NY Post Red Scare Alert: McCarthy-like Attack on MORE Teacher; MORE Responds

Francesca Gomes with best friend

TIME Magazine (who did not write about Francesca) pointed mainly to bankers and financial experts for the meltdown in their complete list of “25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis”.... MORE responds to NY Post attack on left, In Defense of Francesca Gomes, Bankers Should Be Slammed!

the Post has at least one reporter at all times on the "embarrassing teacher stories" beat. They regularly call OSI to find out about the latest cases that are under investigation - it's part of their long term campaign to demonize public employees. However, since the election, there definitely has been a shift towards attacking left wing teachers politically--- comment on MORE Listserve

"Leftist teacher’s homework assignment slams bankers" blared the headline in an article written by NY Post reporter Melissa

Klein, who showed up with two NY Post interns at the home of NYC teacher and founding MORE member, Francesca Gomes, on  Saturday morning to engage in a spurious piece of reporting. Francesca Gomes has been politically active on the left for decades and has never hid it.

When asked to leave one of the witch hunters refused to leave the private property. Now I support the rights of reporters, considering myself one, to get a story. But illegitimate and inconsequential stories like this one? Melissa whines:

When confronted at her Brooklyn home, Gomes slammed the door in a reporter’s face.

Really? Francesca, you didn't invite them in for tea? By the way, there were 3 people who came to her home, not one. Like Francesca had to be "confronted" over her "crime".

The story opens with: Blame the bankers!
Wait -- why not go all the way and say it in red:

Blame the bankers!

Melissa Klein adds the pitchfork:

A left-leaning humanities teacher at a Brooklyn middle school handed out a homework assignment this month in which students had to fill in the following sentence:

Wait Melissa, you forgot to add this:

Here is the so-called offending question Francesca asked:

“Banks are often run by ————— people who look for ways to hurt the most financially vulnerable people in the country.”

Oh let me count the ways banks hurt the most financially vulnerable people. In the Post/Trumpian world, that makes them heroes for screwing the little people. My answer would be SHITHEADS? What is yours?

I mean, were bankers responsible for the 2008 crash? Duhhhhh!

The witch hunt continues:

Gomes has been outspoken on lefty causes and is part of the United Federation of Teacher’s Social Justice Caucus. She is also a member of Socialist Alternative, the group that pushed for the election of a socialist candidate to Seattle’s city council in 2013.
Gomes leans further left than even Mayor de Blasio, and blasted him on social media in April for a comment he made at a Staten Island forum when asked about a “gag order” on teachers disparaging state tests.

Oh Melissa, don't you know that the Socialist Alternative candidate was actually elected to the city council and led the way to the $15 minimum wage that started the trend around the nation?
I mean, people actually voted for and elected a member of Francesca's leftist group. Is that what scares the hell out of the NY Post?

Shades of the red scare witch hunts of the 50s when teachers were fired for their political views. And by the way, UFT founder Al Shanker said it was right to fire those teachers.

I wonder how Melissa Klein would feel if I showed up with my Ed Notes press credentials at her door, alone with a photographer, to ask her  questions about how this story came about? Feel free to slam the door in my face Melissa. Or invite me in for tea.

Gomes leans further left than even Mayor de Blasio, and blasted him on social media in April for a comment he made at a Staten Island forum when asked about a “gag order” on teachers disparaging state tests. The mayor said, “Think of what it would lead to if teachers openly criticized every education policy they disagreed with,” the Staten Island Advance reported.

OMG: Fracnesca is to the left of the hated de Blasio, Can that be possible? And imagine the NY Post slamming Francesca for standing up to her nominal boss who tried to suppress free speech, the same guy the Post slams on every issue they can find. The Post apparently supports the de Blasio gag orders on teachers --

Maybe if Melissa had the same guts as Francesca she would stand up to her idiot bosses at the Post instead of becoming a hit woman for their biased politics.

Here is the link to the NY Post story.

