Brooklyn College Professor in Passionate Defense of Maxwell

Dr. Wayne Reed talks about the remarkable collaboration between Brooklyn College and Maxwell HS and how closing it will destroy many years of work.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x-YlbUV8UY

Seung Ok: What Drives Us

Seung Ok, delegate from the soon to be vanished Maxwell High School, wrote this brilliant piece at the NYC Education News listserve. He will be appearing on WBAI's Education at the Crossroads on Thursday night at 7pm. Seung has been one of the leaders of the fight back at Maxwell and has also stood up to Michael Mulgrew at the UFT Delegate Assembly. If Unity had a couple of hundred fighters like Seung, we wouldn't be in this position. I'm just glad ICE and GEM has him. Seung will be running for a Vice Presidential position in the upcoming UFT elections.


For all my anger, I will straight out say, that it's not malicious intent on Bloomberg's part nor those of the billionaire boys' club to propose the closure of community schools for replacement with charter schools.

Charter schools and "small schools"are nothing more than a theft of all the talented students of district schools and putting them in one place. So these billionaires walk into these charter schools - and they say to themselves, "Oh my god, black and brown kids can learn? ". We at district schools have always known that there is a core group of students in every grade level of every neighborhood that excels - those that become surgeons and engineers and lawyers.

It is not the new paint of charter schools, nor the potpourri they put in bathrooms - nor the first year teachers whose energy and fortitude is burnt out within a few years working in a charter school. The secret of it all is the top level students that they privately entice from our neighborhood schools. Charter schools get a list of all the level 3 and 4 students from the data banks of the DOE. But these billionaire hedge fund managers who fund these charter schools are clueless of that fact. To them, they see black faces - and based upon all the negative stereotypes in movies that they viewed in their lives - the fact that minority students can excel at all seems a miracle. But, how much time did they ever spend in a neighborhood like East New York or Harlem - it could be counted in a matter of hours. They leave a charter school feeling exuberant as if they discovered some fountain of youth - that the rest of society somehow overlooked.

The following is the reason why small schools and charter schools devastate regular district schools. Let's use common sense...... people are followers; there is positive peer pressure and negative peer pressure. The more years I spend as a teacher dealing with kids, the more I'm convinced, that kids and adults are very much the same....people are followers. Kids buy the latest sneakers, even though it's way overpriced. Adults buy BMW's even though it's the most expensive to repair, and their reliability is worse than other cars. When you take the top students from district schools, you are in essence, removing the positive role models of students who need that extra push to say - hey, this is what I should strive for. You are removing the student leaders, the positive middle class and professionals from a neighborhood that offer a growing child an alternative to the gloom and doom of negativity: gangs, drugs, teenage pregnancy, and drop out rates.

Because Michael Bloomberg and his billionaire's club have a perspective that if you are not the elite 1% of society, graduated from a four year college, and able to cash checks with a multitude of zeros following it......you are a failure - that the majority of inner city students- who face hurdles unimaginable to Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Klein....and yes - President Obama too (who has grown up in Hawaii and attended top private schools) are failures as well.

The reality is that education benefits those at many levels of what society deems "successful". If we only considered those successful, as reaching a certain data driven endpoint - this would mean that Donald Trump has reached nirvana That Mr. Trump is the ultimate goal of what every human society has deemed worthy of representing human kind as it's zenith. If that's true, then the majority of us folks living happy and product lives are losers.

The main argument for closing a school, is that less than 50 percent of the students graduate in 4 years. USA Today has documented that only 53 % of all 4 year universities graduate their students in 6 years. Should we phase out these universities as well? The era of the data driven religion is among us.

What happened to the carpenters and barbers, to the plumbers and fireman, to the janitors and to the sanitation workers - to whom each day of our lives, we depend on to make up this grand society? And what about the artists and musicians that we ask to remind us that humanity has a unifying and loftier goal than increasing our stock portfolio. How many of us turn to a Mozart, a Bob Marley , a Dylan, a Marvin Gaye - every day we ride the trains or crawl through traffic to remind ourselves that there is something other than data driven bottom lines. Well, under Bloomberg's world, where arts and music programs are cut for a schools to stay intact and meet its math and English data criterion - the reality is only .......numbers, numbers, numbers!

