School Scope: When Political Labels Don’t Quite Fit - Norm in The WAVE

Submitted for print publication August 3, 2018 at www.rockawave.com

School Scope: When Political Labels Don’t Quite Fit
By Norm Scott

I’ve been called a leftist, a socialist, a pro-capitalist, a commie, a liberal, libertarian, a progressive, a Democrat and a general nuisance. About the only label I have not worn is that of a Republican or a right winger. Right now the overall term being used for the left is “progressive” as opposed to more centrist people. But there are so many nuances to these terms which I don’t have room for this week. That de Blasio, not exactly one of my faves, and I would be viewed as fellow “progressives” makes me squeamish.

It is funny, but I often find it easier to talk to people on the right than some of my fellow progressives. Like I don’t think I could have a conversation with the mayor or even Obama that would make me comfortable. But really, what do people mean when they use the term “left” when the NY Times gets that label from the right while being mocked as centrist and a tool of capitalists by many on the left? Confusion reigns.

This column recently has been addressing the various divides in the Democratic Party between so-called progressives and centrists while also using this space to try to sort out the many facets of the “left.”

On the surface, people view liberals as being the left when in fact the anti-capitalist left is as critical of liberals as is the right.

Since socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated Joe Crowley in the Democratic primary for his congressional seat the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have been getting a lot of notice. Her victory has gotten enormous nation-wide attention as the shock of someone declaring themselves a socialist and winning is reverberating around the political world. In the 1930s and 40s there were actually people getting elected who were socialists. Then came the Red Scare of the late 40s and 50s and even changes in election rules to more firmly entrench the two-party system which has left so many of us having to hold our noses when we have such limited options. Fundamental political reform is needed.

Take the election for governor. I despise Cuomo who is leading by 30 points over Cynthia Nixon. Do I love her? No, though she is one of the few people running for anything who has been a firm supporter of real education reform, while so many others run for the hills when faced with exposing the scams of education reform. Nixon was one of the few to support Ocasio-Cortez and since she won has also declared herself a member of DSA. DSA/NYC has endorsed her and her running mate for Lt. Governor, Jumaane Williams, city councilman representing East Flatbush, Flatbush, Flatlands, Marine Park and Midwood. Recently he was caught up in a campaign donation snafu where Glenwood Masonry gave him donations exceeding the legal limit. Duhhhh! I’m shocked. I don’t hold that against him since I pretty much expect all politicians to engage in fuzzy fund-raising. From what I’ve seen he lands on the side I favor most of the time. And my friends in his district like him.

Neither of them will beat Cuomo and Nixon’s recent praise for Bloomberg, who ran public housing into the ground and helped set up the homeless crisis while undermining public education, is disconcerting, I’m voting for Nixon/Williams because the higher vote totals they get the better the chance to keep the god-awful Cuomo tacking left, even if it’s phony.

Unknown Zephyr Teachout’s 37% the last time Cuomo ran was a shock, so even if you know you can’t win, so getting a decent opposition vote can be worthwhile.

Norm has so much to say about politics and education (and other stuff) he is going to ask editor Mark Healey for an entire edition of The WAVE to spew his venom. While Mark is mulling this over Norm can be found spewing at https://ednotesonline.blogspot.com.

School Scope: The UFT and Janus – Would a More Democratic Union Keep People from Leaving?

Union leadership will use the Janus decision to shut down internal critical voices. If we let that happen, we are abrogating our responsibility to build a better union by trying to force changes (and believe me it will take force) and we are also helping the anti-union forces who are using the impregnable union hierarchy against them. I expect the slings and arrows to come my way but I have my shield ready.

I wrote my column Monday, June 25, when we were still guessing about Janus outcome. It should be in The WAVE - on June 29, 2018, www.rockawave.com when it will be a bit outdated. It is about democracy in the UFT and whether that would be an issue in decisions to leave the UFT. Though this comment on the ICEUFT blog mentioned democracy.

Bronx ATR said...
This decision is not the end of unions. It doesn't even weaken strong unions. The strength of unions is not their bank accounts. but their willingness to fight and stand up for its members. The UFT's lack of democracy and its intentional creation of an apathetic rank and file has it rightfully concerned.

BronxATR is one of the few who mention democracy and my conclusion is that democracy is basically a non-factor for the overwhelming majority of UFT members. Democracy in the UFT only seems to be a factor to the tiny fringe opposition.

We recently watched MORE shunt internal democratic functions onto a side rail by overthrowing a steering committee a faction didn't like and violating so many by-laws we lost count. (See Why We Choose to Leave MORE)

So, even the supposed opponents to Unity (and I no longer consider MORE a serious opponent to Unity) don't seem very interested in pushing back on the issue of democracy in the UFT.

Yet, unless the ruling Unity Caucus party considers offering dissidents a role in reforming the union, Janus will make them bleed deeply unless there are some fundamental reforms. But I don't have much hope this will happen as the Unity DNA means maintain ironclad control even in a shrinking union.

THE WAVE: June 29, 2018

School Scope: The UFT and Janus – Would a More Democratic Union Keep People from Leaving?

By Norm Scott

Democratic norms seem to be slipping away all over the world. But there are alternate views as to exactly what constitutes democracy. We would have to define these norms first – which would require too much of my limited brain power. So I’ll leave it to you readers to define democracy on your own terms. Suffice it to say, I don’t take a traditional view of democracy.

Some UFT members may think the UFT is a full-fledged democratic union. So I imagine the state of democracy in the UFT won’t affect their decision on whether to keep their union membership or not when the Supreme Court most likely rules in the Janus case that no one can be forced to pay dues even though they may continue to accrue the same benefits as those who remain union members.

Without getting into the weeds let’s talk specifically about democracy in the UFT, which I have been a member of since 1967. In UFT elections the almost 60 year ruling party, Unity Caucus (a caucus is similar to a political party), always wins almost every one of the positions up for election with roughly 75% of those who vote. But almost three quarters of UFT members do not even vote and almost half of those who do are retirees, of which 85% vote for Unity. Thus, to a large majority of classroom teachers, a vote in a UFT election is basically irrelevant. Technically, this is still democracy – majority rule, even if only a relatively small minority of the total number of UFT members. Now, it may be that with a sure Unity victory, there is not much at stake, but that is the way our country seems to view democracy – a majority of a minority is still a majority -  though given the way things have been working out there are more and more calls for serious reforms.

The Unity party controls the 200,00 member UFT with a minority. Using this power base it also controls the NY State union with 600,000 members which in turn controls the national AFT union with 1.5 million members.

In the last election in 2016, a coalition of opposition groups won 7 out of the 100 Executive Board seats, none of the 12 officer positions and none of the 750 delegate positions to the New York State and national teacher conventions. That’s a worse winning percentage than even the METS. Those 7 seats were all from the high schools. In fact, various opposition parties have won the majority of high school votes in most UFT elections since the mid-1980s. Admittedly, the vote totals are low. In 2016 the opposition won the high schools with about 2350 votes while Unity received about 2150. There are almost 20,000 high school classroom teachers in the UFT. Even though our side won, we did so with less than 15% of the high school teachers voting for us. But that was the majority of those who did vote. Our side often claims that high school teachers as a whole do not get enough representation in the UFT, since a majority of those who do vote have relatively little say over UFT policy. The 7 non-Unity reps are only 7% of the Executive Board and they get voted down all the time. The argument that this disenfranchises  20,000 high school teachers, even if it makes the case for our side, is also an iffy one.