James Eterno has some commentary:

MORE DEFENDS FRANCESCA GOMES

And here is the MORE fabulous defense of Francesca, written by a MORE member who is an experienced social studies high school teacher in NYC who points out that the question Francesca asked is the same one asked by many of our leading politicians and editorial writers and even many reporters.
 

morecaucusnyc

In Defense of Francesca Gomes, Bankers Should Be Slammed! - Were banks to blame for the Great Recession? Should middle school students be required to identify words like nefarious or reprehensible? 

MORE’s Francesca Gomes seems to think so and, last week, the New York Post noticed.
 

Francesca assigned students a handout with a word bank (a technique, by the way,  that is just good teaching practice). One portion read “Banks are often run by ————— people who look for ways to hurt the most financially vulnerable people in the country.” It seem like the choices remaining were “nefarious” and “reprehensible”.

We suppose that would lead students to conclude that the banks’’ actions were “nefarious” and “reprehensible”. But we also suppose that the banks’ actions in 2008 were, well nefarious and even reprehensible.

Senator Bernie Sanders seem to think the same thing saying once that “greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street”. Former US attorney Preet Bharara agrees. In 2015, the Post reported Bharara’s position that criminal activity on Wall Street caused 2008 meltdown. (They did so in an article they published entitled “Criminal activity’ on Wall Street caused 2008 meltdown: Preet”).

It’s probably important to note that the Post themselves never once blamed Wall Street for the financial meltdown that cost millions of people their jobs and their homes and kicked millions more out of America’s middle class forever. That alone may explain part of the reason for not feeling comfortable with a teacher assignment that associated the banks with nefarious acts.

But TIME Magazine (who did not write about Francesca) pointed mainly to bankers and financial experts for the meltdown in their complete list of “25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis”. We here love the Post, but we’ll take Time’s economic evaluations over the Post, most days of the week.

Other folks who blamed banks for the meltdown include John McCain and Barack Obama, the latter saying in 2009 that Americans had been “tricked into signing these subprime loans by lenders who were trying to make a quick profit. And the reason these loans were so readily available was that Wall Street saw big profits to be made.”, while the former declaring in 2008 that, “In my administration, we’re going to hold people on Wall Street responsible. And we’re going to enact and enforce reforms to make sure that these outrages never happen in the first place.”

Here’s what the bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) had to say on the matter:

“There was an explosion in risky subprime lending and securitization, an unsustainable rise in housing prices, widespread reports of egregious and predatory lending practices, dramatic increases in household mortgage debt, and exponential growth in financial firms’ trading activities, unregulated derivatives, and short-term “repo” lending markets, among many other red flags.”

So, yeah. We’re pretty sure that blaming the banks isn’t anything controversial.

But let’s face facts for a moment ok? Francesca wasn’t featured for having her students provide answers along a premise that everyone in America (besides the Post) seems to accept. She was featured because her political opinions are to the left of what the NY Post has deemed acceptable. She’s a leftist. A lefty. An alternative social something or other and, well, just left. For that reason, and that reason only, the Post decided to attack her.   

Now we’re proud to know that Francesca accepts all students in her classroom and we’re grateful to learn that she challenges those students with rigorous vocabulary. But we don’t much care about her political points of view outside of the work place and we don’t think you should either.

Why? Well, because as long as the law is being followed, the things a teacher does outside the school door is private. Teachers, especially ethical teachers like Francesca who challenge their students on a daily basis, deserves that privacy when they leave the schoolhouse.

As a good teacher, Francesca knows that it’s only ethical for her to avoid speaking about those viewpoints when she’s at work and in front of her students. We should probably remind you that she has not been accused of acting in an unethical manner in any way. The question on the assignment is clearly based on facts, not politics. 

We think teachers should teach facts. We also think they should enjoy their privacy after work.

NY Post Editorial Tries to Shift Blame for PS 106 From Bloomberg to de Blasio

It was pretty clear to me that with the history of PS 106 having been out there (on ednotes and The Wave) for over 6 years) Sue Edelman and the Post waited until the real culprits were out of office and could no longer be held accountable.

