NYC Parent Activist Lisa Donlan Featured on NY TImes Article on Cathie Black

November 26, 2010

Wow! Is the NY Times beginning to get it or what? When the first sentence of an article (Discontent With Mayor at Heart of School Uproar) about the resistance to the Cathie Black nomination in today's paper by Elissa Gutman quotes Lisa Donlan, you know BloomBlackKlein are wearing out their welcome as arbiters of the NYC school system.

Now for those of you who don't know Lisa, she has been one of the leading voices out there battling Mayoral control, the DOE and charter school invasions on the Lower East Side, where she is president of Community Education Council (CEC) 1. The CEC's are the sort of powerless replacements for the 32 old district community school boards which served students from grades k-8. There are separate councils for high schools and special ed.

Lisa Donlan leading the Real Reformers at the Nov. PEP

Many of the most people involved at these councils have met and become active through the NYCEducationNews listserve started by Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters. By the way, if you had an idiot relative try to tell you at Thanksgiving dinner that class size is only about teacher unions trying to create jobs and has nothing to do with learning, send them to the research on Leonie's site.

It was this group of activists that held the press conference last Monday at State Ed Commissioner David Steiner's apartment. You can see this entire group of amazing parent activists in action in the video I put together of the press conference, a video that is a must see if you want to get a sense of what is underlying the increasing resistance to Black and Bloom. I'm including that video below - only 5 minutes but well worth your time. My favorite part: when Lisa thanks Bloomberg for the appointment of Black "for putting the final nail in the coffin of mayoral control," followed by CEC3 President Noah Gotbaum's "Mayoral control is out of control."

Lisa has been a major ally of the corresponding teacher activists and has become a very good personal friend. Her defense of the kind of schools she and others helped advocate for on the Lower East Side in District 1 over the decade BEFORE BloomKlein took over is eloquent. I have a great unpublished video interview I did with her a year and a half ago talking about those years - where District 1 schools were diversified and parents did have school choice, a demonstration that public schools could be given choice within the public school system but that system was intentionally destroyed by BloomKlein so as to make it look like privatized charters were the only option - their version of The Shock Doctrine.

I haven't put it up because whenever I try to edit it into 10 minutes to fit on you tube I find there is little I can cut. I may just put up the entire interview on Vimeo as one of the best arguments against charters and mayoral control. I would have hoped that the Times would address this issue Lisa has raised repeatedly.

Lisa is famous for the puppet show she did with Jane Hirschmann at the historic Jan. 26, 2010 PEP meeting at Brooklyn Tech. She is also a charter member of the Real Reformers.

Here is the link to the press conference on Monday if it plays too slow in this window.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSQ-kZS6fOI

Friday Night Fights! from CAPE

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

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

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

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

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

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

CAPE says:

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