Let’s just say that the issue of a democratic UFT is a marginal one and when people chose to stay or leave the UFT post-Janus, the question of democracy will play little or no part.

Having thoroughly confused myself (and you) on the nature of democracy in the UFT, I will go back to blogging at ednotesonline.com where I may just blog about food.

School Scope: The UFT and Janus: Better Service, YES, More Democracy, NO

To be published in The WAVE June 15, 2018, www.rockawave.com

School Scope: The UFT and Janus: Better Service, YES, More Democracy, NO
By Norm Scott

Recent columns have addressed the probable Supreme Court decision in the Janus case that will make the entire nation right-to-work (RTW), which means those who don’t join the union won’t have to pay dues, thus leading to weakened unions. (Background at: The UFT and Janus: https://tinyurl.com/y9kyljjq and Is the UFT in Danger from Janus as Staff Layoffs and Retirements Loom? https://tinyurl.com/y789glbb.) Unions must represent all people covered by contracts even if they choose not to join the union. In non-RTW states they must pay dues, known as agency fees, at a somewhat reduced rate. In the UFT there are reportedly over 3000 agency fee payers. They do not have the right to vote in general union or school elections and, theoretically, can be kept from attending school and citywide union meetings. Post Janus, expectations of members leaving the UFT run anywhere from 10-25%, which would be a damaging loss.

The UFT leadership has blitzed schools and membership with appeals to stay, even going so far as to visit members at home and organizing school-based teams to lobby colleagues. The UFT as the sole bargaining agent for all employees must continue to provide services to everyone, even those who leave the union, a serious and unfair drain on resources. Politicians recognize the threat to undermine strong unions like the UFT, which helps manage members’ expectations and militancy, is also a threat to the ability to run the schools if teachers were free agents unbound by union contracts. We saw this in the red state rebellions, all in RTW states where strikes are illegal (they are here too) where weakened unions were outflanked by a militant rank and file.

A recent state law pushed through by the UFT’s former enemy and now best friend, Governor Cuomo, would free unions from having to provide lawyers, possibly putting a scare into people thinking of leaving. I think the UFT needs to do more to offer positive reasons for staying, like better service and a more militant stance against the DOE and de Blasio. The UFT has not done enough to defend members from abusive principals. Untenured, who must wait at least four (or more) years for tenure, basically are without union protections. They can be discontinued at any time for practically any reasons. (Tenure forces administrators to provide some basis and guarantees a hearing.)

The anti-union forces have gone on a blitz to urge people to drop out and “give themselves a raise” by saving on dues, which in the UFT amounts to around $1400 a year. The salary structure is regressive as the gap between newer teachers and those at the top is so wide. Will new teachers opt in to join the union, especially if they intend to leave after a few years (over 50% do leave by the 5th year)?

Many of the deepest critics of the UFT/Unity Caucus leadership in the opposition to Unity Caucus are urging people to stay in the union and keep paying dues. In UFT elections they get about 25% of the vote and those who leave are more likely to be anti-Unity. But politics aside, Janus presents an existential threat to the lifeblood of all employees. Still, one of our major complaints has been the lack of democracy. While the UFT may offer better services, don’t expect democracy to be on their agenda. But does anyone really care about democracy in today’s world? More on this next time.

Norm runs his ednotesonline.com blog in a democratic manner – he makes all the decisions but argues with himself first.

School Scope - Norm in The WAVE -- Drilling down on Rockaway Schools Being Saved by the Bell

I wrote this in a little over an hour on Tuesday morning on a tight deadline since I had to leave for a press event at the Museum of Natural History. I was going to recycle my post from Ed Notes - Analysis: The Story Behind the PEP  - but it was too long and unwieldy -- I don't know how anyone got through it without falling asleep. I have a word limit in print so doing this forced me to focus on efficiency. (Maybe I should put a word count on all my blog posts.) I think this is more clean-cut and clearer than the blog post.

This should be in this Friday's WAVE - March 9, 2018 -- jeez, it's almost spring - as I watch the snow and sleet coming down.

School Scope: PS/MS 42, MS 53 Saved By the Bell in a 6-6-1 PEP Vote at 2:15 AM

The Story Behind the PEP Rockaway Vote - It Came Down to One Guy Abstaining – Did de Blasio play a role?

By Norm Scott

The expected final chapter for two historic Rockaway schools was not written at a grueling 8 hour Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) meeting that began on Feb. 28 and ended in the middle of the night on March 1. Last week’s WAVE’s excellent front page story by Ralph Mancini blasted the news under the headline “Stayin’ Alive.” I had left before 2 AM, assuming both Rockaway schools were dead after a procedural vote to withdraw them from the closing list made by Queens rep Deborah Dellingham went down to defeat – twice. The 13-member PEP consists of appointees by the 5 borough presidents and 8 appointed by the mayor, thus giving him control of the PEP and the entire school system (sad). With about a dozen schools on the closing list, each borough rep had made a proposal to have their schools withdrawn (to shouts of “WITHDRAW from the overflowing crowd of about a thousand people, almost all there to oppose the closings). The 5 boroughs stuck together and one mayoral appointee, Elzora Cleveland, voted with the borough people a number of times while the other 7 mayoral appointees, who could be “fired” from the panel for going against de Blasio’s wishes, voted down all the withdrawal proposals. The repeated 7-6 votes against were frustrating.

In my 2 minute speech (vimeo.com/258283678) I pointed this out. That the fates of hundreds of teachers and thousands of students and parents depended on just one of two mayoral appointees doing the right thing. I also pointed out that if closing down these schools was Carmen Farina’s last act as Chancellor, this was a sad end to her career. The experience reinforced my feeling that handing total control of the school system to one person – the mayor – is a mistake.

School Scope: DOE Decisions on Shutting Down Schools Political, Not Educational

Publishing date: Friday, Jan. 26, 2018

School Scope:  DOE Decisions on Shutting Down Schools Political, Not Educational

By Norm Scott

I reported on the magnificent PS 42 closing school info session in a recent column (the hearing is Feb. 13 at the school and I urge anyone who actually reads this column to come see how a school fights back) and followed up by attending the IS 53 session (not as exuberant but still significant – their hearing in Feb. 7 which I cannot attend) the next night where I had a chance to join the students, teachers and parents who defended the school in speaking. Many valid points were made at both schools about the seeming arbitrary nature of  the decisions to close down schools that are branded as “failing” whereas the criteria being used seem to be moving targets with the outcomes influenced more by political than educational issues.

Charters coveting space is often a factor, as is gentrification, both seeming to be operating factors in the decision to close the two Rockaway schools. In 12 years Bloomberg and his Chancellor agents Joel Klein and Dennis Walcott (yes the same guy running Queens libraries -   one of the political outrages since his boss Bloomberg did more harm to the library systems of this city than any mayor in decades) closed 150 schools and opened scads of new ones, with some of them ending up on failing lists. De Blasio and Chancellor Farina promised something better. While the numbers of closings are far less, they still have the same negative impact on micro communities.