Mike Bloomberg’s education policy wasn’t perfect, or PS 106 wouldn’t have fallen through the cracks as long as it did. But Bloomberg was pretty clear about what he wanted to do with failing schools: He wanted to close them down.... NY Post Editorial

This was as clear a hit job as we've seen. In as an astounding an editorial one can imagine, the NY Post today managed to ignore a decade of BloomKlein mismanagement of schools like PS 106 and protection for principals like Marcella Sills who as a Leadership Academy (Klein's Rosemary's baby) went after teachers with a vengeance.

It was pretty clear to me that with the history of PS 106 having been out there (on ednotes and The Wave) for over 6 years) Sue Edelman and the Post waited until the real culprits were out of office and could no longer be held accountable before publishing the story so they could now say:

All of which makes PS 106 an excellent field trial for de Blasio’s education “reforms.” If he and his chancellor are unwilling to close down a school as rotten as this one, surely they have an alternative that will turn things around quickly. We emphasize quickly — because children stuck in failing schools today can’t afford to wait years.
Chancellor Farina says the situation at PS 106 is “unacceptable.” The mayor admits it’s “deeply troubling.”
But it’s something else, too: It’s their problem now. And they’ll be judged on whether they can fix it.

Maybe Farina and de Blasio will come up with the kind of solution other than closing the school: remove a principal that was allowed to rise on the very back of the BloomKlein deforms that defended almost any principal no matter how awful and bring in the resources that a real principal will know how to use for the benefit of the children instead of for a personal political agenda like Sills did. (We'll get to the library destruction story another time.)

PO Teacher Takes NY Post Reporter to Task

Next time use the NY Post

In our spirit of holding reporters accountable for stories they write, especially with what is left out in such a way as to taint the story one way, we present Pissed Off Teacher's  assault on

Yellow Journalism

A guy handed me a copy of the Post as I walked off the subway this morning.  It seems this rag is trying to increase readership by bombarding pedestrians in lower Manhattan with free copies.

I took one, stuck it in my bag and opened it up on the way home.  The headline AUDIT SHOWS TEACHERS REGULARLY WORK LESS THAN THEIR CONTRACT REQUIRES almost knocked me out of my seat.  

 

How dare he write teachers don't work enough?  Teachers are programmed by administrators and administrators suck every ounce of blood out of them.  If the teacher is not in the classroom, the teacher is performing some other duty, a duty that requires sometimes possibly twice the amount of time that would have been spent in the classroom.  I have seen the work teachers with comp time jobs do and, for that reason I never took one.  And, as for after school jobs, he clearly forgets to mention the adminstrators that are paid to sit around and supervise each and every per session activity, supervisors that barely leave their offices except perhaps to go out for coffee or to go home early.

Yoav Gonan is a shill of the system.  Several years ago he interviewed me.  He was doing a story on the overcrowding and trailer conditions at Packemin.  I gave him a tour of the trailer, pointed out holes in the walls, exposed outlets and sinks and thermostats that did not work.  I remember him asking me why I still taught in the trailer since conditions were so bad.  I told him that it beat working in the noisy building.  He wrote something to the effect "teacher likes working in trailer" and ignored everything else I said.  He called me again several months later with questions about something else.  I refused to speak to him.

The Post only cares about selling papers.  This headline is just another part of the yellow journalism they use to do it.  Next time, I am turning down their free paper.  It is not even fit to line a bird cage.

 

Hey, when are we going to see Reporter Data Reports published?

The Michael Stanzione Files: As Case Falls Apart, NY Post to the Rescue

Coming to a cell phone near you

The other evening, just as my 24 guests were sitting down to a sedar, I get a call from the NY Post's Sue Edelman asking me to confirm certain information about what the teacher posted on Faebook, all negative, of course, which I refused to do. Was the info leaked by the DOE as they saw their case going down the tubes? Or maybe the NY Post just hacked into the teacher's phone. I imagine the next step is for the Post to send a reporter and photographer to the teacher's home to catch as unflattering as possible photo of her.  ---- Norm Scott

What happens when a popular teacher with students, parents and other teachers makes a joke on a Facebook post? What message is being sent when this teacher is African-American in a sea of disappearing African-American teachers from the NYC public school system, in a school with a principal who has gone after 2 female teachers of color and hires mostly young white teachers with a certain look?

