Running PEP Meetings Using the Workshop Model

After watching some mind-numbing presentations by Joel Klein's staff at the November Panel for Educational Policy meeting, I suggest an alternative way of running the meetings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0wrouvzgVo

UFT Candlelight Vigil Snuffed While PEP Meets

Update2: Fri. Nov. 30, 10 am
Norm's School Scope column appears biweekly in The Wave
www.rockawave.com
This is a rewrite of what I wrote after little sleep, hopefully making it more literate.

Upadated Weds, Nov. 28
This is mostly a new post that includes the column I just submitted to The Wave for this Friday's publication, which goes into more of the history of the PEP and a rewrite some of the UFT stuff. I'll add a video link later to my statement about using the Workshop model for PEP meetings. Hear Klein cut me off on the 2 minute button. I also have video of how Betsy Combier pushed Klein's buttons and got an angry response.

The Panel SAYS

The Panel for Educational Policy replaced the old Board of Education when the state legislature gave the Mayor control over the schools in 2002, which will sunset in 2009 – thankfully. Now we all know about the disfunctionality of the old BoE. But the PEP is non-functional, being only an advisory body with Klein himself being a member and 7 members appointed by the Mayor, serving at his pleasure.

We found out what “his pleasure” meant at the famous Monday Night Massacre, chronicled in our March 26, 2004 column (“Beware The Ides Of March – You’re Fired”) where Bloomberg, that Julius Caesar pretender, fired 3 members of the PEP for opposing BloomKlein’s 3rd grade retention policy on March 15. Not that we are wishing the same fate for the Mayor that Julie suffered, though the thought probably has passed through the minds of more than one classroom teacher as they spent useless hours working solely for the purpose of “let’s show outside visitors how we follow Tweed dictums” on their word walls, flow of the day, bulletin boards, et al, often into the late afternoon, long after the kids have gone home.

I often go to monthly PEP meetings as penance for my sins. These events are required by law (not my penance) as a minimal attempt to keep the public informed, which Bloomberg and his hand-picked “I know about education because I once went to school” Chancellor, Joel Klein, do their utmost to keep minimally informed. The members of the panel are basically somnambulant and the meetings are often deathly, other than the 2 minutes allotted to members of the public who get the chance to “lay one on.” I use this time to avail myself of the opportunity to educate the Panel and Klein as to what constitutes a quality teacher. Doing this, 2 minutes at a time, I figure I’ll be in the nursing home before I finish. But there’s always Access-a-Ride.

Let’s not accuse our state legislators, members of one of the most corrupt political bodies in the nation, if not the world, from doing the wrong thing in handing over the largest school system in the nation with no oversight, to the whims of one man. They did provide that each borough president could appoint one PEP member, five people that would still be a minority on the Panel. The mayor could appoint anyone, his entire family or his dog, while the borough people must have children in the public schools. I think the dog must also have puppies.

Even if these five were appointed to represent the interests of parents, the relationship of the borough president to Bloomberg must be factored in. The Staten Island borough president fired his rep when she said she was going to vote against Bloomberg at the Monday Night Massacre. Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz supported his appointee Martine Guerrier when she voted NO. As he cemented his relationship to Bloomberg, her criticisms of Klein began to wane. She was eventually appointed by Klein to the 150K a year job as Chief Parent Muck-a-Muck in February 2007, and she had to leave the PEP, which is considered so inconsequential, Markowitz didn’t even bother to appoint a replacement until recently.

This summer, Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer appointed Patrick Sullivan to the PEP. Sullivan has been active with Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters in putting issues of true educational import on the table, so his appointment was a pleasant surprise and a tribute to Stringer’s agenda of putting his constituents ahead of Bloomberg.

Sullivan, who comes from the corporate world, which gives him a credibility educators don’t receive in this business-oriented educational environment, has galvanized the PEP meetings as he questions Klein and his minions in depth on their policies. I’ve videotaped some of these encounters and you can view them on my blog where there are also videos of teachers and parents doing their 2 minutes, including my own.

I remember meeting Queens borough president Helen Marshall at the Monday Night Massacre. She expressed dismay at the firings. So one would have hoped the Queens PEP reps since then would express even a modicum of independence and oversight. Not much, so far.

But Michael Flowers, who had shown some promise, has resigned as Queens PEP rep. The last time I saw him he voted with Sullivan against Klein on the DOE’s military recruitment policies. Did the long arm of BloomKlein reach out to Marshall and snuff Flowers? I hope not.

