Will Joel Klein Return in Clinton Admin Through His Wife/ AFT Worried Joel Klein Was Helping Hillary Clinton's Campaign

On Aug 19, 2015, at 1:31 PM, Nikki Budzinski < > nbudzinski@hillaryclinton.com > wrote: > > > > Hi-I wanted to flag a panicked call I just received from AFT about Joel > Klein, former Chancellor of New York City Dept of Education. Is he joining > the campaign in any capacity? Reporters have been contacting AFT for > reaction. AFT has flagged this as a really big issue for them. I would > expect that Randi is going to reach out to John on this today. > > > > Anything additional you can share with me would be appreciated. Thanks. > > > > -- > > Nikki Budzinski > > Labor Outreach Director > > Hillary for America

[Joel Klein's wife] Nicole Seligman gained early acclaim as a lawyer with her representation of Lt. Col. Oliver North in a congressional hearing into the Iran-Contra scandal. She later acted as the legal adviser to President Bill Clinton when he testified before a grand jury in the Monica Lewinsky scandal and also helped defend him at his impeachment trial in the Senate. ... Variety

Did Randi's seat at Hillary's table manage to kill any Joel Klein involvement in the Hillary campaign? Let's give Randi a temporary star if she managed to thwart Uncle Joel's ambitions to get on the Clinton bandwagon. Now that doesn't mean that on Nov. 9 we hear that Klein has been added to the transition team on education.

Remember that Klein's wife Nicole Seligman is a major corporation and Clinton player. She left as head of Sony Corp back in Feb.

Seligman said in a statement that she was “excited and eager to explore new opportunities” and thanked Sony for a “deeply rewarding” run with the company.

Hmmm, I wonder whether those opportunities might be in a Clinton admin? Since she stepped down in March there is not much out there on her plans. Does being Klein's wife create a stir from Randi? I'm thinking not - so look for Joel to worm his way back in through the back door.

Don't be surprised at some point when we see Uncle Joel back in action in a Clinton admin, at which point we will take Randi's star back.

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The American Federation of Teachers made a "panicked" call to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in August 2015, to check on what it considered an alarming rumor, according to an email recently uncovered by WikiLeaks.

The union had heard that Joel Klein, the former New York City School chancellor, was working with the campaign. And it was not pleased.

"Is he joining the campaign in any capacity?" asked Nikki Budzinski, the Clinton campaign's labor outreach director. "AFT has flagged this as a really big issue for them. I would expect that Randi is going to reach out to John [Podesta, Clinton's campaign chairman] on this today."

You can read the whole exchange here.

It turns out that no, Klein wasn't a campaign aide at the time, said AFT President Randi Weingarten, in a Monday interview.

And she was pretty relieved, she said.

"That's the kind of rumor we just wanted to track down," Weingarten said. "Joel may have been incredibly good in Bill Clinton's Justice Department but he has a toxic reputation when it comes to education." (Klein also served as an assistant attorney general for Clinton from 1997 to 2000.)

Klein and Weingarten had an especially difficult relationship during the more than half a dozen years he served as chancellor of New York City public schools, and she served as president of the United Federation of Teachers, which represents New York City teachers.

Klein does have some big fans in K-12 policy circles, especially among proponents of education "reform" who credit him with bringing about bold and much needed improvement to the city's schools through policies like a serious expansion of charters.

Wikileaks, a group that publishes communications it says point to government and corporate misconduct, recently hacked into emails sent to Podesta, going back to at least 2008.

Joel Klein Teaching Resume: Sept/Oct 1968 During Teacher Strike - Was Klein a Scab?

Klein went into teaching for the draft deferment (like I did). Did Joel Klein ever teach at all? In Bloomberg's waiver plea 2002 letter to State Ed Commissioner Richard Mills, Bloomberg used Klein's supposed teaching experience in NYC public schools in 1968 as record of his qualifications. In fact the schools were mostly closed during those 2 months due to the 68 strike. Did Klein break the strike and actually teach? I asked him a few times to share his experience (he ignored the question) since we both came out of that 6 week training period which so clearly inadequately prepared us to teach and if anything should have made him wary of a TFA like program. In fact I am more and more sure that Klein never really taught at all and if he did it had to be as a strike breaker during the strike when the few schools that were open had few kids. He had no real experience at all and clearly ran as soon as he could. Note how the particular school is not mentioned to cover his tracks.

The entire 7 page Bloomberg letter and Klein resume is available here.
Below are the relevant excerpts.

Bloomberg letter to Mills where he uses 1969, wrong year for the teacher strike.

 From Klein resume:

Afterburn
I was in the same program the year before (it was called Intensive Teacher Training Program - ITTP - and we received 10 free credits from NYU for the elementary school division (middle school math got 8) and it lasted a few years from 66-69 --- as far as I saw all men from all over the nation -- the grad school deferments were ended so this was often a desperate crew. Many left as soon as they could -- I in fact replaced a guy in my first regular teaching classroom gig from Columbia Law School who got some other deferment and left in mid-year -- Jan. '69. Yes, Klein and I were separated at birth, growing up in similar backgrounds at the same time except he went the way of the devil.

Klein Gets F for School of One While Tweed Expands to IS 49SI

...the best part is that they are using a 2.5 million dollar grant from the Obama administration to put the program in IS 49SI, Francesco Portelos' school... he is the main tech person and STEM teacher in the school but sits in the rubber room on trumped up charges for questioning how the principal was using tech grant money. --- ed notes

“School of One is expensive and disruptive,” said Patrick Sullivan, Manhattan representative to the Panel for Educational Policy. --NYDN

Last Update (in green): 5:15PM

And must read by Leonie exposing connections to Wireless Generation and Rupert Murdoch.

The reality and the hype behind online learning and the "School of One"

How many Joel Klein legacy failures can you find? We reported on the about to be abandoned networks yesterday (Tweed Dismantles Networks Before Crimes and Corruption Exposed).

Rachel Monahan reports on the Daily News:

Former NYC Chancellor Joel Klein's highly touted School of One math project dropped by 2 of 3 schools in pilot program

Initiative was hailed by Time magazine as one of the 50 best inventions of 2009, but NYU study shows $9 million effort failed to raise test scores more than old-school math classes 

AN EXPENSIVE city program touted as the future of middle school math education had disappointing results in its first year — and was abandoned at two of the three schools where it was implemented, the Daily News has learned.

City officials said they’ve spent $9 million over the past three years — all from private donations.

In its grant application, the city projected the total cost of the program’s expansion at $46 million, though officials say they’ve been able to get that price down with help from a private contractor.

But the best part is that they are using a 2.5 million dollar grant from the Obama administration to put the program in IS 49SI, Francesco Portelos' school (Protect Portelos: Rubber Room Journal).

 
He is/was the main tech person and STEM teacher in the school but sits in the rubber room on trumped up charges for questioning how the principal was using tech grant money.