The so-called “Renewal” schools – those branded as failing but given three years to improve – have come under severe attack by the forces of privatization funded by numerous hedge fund billionaires who would like to see entire public school systems turn into non-union privatized charters drinking at the trough of public money. They did that in New Orleans to disastrous effect. Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has used her billions to create another disaster in the state of Michigan while nearby Ohio suffers one charter scandal after another. Well, actually so does Arizona, California, Florida  – well I could go on but I will spare you the dirt. If interested, Google “charter school scandals” and watch the stuff spill out of your screen, like this lovely headline from the May 8, 2017 edition of Business Insider, “Are charter schools the new Enron scandal?” Oh, what fun!

You might see commercials from an astroturf group like Families for Excellent Schools – FES – I refer to them as FEH!!!! They are oh so concerned with the poor children in these renewal schools and also love to attack the teachers who are forced to reapply for their jobs or else get tossed into the permanent substitute ATR pool. Of course let’s blame the teachers, as if the people running the DOE from the top to middle management have played no role. No one’s head rolls for putting in lousy administrators to run schools or the many awful Superintendents appointed under Farina who are supposed to supervise them. I watched District 27 Supt. Mary Barton sit there stone-faced at both Rockaway hearings while children and parents pleaded for their schools.

Last week I taped an amazing event in East Harlem (District 4) – not the outright closing but the combination of two schools in one building – an elementary school, PS 7 and Global Tech Prep, a middle school. GTP was set up as a special school focused on tech in the very poor East Harlem community. The founding principal left and a teacher trusted by everyone in the school was supposed to take over to continue the vision of the school. But last April he was denied tenure and left – he is now at Harvard – and chaos reigned. Thus Farina and her Dist. 4 Supt agent of destruction, Alexandra Estrella, doomed both schools to a death spiral so they could execute a naked power play. I have loads of videos on my blog of the remarkable students challenging the DOE reps at a hearing and calling them “monsters.” Monsters indeed!

If you still think these decisions are educational and not political, check this out. Some renewal schools have been rescued and are now in a program called “RISE.” JHS 80 in the Bronx is one such school spared the ax despite repeated reports that its principal, Emmanuel Polanco, is a horror story but is being protected. Sue Edelman, one of the top education reporters in the city despite working for the often despicable NY Post, reported that JHS 80  “is an educational hellhole. Despite receiving millions in extra dollars and services, the 655-student Norwood school suffers from out-of-control students, filthy, unsafe conditions and thuggish administrators who try to keep the horrors under wraps, insiders have told authorities.” ... NY Post, Jan. 6, 2018.

Sue is by the way the niece of my former next door neighbor, Jean Mirkin, of Mirkin Vision Care fame on Beach 116^th St. So Sue comes from good genes. Or Jeans.

Norm’s genes are always on display at his blog, ednotesonline.com.

School Scope: Charter School Follies, Closing Schools, Mayoral Control Shams

Jan. 12, 2018 edition of The WAVE, www.rockawave.com

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School Scope:  Charter School Follies, Closing Schools, Mayoral Control Shams

By Norm Scott

I’m running past deadline not because I can’t think of anything to write but because I have so many options as education related stories keep breaking. So let me point readers (all three of you) in some interesting directions.

I am tracking the upcoming saga of the two schools being closed in Rockaway. I hope you noticed the horror stories on MS 80 in the Bronx, which is being kept open with an infusion of more money as reported on WCBS and in the NY Post: ‘Struggling’ Bronx school is a hellhole, teachers say (https://nypost.com/2018/01/06/struggling-bronx-school-is-a-hellhole-teachers-say/) --- Imagine Farina and De Blasio are keeping this place open – hey, there is an abusive principal there so why not – while closing other schools. Tell me politics is not involved.

As you may have realized, I often focus on the excesses of charters, especially Eva Moskowitz’ Success Academy chain of 46 schools (and growing). Since there is a school in Rockaway it is worth keeping people updated on the chain. We have pointed out the enormous attrition rates of students (and teachers) as Success schools. Blogger, Stuyvesant high school math teacher Gary Rubinstein, did an interesting piece, The Hidden Attrition Of Success Academy - https://tinyurl.com/yaj2z9mn -  While Success claims a 10% attrition rate a year, Gary, using data from the DOE, found it to be 17%. And since Success doesn’t backfill by adding students, kids from the initial cohort keep disappearing and by the time they graduate, there are not all that many left. We’ve reported here that there were only 17 students left to graduate high school out of an initial cohort of 73 kindergarten students. Where did the 56 disappeared end up? Probably many in public schools.

Another respected teacher blogger, Mark Weber, a music teacher in New Jersey, blogged about the misleading graduation rates at Democracy Prep charter, which has four schools in NYC, on his Jersey Jazzman blog. A misleading Daily News op ed bought the misleading data which claimed “No charter network has demonstrated more success getting its students into and through college…. last year 189 of the 195 seniors in its three high schools that had graduating classes went on to college.” Remarkable, isn’t it. A miracle you might say. But there are no miracles. Mark looked at the attrition rates for kids from their freshman to their senior years and found that Democracy Prep had shed enough students to bring their numbers in line or below many public schools. Mark also castigates main stream journalists for ignoring the attrition issue. Read him in full at http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2018/01/miracle-school-journalism-and-gorilla.html.

Must Listen for Every Inner City Teacher: The Burdens Affecting Even Our Brightest Students - This American Life

Every teacher in inner city schools has had some kids over the years who seemed very special -- super smart with enormous potential. Find out what happens to three of these students. It is like a rocket trying to escape the earth but getting pulled back by the gravity of poverty and low self-esteem. Even when they beat the odds and make it to college, their battles often just begin. I had some like this and I was in touch for a number of years, even attending some of their weddings.

This American Life on NPR had a must listen to program for not only every teacher but for everyone. The gist was that students from a poor Bronx public school, all kids of color, were paired with Fieldston, an elite private school in the Bronx. The program focuses on some of the culture shock for the poor students based on the conditions they saw in their school and what they saw at Fieldston, just 3 miles away. The reporter, Chana Joffe-Walt, did an amazing job, interviewing teachers from both schools and trying to track one of the students 10 years after they left school.

See what the impact of poverty and low self-esteem have on even the sharpest kids --- but beyond that, this production, as so many of TAL programs are -- is presented like a mystery and will have you handing on the edge of your seat. [Note- one of the principals in the program has set up a college go-fund-me campaign as per this note from the show's producers

Listen to it at: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/550/three-miles#play

Well, I’m out of space but here is some homework for you.

How Bill de Blasio Can Redeem His Education Record by Leonie Haimson and Shino Tanikawa - http://www.gothamgazette.com/opinion/7404-how-bill-de-blasio-can-redeem-his-education-record

Here’s a model for major school reform that looks vastly different from Betsy DeVos’s vision. Valerie Strauss in WAPO reports on the work of reform educators Deborah Meier and Emily Gasoi. https://tinyurl.com/y9u6b6gp

We have opposed mayoral control of the schools since Bloomberg took over in 2002. We feel no better about de Blasio. The elected parent council in District 3 (upper west side) wrote an op ed in the Gotham Gazette, Our School Governance Isn’t Working, and It’s the Perfect Time for Change, http://www.gothamgazette.com/opinion/7409-our-school-governance-isn-t-working-and-it-s-the-perfect-time-for-change.

What is working is that Norm keeps slogging and blogging away at ednotesonline.com.

School Scope, The Wave: The Bitter Taste of Success - Rockaway Schools Being Shut Down, Success Charter to Benefit

My column in the Friday Jan. 5 edition of the Rockaway Weekly, The WAVE.