Marshall has the opportunity to make an appointment that will result in the same kind of kudos Scott Stringer has received and at the same time provide an accomplice to Sullivan in challenging Klein. There are Queens parents who are very knowledgeable about the schools and hopefully Marshall will do the right thing by putting someone on the panel who will stand up for the parents, who have been so marginalized (or bought off) by Bloomberg. There are some top-notch candidates emerging, so…

Go Helen!


UFT Candlelight Vigil Snuffed

School Scope wrote about David Pakter back in June 2006 (All Psyched Up With No Place To Go). He has been in and out of the rubber room for things like buying a plant for his school or making a videotape of a music class in is school building. Recently, he proposed taking an idea that was brewing among rubber room people and ATR's (mostly senior teachers forced to become subs from schools that have closed or from positions that have been cut) to use the steps of Tweed as a rallying point on a regular basis on the evenings of PEP meetings before going in and speaking (which people have been doing sporadically over the past few years) and turning it into a larger "Thousand Points of Light" event. At one point, David said, "I will be there with my candle even if I am the only one."

If it had happened that way, the one-man rally would have had more impact than what took place at the UFT rally on Monday night, November 26.

David asked Randi Weingarten to jump on board, but soon after sent out an email that the UFT would not support such a rally. This was in early November. So, what happened to make Weingarten change her mind a few weeks later (Nov. 16 to be exact) and jump on board? The utter outrage coming out of the schools after Joel Klein announced a witch-hunt to go after teachers as an excuse to shift the blame from his own failures. There was a need to put on some kind of show for the members.

The rally was filled with the usual suspects – Randi’s Unity Caucus/union employees, members of the opposition and some rank and file teachers who came out. Plus some rubber room people. Very similar to the idiotic John Stoessel protest at ABC a few years ago. Maybe a thousand people in all. With no press coverage at all. Basically, a ZERO. The Weingarten act is wearing very thin.

All this was predictable, as the UFT did not want too big a protest, intending to use this as a photo op/PR move to make the members feel something is being done. And to deflect what would have had an anti-UFT tinge from people who have felt the UFT has left them in this position in the first place.

Deflection and Dilution – Deflection of militancy and Dilution of the UFT critics in a sea of Unity Caucus.

The idea of holding an event at Tweed on this particular day (which has been a consistent theme of some of us over the years) was the opportunity to make a statement at the PEP meeting at 6pm where BloomKlein's rubber stamps – other than Patrick Sullivan – endorse anything Klein puts forth. Thus, I was more interested in the PEP meeting than the rally.

Why bother? Because the BloomKlein machine has made it look like they are doing wonderful things and the national press have jumped on the bandwagon. When parents and teachers get up publicly to expose the sham, it is one way to fight back. Certainly with the UFT not fighting back, there is a need to make a stand.

On Monday, Patrick Sullivan raised questions on the school report cards and the NAEP test results that were turned from straw into gold by Tweed spinners. Leonie Haimson was there and spoke about how the DOE has violated state law in refusing to post a viable class size reduction plan.

It is noteworthy that with a rally outside, the UFT totally ignored the fact that there was a meeting taking place and had no presence at all. If Weingarten was so upset at the witch-hunt for teachers, why not inundate the PEP meeting with people speaking against it publicly? It was left to teachers from TAG, Teachers Advocacy Group – which sprang up this summer to counter the lack of UFT protection – to play take that role. And don’t think that hasn’t has an impact on activating the UFT – to some extent.

At the meeting, after watching mind-numbing presentations from Klein’s Chief Accountability Officer James Liebman and Marcia Lyles - who read us 12 pages of a PowerPoint presentation - this from the chief teaching and learning person at the DOE, who replaced Andres Alonso who was even more mind numbing – (these people were teachers?) – I got my 2 minutes.

I suggested they use the Workshop model for PEP meetings, where each presenter gets 7 minutes; the audience breaks into groups and does "turn and talk.” A test should be given at the end of the meeting. If the audience didn't learn the material, the presenter gets fired. Or sent to an internal rubber room for Tweedles – maybe to serve as an aid at the Ross Charter School in the basement.

Even Klein smiled at that one. No one knows better than he the absurdity of it all.