The Bloomberg/Tweed strategy: if you can't fire them with outrageous charges, get the NYC Press to help you out.

I attended parts of the first two days of a 3020a hearing of a teacher charged with inappropriate Facebook posts on April 3 and 4 and I am so glad I did.

I was lucky enough to catch the direct and the devastating cross examination by NYSUT lawyer Chris Callegy of High of Economics and Finance principal Michael Stanzione. Boy, what a worm this guy is: narrow, paranoid and chilling in demeanor -- the very model of what Tweed wants in an administrator.

The DOE lawyer, Andrea Chilaka, flailed away with one objection after another, trying to keep any hint that the teacher was top notch off the record, often saying, "that is irrelevant to this case." Yes, Andrea, we know that trying to retain excellent and effective teachers is irrelevant to the real interests of the DOE, as proven time and again with bogus charges.

[See: Peter Lamphere. Or Chaz who tells his horror story here:
My Story On What Really Happened And Why The Independent Arbitrator Gave Me Only A $2,000 Fine In The 3020-a Hearing. And another of the NY Post's daily hits -- based on my new fave expression "FOX facts" which should be applied to any Rupert media outlet -- did I coin this phrase or steal it?.]

Bloomberg media blitz to end LIFO

Blogger Chaz was exposed in Friday's NY Times hit job on how it is so hard it is to fire teachers, one of the many expected media salvos to try to end LIFO. Today they did a follow-up somewhat more sympathetic to the teacher --- like at least attempting to deal with the issue of a teacher showing affection to students (now banned) vs. being charged with a sexual act. See- In Successful Fight to Keep Job, Music Teacher Cited Double Standard by City.  (I taught 4-6th graders and though I never put children on my lap I probably did tickle a few at some point. Can I talk about the time five 7th grade girls slept over my house with their parents' permission and my wife's too - yes, it's called TRUST, something the DOE is trying to wipe out? Can I take my 45 year old former student to dinner without risking arrest - see sidebar - pic of a loser in a blue leisure suit with a kid. She is now 45 and we have a dinner date. Haven't seen her since she was 16. Has the statute of limitations run out?)

Every single person I know who knows Chaz says he is a superb teacher and to persecute a guy because he told a student he was so proud of her for passing an exam he could kiss her is beyond outrage. Is the FOX Facts NY Post and the NY Times questioning how much money the DOE tossed down the drain to persecute Chaz?

Gotham reported that Bloomberg was whining "that arbitrators in misconduct hearings ruled in favor of the union. (Politicker)" without pointing out that the city must approve every arbitrator. Duh! The reason arbitrators are ruling for teachers is due to the level of outrageous charges, especially when even the DOE admits the case has nothing to do with the quality of the teacher.


A popular and effective teacher
And thus it is with the Facebook teacher, who even Stanzione admitted was not only a good teacher but one that students gravitated to, as did other teachers. In fact she was Coordinator of Student Activities (COSA) and was chosen to represent the school at recruiting fairs with the approval of Stanzione --- an unpaid volunteer position.  She was so popular with students, I imagine she had grown so comfortable with them that she said a few things on Facebook that look bad when in isolation, but as pointed out by union lawyer Callegy, nothing that isn't said all the time in teacher rooms, which Stanzione readily acknowledged. There was quite a good discussion between Callegy and Stanzione about the definition of "sarcasm." (By the way, the teacher was voted by the students as "most sarcastic" teacher.)

I will do separate posts on the details of the case and reveal more about Stanzione's actions as principal in follow-ups. Look for all of the upcoming Michael Stanzione Files on the sidebar.

In the meantime, keep an eye out for more FOX facts from the NY Post as they target this teacher, "facts" which many in the school community will fight vigorously.