The city is pushing forward, planning to expand the program this fall to four more schools — Intermediate Schools 2 and 49 in Staten Island as well as Middle Schools 88 and 381 in Brooklyn — with the help of a high-profile $5 million grant awarded by the Obama administration.

So in the ultimate of ironies, the Republicans can charge the Obama admin with wasting at least 2.5 million on Portelos' school.

And really, it is all about trying to use this expensive program to pump up test scores, which we have been pointing out time and again is not about real learning.

Stuyvesant High School math teacher Gary Rubinstein, who recently wrote about his visit to School of One early in the pilot program, said he wasn’t surprised. “Even if they got results, I wouldn’t be impressed because it looked like all they were learning how to do was do better on a standardized test,” he said.

Read entire article

"School of One" versus "I-Zone?"

Both certainly share lots of corporate sponsors and partners! School of One is one type of school within the Izone which encapsulates a lot of alternative online learning schools and programs.

The reality and the hype behind online learning & the "School of One" - http://goo.gl/Dql2h

Weingarten Praises Klein's Integrity

She clearly must have a different definition of integrity than I do.

-- Leonie Haimson

Klein And Murdoch - A Model In Cronyism And Corruption 
-- Perdido Street School blog

Today's NY Times puff piece on Joel Klein (Steering Murdoch in Scandal, Klein Put School Goals Aside) was a howl.

We’ve had our history of battles,” Ms. Weingarten said of Mr. Klein. “But he’s always had a reputation for integrity, and I can’t imagine the last several months of being mired in this scandal have been fun for him.”

After her May 1 chat with Steve Brill (The Enemy Within: Warning, Ed Deformer in the Hous...) really, Randi is the gift that keeps giving. I would add Weingarten to that headline.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, who has clashed with Mr. Klein in the past, called the company’s education push in the midst of the hacking scandal “the definition of chutzpah

Leonie responds:

And yet she’s on the advisory board of the Gates-funded LLC that will hold confidential teacher and student data, and be operated by Wireless Generation.

My comment in response to Leonie was that Klein actually has more integrity that Randi since he states what he is.

----------
On another front, there is Obama's amazingly dumb statement about charters as Incubators of Innovation. I tweeted that's like saying FOX  is an incubator of fair and balanced journalism.

Diane Ravitch blogged about it:

“Incubators of Innovation?”

Murdoch Thuggery and Long-term Links to Joel Klein - and Bill Gates too

None of this suggests that Mr. Klein cut some sort of a deal that resulted in a job 14 years later. But the speed of the antitrust decision surprised even the people involved in the takeover. One of the participants, who declined to be identified discussing private negotiations, said he thought the sale was effectively blocked before the surprising turnaround.  - David Carr, NY Times, Aug. 8, 2011

You just have to read this article in today's NY Times about how Joel Klein handed Rupert Murdoch a cupcake 14 years ago when he was at the Justice Department. Carr points to another decision made a year later against  Murdoch. Just cover as far as I'm concerned.

As it turns out, a News Corporation division has twice come under significant civil and criminal investigations in the United States, but neither inquiry went anywhere. Given what has happened in Britain with the growing phone-hacking scandal, it is worth wondering why.

Both cases involve News America Marketing, an obscure but lucrative division of the News Corporation that is a big player in the business of retail marketing, including newspaper coupon inserts and in-store promotions. The company has come under scrutiny for a pattern of conduct that includes below-cost pricing, paying customers not to do business with competitors and accusations of computer hacking.

News America Marketing came to control 90 percent of the in-store advertising business, according to Fortune, aided in part by a particularly quick and favorable antitrust decision made by the Justice Department in 1997. 

Now it gets better

The deal would make News America Marketing the dominant player in the business and, for that reason, the San Francisco field office of the Justice Department recommended to Washington that the News Corporation’s takeover bid be challenged on antitrust grounds. Typically, such a request from a field office would carry great weight in Washington and, at a minimum, delay the deal for months.

But the Justice Department brass overrode San Francisco’s objections and gave its blessing in just two weeks. So who ran the antitrust division at the Justice Department at the time? Joel Klein, who this year became an executive vice president at the News Corporation, head of its education division and a close adviser to Rupert Murdoch on the phone-hacking scandal in Britain.

Carr goes on to point to the decision a year later denying Murdoch the right to sell a share of his satellite company and states:

so any suggestion that a department of the United States government was snugly in the hip pocket of Mr. Murdoch would not be correct. 

Balderdash. I'm increasingly proud of having said early in the Joel Klein tenure as chancellor of the NYC schools that one day he would be doing a perp walk with his coat over his head. (Come on, where are the photoshop guys?) I know, I know. I hugged the guy. Contradiction? Not at all. I'll bring him cookies in jail.

As many of you know, Klein pushed Wireless Generation into NYC schools. Murdoch buys the company, hires Klein as consigliare. We need 2 coats over heads at the perp walk - 2 for the price of one. Did Murdoch play a role with Bloomberg to  insert Joel Klein as his Manchurian Candidate to lead the potential goldmine known as the NYC school system?

You can catch up to the story at these links I culled from Gotham:
Teachers unions want the state to kill a contract with Wireless Generation. (Daily News, WNYC)

By the way, there is a petition (see below) urging the State Comptroller to deny this contract - I think it was approved by the PEP but might be brought up again by speakers at the Panel for Educational Policy on Aug. 17 (weds) 6pm at Murray Bergtraum HS which will vote a contract with Verizon, another corporate thug. I think Liu approved for some reason - makes me nervous about him - fear of alienating Murdoch?

Now let's turn to the more general thugery of the Murdoch operations as described in the current issue of Rolling Stone.

But the corruption exposed at the News of the World is not the work of a "rogue" element within News Corp. — it's a reflection of the lawless culture that defines the company. As CEO, Murdoch not only tolerates employees and executives who push the boundaries of legality and good taste, he celebrates them — at least until the cops show up. "There's a broader culture within the company," Col Allan, editor of Murdoch's New York Post, crowed in 2007. "We like being pirates." Whatever veneer of integrity News Corp. may have accrued after its purchase of The Wall Street Journal the very same year masks an ingrained corporate ethos that believes integrity is for suckers. The attitude passed down from the top, says one veteran of Murdoch's tabloids, is aggressive and straightforward: "Anything we do is OK. We're News Corp. — so fuck you and fuck your mother."  ----Rolling Stone

How far did the Murdoch culture pervade Tweed under Klein? And I view the WSJ as just a more literate version of the NY Post with biased reporting when it comes to education, at least. I told a reporter from WSJ who wanted to know more about the GEM high stakes testing committee that the other day. Haven't heard back. My sense is that the WSJ would start with the premise that somehow union money was behind it. Or maybe terrorists who want to undermine the ed deform economy on which Murdoch/Klein are looking to make big bucks.