To get a much better analysis than I can give, check out Reality-Based Educator's post at the NYC Educator blog and make sure to check the comments where our theme of "the UFT as collaborator with BloomKlein" is being echoed.

But I did get a UFT poncho and a light stick out of it before I went into Tweed for the meeting to keep my video camera from getting wet, though I did get some sound bites from some of the non-Unity people. (I'll post the video later this week.) And I met NY Sun reporter Elizabeth Green for the first time. It's nice to know someone who could pass for a high school student can have such an impact.

One of the ralliers who also attended the meeting sent this response to the rally:

Norm,

I never, ever, ever will attend a unity coordinated event again. What did Randy prove:

1) That she could jump on other people's ideas and initiatives and would not let herself be upstaged.

2) That she round up a small hoard of people and wax at will. In other words, line up a group of people and get them to make their own small fire as they marched. Not my favorite kind of image, thank you, as I try to train myself never to be lined up and avoid fire, gas and all small chambers where to which any crowds are being led.

3) That she could take signature songs of the civil rights movement in vain. This is especially awful as, by right, we should have much more power and money than the folks in Selma, did. Perhaps a little less money on the sound system and on the glow sticks.

But Unity will never round me up again for one of their Nazi pep rallies.
No way, no how. Not ever.

Today's Quick Links

Check out Reality Based Educator's fabulous analysis of the BloomKlein era at the NYC Educator blog. They talk about Jack Welch in the comment section and I reminded people to check out my former colleague Mary Hoffman's wonderful piece on the ICE web site on Welch and how her elementary school was impacted by his "Get rid of negative people" philosophy. Most of the experienced teachers who had spent their careers in the school despite it being in a tough neighborhood in Williamsburg have left the school. Even their replacements have started to leave. But, hey, it did get an A. Teacher turnover is a positive thing in the world of BloomKlein.

With the candlelight vigil set for tonight at 5pm at Tweed, rush over to Under Assault where Randi Weingarten is taken to task once again (The Lady Doth Protest, but for real). Why take her to task when it appears the UFT is doing something? There's a story behind this vigil and we'll get it out there in due time, and you may even be reading some things about in in the papers today - see NY Sun where I'm quoted briefly in a story that tells only part of the story.
The Sun story says:
Whitney Tilson, the co-founder of an education advocacy group, Democrats for Education Reform, characterized the vigil as an attempt by Ms. Weingarten to pacify her members, not a serious challenge. "Let them have their vigil, and then sanity will return," he said.

The gist of Weingarten's strategy: something is brewing, get a hold of it before it gets out of control, use it for your own PR, then go away till next time.

Some people will be there today calling for this vigil not to be the end all but an opening salvo in a concerted response to the BloomKlein teacher bashing.

Also, check out James Eterno's post on the ICE blog on the increase in U ratings - as if they were going after incompetent teachers and not "negative" people.

I may be there with my camera to share some of the vigil festivities and the action at the PEP meeting afterwards. I'll bring an extra candle.

Since David Pakter played so much of a part in the events of tomorrow you should read the fabulous speech (FLICKERING FLAMES - BURNING WORDS) he prepared that I posted on Norms Notes. I hope he gets to deliver it, if not at the rally, then 2 minutes of it at the open public speaking time at the PEP meeting.

Sullivan and Liebman Jousting Match at PEP

Manhattan appointee Patrick Sullivan and Tweed Chief Accountability Officer James Liebman joust at the Panel for Educational Policy meeting in September over the interpretation of parent surveys - do parents want more or less test prep? Were desires for lower class size purposely minimized?

Some of the looks on Patrick's face are priceless as Liebman dissembles.
Are you surprised to see te fog roll in and out as Klein and Liebman talk?
And note Klein's usual attention to his Blackberry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11q3uZtePCE

The Candlelight Vigil

photo by Norm Scott

There's a long story about the candlelight vigil for Monday, Nov. 26 proposed by rubber room denizen David Pakter. His amazing statement (Flickering Flames, Burning Words), that I hope he gets to make at the PEP or on the steps of Tweed on Nov. 26, is posted at Norms Notes.

How Randi Weingarten came to support it, and her motivations for doing so, are for a later time. Suffice to say: just another attempt to derail and deflect any militancy and most important, keep any organizing that might end up turning against the leadership from occurring. But if you are a regular reader of this blog, you have been reading chapter and verse on the prime directive of the UFT/Unity Caucus leadership – hold onto power by any means and pay strict attention to every single threat no matter how minor. People who have spoken out tell me all the time just how much attention the top leadership pays to "little ole me." While flattered, they eventually come to see there is method in all this - kill 'em with kindness until they go away. The old four F mantra of teenage boys: Find 'em, Feel 'em, Fuck 'em, Forget 'em.