And check out RBE's:

Time To Investigate The NY Post, The Wall Street Journal, and FOX News For Hacking And Other Crimes

Thursday, 5PM: Educators Stand Up to Murdoch's NY Post

IT'S TIME TO MAKE A STAND. SHARE THIS WITH PEOPLE YOU WORK WITH AND TEACHER CONTACTS AND SUPPORTERS.

Thursday, March 22, 5PM at News Corp HQ: Meet at 30 Rockefeller Center.

Email me if you want the pdf for your school: normsco@gmail.com

Every UFT member who can make this should be there. 

If you're asking why the Post and not the Times, we start with the most sleaze first, though given that the Daily News sent a reporter and fotog to my friend's door on a Saturday morning makes them just as sleazy.

Let's make this clear -- this is NOT an action of the UFT (though it wouldn't surprise me to see them glom onto this) but of the Occupy DOE group with the support of pretty much all the activist groups.

The still unnamed State of the Union which includes activists from all the groups is also supporting.

Come! Spread the word!

Educators Stand Up to the NY Post!

Protest the New York Post's Decision to Publish Faulty Teacher Data Reports, Ties to Education Deform, and Distribution of Vile and Bigoted Pseudo-Reporting to Our Schools

The New York Post despicably published the Teacher Data Reports of some 1800 fourth through eighth grade teachers, with full knowledge of their many flaws from inaccurate class rosters to statistically irrelevant sample sizes and the massive opposition to their focus on high stakes standardized testing as the only means of assessing teachers and students. The Post's parent company, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, has a history of connections to the worst actors in the movement against teachers and students, including hiring former New York City Chancellor of Schools, Joel Klein. This only adds to the already outrageous free distribution of the New York Post, a racist, sexist, pornographic rag of a newspaper, to our public schools.

Join Occupy the Department of Education for a protest at News Corporation's Headquarters, and a tour of the publications that betrayed our teachers and students through the publication of teacher data reports.

Thursday, March 22

5:00 PM

Meet at 30 Rockefeller Center

Wear Black to mourn the "death of teaching" and your "scarlet number" to show we won't be shamed!

Follow on Twitter #scarletnumbers

RSVP on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/387880417906717/

Absurdities and Kneecapping

 Dear Absurdists and Kneecappers,

 Did you see this headline: NY Post Comes Out Against School Grades: These grades flunk

It is becoming increasingly clear that Schools Chancellor Joel Klein is doing no one any favors -- not the public, and certainly not himself -- by assigning letter-grade report cards to city schools. The jerry-rigged system for determining the grades obscures more than it reveals. Thus, the information the cards impart is worse than misleading -- it's virtually useless. And the charter-school movement -- an unambiguously bright light in the city school system -- is particularly ill-served by the letter grades. 

Unambigously bright light? They must suffer from severe pupil dilation.

Poor babies. They're favorite pet charters didn't do so well on the grading system. It must be flawed. But then again we knew that all along. Of course Michael MulGarten stepped into it with this one:

The teachers union -- which detests both the competition from charters and the use of tests to hold teachers accountable -- hopped on the new grades with both feet.
Traditional schools' edge in grades means "either the strategy Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein have touted for so long -- the creation of more charter schools -- isn't working, or that the entire progress-report methodology, which relies almost completely on standardized test scores, is flawed," crowed union boss Michael Mulgrew.

Tweed was quick to point out that the UFT's own charter got a "D" with the comment, "those in glass houses shouldn't cast stones." The UFT charters have suffered one disaster after another with numerous changes in leadership. I actually agree with the Tweedies here. We told the UFT not to get into the charter school game because they would never be able to take a position opposed to charter schools or be able to lead a real fight back for public education if they did. And so they did (get into the game). And so they don't (lead a fight back).

 

Leonie Haimson commented:

Even the NY Post, owned by Murdoch and close buddy of Bloomberg and Klein admits that the school grades are so absurdly unreliable they should be eliminated.