More from the RS article:

Indeed, an examination of Murdoch's corporate history reveals that each of the elements of the scandal in London – hacking, thuggish reporting tactics, unethical entanglements with police, hush-money settlements and efforts to corrupt officials at the highest levels of government – extend far beyond Fleet Street. Over the past decade, News Corp. has systematically employed such tactics in its U.S. operations, exhibiting what a recent lawsuit filed against the firm calls a "culture run amok." As a former high-ranking News Corp. executive tells Rolling Stone: "It's the same shit, different day."

These are just little bits from the must-read Rolling Stone piece. Remember the affair between Bernie Keric and Murdoch employee Judith Regan. Get all the juicy details including how Murdoch scum Roger Ailes obstructed justice - how about a perp walk for 3?


Thanks to a blogger who would usually do a smashing job on this story but is a bit tied up and sent me the links and commentary below:

Klein helped Murdoch out 14 years ago with an antitrust deal.  Smells crooked (though he did rule against Murdoch in a later deal.)

Here's the Times story:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/business/media/news-corps-legal-trail-in-the-us.html?hp

Was Klein on the Murdoch payroll long ago?  Hmm....
 

The dominos are starting to fall into place with the Murdoch story here in America.  Rolling Stone has some malfeasance at the NY Post in this piece here:

http:/www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/rupert-murdochs-american-scandals-20110803

The more they dig, the more they will find that what News International did in Britain, they did here in America too - hacking, bribery, conspiracy to subvert justice, etc.

And Klein is at the middle of it.

Sign our petition vs. no-bid contracts for Murdoch's Wireless Generation!

Also at the NYC Parent Blog:

“As part of our contribution, the [Gates] foundation took an important first step a few weeks ago and selected a vendor to build the open software that will allow states to access a shared, performance-driven marketplace of free and premium tools and content. That vendor, Wireless Generation, will create the software, but it will be owned by an independent nonprofit, so that any school, school district, curriculum developer, or tool builder can contribute to the collaborative.”Really, did it really have to be Wireless Generation?  But why doesn’t that surprise me?

UPDATE: note  the words"free and premium content,"  something I had not originally noticed but was pointed out by Dr. Ed Fuller on his blog here.  So Wireless Gen and Murdoch are poised to make a buck off of this project -- and the content they receive from teachers, who are expected to share their ideas free of charge? 

Unholy alliance between Murdoch, Klein and Bill Gates? "Pretty cool" huh?

http://nyceducator.com/2011/08/murdochs-education-ventures-go-forward.html

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Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

NY Mets Were Set to Choose Black as General Manager

Ed Notes has learned that the NY Mets were set to appoint Cathie Black as their new general manager instead of Sandy Alderson a few weeks ago but Mike Bloomberg, having already decided to kick Joel Klein to the Rupert Murdoch curb (where Klein is predicted to last about a year before claiming he wants to go back into education destruction), intervened.

A spokesperson for the Wilpon family would not speak on the record but endorsed Bloomberg's vision of corporate manager not needing to know anything about the area they are managing.

"Look at our results over the past few years," he said. "Worse than the results of the school system. And with people supposedly having baseball knowledge. So we decided to hire Cathie Black to reverse the fortunes of the Mets but Bloomberg said she knew even less about public schools and education than baseball and he needed someone to chop the school system down into little morsels and that could best be accomplished by someone who knew nothing about what she was chopping. Too bad. We could really use a 50% cut in the Mets payroll."

In other news, Rupert Murdoch has announced that for the brief time Joel Klein will spend at the News Corp, he expects Klein to reorganize whatever division he heads at least once a month with the goal of breaking the Guiness Book of World Records for reorganizations, a record currently held by Klein himself.

PEP POO

Parent activist Lisa Donlan leads Real Reformers at the mic at the PEP

The first of a bunch of reports - check Gotham for more links
 
How am I going to be able to manage the wealth of information related to the Cathie Black nomination for chancellor and last night's PEP meeting? The best thing about last night were the wonderful Real Reformers with their red RR capes. There was lots of press around to tape them but let's see if any of it gets on the air. Of course we have footage - lots of it.

There's a Delegate Assembly today, followed by the Gotham Schools fund raising party - they were trying to get Black to make an appearance, which I doubt. But if she was as smart as they say she is and had any clue at all she would get her ass in there and try to charm the pants off everyone. But I bet she has no clue as to what Gotham is or the importance it occupies in the local and national ed world. Which is why I sent in my hundred bucks but intend to eat at least double that amount. But if by some miracle Black were to show without paying, I'm going to take home a doggie bag.

But first I have to stop by the UFT for the DA. YAWN! I didn't even waste time and money putting together an Ed Notes. I'm only going for social reasons. I could stop by Evan and Sydney's E4E party (which conflicts with the Gotham event) with DOE officials coming to talk about how value added ratings for teachers will add 20 years to their life expectancy but you have to sign a loyalty oath swearing allegiance to merit pay and bowing down to the VA gods before you can get in. I was going to write more but I turned that story over to my pals at Gotham, who have been way too solicitous towards Evan and Sydney, who are clearly backed by the Tilson/Murdoch types of the world as they try to undermine the teachers union, which has been doing a great job of undermining itself.

Here's a report from Harold, a teacher at John Dewey HS -with the photo above -  about last night's meeting: See more photos here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=250042&id=560743400&l=7744c2afa8 

The Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) is the school board arm of the Dept of Education (DOE). Some would say a puppet school board, they serve under the Chancellor. PEP holds these public meetings throughout the year in all the 5 boroughs. Tonight was Brooklyn's turn. The meeting was held in the magnificent auditorium of Brooklyn Tech High School in Fort Green.

Tonight's meeting had a lot of controversy surrounding it. They had to deal with a resolution that dealt with Mayor Bloomberg's pick for Chancellor, Catherine Black. 

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/cathleen_p_black/index.html?inline=nyt-per 

Since Ms Black has no background or experience in Public Education, she must receive a waiver before she can take the job. 

There was a resolution on the table to allow the PEP be the sole entity that can issue such a waiver. Otherwise the mayor alone could issue the waiver. 

It was put to a vote and rather then stand up to the mayor and demand someone who is an educator to run the DOE, the PEP folded like a cheap suit and voted the resolution down giving away their power to the billionaire mayor. 

The public was invited to speak and most speakers objected to the choice of Ms. Black and complained about the state of public education under outgoing Chancellor Joel Klein.

There was a lot of frustration in the air because all the public attendees who were advocating for better schools knew their words would be forgotten by members of the PEP board as soon as they step back into their limos. 

City government in action once again. Ha!

Harold also shot a video of last week's Fight Back Friday rally at Dewey:
Fight Back Fridays Video from Nov 12th. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdfIRmRpbEM


Sol Stern has a great piece running at The City Journal. Oh what fun to see Sol, who used to support all the ed deform crap in a previous life - along with his pal Diane Ravitch - use one of the bastions of right wing NYC journalism to take down Bloomberg and the Black appointment - though Sol, can you write one piece without hocking us with your phonics?