By the way, I took the photo at Gracie Mansion, a vigil that went nowhere, against Giuliani (remember him?) who was the most horrible mayor and the reason the UFT leaders were having such difficulty and just wait 'till he's out of office, yada, yada, yada.

Here is the email sent out by TAGNYC, who seem resistant to the Unity bull:

Teachers- CONTACT OTHER TEACHERS AND DEMAND THAT RANDI DO SOMETHING!

The UFT got us into this witch-hunting of teachers mess by accepting Bloomberg-Klein's description of the Union as weak- unable to fight back. Randi went along with the "Big Boys" and now the chickens are coming home to roost on her back- claws sharply extended. We gave away the store and now have to fight back without the contractual rights the Union had fought so hard to get- like protection of our job rights! The Union has accepted the myth that the TEACHERS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE STATE OF THE INNER CITY EDUCATION SYSTEM. Randi's acceptance of this 50 year old lie is the cruelest cut of all. It is the teachers who have kept this system from imploding entirely- going back day after day to try to teach while society has closed its eyes to the problems that has made teaching so difficult. Randi- the "Big Boys" are finally owning up to the truth- they are bribing kids to learn. Now will you show the fighting spirit that you and 200 other UFTers had the nerve to travel to New Orleans to "teach" to that City's teachers' union.

ENOUGH and again ENOUGH!

RANDI, CALL OUT YOUR TEACHERS. NOT DURING THE SCHOOL DAY BUT AFTER SCHOOL. TAKE US TO THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE OR DOWN FIFTH AVENUE AT 5P.M. ON A BUSINESS DAY. DO SOMETHING RANDI. PICK YOUR 80,000 PLUS TEACHERS UP OFF THE FLOOR. GET THE BOOT OFF OF OUR NECKS. AND SHOW TEACHERS IN NEW ORLEANS THAT THE UFT DID NOT SELL THEM A CROCK OF _______.

Randi- You have to follow your own advice "Spit in the face of fear." Bloomberg and Klein do not have to be feared.

TAGNYC

Military Recruitment Resolution at the PEP in NYC

Patrick Sullivan, Manhattan rep on the Panel for Educational Policy, presents a resolution on military recruitment at the PEP meeting, Sept. 24, 2007. Joel Klein suggests it be tabled. Patrick explains why he wants to have a vote. It loses by a 6-3-1 margin. Patrick compares level of enforcement of cell phone ban to DOE enforcement of military recruitment regs as Patrick gets the last word.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI9CT8bbEtg

See Patrick Sullivan's report on the meeting:

Note: video removed due to some complaints it slowed the loading of this blog.

TAG NYC Crew Rock at the PEP...

....and Patrick Sullivan was pretty fine too with a resolution on military recruitment plus lots of good questions and comments for the Tweedles:

"Mr. Cerf. I'm from the corporate world, not education. But our human resources people take a good hard look at retention rates as a measure of effectiveness."

And I got it all on tape. Details later.

Monthly PEP Meeting

Monday Sept. 24 at Tweed, 6-8pm. Sign up time for speaking is 5:30.

TAG Members to Speak at PEP

On Monday, Sept. 24, a group of teachers from the Teachers Advocacy Group NYC, many of whom have unfairly been given U-ratings and/or sent to rubber rooms, plan to take 2 minutes each to force the members of the Panel for Educational Policy to look into the faces of teachers who have been savaged by the policies of the BloomKlein administration.

They will do so with dignity and style, befitting senior teachers who have been slated for obsolescence.

Their blog states: "We represent teachers and counselors who have been excessed, unfairly U-rated for political reasons, teachers forced into ATR status, and high-salaried and senior teachers who have been discriminated against. We feel abandoned by the United Federation of Teachers, which by its silence is allowing Bloomberg and Klein to destroy our careers."

TAGNYC can be contacted at their blog and at tagnyc@hotmail.com.

Ed Notes will be there to support them while UFT will be holding one of their rubber stamp Executive Board Meetings.

Monthly PEP Meeting: Monday Sept. 24 at Tweed, 6-8pm. Sign up time for speaking is 5:30.