The straw that broke the camel’s back for them this year appears to be the way charter schools got lower scores on average this year.

The jerry-rigged system for determining the grades obscures more than it reveals. Thus, the information the cards impart is worse than misleading -- it's virtually useless.

 Followed by Steve Koss

It's difficult not to guffaw over the absurdist inconsistency in the Post's "new position" on school report cards, what with their having gone from its greatest shills to sudden detractors simply because they disagree with its outcome in respect to the system's assessment of charter schools.

What's even more astonishing is that they either don't see or don't care to see the other astonishing inconsistency in their revised position on the school report cards. If after having spent countless millions of dollars and doubtless reflecting the professional genius of innumerable experts on education, the end result is so inconsistent and unreliable that even the Post's troglodytic conservatives want to throw out this type of reporting at the aggregated school level, what could possibly make any sentient homo sapiens think that INCREASING the granularity of these measurements to the teacher/classroom level will be any better?

Likely without the faintest sense of what they've done, the editors at the Post have kneecapped their own already-indefensible position with regard to value-added analysis and evaluation of teacher performance. After all, if the geniuses at DOE and their wasted millions couldn't do it right for entire schools (where aggregation enables at least some degree of the margin for error to wash itself out), how on earth can it be done for a third-grade teacher with just 25 or 30 children in a classroom?

What could be more better than seeing the Post's editorial troglodytes unknowingly clubbing themselves in the knees without even realizing they're doing it?

Steve Koss

NY Post's Carl Campanile underestimated Smikle's charter lobby contributions

If you read my last post last Saturday night about NY Post reporter Carl Campanile's distorted reporting on the Bill Perkins/Basil Smikle NY State Senate primary, here is some more info that has come in over the transom from our readers.


UPDATE FROM KEN LIBBY:

Kenneth Libby has left a new comment on your post "NY Post's Carl Campanile underestimated Smikle's c...":

This provides a bit more info on Basil's donors:

http://dferwatch.wordpress.com/2010/08/23/basils-backers-mainly-charter-supporters-and-some-real-estate-moguls/

He's taken in about $160,000 in donations. A bit over $100,000 comes from hedge fund/charter backers. Another $25k or so comes from real estate folks.

-Ken

For our new readers, Perkins held hearings on charter schools and the hedge fund/charter school crowd got upset. So they dug up Smikle to run against Perkins.

A couple of points on Smikle fundraising:

According to the Wall Street Journal analysis,

"More than half of Mr. Smikle's contributions came from pro-charter donors."

http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB10001424052748703720504575377701262805436.html

Below is a listing of $105,000 in Smikle contributions, all with Charter School and Real Estate connections.

Smikle has reported contributions from less than 10 people who live in the district, totalling $4,100.