To give the mayor his due, this description of qualifications for the chancellor’s job is consistent with everything he has said since taking over the schools in 2002. Bloomberg always insisted that the managerial and entrepreneurial skills needed to run a successful private-sector company were perfectly applicable to the task of improving the schools. And that renders moot the question of whether Black needs to know anything about education and instruction. The national adulation that Bloomberg has received (some of it self-generated) for his “breakthrough” school reforms has obviously confirmed him in this fundamental belief.
Though significant doubts have now surfaced about the extent of academic gains made by the city’s students during the Bloomberg era, there is little question that Gotham has become the nation’s most visible example of what I have previously called the “incentivist” approach to education reform. For education incentivists, what matters most is efficient management, backed by a series of internal market interventions to maximize the productivity of the workforce (that is, teachers and principals), which will produce better results (higher test scores). The issues related to instruction don’t factor in the equation. Since Bloomberg clearly remains convinced that Klein, a chancellor without a background in education, oversaw eight years of achievement gains simply by creating the proper incentives, there’s no reason for him to believe that Black ought to know, say, the difference between phonics and whole language.

And you may have hears rumors of a very public hug between Joel Klein and myself - I'm still way behind Randi in the number Klein hugs. Julie Cavanagh ran over to take over the camera and made sure to get the video. I was going to burn it but it is being processed now. More later on the reaction of my pals, who sent over hand cleaner, told me they wouldn't go near me until I took a shower and generally shunned me for the rest of the night. They're just haters.

At Randi's last Executive Board meeting in July 2009, she also spoke about how she would miss me and we shared a big hug, which George Schmidt, in town for the week, tried to capture on his camera but was a second too late. The point I tried to make to both Randi and Klein is that my opposition to them is political, not personal - though Randi always tried to paint it that way.

Assessing Joel Klein: What Influenced Him in the Late 60's? What If He Had Remained a Teacher?

Randi and Klein operating on the school system, neither qualified

Randi and Klein "fixing" the schools. I should have included this cartoon yesterday a teacher did for me for the Spring 2003 edition of Ed Notes. Very apt in line with the Black story. Click on it to enlarge.


I'm writing this as a follow-up to my piece yesterday (Separated at Birth: Joel and Norm - I Miss Him Already) on some of the similarities in my background with Joel Klein.

I wondered what would have happened if Klein had not left teaching after only 6 months. And also about how the climate of the times and how his brief experience as a teacher may have shaped his views, particularly about the union. I want to point out right up front that I have not had the time to do any research on anything Klein may have said about those years and the political influences on him, so all this is just speculation. But I find it interesting that he seems to have said so little or anything at all.

First let's think about the climate of the times in the late 60's. Just to give you a flavor, I extracted this fragment from Democracy Now's 40 year retrospective of 1968.

May 14, 2008: 1968, 40 Years Later: Student, Worker Protests Sweep France, Leaving Indelible Mark on the Country and the World
May 1968 was a watershed month for France, when a wave of student and worker protests swept the country and changed French society forever. We speak to George Katsiaficas, author of numerous books, including The Imagination of the New Left: The Global Analysis of 1968.

April 25, 2008: Forty Years After Historic Columbia Strike, Four Leaders of 1968 Student Uprising Reflect
Forty years ago this week, hundreds of students at Columbia University started a revolt on campus. Students went on strike. They occupied five buildings, including the president’s office in Low

Klein graduated from Columbia in 1967 and I assume was at Harvard Law School in April '68, so he missed the action. (I had completed one year as a full-time grad student in June 1967 and with the threat of grad student deferments ending I went into teaching in Sept. '67. Ironically, I was in the Columbia library on that day even though I was a grad student at Brooklyn College - anyone could just walk in. It was my first year of teaching and I took the day off because I was doing a heavy duty research paper and the resource I needed was only available up there.)

What was Klein's reactions to the events at his alma mater in the spring of '68?

Just a few months later in the fall of 1968 the UFT went on the most contentious strike in history, splitting apart the historic connection between civil rights and unionism, with many liberals and radicals lining up against the UFT. What is not commonly known is that the UFT had all the teachers in the demonstration district in Ocean Hill- Brownsville go on strike in May 1968, some of the aspects of which may have been drowned out in the incredible events of those months along with the assassinations of King and Kennedy, the elections, the war, etc. Really the most incredible time. Assume Klein was busy with law school and maybe didn't follow these events in the NYC schools.

Where did Joel Klein stand on the events going on in the NYC schools? Assuming he was a liberal, was the strike a basis of his anti-unionism, or at least his antagonism to the UFT? (Remember the Woody Allen line in Sleeper about Al Shanker blowing up the world.)

I was basically unconscious at that time and joined the '68 strike because teaching still scared me and I would take any opportunity not to go into school.

Later on when I became an activist, most of the people I met were very pro-union and very pro-community - faced with the choice they broke the strike. I always maintained that they were wrong- they should have joined the strike and fought things out within the union.

The earliest opposition caucus to Unity was Teachers Action Caucus - almost everyone in TAC broke the '68 strike. (Ironically, TAC merged with another caucus in 1990 to become the current New Action and many Unity stalwarts were still outraged over the '68 strike issue when Randi brought them into the fold in 2003.)

I remember the teacher whose class I took over on Feb. 1, 1969 was a law student at Columbia (he told me he got a good draft lottery number). He had broken the '68 strike- he told me because he was afraid that by striking and breaking the law he feared it would affect his law career - I just remembered his name - I think - Clifford Aron. In retrospect, he sort of reminds me of what Klein may have been like at that time.

Klein teaches
Now jump ahead a short time. As I pointed out, with deferments being challenged, Klein may have -  as I did - jumped into the Intensive Teacher Training Program (ITTP) a little known precursor to Teach for America, where people who had no education degree were given a 6 week summer training program and sent into the schools. I got 10 NYU credits followed by 2 more in the fall of 1967 at a follow-up support course. I parlayed those free NYU credits (imagine, $75 a credit while Brooklyn College was still free) into a Reading MA a few years later.

Klein could have done the middle school math program or elementary program at NYU in the summer of 1969 - his bio states he studied education at NYU - a slight exaggeration as it was probably that same 2 credit course I took 2 years before. But it was thrown into his bio to give him some ed creds. He spent 6 months teaching 6th grade math in Queens - I'm not sure if it was middle school or elementary- and I'm not sure if it was in the spring or fall '69.

So, he came into the system a year after the strike, but the aftermath was still intense. What experiences did he have in those 6 months? I have never heard anything. Did he see teachers who he felt were incompetent and shouldn't be there? If so, did he form a permanent view of NYC teachers? Did anyone help him? What kind of administration? What about the UFT in the school? The chapter leader? A standard Unity hack? Was the union strong in the school?

