IT'S TIME TO OCCUPY THE PEP THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9TH, 5:30PM

Just off a conference call. Activity around this has been intense. I'm not sure what I can write about but there's lots to say at some point. What has emerged are 3 strands: The UFT, CEJ and ODOE and some coalition-building going on between them --- things have still not been hammered out but post Feb. 9, depending on what the UFT decides to do (lots of mixed signals) I will have a few things to say.

Tweed has a backup plan in case of disruption where the meeting cannot continue. They will retire to a reserve room in Brooklyn Tech and hold the meeting there we have learned. Maybe invite a few slugs to join them to make it "public." Does that violate the Open Meeting Law? Hmmmm.

If I say more I will have to kill you. This came from ODOE which has been drawing 50 people to every Sunday meeting.

IT'S TIME TO OCCUPY THE PEP 

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9TH, 5:30PM

Brooklyn Technical High School, 29 Fort Greene Pl (between Fulton and Dekalb) in Brooklyn

Near the Nevins 2/3/4/5 or the Dekalb B/D/N/Q/R 

https://www.facebook.com/events/104521729674642/ 

Background
On Thursday, February 9th, the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) will hold an open meeting and then a vote to close down dozens more schools. The PEP is an un-elected 13-member body (the majority of whom are appointed by Mayor 1% Bloomberg) whose decisions dramatically affect the lives of the 99%. Every time a vote for school closings has come before the panel, they have voted on behalf of their puppeteer, Mayor Bloomberg. No matter what impassioned students, parents, educators or elected officials have said in the past, the PEP has ALWAYS voted against the people. PEP meetings are open to the public. 

We, students, parents and educators from the 99%, invite you to join us in having our OUR OWN VOTE on the fate of our schools. 

If you don't believe Mayor 1%'s puppet board should be empowered to make decisions about our schools, come help us OPEN THE MEETING UP! In October, the panel walked out of their meeting and we held our own meeting. Click here to see how it went down. Now, let's do it with thousands!

Ways YOU can Occupy the PEP:

 Option A: Are you a student, parent, educator or elected official from a school that the PEP has targeted for closure? Members of your school community should plan to use THE PEOPLE'S MIC to speak out about the mayor's policies and about your school! To see how the people's mic works, click here.

EXAMPLE: I am here because the panel shouldn't be voting without the community's consent to close down schools. In my school...

EXAMPLE: I am here because the mayor has it all wrong, and because he wants to take over space in our public schools to hand it over to charter schools. Our school is an amazing community...

EXAMPLE: I am here because what is happening here is wrong! Because the people have spoken and they say enough is enough!...

Or you can plan a song, performance, or skit. Every school that the PEP plans to vote on will have a chance to speak out and use the people's mic. Please practice! The people's mic can be tricky and you have to speak in short phrases of three to seven words and wait for people to respond. But it's a powerful tool that can change the balance of power in the room! Let's use it!

Then the PEOPLE (not the puppet panel) will vote on the state of your school!

Option B: Not from a closing school? Well then we need your help to support the occupation of this undemocratic meeting! There are definitely ways you can participate. We need your voice to help amplify the voices of those speaking on behalf of their schools. We also need folks to sit near the aisle to protect the people's mic. And we're asking folks to wear shirts or stickers that identify who the occupiers are and what we stand for. For example, you might consider wearing a shirt or sticker that says "Student Against School Closings" or "Parent for Community Control of Schools", etc. There will be speeches, performances, skits, signs to hold, and more! Join us.

Please contact occupythedoe@gmail.com with any questions. Let's open up the PEP and put the decision making power where it belongs—with the people!

The Wave - Bob Turner Don't Know Much 'bout History

School Scope The Wave - www.rockawave.com - Nov. 25, 2011

by Norm Scott

I read amusing excerpts in last week's Wave from our newly minted Congressman's swearing in speech on November 13 at Queens Metropolitan HS where he declared "free enterprise, not 'capitalism [Huh?],' is what our economic system is built on ... a free enterprise system is built on ‘intellectual capital’ and ‘sweat equity.’ It is intellectual capital, people have to have an idea and belief that something will work and can work and they can prosper." Well, whatever Turner wants to call it, whether we are talking about a free and unregulated enterprise system of crony capitalism or the privatization of the public school system, we have a mess.

It's too bad Turner was at Queens Metro on a Sunday. If he had been there on a school day he would have found that the free enterprise school system instigated by WalBlackBloomKlein offers up fairly brand new school where kids had no regular schedules, were left in a gym "class" – taught by Chancellor Walcott's daughter no less - where they didn't get gym, a physics class "taught" by an unqualified special ed teacher, and no chemistry at all after the teacher quit in October. The principal actually did have an idea for a school that on paper seemed to offer a lot of good ideas. The only problem was that she was a grad of the Leadership Academy, the Tweed training ground for future principals ¬without a clue – with many people coming from Turner's vaunted "free enterprise" system without knowledge on how to organize or run a school. Of course, after Walcott and his minions ignored the problem for months - especial knocks to Queens HS Superintendent Juan Mendez (who was so arrogant at the Beach Channel school closing hearing last year) and network leader Gillian Smith – they finally responded – once the story hit the press. (I'm just scratching the surface here - read more on my blog). Free enterprisers sure know what is important.