Gary Rubinstein has just posted this piece The Hidden Attrition Of Success Academy. I will use some of his material in next week's column as I continue my series for Rockaway readers. 

School Scope:  The Bitter Taste of Success - Rockaway Schools Being Shut Down, Success Charter to Benefit

By Norm Scott

Jan. 2, 2018

Rockaway Parent Mariya Ultsh said she believes that DOE plays politics when it comes to school closures. "My money is that charter schools will sweep in and once again [special] interest groups will get a payday at the expense of our children... The WAVE, Dec. 22, 20017. 

When I hear that the DOE is closing down schools I always check to see how those closing will benefit charter schools that covet their real estate, especially when the voracious Eva Moskowitz Success Academy charters are involved. So when I saw on the list along with PS/IS 42, Rockaway’s MS 53, where Eva occupies space already, I did my imitation of Claude Reins (Inspector Renault of Casablanca fame) and declared “I was shocked, just shocked, to find out gambling was going on. Now where are my winnings?” Eva is getting her winnings as she will ultimately manage to push out the other schools in the building even if she and her billionaire supporters have to run million dollar ads crying about how the big bad de Blasio is denying them space while he in effect hands them space under the table by closing some superb real estate. I agree with Mariya Ultsh that the PS 42 closing will ultimately benefit some charter chain. The late and lamented DNAInfo (shut down by its owner when the reporters voted to unionize) had a great piece by Katie Honan back in 2015 addressing the original invasion of IS 53: https://tinyurl.com/ydde4ad4.

Last year the targeted school favoring Eva was JHS 145 in the Bronx which was closed a year earlier than promised under bogus reasoning as Success was growling for more space in the building. When I went to the closing hearing and saw the magnificent building and the attached park I had to laugh. JHS 145 teacher Jim Donohue who helped lead the unsuccessful battle to try to save the school said:

“A full 3 weeks before the DOE’s closure proposal even becomes official, and 2 months before the PEP vote takes place, and despite the DOE’s claim that the closing has NOTHING to do with the charter school, Success Academy’s website has begun advertising for applicants to its new middle school, opening in 2017, at JHS 145. In recent weeks, Success Academy staff members have been measuring our classrooms, apparently 100% confident that the PEP will rubber stamp our demise in March. (See videos  I made of the pleas from teachers, parents and students to keep the school open on my blog: https://tinyurl.com/y8by5mea. So we were not surprised to see yet another school occupied by Success end up on the closing list.

Avaricious Eva is asking to expand in the old Sarah Hale HS in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn and there has been community resistance. Leonie Haimson reports that “The average utilization of District 15 schools, according to the 2015-2016 DOE Utilization report, was at 105%, and 61% of K-8 schools in the district overcrowded (at or above 100% target utilization). About 74% or nearly 20,000 K-8 students were in overcrowded schools, and 94 cluster rooms were missing from these schools. according to DOE’s utilization formula ….. as cited in the letter from the Community Education Council in District 15, many of the students at the Success Academy Cobble Hill do not reside in the district….  any expansion of this school would increasingly crowd out districts students in the future, and thus should not be allowed. We also oppose allowing the expansion of any Success Academy charter school, given the huge number of civil rights violations and abuses that children enrolled in these schools and their families are subjected to, as well as repeated violations of student privacy rights. We have real doubts as to the legality of the request to authorize any change in a charter school’s enrollment in the middle of the current school year, as Success Academy – Cobble Hill is proposing, from 558 students in grades K-6, to 686 students in in 2017-2018.

As to PS 42, Councilman Donovan Richards, whose office donated nearly a million dollars to the school, the benefits of which will one day accrue to some charter chain, is also being closed. The Dec. 22 WAVE article noted that Richards will be holding a rally on Jan. 10 before and maybe at the closing hearing at PS 42 - at 6:30. The MS 53 hearing will be held Jan. 11 at the school, also at 6:30. PS 42's PTA president, Kevin Morgan, is organizing a bus trip to Albany on Jan. 9 -- call him for more info at 347-410-3061.

Renewal schools were not supported despite claims

Leonie Haimson has written an excellent blog detailing the failures of the de Blasio/Farina plan for the renewal schools.

Titled, DOE announces more Renewal school closings without ever having giving them a real chance to succeed, Leonie points out: “Instead of capping class sizes in these schools, the DOE spent about $40 million per year on consultants and bureaucrats to oversee the Renewal program, many of them with records marked by scandal and incompetence, as well as millions more on wrap-around services to create "community schools." Though perhaps of value in themselves, these services do little to improve students' opportunity to learn or teachers ability to teach.” Read the entire piece at: https://tinyurl.com/y7slpyrq. Also see Alan Singer on the failure of de Blasio/Farina renewal program, “Newly Reelected New York City Mayor Decides His School Renewal Plan Failed But Still Claims Success”. Have fun reading at: https://tinyurl.com/y79g42dk.

My previous articles on the Success charter monster are on my blog at:

https://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2017/12/school-scope-how-do-you-spell-success_16.html

https://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2017/12/school-scope-how-do-you-spell-success.html

And a piece on how billionaire hedge fund Success Board member Paul Tudor Jones consoled Harvey Weinstein: https://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2017/12/eva-moskowitz-return-paul-tudor-money.html

In case you didn’t get the message, Norm blogs way too much at ednotesonline.com.

Free Speech and Race – Left, Right, and Center By Norm Scott

My latest in The WAVE ---

School Scope:  Free Speech and Race – Left, Right, and Center

By Norm Scott

In this country race really matters – all the time. But then again we were born under the star of slavery, the consequences of which will never disappear.

Some people drape themselves in the flag. Some in the Declaration of Independence. Some in the Constitution. I am not a big flag guy though I have a few in my garden – my block has lots of flags and I want to fit in. I love the Declaration – “when in the course of human events” – and “all men are created equal” – unless you are black – or even one tenth black. Yes, race matters.

Along with people I have political differences with, I also love the Constitution – see we can agree on some things. I would love to drape myself in the Constitution – maybe even make a double breasted suit out of it. But there’s that little slavery thing – something about slaves being counted as 3/5 of a person for voting purposes by their masters. I can protest the 3/5 rule and maybe make my suit out of 2/5 of the Constitution. Patriots may cheer when I wear it, even if some parts of me will be left exposed.

Well, no biggie. Slavery was the thing in those times. If you didn’t own some slaves you just weren’t in. For some people lamenting the past, it may still be something they yearn for. Imagine the freedom to be able to whip people for not standing up during the anthem?

We are hearing a lot about free speech from all sides. But this is not new. Remember how hated Muhammad Ali was when he refused to go into the army because he didn’t want to go killing people of color in Vietnam when people of color had been so badly treated over the centuries in this country? If you haven’t seen the Ken Burns series on Vietnam it is a must see with so many similarities to the divisions of today. (I wonder how many protestors from the 60s are today screaming about the black athletes protesting?)

Some on the right are complaining that the left is trying to silence their voices through campus protests – A pushback against political correctness that forces people to temper their real thoughts played a role in the Trump victory . The libertarian in me is finding it hard to support people who want to suppress any free speech. Maybe an exception for Nazis.