[I raise this because I entered the school system with a severe anti-ed major prejudice- disdain for people who would study education - no content I figured. But while I struggled, I saw how amazing so many of these people were as teachers - they used me as an ATR- sub in one school for a year and a half so I got to see everyone teach. The guys running from the draft were the worst, I among them. But I emerged with a tremendous respect for teachers before I even decided to stay- and maybe that respect had an impact on my choice to remain.]

All these issues may have shaped a world view in just a few months (he must have gotten a good draft number and must have left in either June 1969 or Feb. 1970.)

So what if Klein never left teaching?
Would he have become active in the union? With his leadership skills, he would have been expected to become a chapter leader at some point. Maybe join Unity? Drink the Kool-aid and become a hack? We certainly know he can drink Kool-aid. Maybe rise in the union hierarchy? Maybe even become President instead of Randi? Can you imagine Klein and Randi contending for power?

Or was he outraged at the '68 strike and would he ignore the union? Maybe aim right away to become a supervisor?

Or maybe join the opposition to Unity, so dominated by the left? In other words, could Joel Klein and I have ended up in the same opposition groups in the early 70's? Nahhhh. That is as far-fetched as a media queen to replacing him as chancellor.

DEPARTMENT OF ED STARVES JAMAICA AND THEN SENDS REVIEWERS TO CRITICIZE US FOR BEING MALNOURISHED: Eterno Slams Klein and DOE Over Jamaica HS

I compare our plight to being in a prison where the warden cuts our food ration by 30% and then complains that we are too skinny. - James Eterno

NOTE: COME TO THE Panel for Educational Policy AT BROOKLYN TECH ON TUESDAY, NOV. 16 to tell Joel Klein to his face what you think of his closing schools policies

 - JOIN THE REAL REFORMERS AT 5:30- (Rehearsal at 4:30) - LOOK FOR MORE DETAILS AT ED NOTES AND GEM BLOGS.

James hits the bullseye in this excerpt from his chapter newsletter posted on the ICE blog.
http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com/

TAKE THE JAMAICA CHALLENGE

by James Eterno, Jamaica HS chapter leader

This post is extracted from Jamaica's weekly Chapter Newsletter and it is strictly my opinion. The story concerns Jamaica but is applicable to any school that is struggling and is reviewed by the DOE and State in the process.

DEPARTMENT OF ED STARVES JAMAICA AND THEN SENDS REVIEWERS TO CRITICIZE US FOR BEING MALNOURISHED

 

Jamaica High School has been denied resources by the Department of Education over the last few years since we started downsizing but that does not stop DOE officials from coming to our school to tell us how we need to improve.

 

I ask any school in the world to take the Jamaica challenge: Cut 30% of the teaching staff (student enrollment drop is less than half of that) and take away roughly half of the school’s space, raise class sizes beyond what the union contract calls for in scores of classes, replace an excellent Programmer and Guidance Coordinator with assistant principals who are untrained in these areas and must still also do their previous jobs, while continuing to permit unlicensed non-secretaries to perform secretarial duties. 

 

Then, place new schools in the corners of the building and equip those schools with up to date technology and provide their teachers with lower class sizes and a beautiful makeover for their parts of the building while students and staff of the old school that includes many at risk pupils are shoved into the middle of the building in obsolete rooms. Do all of this to the old school and then ask it to raise the graduation rate and promotion rate. Even set up the lunch schedule to favor the new schools. Their kids eat lunch during normal lunch hours between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. while the old school’s kids are eating lunch starting at 10:00 a.m. or after 1:00 p.m.

We at Jamaica challenge any school to thrive under these teaching and learning conditions. A Quality Review or Joint Intervention Team visit under these circumstances is a setup for failure. Separate and unequal schools are unfair and it is time for the DOE to be held accountable for mismanaging the education of our kids.

Last week Jamaica had a Quality Review-Joint Intervention Team (city-state) visit and it was a farce on a major scale. (I do not know the score we received on the QR.) I will say that the state people were quite professional in their review. From all reports they were very personable and listened to what we had to say. They did not call in the Chapter Leader for a formal discussion but we did exchange some pleasantries. It was the two quality reviewers from the city that interviewed me in one of the most bizarre interactions I have ever experienced.

I was trying to explain to these officials what we do in the Advanced Placement United States History class and how we have revived the program in the last three years and now have pupils scoring the top grades of 5 and 4 on the rigorous examination. We built up the program without the supports other schools have. The male quality reviewer cut me off in mid sentence and told me how we have an English Advanced Placement class that has 34 students in it and this is educationally unsound. He seemed to be criticizing me for this situation. I told him that I couldn’t agree more that it was unwise to have 34 in a college level class in a high school but that in actuality the class had 37 and as Chapter Leader I grieved it and 82 other oversize classes at Jamaica this fall. He would not even admit that we have oversize classes. I said the principal and DOE lawyer used the half class exception to justify them. 

 

At this point, the two reviewers looked at me like I was from Mars and would not talk about the half class size exception.

What stunned me was that they seemed to be trying to put me on the spot for the oversize classes. Were they kidding? We were truly coming from two different worlds. I mentioned the Quality Review from two years back that said we need new technology but we have lost so much funding that we can barely afford a piece of chalk in this school while the new schools in the building have modern equipment and lower class sizes. I said the education in this building is separate and unequal and our kids deserve an equal education.

I compare our plight to being in a prison where the warden cuts our food ration by 30% and then complains that we are too skinny.

THE DIFFICULT ROAD AHEAD FOR JAMAICA

There is no way around the conclusion that we believe strong forces from outside would like to destroy Jamaica High School. We clearly are being set up to fail by the Department of Education and our union’s response has not exactly been tough.

I read yesterday’s NY Post article about Jamaica High School giving away credits very closely. Even by adding over 1,000 credits to student transcripts, we still couldn’t get enough points on the DOE Progress Report for this year to get a C grade. That is hard to believe. Of course when administration took those credits away our grade became a lower D but I am still forced to conclude that they would have found a way to give us a D even if all of our students graduated in a week. 

 

Isn’t it strange how Jamaica for at least two years in a row didn’t receive any credit on our progress report in a category called Additional Points even though our internal review shows that we have moved along English Language Learners who are obtaining Regents Diplomas? Where are our points? If DOE reviewed us fairly, they would have to admit we are performing miracles on a daily basis even with all of the obstacles they have placed in our way.

 

It looks like the DOE also undercounted our graduation rate just like they did last year. Therefore, it’s déjà vu or Ground Hog Day as we repeat the same scenario as last year. We must admit that many of us are tired of fighting with an employer that in my opinion does not play fair. However, we learned from last year’s experience and now is the time to wage another battle to keep going by exposing the truth. Hopefully, this blog piece will get the ball rolling.

 

As for the extra credit probe of jamaica High School for adding questionable credits to student transcripts that the NY Post is reporting on, I agree with Leonie Haimson that principals are cutting corners all over because of pressure to boost promotion and graduation rates.

