "Fear and Loathing at Evil's Harlem Success Empire ...":

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy Tyson
Professor of African American Studies and History
Duke University

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.
- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Full article with charts here.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

More at Substance

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.
Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/12/on-growing-use-of-corporate-test.html

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

Published on Sunday, March 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

SEE MY VIDEO ON HARLEM SUCCESS RALLY 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEp7rg_L5JI

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Ed Notes Extended

Thursday, May 10, 2012