Can we remember that Woody Allen dropped out of film school, and that Einstein dropped out of college? Can we remember that Mr. Obama had moments of doubt as a young high school student - doing drugs and cutting class and that a strong mother had to be there for this insecure youth - to guide him to his potential? In the cold business world of Mayor Bloomberg: NO - either you make the mark now in the prescribed path, or risk phasing out.

Well, Mr. Bloomberg represents that cold and unfeeling bottom line. The same logic that made decent folk sell mortgages to people they knew could not afford it. It is that same logic that made people lie about revenues in Enron, in the biggest accounting fraud known in our history. It is the same logic health insurance companies use to deny coverage to millions of Americans.

The truth is, that Michael Bloomberg is only one man. And the fact that one man has so much sway in public policy has nothing to do with his ideas nor his morality than the massiveness of his money. The reality is that the percentage of Americans with college degrees in the 2005 census is 27 %. You know what that means? The majority of us live fulfilling lives even though we don't meet Mayor Bloomberg's Orwellian version of society. The majority have wonderful families, own homes, and live our lives - without a college degree - and yes, maybe - can you believe it, without graduating high school in 4 years.

We have to stop accepting mind numbing data as if they were infallible. After all, a 100 percent of humans who drank milk eventually died. Why do we all assume that a high school degree in 4 years, is exponentially greater than one attained in 5 years. Do corporate interviewers ask whether a college grad took 5, or 6 years to get their degree? If students in our public school system live in shelters and foster homes, living below the poverty line, and struggle to attain a high school diploma in five years - doesn't that deserve even more credit than a Bloomberg or Klein that was all but expected to go to college in four? Doesn't that child show even more character, drive, and unhoned potential than a Bloomberg? Or, are we going to end up as that society that vacuously praises the dollar amount of a Paris Hilton, a George Bush, a Bernie Madoff, and yes.....a mayor.

Seung Ok

Ed Note: I only have known Seung since last April, but have rarely met someone with a more impressive fighting spirit. And he brings so many skills to the table as an organizer, writer and speaker. That he was in the system for 11 years before emerging gives me hope there are lots more Seung Ok's out there.

Maxwell High School Rally: Dec. 9, 2009

Here are some early reports on the rally at Maxwell Vocational School yesterday. GEM/ICE member Seung Ok and the UFT's Unity Chapter leader Jeff Bernstein worked together. Mulgrew spoke. (If you are in a closing school or think you might be soon, attend the GEM meeting this Monday, the 14th at CUNY.)

Marjorie Stamberg has a report and some reactions from ICE/GEM Angel Gonzalez, along with a video of Charles Barron's speech. And the GEM leaflet pdf which I urge you to download and hand out in your school. (Or email me and I'll get you some. Or deliver it personally - for a free school lunch, Jamaican beef patty preferred.)

From our point of view, the UFT's attempt to address each closing on an individual basis is a losing strategy for all, even if they manage to win a small victory in one school. They are moving into desperation mode, with the attack of school closings and the bitter turn in contract talks. They are focusing on bringing people out to PEP meetings in the Bronx next week and Staten Island on January 26. I told them many years ago at Exec Bd meetings for instance - and even Randi personally - that the UFT should be embarrassed to have zero presence at these PEP meetings as I and a few others often ended up being the voice of the teachers. The UFT almost always had their Exec Bd meetings the same night, but they should have had people at each of these meetings. But then again, could they really effectively represent the voice of teachers when they support so much of the policies of the DOE?

On the issue of UFT more often supporting Tweed than teachers, I had some interesting conversations with some Tweed people at the Gotham Schools party last night. I complimented them on the brilliant and well-executed plan of full frontal assault on the public schools system and the union, making the point that the UFT was the only organization capable of throwing a road block in their plans, but instead supported and enabled them. Smiles could barely be suppressed.

Here is the GEM leaflet handed out at Maxwell and going out to closing schools.

"Stop Closings" GEM: Dec. 2009

Baron video from Maxwell Protest.

Councilman Baron at Maxwell High School

The community gathered in support of Maxwell High School. The Department of Education is planning to close down this school that has been has served the community since 1951. It has been steadily improving over the last three years. They have gone up a grade every year on the DOE's bogus school grading system. The DOE acknowledges that their grading system is worthless when even they don't pay credence to it. Keep your hands off our Public Schools Bloomberg!