 

High stakes decisions based on student progress are ridiculous when the school plays only a small part in determing student performance. Outside factors are far more important according to scholarly research and common sense. Hopefully, there will be a time when sanity returns to our schools.

-------------------------------

Another Queens chapter leader with another brilliant piece.

(How come all these smart people have been opposed to the UFT/Unity Caucus leadership? Please show me anything comparable to these posts by the geniuses who run our union.)

Arthur Goldstein at HufPo: No Leeches Left Behind

If I were a doctor, and Bill Gates suggested the use of bloodletting to improve medicine, I'd be skeptical. Still, Gates has all that money, so he must know something. He gives it away freely, and asks only that everyone follow the programs he starts (and pay to sustain them in perpetuity once his seed money runs out). Oh, and that institutions that don't meet his expectations be closed and replaced by others that more closely follow his methods.
Bloodletting is of no medical value, so it's understandably unpopular with modern medical practitioners. On the other hand, "value-added" evaluations, or judging teachers by scores of their students, is also highly questionable. Day by day, it appears as dubious as bloodletting.

MORE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arthur-goldstein/no-leeches-left-behind_b_780026.html

Parents Close Down PEP - Commentary and First Video (more coming)

Photo Anna Phillips, Gotham Schools, -see goofy guy with camera

August 16, 2010, 6am

There was no Panel for Education for Educational Policy meeting at Murray Bergtraum HS last night. Or at least barely a glimmer of one before parents organized by the Coalition for Educational Justice (CEJ) shut the meeting down. The meeting will be rescheduled, undoubtedly with a lot more security.

The meeting began with a Power Point report using Tweed fuzzy math to try to discount the awful publicity BloomKlein have been receiving over the results of the recent tests showed that the nationwide accolades tossed at the NYCDOE by ed deformers has been more than a little over done. I like to call it the, "At least we're better than Rochester" defense.

When Manhattan PEP member Patrick Sullivan, who has been the strongest voice in opposition to the BloomKlein policies, said after the presentation, "Frankly, what I heard was an attempt to protect the reputations of the people responsible," the audience erupted into wild cheers.

"I could say a lot more, but what's important to me is to hear from the public what their concerns are for one of the worst debacles in the history of the public school system." Sullivan then called for a motion to allow the public to speak on the issue immediately rather than have to wait until the general public comment time at the end of the meeting when many people are already leaving. Bronx PEP member Anna Santos seconded the motion.

It was ruled out of order.

I put up a video of Patrick's comments and the immediate reaction.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_TGCwlaIYY -

The audience than rose with shouts of "Let us speak" and then proceeded to shout out further attempts to continue the meeting. Members of the PEP then walked off the stage to huddle behind the curtain like failed wizards trying to decide what to do next.

Meanwhile, parents used a small bullhorn to hold their own version of the meeting as one parent after another came up to speak.

Some members of the PEP skulked back out to try to reason with an audience that was beyond reason. Actually, it was more of a scolding. They were having none of it and continued shouting. At one point a child went up on the stage to try to use a microphone and she was practically pushed off the stage by burly security guards. That inflamed the crowd even more.

You will see TV and press reports, but they are a bit incomplete.

We have lots of video and GEM and Ed Notes and CAPE are working to put together a comprehensive video like we did the other day. We'll get as many parent statements up during the rump meeting they held as we can by tomorrow.

See Patrick's report at the NYC Parent blog:

Last night's Panel for Educational Policy meeting was another unfortunate example of how the mayoral appointees on the Panel repeatedly show disregard for both the law and the public school community they are supposed to serve.

The public agenda issued prior to the meeting contained no indication that the Panel would consider the enormous controversy surrounding the state testing debacle, yet a fifteen minute session was added for a DOE staffer to present a defense of the administration's record in student achievement.

Read it in full:
PEP Chairman Chang Blocks Vote on Public Comment, Violates Bylaws

News coverage in the Times here and News here.

For the front-page story that likely led to the preparation of the DOE's defensive presentation on testing results, see the Times: Triumph Fades on Racial Gap in City Schools.


Afterburn

About CEJ
CEJ, connected to the Annenberg Institute, has been organizing parents, often in alliance with the UFT. There was zero UFT presence at last night's meeting, perhaps indicating a greater degree of independence from the UFT on the part of CEJ.

I hark back to the famous St. Vartas church events - Feb. 28, 2007 - where a major coalition seemed poised to challenge BloomKlein with a massive May 1 demo, but were accused of selling out after the follow-up agreement between CEJ, the UFT and the Mayor and Joel Klein in April, 2007. 

Here is a selection of some of our posts at the time.
Say It Ain't So Martine
Deal Announced on Reorganization: Did BloomKlein Blink?
A unique opportunity has been missed

GEM/ICE in the house
Gee, there was no presence at all by the UFT or their bought off opposition, New Action. But there were at least 6 GEM/ICEers in the house covering the event and supporting the parents. You remember ICE - that group that does nothing but complain according to the New Action/Unity slugs. 'Nuff said.

Here is ICE/GEM Michael Fiorillo in a comment he left at the Gotham Schools post.

After years of willful ignorance, the state ed department, Regents and editorial boards were forced to dance around the fact that the test scores were bogus, and manipulated for the political benefit of the mayor and his agenda. Then, their deception and self-deception revealed, everyone pivots and comes up with their "now we have to see how to spin this so it can somehow be turned to our advantage" bit.

Presto! We are now told that, even though the tests and scores were invalid, we're making progress anyway (how so, if your vaunted "metrics" are worthless? Oh, and sorry, but we're closing your schools anyway), "although we have a lot further to go," and we're going to whip those kids and teachers into shape so they can meet the New and Improved curriculums (McGraw-Hill thanks you!) coming down the pike.

And somehow we are to believe that the New and Improved testing regime will not be used as a club against teachers, and will not be gamed for the political advantage of the ed deformers.

Ignored and treated with contempt by the Mayor, Chancellor and their lapdogs on the PEP, ignored and treated with contempt by the Mayor's media echo chamber, parents decided to assert themselves last night in an effort to change the terms of debate and show their outrage over the lies they are told and the dispossession they face.

Condescended to and shut out from having input into decisions that affect their children's lives, having resources stripped away in favor of private charter schools, perhaps the parents' "disruption" of a sham, perfunctory, propagandistic hearing was a greater example of democracy than being docile participants in their own disenfranchisement.

Politicians and Parents Criticize Joel Klein's Use of Emergency Powers to Favor Charter Over Autistic Children

I just sent this story over to The Wave. It will be published Friday, August 13. I tried to write is as a straight news story - with my slant of course - rather than as the usual Ed Notes rant. Last night my writers group, which includes a former newspaperman, used some of my blog posts to make suggestions. Really useful stuff that I will try to implement.


