Ed Notes Online: Sam Pirozzolo

Showing posts with label Sam Pirozzolo. Show all posts

Monday, July 7, 2014

SI Supt to Kathleen Grimm: Sam (Pirozzolo) is a Fool

.... and this was before Pirozzolo hooked up with Moaning Mona Davids in their rediculous copycat Vergara tenure law suit.

A Jan. 2013 email between District 31 (Staten Island) Supt. and Deputy Chancellor Kathleen Grimm, over Francesco Portelos' appearance at a Dist. 31 CEC meeting shows just how high up concerns over his actions had reached and explains the willingness of Tweed to spend upwards of half a million bucks to get rid of him. A joyous sidelight of the email is the Supt. referring to CEC member Pirozzolo as a "fool."

How nice to see Grimm, the Grim Reaper of Closing Schools, continuing to enjoy her status after being kept on by Farina as Deputy Chancellor -- sort of like promoting Nazi prison guards after the war.

Sunday, July 6, 2014

Moaning Mona Davids and Ally Sam Pirozzolo Want Francesco Portelos Fired?

I'm not surprised that CEC 31 (Staten Island) Sam Pirozzolo is in on this as he ignored years of pleas to help students of troubled schools. No doubt he will use this to make another run for office. http://samforassembly.com.... Francesco Portelos

Mona and Sam Pirozzolo should be sued for child neglect-- Ed Notes

Updated:
How ironic. Moaning Mona henchman Sam Pirozzolo has joined her in the Vergara copycat suit here in New York City. Did Sam (or Mona) every think of bringing a law suit over the half million dollars the DOE wasted in trying to fire Francesco Portelos? Did they consider suing over the destruction of the technology and robotics program at IS 49, possibly the poorest school (poorest run by Principal Linda Hill) on Staten Island? And have you heard one peep from them over this outrage? 77% Of The Race To The Top Award Money In NYC Went To Pay For Consultants, Central Office Work, And Support Staff

Sam Pirozzolo is making blatant use of his own kids (as is Mona) who I assume attend schools in Staten Island and apparently have received an awful education because of their tenured teachers. Did Sam speak up at CEC meetings and talk about that lousy education at what were apparently lousy Staten Island schools, probably with the highest numbers of tenured teachers of any borough in the city? Gee, I hope Sam's kids can read after suffering all those tenured teachers.

Hey, Sam, show you are a good parent -- there are those charter school options, where there are NO tenured teachers (have fun). If Sam were a responsible parent he would remove his kids immediately from having contact with those horrible tenured teachers. He should be sued for child abuse - by his own kids.

Sam – YOU ARE ON THE CEC, which is supposed to support students and parents. I know, I know Sam, you've got more ambitious things to do than REALLY helping kids and parents at schools like IS 49 (while you ignored Portelos' pleas for help).

Ahhh, I remember Mona putting her daughter in a charter school to get out of the clutches of those public school teachers with tenure and then complaining about how poorly the charter school was run. Then she bragged how her daughter had been accepted to Brooklyn Tech, a school just loaded with tenured teachers. She ended up sending her to Laguardia HS, also loaded with tenured teachers.

Moaning Mona was perfectly happy to put her child in the specialized schools despite their tenured teachers. She could always try Success or KIPP where she wouldn't have that problem. After all, she is now suing over the "lousy education" her daughter has received - in I guess both the charter school with no tenured teachers and at the public school with tenured teachers.

I just can't wait to see Sam and Mona respond to these questions when the case gets to court. If it ever gets to court -- as I pointed out in my previous pieces, I see this as a trolling suit to get some PR and pray the big money boys come across with some bucks.

And where is the press asking these very questions? (Hear me Chalkbeat?)

Previous Ed Notes posts on Moaning Mona Davids:

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"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/cory-booker-clear-and-present-threat-public-education

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

This chapter looks interesting:

Class struggles: The UFT story, part 3

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Of course for another view, check out the review at New Politics of the Kahlenberg Bio on Shanker by Vera Pavone and me: Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:
http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/
I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You can sign up for this free series at :
http://act.bcfed.ca/online-campaigning-for-union-activists/

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

Ex-HSA Teacher has left a new comment on your post "Fear and Loathing at Evil's Harlem Success Empire ...":

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy Tyson
Professor of African American Studies and History
Duke University

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.
- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Full article with charts here.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

More at Substance

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.
Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/12/on-growing-use-of-corporate-test.html

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

Published on Sunday, March 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

SEE MY VIDEO ON HARLEM SUCCESS RALLY 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEp7rg_L5JI

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Ed Notes Extended

Monday, July 7, 2014

Sunday, July 6, 2014