Monday's PEP: Patrick Sullivan Reports on...

.....Middle Schools Initiative, School Safety & Cell Phone Ban

at the NYC Public School Parent Blog

Let's reform middle school with more Lead Teachers and professional development but ignore recommendations to reduce class size. Of course, that fits into the "it was the teachers fault all along" theme of the BloomKlein administration. Just more of "let's make it look like we're trying to solve the problem rather than actually finding solutions that will work."

Patrick provides a unique perspective as the only truly independent member of the PEP - Panel for Educational Policy (BloomKlein's bogus replacement for the old Board of Education) - who can report from the inside.


NYC Teaching Fellow and author Dan Brown explodes the Joel Klein and his Tweedledee approach in his post "Solving the Middle School Mystery" at the Huffington Post.

Aug. 14, 2007

Why do standardized test scores drop -- sharply, in many cases -- when students hit middle school?

Today, The New York Times reported on NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg's answer to the $64,000 question of education:

"Generally speaking, those in elementary school do what you tell them to do. And I think it's also true by the time they get to high school, they don't. It's in those middle years where they transfer from one to another."

He went on to present a maddeningly misguided and half-hearted plan of dedicating $5 million toward 50-performing New York City middle schools.

The mayor of New York City's distillation of our urban education crisis is baffling and offensive. Firstly, how can he be so sure that "what you're telling them to do" is actually in their best interest? Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002, NYC elementary schools have fixated on testing, testing, testing. Today's middle school students have lived with counterproductive mania for this their entire scholastic lives.

Urban kids in sixth and seventh grade are hip to the fact that the test preparation craze that has dominated their years in school is actually a superficial, bureaucratic charade that has nothing to do with their own personal futures. An alarming number of sixth graders taught English Language Arts by my wife in the Bronx pointedly told her last January: "The test is over. I'm done." Scores are dropping now because those children have been failed repeatedly since Day One, and their foundation of enduring skills and understandings was never built in the interest of manufacturing short-end bumps on test score graphs.

Rather than making school a nurturing and personal experience, kids, as early as kindergarten, are jammed into overcrowded classrooms, denied support services like fundamental skills tutoring, denied much-needed counseling, and are supervised by administrators more worried about test scores than their real needs. It's no wonder that they "stop doing what you tell them to do," as the mayor says. Bloomberg is blaming the victims here. (And also, who is the "you" that Bloomberg mentions? Does "you" contain the families of the Bronx, for example? It doesn't seem so.)

Students don't spontaneously combust in middle school. When a student's "achievement" on the line graph tumbles, something undetected has been wrong for a long time. Solving the mystery of the middle school decline will require a genuine look at dedicating real resources to truly support every student -- from birth through high school graduation day.

Bloomberg shows little interest in such a difficult, expensive yet crucial undertaking. The New York Times reports:

"But the mayor shied away from adopting the most far-ranging changes recommended in the reports, like significantly reducing class sizes, creating a special middle school academy to train teachers about early adolescence, and removing police officers from city schools to create a more welcoming atmosphere."

How will voiceless public school students get real solutions, not stunts, from their elected leaders?

Dan Brown is a writer and teacher in New York City. His memoir of his first year teaching, The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle, is being released this month by Arcade Publishing.

Video: PEP rubber stamps CFE

Other than seeing Patrick Sullivan break the unanimity of the rubber stamp PEP panel by voting NO on the "plan" for CFE money, the best part of going to PEP meetings is touching base with people like Noel Bush and Lisa Donlon from District 1 (lower east side) parent group. I knew Noel was up to something with his video camera. See Joel play with Blackberry. See Patrick ask probing questions. See one of the usual PEP shills raise a disingenuous question about whether studies show that low class size makes a real difference - I'll address this idiocy in a separate post.

Here's Noel's Post on the nyc education news listserve:

Here's some amateur video of an intense, substantive debate at yesterday's meeting of the Panel for Educational Policy about the merits of the city's plan for the CFE money. All PEP members were deeply engaged, asking probing questions and exhaustively probing the matter of whether the DOE's plan complies with state regulations and fulfills the spirit as well as the letter of the CFE. The panel engaged in passionate debate that extended well into the late evening. The final vote (there are, of course, votes for everything the PEP does) was a
close one, with members on both sides of the issue expressing detailed, reasoned arguments for their conclusions. It was truly an example of the democratic process in action -- a demonstration that public education really is in the hands of concerned citizens who understand the significance of their decisions in the lives of our city's schoolchildren. This was, indeed, a validation of the wisdom of mayoral control, and a full repudiation of the critics of our wise Mayor Bloomberg and his ingenious right-hand man, Chancellor Klein.