ACKMAN, WILLIAM A 1 W 81ST ST NEW YORK, NY 10023	6,000.00	HEDGE FUND MILLIONAIRE CHARTER SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER
BUCK, CHRISTOPHE E 14 EAST 90TH ST NEW YORK, NY 10128	6,000.00	CHARTER SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER , BIG CONTRIBUTOR TO CHARTER SCHOOLS
CURRY, ELIZABETH 499 PARK AVE NEW YORK, NY 10022	6,000.00	MOTHER OF BOYKIN CURRY HEDGE FUND MILLIONAIRE CHARTER SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER
CURRY IV, RAVENEL B 106 CENTRAL PARK SOUTH NEW YORK, NY 10019	6,000.00	SON OF ELIZABETH CURRY HEDGE FUND MILLIONAIRE CHARTER SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER DFER MEMBER
DAVIS, ANTHONY 257 W 17TH ST NEW YORK, NY 10011	5,000.00	ATTORNEY CHARTER SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER DFER BOARD MEMBER
FELDSTEIN, ANDREW T 20 TOMPKINS ROAD SCARSDALE, NY 10583	6,000.00	ATTORNEY CHARTER SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER
GREENBLATT, JOEL 245 MIDDLE NECK ROAD SANDS POINT, NY 11050	4,000.00	HEDGE FUND MILLIONAIRE CHARTER SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER DFER BOARD OF ADVISERS
GRIFFIN, AMY M INFORMATION REQUESTED ,	6,000.00	WIFE OF JOHN A. GRIFFIN, BILLIONAIRE AND PRESIDENT OF BLUE RIDGE CAPITAL HEDGE FUND, FORMERLY OF TIGER MANAGEMENT, JULIAN ROBERTSON’S HEDGE FUND.  BIG SUPPORTER OF CHARTER SCHOOLS THROUGH THE AMY AND JOHN GRIFFIN FOUNDATION.
HADAR, ERIC 770 LEXINGTON AVE NEW YORK, NY 10065	5,000.00	REAL ESTATE TYCOON VERY INTERESTED IN HARLEM REAL ESTATE AND PROPERTY IN MANHATTAN SUPPORTER OF COLUMBIA USING EMINENT DOMAIN
LEDLEY, CHARLES H 3 AVERY STREET BOSTON, MA 02111	5,000.00	HEDGE FUND MILLIONAIRE CHARTER SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER DFER BOARD MEMBER
LEWINSOHN, JONATHAN 2211 BROADWAY NEW YORK, NY 10024	3,000.00	LAWYER AND WORKS FOR HEDGE FUND. CHARTER SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER
LEWIS, EDWARD INFORMATION REQUESTED ,	6,000.00	CHAIR OF THE BOARD OF HARLEM VILLAGE ACADEMIES CHARTER SCHOOLS.
MAYER, RAFAEL 1175 PARK AVE NEW YORK, NY 10128	5,000.00	HEDGE FUND MILLIONAIRE CHARTER SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER DFER BOARD
NOVOGRATZ, MICHAEL E 1345 AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS NEW YORK, NY 10505	6,000.00	HEDGE FUND BILLIONAIRE DFER BOARD OF ADVISERS
PETRY, JOHN 260 W 72ND ST NEW YORK, NY 10023	6,000.00	HEDGE FUND MILLIONAIRE CHARTER SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER DFER BOARD OF ADVISERS; ERN BOARD
PITTELMAN, CAROLE 1385 YORK AVE NEW YORK, NY 10021	5,000.00	REAL ESTATE TYCOON
ROBBINS, LARRY 767 5TH AVE NEW YORK, NY 10153	5,000.00	HEDGE FUND MILLIONAIRE CHARTER SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER
ROSENSTEIN, AARON N INFORMATION REQUESTED ,	3,000.00	HEDGE FUND MILLIONAIRE CHARTER SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER
SACKLER, JONATHAN D 1 STAMFORD FORUM STAMFORD, CT 06901	5,000.00	HEDGE FUND MILLIONAIRE BOARD MEMBER OF ACHIEVEMENT FIRST CHAIN OF CHARTERS FATHER OF MADELEINE SACKLER, MAKER OF PRO-CHARTER FILM, THE LOTTERY
WEPSIC, ERIC KARL 255 W 84TH ST NEW YORK, NY 10024	6,000.00	HEDGE FUND MILLIONAIRE CHARTER SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER
Total Contributions:	105,000.00	ALL BUT $10,000 FROM CHARTER SCHOOL LOBBY/SUPPORTERS

NY Post's Carl Campanile Discovers Dem Who Opposes Perkins, Ignores Hedge Contributions

In the "Slow News Day" Category

It took a massive investigative effort, but Carl Campanile has managed to dig up a Democrat who supports the charter school backed opponent of Harlem State Senator Bill Perkins. Hailed as a possible Pultizer Prize winning story, the Post ran a story with the startling revelation that "The executive committee of Frederick Samuel Democratic Club -- co-chaired by Assemblyman Wright -- backed Smikle in an 11-7 secret ballot vote for the nomination." 

Wow! Perkins is in real trouble when 11 out of 18 members of this massive club turn against him. Has anyone checked to see what monies Wright got from charter school supporters?