The left has historically been a target of suppression – for well over a hundred years. Like if you said you were a communist you could go to jail. Is swearing allegiance to the United States of Capitalism a requirement? The accusations against Communism is that there is a lack of freedom and democracy and a one party system in Communist countries. There is no little irony that many of the same people who make these accusations are going nuts over athletes taking advantage of our “democratic” system and free speech, which supposedly gives them the right to kneel during the national anthem.

The right to organize labor unions has also been under attack, especially in states like Wisconsin. It began in the earliest years of the movement when police and the army were used to support the bosses from the late 19th century through the depression. One of the great things about FDR’s New Deal was the attempt to redress the balance by having the federal government support workers –good luck waiting for the states ¬¬– most of them are even easier to corrupt, believe it or not, than the feds, though the gap is closing – in the wrong direction. A word of warning to those who love the Republican health care law leaving things to the states.

What is ironic is that Democrats, ostensibly the party of labor, on the whole, has not done very much since FDR to help labor – remember how Harry Truman went after unions in steel, mines and railroads and the Taft-Harley Act (1947) which put controls over unions which were seen as growing too powerful. And Reagan’s destruction of the air traffic controllers union opened a Pandora’s box of attacks on unions to the point that their extinction is being predicted even before global warming puts us all under water.

We can only marvel at how a demonstration by one lone player – Colin Kaepernick – which has caused a lot of commentary – exploded after Trump’s comments into a full-fledged revolt by so many athletes in certain sports. (OK, not hockey – guess why?). Over 70% of pro-football athletes are black. And over 75% of the NBA are black and over 80%, people of color. And most of the white NBA players are from abroad. Interestingly, in baseball only 7% of the major league players are black, 27% Latino and over 60% white. That is why you will not see major protests in baseball but football and basketball will have protests exploding. Yet, even on the Yankees, baby bombers are Latino Gary Sanchez and Aaron Judge, certainly part black (like Derrick Jeter). Judge was adopted by white parents (like Kaepernick was) when he was a day old. Jeter, Obama (and probably Judge) are half white. In this country that makes them black. Race matters in this country.

Trump called for fans to boycott football over the protests but not over the number of head injuries or the woman beaters allowed to play while Kaepernick is seemingly banned over his protest. Funny how both the left and right have been calling for people to boycott the NFL. (The left often meets the right at certain points). The best American female tennis players are black and the best American golfer in a generation was also black.

Trump needs to spend more time addressing the issue of the disappearing white American athlete so we can make sports great again.

Norm is trying to make his blog great again at ednotesonline.org. Also read his Memo from the RTC columns in The WAVE.

School Scope: Schools and Hurricanes - Norm in The WAVE

Published Sept. 8, 2017 in The WAVE, www.rockawave.com

School Scope: Schools and Hurricanes
By Norm Scott

Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2017
I noticed that another school year has begun. I got a hint when staff members’ cars from the school up the street began appearing on the block. I still get a hint of those Labor Day butterflies leftover from having attended or worked in schools from the age of five through sixty. Fifty five years of habit is touch to break even a dozen years later. Having so many school worker friends posting their laments and excitements on social media has kept me in touch. Some teachers are hesitant to share the fact that despite the end of another glorious summer, there are excited to get back to work. The main problem I had was the end of two months of freedom, but every year I also had feelings that I couldn’t wait to get back. Too much freedom can be a dangerous thing. Almost every retiree I speak to say how much more productive they were when they were working. Now if they get one thing done a day they celebrate – some say they get much less done than when they were under a time gun.

My continued involvement with alternate voices in the UFT challenging the leadership has also kept me in touch with the political issues facing teachers. Testing continues to drive the agenda in judging student, school, and teacher performance. The scores from last spring were published a few weeks ago in the dead of August. Minor gains in the city were championed by de Blasio as victories. Some de Blasio supporters had hoped he would take on the test mania but instead, he and his partners in the UFT leadership have continued running the same train down a broken track.

Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters, posted on the NYC Parent blog: “State test scores increase again; but is it real? Opt out rates remain high.” She wrote, “… the NY State Education Department has appeared unable since 2002 to produce a reliable test and score it consistently enough to allow one to assess if there’s been any sort of improvement in our schools. Instead, Commissioners and their staff have repeatedly changed cut scores and set proficiency rates to make political points.” Call this cheating at the highest levels.

Leonie also points to the still very high opt-out rates in the state, the highest in the nation, though NYC lags far behind the rest of the state due to massive repression and threats to punish schools with high opt out rates from the top officials of the NYCDOE. Read Leonie’s very insightful post at https://tinyurl.com/y97vmk9d.

For decades before Sandy, since we moved to Rockaway in 1979, I had been tracking potential and actual hurricanes from their earliest stages. I remembered the stories of the bay meeting the ocean from the early 60s and with every hurricane that threatened our area that nightmare was always on my mind. We evacuated twice over the decades, the last time with Irene in 2011, which so lulled us we didn’t leave during and after Sandy in 2012 when the bay met the ocean in spades. Everyone in Rockaway understands what Houston is going through and sadly, this will not be the last time somewhere in the coastal USA there will be some similar disaster on an increasing basis.

Just as Harvey was slamming Texas we began hear of Irma, which at the time was forming off the coast of Africa (and Jose following behind). As I write Irma is a Cat 4/5 storm pushing through the Caribbean and heading for a possible landing in Southern Florida or if it shifts north, the Carolinas or even with a bigger curve north, maybe us, which if it hits will be a week away and scary. Just in case, we are making plans to get stuff out of the basement and onto higher floors. This time evacuation will be more likely for us. The cats however, are not sure they want to go.

I don’t want to get into the weeds of the politics of global warming or the role humans have in increasing the rate. I believe we have been a warming trend for 15 thousand years – remember, massive glaciers covered most of NYC. These changes came in slow enough increments to allow humanity time to adapt. Remember those pre-Indians who walked across the land bridge connecting Siberia to Alaska? They had some time to adjust to not being able to go back as the seas rose. The issue is the rate of warming which has been increasing at a higher rate over the past 150 years as the industrial revolution proceeded. Rising seas and warmer ocean waters make for bad hurricanes (is there a good one?) and more violent weather. To me that is a given. The question to me is not whether human actions at this time can reverse the rate but rather slow things down just enough to give humanity time to adjust. The Greenland ice sheet is melting as is the Antarctic ice shelves, which will raise sea levels hundreds of feet – imagine even the highest sky scrapers sticking up in a world of water.

But don’t fret – it won’t be all bad living in Venice on the Hudson.

Norm frets daily at ednotesonline.com.

School Scope, The Wave: The Fallacies of School Choice, Part 2

My column for this week to be published Dec. 23, 2016 at www.rockawave.com


School Scope:  The Fallacies of School Choice, Part 2

By Norm Scott

At one point, a decade ago, the voices standing up against what I’ve termed the “ed deform” movement were few. But the mainstream press is beginning to catch on. Rebecca Mead in the New Yorker recently wrote:  “Missing in the ideological embrace of choice for choice’s sake is any suggestion of the public school as a public good—as a centering locus for a community and as a shared pillar of the commonweal, in which all citizens have an investment. If, in recent years, a principal focus of federal educational policy has been upon academic standards in public education—how to measure success, and what to do with the results—DeVos’s nomination suggests that in a Trump Administration the more fundamental premises that underlie our institutions of public education will be brought into question.”

The neighborhood public school as a center of community throughout the nation. What an ancient concept.