The oft-mysterious network management system - Turner's vaunted free enterprise system run amuck – deserves to come under scrutiny. A retired teacher left this comment on my blog: "The role of the network organizations MUST be investigated! New Visions, one of the biggest of the Children First networks, also runs charter schools in NYC and advertises constantly for new teachers with no credentials in a program that looks just like Teach for America. This is a clear conflict of interest. I taught at a small school in a poor minority neighborhood and even though students were without mandated classes or teachers (don't get me started on how the special ed kids were shafted) nothing was done to correct the situation. The school is still being run by a totally incompetent Leadership Academy principal with little teaching and no administrative experience. He was backed totally by New Visions."

The school is in the old Jefferson HS – my Alma Mata – that was closed down to make way for four schools some of which - those that have not been able to cream the best kids – have been doing as badly or worse than the old Jefferson. But in Turner's world of free enterprise we now pay four principals instead of one.

And how about Far Rockaway, another closed school (where we are paying 5 or 6 principals) where students at Frederick Douglas Academy VI have been complaining about not having an English teacher for 3 months? There are only 1200 unassigned teachers floating around the city called ATRs who were bumped from their own schools that closed but why hire a real teacher that you actually have to pay? Instead students are being taught English through a computer learning program called "iLearn", part of a massively expensive plot to eliminate teachers. When students have a question, they are told to "Google it." Rename the program "iLearnButNotOften."

The Daily News reported that 75 seniors "have been warehoused in a bunk class with a different substitute each week and no coherent lesson plan...For weeks, students begged administrators at the C-rated school for a steady instructor, but their request was denied — until Friday, when they protested and refused to go to class until their demands were met."

Replacing real teachers with computers is right up Bob Turner's free enterprise system alley. The computer programs are enormously expensive - and profitable - see one Rupert Murdoch who bought a company called "Wireless Generation" after Joel Klein as chancellor created enormous opportunities for the company – before being hired by Murdoch at $4 million a year. Free enterprise for the 1% but not free for us.

The Frederick Douglas students learned their most important lesson when after an hour after their protest, school administrators, who had been ignoring their complaints, met with a delegation and agreed to hire an English teacher.

Were the students inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement, which we are beginning to see is having a more wide-ranging impact than on one square block in lower Manhattan? I'm betting they were. Make sure to see the full 8-minute video of the pepper spraying incident at U of California at Davis where the students shouted at the police in unison, "Shame on you" and "You can go." And the police actually looked shamed and left. How nice to see high school students in our neighborhood learning to use their power of numbers to accomplish something on a smaller scale. We hope to see them broaden their local concerns and join with students around the city who are beginning to stir – as are parents and teachers – against Bloomberg's dictatorship over the schools.

All you have to do is read the short list of headlines Howie Schwach printed in last week's "The Rockaway Beat" with cheating from the school level to the NY State Ed Department running rampant (there can be bonuses for results in the world of free enterprise) as we see the results of Bob Turner's favored competitive and punitive free enterprise system imposed on the school system. Hey, Bob, don't you just love it when people with an idea - and with access to the right people – figure out how they can prosper?

Norm will continue his parsing of Bob Turner in his Dec. 9th column. If you can't wait, he blogs at http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com.

Video Report: Eviction Reinforces OWS Determination

20,000 people marched on Wall St. on May 12 and no one noticed. At OWS a few hundred people camping in has captured the attention of the world.

This is a great point made by Nathan Schneider in Jaisal Noor's video summing up the actions yesterday (one reason I no longer feel it necessary to race around to every event to film is because of real film makers like Jaisal.)

Nathan points out to the disruptive nature of OWS which is so different than the non-disruptive actions of the unions like the UFT which often wants to partner (collaboration it is called) with the very powers they are supposedly protesting against. You know, that seat at the table they so hunger for.

In the video Justin Wedes talks about the big demo tomorrow which on the surface may look like the May 12 event which was mainly under the control of unions like the UFT. They are also involved in the event tomorrow but are they any longer in a position to control the direction of the movement? One aspect to watch will be the Occupy DOE group that meets up on the steps of Tweed at 4:30. See my report earlier today: Calling all future Occupiers of the Department of Education!

This is the OWS ed spin-off that disrupted Walcott's PEP Common Core standards scam a few weeks ago followed by the General Assembly on the steps of Tweed on Nov. 7, both events ignored by the UFT leaders - similar to their boycott of our movie. When it comes to educators applying the lessons of OWS, they UFT is not interested.

I think if you watch carefully over the next few months as the DOE escalates the closing of schools and co-locos of charters and pushes teacher evals and common standards down our throats - and if the ODOE teachers can really build something - you will see the UFT leaders in a quandary as to how to react - of course co-opting the movement would a major part of their strategy and they may succeed as they have in the past - I see all too many people who still hunger to partner with the UFT even when they understand exactly what they are doing.

ODOE will meet again on Sunday at noon at 60 Wall Street if you are interested in moving that forward - in case you can't make the 4:30 meet-up at Tweed tomorrow.

The Real News Report on OWS protestor eviction, protestors' return!
http://youtu.be/iL6HgtwWrTA




Also video from Tues. AM arrests at Canal and 6 on her blog from Leonie.

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2011/11/video-of-arrests-this-morning-of-occupy.html