Marjorie's report:

Here's a brief report on tonight's UFT demonstration outside Maxwell HS in East New York. It was held to protest the announced closing of the school. There were maybe 300 unionists, students and parents there by the time we all went in to the public forum after the rally.

The school closing massacre comes in the context of the mayor's Thanksgiving eve speech in Washington declaring war on the UFT, made with Obama's Education Secretary Arne Duncan sitting next to him. A week later, Bloomberg announced the closing of a slew of schools (now up to 22 as of today), including Jamaica HS, Columbus in the Bronx, Norman Thomas in Manhattan, Broad Channel in Queens. This is huge.

Politically, we are now at an important moment where teachers broadly understand Bloomberg has declared war on the union, and the minority population sees that the city will close down their schools, throwing thousands of kids into the streets, disrupting their education and throwing teachers out of the classrooms.. The sense of the need for joint struggle was palpable in the crowd tonight. Here all the issues of class and race come together.

Later at a public forum inside there was a very hot meeting where parents, teachers, and students, participated in ripping the Board of Ed spokesman to shreds. UFT president Mike Mulgrew spoke, but attributed the blame only to District 19, not to Bloomberg.

Many students and parents spoke powerfully of the school's proud record of educating students, helping them achieve careers in many fields, supporting them and challenging them along the way.

I personally spoke saying Bloomberg has a policy of educational colonialism--the schools he's closing mainly effect minorities. Ninety schools have been closed since mayoral control because he has an agenda of union busting and privatizing education.

It seems to have finally dawned on the [UFT] leadership, with this round of school closings, that if they don't fight to defend the schools now, the union will be devastated. But their whole modus operandi (m.o.) is how to avoid a showdown. Look how they dealt the ATRs, the issues of standardized testing, merit pay, etc. But they can't sidestep this one. What is needed is a real independent mobilization of labor, students, and parents.

The UFT bureaucracy at this point is focused on treating each closing school individually. But the situation has gone so far beyond where it can be fought school-by-school. Some of us took up the chant "Fight Back -- Citywide," which struck a chord with the crowd. We need to go to City Hall in mass protest, have informational meetings in schools across the city, start marching across the Brooklyn Bridge, join with other labor unions, such as the TWU. The situation also raises the issue of the need for a workers party -- you can't fight Bloomberg with Democrats.

There is a new CSEW-UFT flyer out on the situation (PDF attached). I will be advocating for this approach at the delegate assembly and other upcoming meetings.

--Marjorie Stamberg


Angel Gonzalez sent this email which is posted at the GEM blog:

Congrats to Seung, UFT chapter, & parents: phenomenal work at Maxwell !

GEM, ICE, TJC represented!

In an outside rally and indoor forum, Over 250 people shouted down the bankruptcy of the Mayor Bloomberg and his lackey Dist. Superintendent. Through the night, GEM, Councilman Barron, and crowd hollered out and clearly delivered our messages:

1. Stop the charter privatization schemes.
2. Fightback Citywide.

UFT Mulgrew was there and heard these chants loud and clear. Now lets put the heat on our union bosses.

Let's make sure these messages get out to all our schools and at all UFT levels.

Stop the Corporate-Government-Education-Privatization-COMPLEX!

Angel Gonzalez

"There is no victory without struggle; nor is struggle possible without sacrifice!"
¡No hay triunfo sin lucha; ni hay lucha sin sacrificio!

Maxwell HS Community Fights Back Against School Closing

Join us to expose the injustice of school closures!

W.H. Maxwell HS (CTE), a career and technical school since 1951, would be 0.8 away from a B rating had it not been for the Mayor’s random changing of the cutoff scale. Expose the plans to make space for the mayor’s charter school takeovers.

Maxwell FACTS:

· 4 year weighted graduation rate : 72.5 %

· In 2006, our physics students won 1^st prize in the city’s science fair sponsored by Con Edison.

· In 2008, 21.66% of the seniors successfully tested for and received the HSTW Award for Educational Achievement – which also requires college preparatory classes in English, Math , and Science.

· Unlike Charter Schools, we don’t give up on any student: ELL (5%), Special Education (22% - double the average), and student moms (daycare services).

· Two current students serve as the President of the New York State Health Occupations Students Association (HOSA) and Senior Vice President.

· Our HOSA contingent made it to the National Competition last year.