The school choice movement is a master plan over the past three decades marketed to degrade the public schools and promote a shift of public money into private, often profit-making hands. A key is to brand the entire concept of public schools as a failure of government and the teaching corps (emphasize incidents concerning bad teachers and create a negative image in the minds of the public). Imagine if there was a plan to unlock the money going to the police force where blame was placed the individual police when battling crime. Critics of police have never called for an alt/private police force to be created to give the public a choice. If Trump and his education secretary Betsy DeVos get their way, there will be only a cinder of a public school system left after they are done.

A few weeks ago a Rockaway parent sent a letter to The Wave challenging my stance opposing charters, vouchers, education tax credits, and the so-called school “choice” movement and my opposition to Betsy DeVos as articulated in my Dec. 9 column (http://tinyurl.com/z7jxw3o) and I replied in Part 1 on Dec. 16  http://tinyurl.com/gv3jzpn where I talked about public schools as a guaranteed institution and part of the fabric of American life. I suggested we continue the dialogue.

The anonymous parent left this comment on my blog.

“Please tell me if I understand your objections to vouchers and charter schools. You believe:

·      Public education is corner stone for creating a common American culture and any diffusion would weaken our Republic.

·      Charters and vouchers take precious money away from the traditional schools thus creating more dysfunction.

·      Public funding of religious schools violate the "No Establishment Clause" in the U.S. Constitution and the prohibition of public money being used in private religious schools in the New York State Constitution.

·      For profit schools are fundamentally skewed to favor the corporation over the students and the students will suffer.

He nailed some of the essence of what I was trying to say in a way I do not always articulate. Not to say I convinced him.

The shift of funding from public schools into private, often unregulated and for profit hands, holds great danger for the very future of a public school system. In New Orleans the entire system is charter and Detroit is headed that way. Without any neighborhood public school options left there is less choice. One New Orleans parent I know who originally supported charters found that she had to send her child across town because he couldn’t go to the charter across the street.   (Please read this Dec. 12, 2016 NY Times article, How Trump’s Education Nominee Bent Detroit to Her Will on Charter Schools [http://tinyurl.com/zpc2vlq] on DeVos’ disastrous impact on causing mayhem in Detroit schools.).

That is not to say that public funds are not misused but there is a greater degree of accountability. In the long run we end up with either no public school system or a sliver only serving kids no one wants. If your child has difficulty or a handicap, you may be out of luck. Next year DeBlasio has to run, partially on his management of the schools. Success Academy’s Eva Moskowitz gets public money for 40 schools and 40,000 students but doesn’t have to run for anything. And she can pay herself a half a million bucks a year with no public oversight. Charters - especially the avaricious chains like Eva Moskowitz' have the intent - no matter what they say -- to skim off all the top performing kids they can, leaving the unwanted to whatever is left of public schools.

School choice is marketing. And if your kid doesn't make the cut of the school you want then you find you are in the woods - especially if your neighborhood public school no longer exists.

Norm keeps raving away at ednotesonline.com. Happy holidays.

Norm in The Wave: The Fallacies of School Choice Marketing Campaign, Part 1

The Fallacies of School Choice Marketing Campaign, Part 1

By Norm Scott

Published Dec. 16, 2016

http://www.rockawave.com/node/237809?pk_campaign=Newsletter

In last week’s column (http://www.rockawave.com/news/2016-12-09/School_News/School_Scope.html)
I posted a letter from an anonymous Rockaway parent who disagreed with my stand on charter schools, vouchers, and Trump’s proposed education secretary, and school privatizer, Betsy DeVos. He feels that school choice is the answer to the problems our public school system faces. I will use the next batch of columns to try to elucidate why I oppose charter schools, vouchers, and any tax
credit for people sending their children to private and religious schools and why even a flawed public schools system is worth fighting for, while trying to fix the flaws. Balkanizing the schools and putting them under thousands of different management organizations, many of them out for a profit, will only
end up degrading all schools. (See Detroit where Betsy DeVos pushed through a system of totally unregulated schools that has lead to chaos.)

The parent contacted me through my blog and asked this
question. “Are you satisfied with the current state of public education (outside of the charter system) in NYC? If not, how would you improve the system?” Oy! This may take 10 years of columns. Let me say right up front. From almost the day I began teaching in Sept. 1967, it was clear the public school
system needed reform. By my 3^rd year I also realized that the
teacher union, the UFT, often a partner with the then Board of Education in managing the schools, also needed reform and that if we wanted change we would have to address both. By 1970 I had become an educational activist which continues to this day. What to change the system to and how to do that has been up for discussion seemingly forever.

Now that I know there is at least one person who reads this column, I will address a bunch of the issues raised in future columns. But this time I want to explore the concept of public institutions.

Pretty much every part of the nation and every neighborhood in most urban areas have had an assumption over the past 150 years or more that there will be certain guaranteed public institutions. A police and fire station (though sometimes these are volunteers). A post office. Access to a hospital. Some sanitation services. Certainly, this has been true in New York City. These
institutions were built and managed by entities that were,
theoretically at least, under the control of a public process – people elected by us who were subject to some level of accountability. Both political parties pretty much signed up to support this concept.

Theorists like conservative economist Milton Friedman and the libertarian movement opposed many of these concepts of public services run by government. The idea of a public school system was one of the first institutions to come under attack (as has the postal service). After Regan’s election in 1980, privatizing interests began to see the trillion dollars spent on public schools as an enormous source of revenue. Thus was born the school choice movement. I will drill down a bit next time. Meanwhile, I urge my one reader (and any others) to check out these two recent articles in the NY Times.

New York Charters
Enroll Fewer Homeless Pupils Than City Schools (http://tinyurl.com/z5uv8ya)

“…in at least 21 of
the 29 geographic school districts in the city that have charters, every charter had a lower percentage of students in temporary housing last year than the average among the traditional public schools in the same district.”

Here is an excerpt of Dec. 12, 2016 NY Times article, How Trump’s Education Nominee Bent Detroit
to Her Will on Charter Schools (http://tinyurl.com/zpc2vlq):

“Detroit Public Schools, [DeVos] argued, should simply be shut down and the system turned over to charters, or the tax dollars given to parents in the form of vouchers to attend private schools. ‘She is committed to an ideological stance that is solely about the free market, at the expense of practicality and the basic needs of students in the most destabilized environment in the country,’ said
Tonya Allen, the president of the Skillman Foundation…. Most charters have failed to improve on the dismal performance of the traditional public schools. High-performing national charter networks have stayed away because of the instability of the market. that will mean shutting down mostly traditional public schools, which in Detroit serve the neediest students, and further desert students in neighborhoods where charters have largely declined to go. “My complaint around this is not that you disagree,” said Ms. Allen, “but that you never could come up with another solution to deal with the practical issues of poor public policy that is not only eroding a traditional school system, but eroding all schools.”