Politicians and Parents Criticize Joel Klein's Use of Emergency Powers to Favor Charter Over Autistic Children

by Norm Scott

August 11, 2010

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein was charged with favoring charter schools run by billionaire power brokers over the needs of autistic children at an August 9th press conference called by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

Held under the arch of the Municipal Building at One Centre St., Stringer was joined by City Council members Rosie Mendez and Robert Jackson and State Senator Daniel Squadron, along with parents of the autistic children affected.

Girls Prep charter school has occupied space in PS 188 on Houston St. on the lower east side. The school building also contains P94, a school for autistic children. Increasing demands for space by Girls Prep, all of which have been granted by Klein, has squeezed the children in the two public schools in the building. P94 had been moved around the building numerous times. Autistic children often find it difficult to handle changes. By allowing Girls Prep to expand to the 8th grade within PS 188, the children would have to be moved again.

State Education Commissioner David Steiner issued a ruling to Klein to stop the expansion of Girls Prep Charter, ruling that it discriminates against the special education students of P94. Steiner had commented in his ruling that Klein could override his decision by invoking the emergency powers granted to him under the mayoral control renewal law passed by the NY State Legislature in August 2009. And that is exactly what Klein did — invoke emergency powers.

The outcry was immediate. "[Sheldon] Silver Calls Klein's Girls Prep Decision 'Blatant Abuse' of Emergency Powers" blared one headline. The lower key NY Times headline read: "Chancellor Declares an Emergency to Sidestep State Ruling and Expand Charter School."

Parents spoke at the press conference. "I'm upset at the lack of respect given to the educational needs of my son and the other 50 children in that building," said P94 parent Jessica Santos. Corina Lindenberg, a representative of CEC1, the local school board in the area said, "[Klein] clearly favors a school that is hedge fund fueled opposing a school that truly serves the children that have the most needs.... not just autistic children but children that are living in poverty that are living on the streets. Look at Girls Prep if they have these kinds of students. They don't."

Springer told a story of a meeting he held with DOE officials where they made assurances on the Girls Prep issue that satisfied him. A day later, Klein pulled the emergency powers rip cord. Stringer seemed pretty frustrated with Klein and the DOE but kept talking about holding meetings with Tweed. When asked about the fruitfulness of these meetings with the DOE if they constantly renege and are willing to break the law Stringer said they have to keep meeting to try to change the policies since nothing can be done until mayoral control comes up for renewal in a 2013.

State Senator Daniel Squadron said, "The problem is we have an exemption in the law that it seems the Department of Education wants to drive a Mack truck through."

LowDownNYC, a local Manhattan paper, commented on both Silver, who is the leader of the State Assembly but was not present at the press conference and Squadron:

"The Girls Prep controversy marks the first time the chancellor has invoked his 'emergency powers' since Albany renewed mayoral control of New York City’s schools last year. That legislation was the result of a deal brokered by State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and co-sponsored in the Senate by Daniel Squadron. Last fall, Squadron addressed skeptical parent activists, who were worried the mayor and chancellor would continue (in their view) to ignore community input about local schools. Squadron told them the new law included provisions that would assure DOE accountability to parents. As a co-sponsor of the legislation, Squadron said, he would make sure the Education Department respected the letter as well as the spirit of the law."

With the disparity between public schools and charter schools controlled by wealthy people with influence, the pressure on the politicians from parent and activist groups appears to be growing. Numerous meetings of parent activist groups are being scheduled over the next week.

"Why did Girls Prep want to expand in the first place?" asked Class Size Matters' Leonie Haimson. "The school had recently moved into dangerous territory fiscally speaking, and most likely wanted an infusion of taxpayer funds generated by higher enrollment, without having to dip into the hefty pockets of their board members," referring her readers to the SUNY fiscal dashboard for details. http://www.newyorkcharters.org/FiscalDashboard.htm

Charter schools use public tax money but are managed by private interests outside the purview of elected officials. Why is so much private money flowing into charters, which combined with the public money allows many of them to offer more services and lower class size? Haimson on her NYC Parent blog said, "Billionaire hedge fund privateers are intent on 'leveraging' their private contributions." She pointed to this comment in the NY Times by Whitney Tilson, Hedge Fund manager and an education activist promoting charters: “It’s the most important cause in the nation, obviously, and with the state providing so much of the money, outside contributions are insanely well leveraged."

Mulgrew and Klein: Illegal Collusion

Jamaica HS stabbed in the back by UFT/DOE agreement.

What does it tell you when a student who wants to go to Jamaica HS is sent to the intensely overcrowded Francis Lewis HS instead?

DOE plans to put two schools within Jamaica High

Members of Jamaica High School's School Leadership Team hold fliers they are passing out to students to let them know they can still attend the school in the fall. Photo by Anna Gustafson

An agreement between the United Federation of Teachers and the city Department of Education that is expected to bring in two new schools to Jamaica High School has outraged some officials and community members who said the plan is essentially a move to close the school mandated to remain open by the court earlie r this month.

The Hillside Arts & Letters Academy and the HS for Community Leadership are now slated to move into Jamaica HS next fall, bringing the total number of schools operating inside the high school building to four. Both Jamaica and Queens Collegiate high schools will remain in the building next year.

As part of the agreement reached July 14, the Rockaway HS for Environmental Sustainability will move into Beach Channel HS in Rockaway Park.

The decision between the UFT and the DOE follows a state appellate court’s decision earlier this month that saved Jamaica HS, Beach Channel HS, and the Business, Computer Applications & Entrepreneurship Magnet HS in Cambria Heights from closure and upheld the March 26 ruling by a State Supreme Court judge that the city’s plan to shut down 19 public schools violated the law by not providing enough information about how the closings would affect communities.

The UFT sued the city DOE af ter the city in January decided it would stop admitting students to the selected high schools categorized as failing and replace them with smaller campuses.

“We really feel stabbed in the back,” said James Eterno, a social studies teacher and UFT chapter leader at Jamaica HS. “It looks like what the UFT has done is snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.”

Eterno and other Jamaica HS teachers said they are perplexed as to why the UFT would allow the DOE to implement the smaller schools after the organization won the lawsuit against the city.

UFT officials did not return a request for comment.

Under the agreement, the UFT waived its right to sue the city for co-location — moving the smaller schools into existing school buildings — in exchange for the DOE agreeing to make fewer schools share space in now-operating schools. Of the 16 smaller schools originally proposed to move into existing city schools, nine will be co-located in buildings for which they were originally planned — including the two schools at Jamaica and the one school at Beach Channel.

The Cambria Heights Academy, originally set to be located at the Cambria Heights magnet school, is expected to move into open space in southeast Queens’ District 29. Officials did not say exactly where it will be located because the lease has not yet been signed.

“Putting these new schools in here is handwriting on the wall to get rid of us,” Eterno said.

Kevin Forrestal, president of the Hillcrest Estates Civic Association and a Community Board 8 member, berated UFT President Michael Mulgrew for the decision to allow the smaller schools into Jamaica HS. Forrestal, who lives near Jamaica HS, said the move violates the law.