· We have graduates who attend Cornell, NYU, SUNY, CUNY

· Our students get real educational experience with institutions like Brookdale Hospital, Jamaica Hospital, City Tech, Medgar Evers, Touro, Rainbow Inc.

· Our graduates have become Designers, Opticians, Physicians, Nurses, Medical Assistants, Engineers, Cosmetologists, Graphic Artists, Entrepreneurs, Advertisers, etc…check out our Face book page by searching “Maxwell Grads – we really need your support”

· In 2006, we received an F after being overcrowded from the overflow of other school closures. Who will be next when our students get crammed elsewhere?

Come voice your demand that Bloomberg and the Billionaire’s Club listen to the neighborhoods they claim to want to help!

There will be two rallies at W.H. Maxwell HS (CTE) - 145 Pennsylvania Ave, East New York, 11207. C train to Liberty Avenue station:

Wed: Dec. 9^th parents/community forum – 6 pm. Rally at 4:30 pm.

&

Tues: Jan. 12^th CEC/SLC/ DOE forum– 6 pm: open mike sign-up starts 5:30, ends 15 minutes after speakers start. Rally starts 4:30 pm.

For Further info, contact: Positivelypessimist@gmail.com.

Will Maxwell and Jamaica HS Announced Closings Lead to New UFT Policy?

Here is a link to a very effective piece at the NYC Parent blog exposing the failures of the BloomKlein administration:

Schools slated for closure -- resulting from the failure of the administration's policies

Interesting that some parents in NYC can be so much stronger, analytical and educational than the union supposedly defending educators.

The UFT/AFT, hungering for recognition as a "reformist" minded union over the last 25 years, has never taken a strong stand over the closing of schools. Oh you have heard stuff like "Let’s invest money and resources into our existing schools and make them better. It can be done." But it has all been lip service. No line in the sand demanding that things like reduced class size be attempted before closing schools and adding real support for kids who are struggling academically and personally.

The ATR situation (mostly created by closing schools), exacerbated by the UFT's abandonment of the seniority system and promotion of the Open Market System, along with the other attacks on teachers from all directions, has created an internal pressure cooker within the UFT.

The two most prominent school closing announcements this past week were those of Maxwell HS just a few blocks north of my alma mater, the now broken up Thomas Jefferson HS on Pennsylvania Ave in East NY and Jamaica HS in Queens, long in the news through the efforts of chapter leader James Eterno, who will be running against Mike Mulgrew for UFT president.

A few conspiracy theorists have linked the closing as a backroom deal between the UFT and the DOE to put Eterno in a position of having to defend his school instead of being out campaigning, but Eterno has consistently said that the UFT has been supportive in his efforts. I don't always agree with James on this point as I look for deeds more than words.

See Chaz School Daze post and comments on the closing of Jamaica, where he, a former teacher at Jamaica says:

when I left the school was already struggling to survive the inept Principals running the school into the ground and their bosses who found any excuse to attack the school.

Only, James Eterno stood in the way between the dismantling of Jamaica HS earlier. However, unless Michael Mulgrew puts the power of the UFT into this fight, I hold no hope for Tweed reversing their decision.

we need to get rid of Leo Casey as HS rep. Many CL's have more serious school issues to deal with than hear from a union lackey with his double pension that supported the 2005 contract disaster and insulted critics who were proven right about he damage that contract did to us.

We already know that James Eterno is as good a chapter leader as you could find and we in ICE will do what it takes to assist him in this battle, which takes priority at this time over the UFT elections.

Ed Notes has been a persistent critic over the last 15 years of UFT policy towards closing schools and the entire baggage that goes with is: using test data to punish and reward and evaluate teachers and schools. I don't think the UFT can suddenly change its stripes and fight back in an effective way unless it mobilizes in a vast and consistent (no one-shot candle light vigils for instance) manner on all levels, including politically.

The Maxwell HS situation, where the activist Seung OK from GEM and ICE teaches, is an interesting case in point. It is one of the few vocational schools left and we certainly need these more than ever. Maxwell is the home of UFT District Rep Charlie Turner, one of the most despicable hacks in the union. We'll come back to that later.

The UFT has decided to make a big deal out of Maxwell, as indicated in this letter I posted on Norms Notes from special rep Anthony Sclafani that went out to chapter leaders cancelling their meeting this Wednesday and urging them to go to a rally at Maxwell instead. There is an urgency in the letter that might lead some to believe this is a sea change in how the UFT will respond in the future. I'm not so sure.