Norms keep searching for answers and finding few at
ednotesonline.com

School Scope: Parent Objects to My Position on School Choice

Published Dec. 9, 2016 in The WAVE, http://www.rockawave.com/news/2016-12-09/School_News/School_Scope.html

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School Scope: Parent Objects to My Position on School Choice

By Norm Scott

The WAVE received a letter commenting on my column (Vouchers are Coming, Vouchers are Coming!)  link - http://www.rockawave.com/news/2016-12-02/School_News/School_Scope.html regarding the privatization agenda of Donald Trump and his proposed Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. The author, a public school parent, wrote, “If you publish my remarks please omit my name to protect my daughter.” Since The WAVE doesn’t print anonymous letters, I’m using this column to print the letter here. The facts stated in the letter about school performance have not been verified since we do not know what school his daughter attends. I understand the position of a parent who has a negative view of the zoned school his child attends and feels vouchers and charters and religious schools are better options and calls for the oft-misused “choice” as an answer. The letter also touches on a number of other issues, including my attack on Trump education secretary Betsy DeVos – too many to respond in one column. So I will do a series of responses over the next few columns.

For today I’ll just say there is a direct correlation between student performance and family economic means, no matter what the school. Thus a school with high numbers of students with high poverty levels will look bad statistically even if per student spending looks high on paper. The average is often bumped up by the high costs of addressing special needs students. Here is a quick breakdown of average costs per student in the NYC schools.

District Name: New York City Department Of Education

Instructional Costs per Student: $16,177, 80%

Instructional Salaries per Student:$8,677, 43%

Instructional Employee Benefits per Student:$4,792, 24%

Other Instructional per Student: $2,708, 13%

Support Services Costs per Student: $4,099, 20%

Total Instructional & Support Costs per Student: $20,276

- See more at: http://www.cbcny.org/sites/default/files/InstructionalAndSupportMap.html#sthash.LVcneTy2.dpuf

The ultimate aim of putting schools in the hands of privatizers is to lower the costs of the teaching staff. In one public school in Brooklyn co-occupied by Eva Moskowitz’  Success Academy charter chain, which has 40 schools in the city only one teacher remains after 3 years. How good an idea is it to have massive teacher churn with inexperienced and often non-certified and untrained teachers? Taking money out of public schools to give vouchers to people to go to religious schools on a national level would be a massive violation of the separation of church and state that was one of the basics of the establishment of this nation, where many settlers were running away from religious persecution and didn’t want to see the state playing any official role.

Check out a piece written by Howard Schwach, former WAVE editor and founder of this School Scope column, published at his On Rockaway web site where he touches on democracy and public schools. “I have often written that public education is the touchstone of our democracy. If kids or all races and religions are not brought together for their school years, they will never understand each other and democracy will suffer. There is a broad consensus in America that public schools must be protected, despite the fact that many are struggling to fulfill their core mission of educating all children.” Howie also delves into Betsy DeVos’ path of destruction which has left Michigan schools in disarray: https://onrockaway.com/commentary-trumps-education-commissioner-pick-wants-to-destroy-public-education-and-thats-not-hyperbole/.

Here is the parent’s letter – I hope to have some more dialogue with him and he’s welcome to contact me for a chat.

Let's Try School Choice

“Mr. Scott’s recent editorial objected to school vouchers because he believes it will create a withering away of our public education and our democracy.  I hate to break this to him, but our public education is already broken and our representative republic is in danger.  New York City spends over $23,000 per student per year, and yet my daughter’s zoned school has a passing rate of 11% in English and 7% in math on the statewide exams.  At our nearest high school, only 11% of the students graduate college-ready.  I have concluded that too often the education bureaucracy is more interested in the needs of the people that work for the institution than helping children.  This is a cruel disservice to the taxpayer, country, and most importantly to our children.

Too often quality public education in our country is dependent on the ability to live in affluent communities.  I see too many parents take on too much debt to live near a quality school.  I see too many working poor parents spend too much precious money on prep programs hoping to get their children into quality schools.  Every child in the United States deserves an opportunity to be educated to their abilities regardless of their parent’s income.

Ad Hominem attacks on the Secretary of Education nominee, attacking people’s motives for their votes, attacking private schools, or attacking religious schools does not help your argument.  The harsh reality is our current education system is failing and major changes are needed. I can only conclude that this systematic failure requires a complete overhaul of our education system.  Expanding school choice is best way to reach children of all socio-economic levels and is the most efficient way to realign our education system to the needs of the actual students.  Charter schools and vouchers need to be tried and, where successful, should be built upon and expanded.”

Norm spews ad Hominem attacks daily at ednotesonline.org.

Norm in the Wave: School Scope: Vouchers are Coming, Vouchers are Coming!!! and Writing WS in Rockaway

Published Dec. 2, 2016 in The Wave

School Scope: Vouchers are Coming, Vouchers are Coming!!!

By Norm Scott

“The first American schools in the thirteen original colonies opened in the 17th century. Boston Latin School was founded in 1635 and is both the first public school and oldest existing school in the United States. The first tax-supported public school was opened in Dedham, Massachusetts, in 1644.”…. Wikipedia

With the coming Trump administration threatening to create a voucher system, we face an upcoming elimination of almost 400 years of public education. It won’t happen immediately but over time we will see a withering away of the entire fabric of free public education in this nation, and along with it I believe a similar withering away of 225 years of democracy. A viable public school system is part of the foundation of American democracy where a national identity can be forged. Break public ed and you break the ties that can bind Americans together.

Is it even worth talking about public education in the Trump Era, which the president elect has termed a “monopoly”, after appointing billionaire Betsy DeVos, the queen of vouchers, as education secretary? And thus we face the possible demise of an institution that has been the backbone of democracy in this nation since almost its founding.

The Jewish Forward posted a story titled, “Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education? That’s a Tragedy for All American Jews.”  It is worth quoting a section from the article, which can be read in full at http://forward.com/opinion/355478/betsy-devos-as-secretary-of-education-thats-a-tragedy-for-all-american-jews/

“For generations of American Jews, public education has been the gateway to American life. It was certainly true for my parents, the children of immigrants; public school taught them not just facts and figures, but alao how to be American — and how to be proud of being American. Which is why the nomination of Betsy DeVos as secretary of Education, while not surprising, is so deeply sad. DeVos is not merely a conservative and a Republican Party activist; she is one of the country’s most powerful advocates for ending public education entirely and replacing it with religious schools, for-profit charter schools and home schooling. Her foundation is widely credited as the primary engine behind the so-called “school choice” movement, which has led to the establishment of voucher programs in 13 states since 2000. Moreover, DeVos’s billionaire family, the members of which made their money in the Amway pyramid scheme, is one of the top five funders of the Christian right, having given hundreds of millions of dollars to the likes of Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, the Heritage Foundation and dozens of Christian schools across the country. DeVos isn’t just the fox in charge of the henhouse — she’s the shochet, the slaughterer.”

Word is that many Jews in the orthodox community voted for Trump in higher numbers than secular Jews. So for them this may not a tragedy, since orthodox Jews who don’t send their kids to public schools can use public money for religious schools, as of course can Catholics and Muslims. With the attacks on Muslims can you see some religions being “unflavored”?

Every religious organization and every wood-be religious group, even bogus ones, will try to get in on the gravy train. Charters are in heaven over the chance to take over public school functions and property. Every school can will its own curriculum, thus fragmenting the American experience into smithereens.

Rockaway writing workshops

Switching gears, I’ve been in a writing group for about 10 years. Writing groups offer a very supportive environment to have your work critiqued and due to my colleagues I’ve begun doing something I never thought I would do – writing a novel, one of the hardest things I’ve tried to do.