 Perkins spokesman Richard Fife pointed out:

"Interesting you make a news item out of an executive committee of a club supporting Smikle in a split vote. From most every other grass-roots group in the district, Bill Perkins won an overwhelming vote from their members."

The Post won't be sending Campanile out to make a list of all the clubs that have supported Perkins.  The story makes this comment.


"Hedge fund managers and other charter-school financiers have donated about $60,000 of the $150,000 raised by Smikle."

Nice chunk of change. The UFT gave Perkins $9000. You know, when unions do it there's a conflict of interest. But hedge hogs? Nada.

Want to know why Joel Klein always favors charter schools and David Steiner ruled against PS 15 in Red Hook in favor of PAVE Academy run by Spencer Robertson, a billionaire's son?

Here are some campaign contributions from hedge fund charter school supporters Carl won't be reporting:

Kenneth Libby reported:

ERN’s largest donation to date (that I’m aware of) is a $250,000 gift from the Robertson Foundation. The foundation was started in 1996 by Julian Robertson, the former hedge fund manager of Tiger Management.


Although Tiger Management is no longer around, they still have an active foundation (the Tiger Foundation) funded by Robertson and other former Tiger Management employees.
Below is a summary of education-related donations from the Robertson Foundation and the Tiger Foundation. Notes: only donations over $10k are included.

Read the ugly details at Norms Notes:

Spencer's (Robertson) dad gave DoE $5mil and the Charter Center $3mil in their last filing. Wow...

"Average Citizen" Jessica Tisch Calls For Bloomberg 3rd Term

Today's Post includes an op-ed calling for voters to decide on term limits so Bloomberg can run again. The piece claims Bloomberg has outperformed, citing his record in improving the schools. It's written by a Jessica Tisch, identified as a "law and business student" in New York. Does anyone know who that is, if she went to public schools or how she otherwise arrived at her insight into our "improved "schools?

What the Post didn't tell you:
NY Times, Nov. 2006

Jessica Sarah Tisch, the daughter of Merryl and James S. Tisch of New York, was married last evening to Daniel Zachary Levine... The bride, 25, and bridegroom, 26, met at Harvard, from which they both graduated magna cum laude, and where she is now in the third year of a combined M.B.A. and law degree program and he is a second-year M.B.A. student.

Her father is the president and chief executive of the Loews Corporation in New York, which was founded by her late grandfather Laurence A. Tisch and late great-uncle Preston Robert Tisch. The bride's father is also the chairman of the board of the Educational Broadcasting Corporation, the parent organization of two New York-area public television stations, WNET and WLIW. Her mother is a member of the New York State Board of Regents and the chairwoman of the board of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty.

Meryl Tisch, another useless NY State Board of Regent. Time to call for elections of these jokers.

A response from SK to the NYC Education News listserve:

You're simply not going to believe this -- I'm sitting here with my jaw resting on the floor. I'd say there's a 99%+ likelihood that Jessica Tisch is hardly a disinterested observer of the NYC political and school scene. She's one of "the Tisch's." Her mother is even a member of the NYS Board of Regents. See the NY Times wedding announcement below fro 11/2006. Young Ms. Tisch is apparently a "law and business student" at Harvard -- I'm sure the Tisch family name and money guaranteed that. What are the chances she's an NYC public school student? Does less than zero count? Hers is a family that would never do more than hold it's collective nose as it was chauffered past our public schools.

I guess Mike and Joel are now recruiting their rich friends' kids to shill for them semi-anonymously. I'm just astonished by the sheer brazenness of this, and the timorous little identifier of Ms.Tisch as a "law and business student." That would make Chelsea Clinton "a recent Stanford graduate." So much for full disclosure on behalf of the Post, as if we might have any reason for them to do this honestly. This is utterly outrageous, truly appalling in every way I can imagine. Sadly, it's nothing I wouldn't otherwise expect from the Post and its editorial board. How many other "law and business student" letter writers would get a guest editorial spot in a major NYC newspaper? No different than what doubtless got her into Harvard Business and Law Schools, I'm sure.