It begins with:

"Wednesday’s Chapter Leader Meeting is cancelled. That’s right. You have to feed yourself on Wednesday, December 9th."

That's a pretty arrogant way to start, with a demo of union hack resentment over having to feed people to get them to a meeting. But let's give Tony the benefit of the doubt and call it a bad attempt at humor. He continues:

The three of us, [Brooklyn HS District reps Charley [Turner], Charlie [Friedman] and I are taking this very seriously, especially Charley Turner since this is his school We are concerned about many things and some of these will affect you and your schools.

Well, now, Charlie Turner never seemed too upset when Tilden and Canarsie HS, not far from Maxwell and whose extra kids ended up putting pressure on Maxwell that may be a factor in giving the DOE an excuse to close it. But Turner and so many other UFT hacks never see a picture bigger than their next check. A teacher at Tilden left this comment at the ICE blog:

the staff fought back against the Principal and the D.O.E. but like Carnarsie H.S. where they kicked Charlie Turner out of the building when he came over there to comfort the Carnarsie Staff by telling them that you're lucky all you ATRS have jobs. "So what if they move you to another school which you have no choice in going and that it is usually an undesirable school. So what that you are forced to teach out of your licenced area! So what if you have taught at Carnarsie and Tilden for over 20 years. You're lucky. Randi and I(Charlie Turner) and her unity pals signed a great contract in 2005 so you still have jobs as ATRS. Well Charles Turner regretted those words and never stepped foot at Canarsie or Tilden again!

But let's get back to Tony's letter, which actually has nuggets of stuff that's pretty decent.

He defends Maxwell:

...statistically, Maxwell has been on a steady road to improvement over the past three years. We can prove that.....the grading system that determined this is flawed, as everyone in education agrees.

Then Tony asks the magical question:

where will the overflow go? Jefferson Campus? Madison? Wingate Campus? Transit Tech? School for the Classics? Lane Campus? Wherever these students go, it will have an effect on these schools since there is no one being admitted into Maxwell.

Yes, where will the overflow go? That question has been asked time and again but has been basically ignored by the UFT as almost all the large high schools in central and southeast Brooklyn have been closed down and organized into much smaller schools that can't or won't take the overflow.

Next, Tony hits another magic button

I believe that this closing is for one reason and one reason only – SPACE. Where else do we put those new Charter Schools? Or better yet, where do we create empty space to justify new Charters somewhere down the road?

Whoa. Guess what two charter schools are within a stones throw of Maxwell? Both UFT charter schools, with the middle school based at George Gershwin (IS 166 - also my alma mata) possibly one day expanding to 9th grade and beyond. Could it, would it....nah, even in bizarro land we would never see a UFT charter occupying space in Maxwell.

Now Tony hits his stride with some really good stuff:

who’s next on the chopping block? Flawed data, fake reasons, a determined philosophy to close large comprehensive high schools at any cost – all these excuses can be used against anyone of you , even some of the smaller schools. Let’s invest money and resources into our existing schools and make them better. It can be done.

Yes, Tony, it can be done. But never without a union putting its full force behind the battle.

See the document Seung Ok put together to be used in the defense of Maxwell at the GEM blog. Download the pdf to share with your colleagues.

WH Maxwell VHS-Injustice of School Closures

Text posted at NYC Public School Parent blog:

The case for keeping Maxwell Vocational HS open

Postscript:
The actions of Unity Caucus hacks undermine the ability of the UFT to galvanize the support needed to fight these battles because without trust in the leadership to engage in a fair process, the most active members who are also critics tend to hold back their support.

Yes, democracy does count in building an effective union and until we see signs the internal battles will rage. Mulgrew has not only not shown signs of reigning in the hacks but there are indications he will go in the other direction. Let's see how dirty they get in the elections.

I'll write more about this soon because we see what seems like a seductive (to a few) New Action line that we all have to unite to battle the common enemy BloomKlein popping up. Many of us see the UFT/AFT more often lined up with that enemy than with the members. My simple response it to call on Mulgrew to begin a democratic reformation of the union in a show of faith. GEMers and ICEers will be holding discussions addressing the issue of what such a reform might look like in the next few months.