Now Rockaway has its own writing workshop. If you’ve been hankering to write the great American novel or your memoir, or some poetry, Claire Van Winkle, one of our local hot yoga instructors at Hot Yoga Rockaway Beach on 116^th St., also teaches composition, creative writing, and literature at CUNY and SUNY colleges and she has been offering 6-week writing workshops in Rockaway.  The next session will be offered on Wednesdays, beginning January 4. Email Claire at info@rockawaywritersworkshop for details.

Claire created a 10% discount code for WAVE readers who would like to try the 6-Class Card (listed under “Packages”). Enter code EDNOTES10 on the checkout page at http://www.rockawaywritersworkshop.org

Coming soon from Claire, writing therapy workshops

Turning the Page: Making Sense of the Stories We Tell Ourselves, a community group designed to help individuals use writing to work through problems like depression, loss, trauma, and major life changes based on a program she developed  that applies writing workshop pedagogy and clinical psychology approaches (such as cognitive-behavioral theory) to group therapy. She’s run weekly sessions at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. While the program was created for a clinical setting, Claire hopes to bring her experience to the Rockaway/Broad Channel/Howard Beach area, helping those whose  silent struggles might be alleviated through guided expression.

Claire’s bio and CV are available at  http://www.rockawaywritersworkshop.org/about-the-teacher/

Norm blogs at ednotesonline.org

 

School Scope: How Democrats and Republicans Lost the Working Class Leading to Trumpism

I had two pieces in The Wave this week.

Norm in The Wave
http://www.rockawave.com/node/235427?pk_campaign=Newsletter

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School Scope: How Democrats and Republicans Lost the Working Class Leading to Trumpism

By Norm Scott

A number of articles have been published on the Trump appeal to the white working class which used to be solidly Democratic and often pro-union. There is no way I can fully cover this issue in a short column but I want to touch on a few points and include links for those readers who want to delve deeper. Both parties bear responsibility which is why Trump supporters reject the traditional Republican Party which has been pro-free trade and anti-union. The Dems have been ostensibly pro-union but in reality have done little for unions since they came under attack in the first days of Ronald Regan in the early 1980s. (I’ll explore how the Dem betrayal, especially regarding their support of the union busting charter schools, undermined teacher unions in a future post.)

Let’s look at free trade. It was the left and some unions that rose up in November1999 to protest globalization, leading to 40,000 people protesting and riots in Seattle at the WTO conference. (Wiki at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Seattle_WTO_protests). China’s admission to the WTO at the end of 2001 (under the Bush administration) basically led to the wipe out of the American steel (and coal) industry since China could make steel much cheaper and efficiently (the American steel industry had not upgraded for decades). A lot of Trump support comes from the areas where people were affected. Cheap Chinese furniture also wiped out the entire North Carolina furniture industry along with others.

NAFTA, which was pushed hard by the Clintons and the Republicans, led to the movement of industry to Mexico with no penalty on the corporations. There are estimates that at least 3 million jobs were lost. On the other hand, free trade has allowed the American consumer to buy cheap at the cost of American jobs. So there is a yin-yang. Now this is not the first time that our industries have been savaged. Both my parents were garment workers and my father (a presser) was still doing some work into the early 1970s as that industry was on life-support. Some industries are gone due to technology (printing). With 80% of our jobs being service, Trump’s promise to bring back dead or dying manufacturing is a myth.  The coming threat is that service jobs are being savaged by robots and technology. The largest growth of jobs currently are low wage home health care workers. As I reach my dotage I expect to be taken care of by a home health care robot, a long-term threat to even these jobs.

The failure of both parties is evident in both NAFTA and the WTO, both of which have their merits in lowering consumer costs and keeping inflation down, but in not taking good care of the massive number of workers affected by increasing the safety net. European workers have also been negatively affected but they have a much stronger safety net. Strong unions are a reason and since they have been weakened by Republican attacks and Democratic inaction, the safety net here is weak and left millions of people vulnerable. That was why Bernie Sanders, who offered coherent programs, was also so popular in areas where Trump is also strong.

Even though I find Donald Trump abhorrent, some of the points he raises are very valid and resonate with the non-deplorable segment of his supporters. We were at a family wedding this past weekend with some Trump supporters and did get to hear their reasoning, in one case due to how negatively they were affected by Obamacare, a very legitimate point. My relative recently reached 65 and is now on Medicare which he loves. My response was that even though a flawed plan – we agreed that the insurance companies basically wrote the bill in a way to maximize their profits – I did try to point out that if  the Republicans had tried to fix what was wrong instead of spending 6 years trying to kill Obamacare things might be working a little better. He pointed out that Obama was so desperate to get something passed he was willing to accept any piece of crap and is defending that piece of crap for his “legacy.” But I don’t really want to defend Obama care since I’m for a single payer system – Medicare for all – and Obama pretty much gave up that ghost from day 1 because the insurance companies would have lobbied that to death.

Now there is no little irony in that my relative loves single payer and I believe the entire nation would love single payer if it were gradually extended. (There are ways to pay for it and remember that every advanced Western nation has such a system – and rumors that people die under it because of long waits is belied by examining the death rates of these countries.) Remember, most people are insured by their employer, not Obama care. More irony is that early assaults on Hillary Clinton began when she was assigned the job under her husband of shepherding in a health care system in the early 90s and was savaged for urging that it be single payer. She has apparently learned her lesson and came off to the right of Bernie Sanders on this issue.

If interested in exploring some ideas raised, here are some links.

A left-leaning current NYC teacher and former West Point grad who served in Iraq writes:

Obama's (and Hillary's) Capital "P" Pragmatists --  http://provocationsblog.blogspot.com/2016/10/obamas-and-hillarys-capital-p.html?m=1.

IN THE HEART OF TRUMP COUNTRY

West Virginia used to vote solidly Democratic. Now it belongs to Trump. What happened?

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/in-the-heart-of-trump-country

Trump: Tribune Of Poor White People | The American Conservative

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/trump-us-politics-poor-whites/

Check out this hot book: J.D. Vance - 'Hillbilly Elegy,' a Tough Love Analysis of the Poor Who Back Trump and "Deer Hunting With Jesus" by Joe Bageant about the southern white working class.

Norm blogs at ednotesonline.com

CB 14 Education Committee Meets

http://www.rockawave.com/news/2016-10-28/Community/CB_14_Education_Committee_Meets.html

 

By Norm Scott

Community Board 14’s Education Committee and School District 27’s Community Education Council (the successor to the pre-Bloomberg local school boards) have initiated a series of meetings aimed to attract parents from every Rockaway school where they get an opportunity to share issues of concern regarding their schools.

The joint committees will follow up with politicians and Department of Education officials as an advocate for the schools. One common theme that emerged is the school safety issue around the schools -- from broken sidewalks to unsafe traffic patterns. Some schools don’t have an after school program. Another has seen a major spike in children from Central America with little or no English in the home yet have not received the services needed to address this issue. Another issue that emerged was the question of how many homeless children from shelters attend Rockaway schools, as these children often need a high degree of services and schools with high numbers are under resourced. While the numbers of shelter children are not high, it was pointed out that there are a high number recently of shelter students who have moved into housing in Rockaway, a sign that schools with these children may need some extra support in assisting with the transition.

CB14, whose members are appointed by elected officials, addresses a wide variety of concerns related to Rockaway and education is often left on the margins. The activation of the education sub-committee in reaching out to CEC 27 should bring more focus on the schools.