Oh wait a minute, sorry, wrong reality. (*Knocks self upside head*)

Anyway....

http://district1parents.net/pep-rubber-stamps-cfe

Food, Glorious Food ... at the PEP

At last night's Panel for Educational Policy meeting at Tweed, the monthly go-along with BloomKlein gang (with the exception of Manhattan rep Patrick Sullivan and at times Queens' rep Michael Flowers), a presentation on the feeding program that the DOE has instituted city-wide was made, with samples on the way in for the attendees. Now, this in no way competes with the spread the UFT offers at its Exec. Bd. meetings, but it was a nice touch. Klein said he heard the food is pretty good. Apparently he doesn't go near the stuff himself. But not me. I ate. Twice. Once at the meeting and once when I got home. Not bad. But I prefer the old Jamaican beef patties, where all you had to do was collect the oil from the trays and run your car for a week on it.

A Smoking Bush

Hedging my bets if the post on parochial schools offends the higher powers. Couldn't find a burning bush but found the next best thing in the back yard. Not a bad view from the rear window. One more reason to never leave home.

But, alas, I may have to. Can't resist tonight's PEP meeting at Tweed to watch lone Klein critic on the PEP, Patrick Sullivan, question Klein about the small school grad rates and other goodies. I may even bring along a video camera.

New Appointee on Panel for Educational Policy a Noted Klein Critic

Special to The Wave
by Norm Scott

Patrick Sullivan, co-founder of the NYC Public School Parents blog that has been extremely critical of many of the initiatives of Joel Klein and Mayor Bloomberg, has been appointed by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer as the Manhattan representative to the Panel on Educational Policy. The PEP is the successor to the Board of Education that was eliminated in the shake-up that brought mayoral control of the schools. Each borough president gets to appoint one rep. The mayor appoints the rest of the panel.

Sullivan, who was sworn in at the PEP meeting at Murray Bergtraum HS on June 18, has been a board member of Class Size Matters, the organization founded by Leonie Haimson, a noted parent who has been critical of Bloomberg and Klein, often due to their resistance to addressing the high class sized in New York City, which are as much as 30% larger than the rest of the state. She reported to her listserv on June 18th:

At tonight's PEP meeting, Patrick immediately became the most incisive member on the panel, with pointed remarks to [James] Liebman and Klein about the interim assessments and the so-called "fair funding" reforms. He pointed out that Liebman's claim of no-stakes tests had been contradicted by the recent announcement that kids would be paid for acing the tests; Liebman also admitted that schools might choose to count the results of these "no-stakes assessments" in students' grades.

To Klein he pointed out that under the FSF proposal, about half of failing schools would have had substantial budget cuts if fully implemented-- and instead would see no extra funding at all. He also asked why the funding changes would not undercut the professional status of teachers, encouraging principals to try to get rid of their most experienced staff.

Klein had no convincing answers to any of this, and was clearly flustered by the unaccustomed level of sophistication of the questions. Finally, Patrick was the only member of the PEP to vote against the proposal.

Other than a revolt over 3rd grade retention in March 2004 when dissenters were removed by Bloomberg (known as the Monday Night Massacre), the panel has functioned as a rubber stamp for Klein/Bloomberg policy, rarely dissenting or raising probing questions. Former Brooklyn PEP member Martine Guerrier, the most notable PEP member who questioned some of the policies and the only survivor who voted against the 3rd grade retention, was appointed Feb. 28 to the $150,000 a year CEO of Parent Engagement by Klein. Despite asking some probing questions, Guerrier generally voted along with the panel. It has been surmised that she was under some constraints due to the alliance between Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and Bloomberg.

Sullivan, a parent who lives on the East Side, has become an increasingly strong voice in educational circles, building bridges between parents and teachers. He appears to be the first member of the PEP who will provide some level of resistance to the "monkey-see, monkey-do" mentality of the PEP and his appointment may reflect the sense that the Bloomberg/Klein days are waning. The question of the day is: Will Bloomberg and Klein exert political pressure on Scott Stringer to keep Sullivan under control and will they be successful?