Calling the agreement “reprehensible,” Forrestal wrote in a letter to Mulgrew that it “sends a terrible example to the students and staff.”

“The action pairs the UFT with the DOE as co-collaborators to circumvent the letter and the spirit of community-based decision-making,” Forres tal wrote.

Eterno and other members of Jamaica’s School Leadership Team met just after the UFT and DOE’s agreement July 14, and they said despite the DOE’s efforts to close their school, they will continue to recruit students to join Jamaica’s freshmen class, which currently numbers approximately 40.

Last week, SLT members went to Cunningham Park and City Councilman Leroy Comrie’s (D-St. Albans) barbecue at St. Albans Park to distribute fliers encouraging students and parents to look into Jamaica HS.

“We know we’re an excellent school that’s worth fighting for,” said Nancy Reghay, a speech and language teacher who has been at Jamaica HS since 1999.

Eterno and other school officials noted they could take several hundred freshmen from neighboring schools that are overcrowded, like Francis Lewis and Bayside high schools.

Reach reporter Anna Gustafson by e-mail at agustafson@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4574.

Letter to Queens Tribune

Illegal Collusion

To The Editor:
Open Letter to Mr. Michael Mulgrew, President, United Federation of Teachers:

This is in follow up to an e-mailed letter to you dated June 11, 2010, with the subject line, "Justice for Jamaica High School." With that letter, we forwarded a copy of a letter to a student admitting the student to Francis Lewis High School rather than to the student's choice of Jamaica High School.

Today we write in response to the agreement made yesterday between the United Federation of Teachers and the Department of Education. The plan submitted to the Panel for Educational Policy in January was for a phased closing of Jamaica High School combined with a phased opening and growth of three new small schools. Accompanying it was a flawed Educational Impact Statement.

This plan, approved by the Panel for Educational Policy, was presented as one integrated resolution. The Supreme Court of New York State, upheld by the Court of Appeals, has found the PEP votes for the approval of that resolution null and void and annulled the votes.

New York Education Law - Article 52-A, § 2590 - clearly gives the procedure for the co-location of new schools in an existing school. See also Chancellor's Regulation A-190, "Significant Changes in School Utilization", which clearly outlines the procedure which begins with a filing six months before the start of the school year and calls for an EIS, hearings, and a vote of approval by the Panel for Educational Policy.

The announcement of the UFT and the Department of Education's agreement to allow the placement of new schools at Jamaica High School in violation of New York State Law is reprehensible. It sends a terrible example to the students and staff. The action pairs the UFT with the DOE as co-collaborators to circumvent the letter and the spirit of community-based decision making.

I call upon you to reconsider your decision and extricate yourself from a course of action that is a flagrant act of defiance of the new Mayoral Control Law passed last summer. ”

Kevin J. Forrestal,
President, Hillcrest Estates Civic Association

 

PS 241/Harlem Success- Klein Chooses Sides

Hello all-
I am reaching out to you after reaching some deeply troubling information.

This morning as I welcomed students into the building, one of my fourth grade students approached me with a look of anger on her face. She has been with us since she was in Pre-K and feels very strongly about our school and the community. Her brother is a first grader currently attending HSA 1. She has been outspoken that she believes he is not being properly educated- her words, not mine. She hears her family complain as well, and implores them to take him out and let him enjoy school with her, at PS 241- again her words- not mine.

She stated that she had attended a Harlem Success Academy event last night at the Apollo (THe Lottery?), during which Eva Moskowitz spoke. Eva stated that Joel Klein had told her that PS 241 students had failed their Gr. 8 ELA exams and he was going to shut down our school.

Scoring of ELA exams is still in process, the state has not yet received all manually-scored information- nor has it had time to determine final scores. How could Klein have this information? He can't- he must have lied- or Eva lied and is spreading misinformation- slandering our school (and others such as PS 194 and PS 123- according to my young, articulate source).

Klein and Moskowitz must be called to task on this- we must speak out against the lies, the slander, the coersion, the audacity of this kind of misinformation. Please stand together with us to defned our public schools. Make phone calls, send emails, what ever can be done to let the public know this outrage- this is sabotage and outright looting of our school buildings and communities!

All educators should be worried- your school could be next!
Please reach out to all you know.....

Did Times' Medina Accuse Klein of Racism?

When I read this late last night, I blinked.
Buried in Jennifer Medina's story on the ten thousandth reorganization at Tweed is this:

Santiago Taveras, who less than a year ago was appointed the deputy chancellor of teaching and learning, will now be in charge of community engagement. Mr. Taveras has been one of only two Hispanic members in Mr. Klein’s cabinet; there are no African-Americans among the department’s top officials, and all of those who received salary increases in the latest change are white. About 70 percent of the system’s students are black and Hispanic.

Whoa! That is a HEAVY statement coming from the Times in the midst of an article like this. Medina should do a story on the enormous drop in the number of African-American teachers in the 8 years of BloomKlein. See our May, 2008 post on this issue: Racial Policies at Tweed: Disappearing Black Teachers.

Leonie Haimson said:
So much for Joel Klein’s claim to be a great civil rights hero of our time.

She had more comments on the article:

I don’t get the headline of the Times article, which is reprinted here ….does the mandated curriculum change? I don’t think so.

Generally, I don’t see this as a big change in the DOE’s laissez-faire attitude, generally allowing principals to run their own schools however they like, including violating the law, as long as test scores go up. Clearly the educrats care not at all about teaching and learning, having eliminated that division entirely.

Clearly, they care not at all about the impression that the bureaucracy at the top and the salaries are increasing while they are threatening massive layoffs to teachers.

The outrageous thing is they are pretending that the following is their rationale for these changes:

“New school governance legislation has increased external oversight. Sustaining our reforms will require us to redouble our commitment to an open public dialogue."

Come on! That’s like justifying the proposal on laying off senior teachers by saying that it give parents more power, when we know quite the opposite is true.

See also http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/outrage_as_school_bigs_boo_bosses_qwwuXKRfUWC9hjkVUHBLEJ and http://www.ny1.com/6-bronx-news-content/news_beats/education/117637/latest-doe-shakeup-comes-at-a-cost/

Ed Notes Prediction:
Klein will be hiring an African-American within the next half hour.

Add-On
Alternate headline: A Deputy Chancellor in Every Pot

Shouts at Rally on City Hall Steps: "Klein Must Go"

Just as Jitu Weusi is about to speak, Joel Klein goes by and gets greeted.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIN2ZtYJohs

Divide and Conquer: PS 30 VS Harlem Success Academy Charter School Invasion

February 22, 2010 was a volatile night at PS 30. The PS 30 community clashed with Harlem Success Academy II in what did not make for a pleasant evening. Harlem Success Academy II is looking for a home after the PS 123 community fought hard to get them out. The PS 30 community was brilliant in their defense of their school.

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN0F5xWKF3I

Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E9fnQCozB8