Norm in The Wave: The Big Lie(s)

The Big Lie(s) and Where Bob Turner Stands
by Norm Scott
Dec. 9, 2011

Well over a decade ago they were branded as radical education reformers looking to change the way education is delivered. They were embraced by both those on the right who had been attacking public schools as a monopoly and liberals on the left who had become frustrated at the lack of progress. As an experienced educator I know from day one that they were tossing around a load of crap - no real reforms but a political ideology based on making changes that would in the long run reduce the costs of education, mainly from the largest source - the labor factor - ergo, teacher salaries. I could never manage to even use the term "reformer" and indeed started using quotes around the word until I came up with the term "education deformer" because that is what they were doing - deforming education.

The mantra of the Education Deformer
Did you know that the reason almost a quarter of the children in this nation are poor is because we have a lousy educational system? And why do we have a lousy educational system? Because we have lousy schools. And why to we have lousy schools? Because we have lousy teachers. Research shows we are told - though the actual research is rarely sited - that the biggest in school factor is not high class sizes or the principal or the number of children struggling with academics or family problems or the lack of resources provided by the people running the system – but the teacher. And didn't you know that the reason we have so many lousy teachers is because the teacher unions prevent the removal of so-called lousy teachers. But, oh, we really do love most of our teachers but if only we could remove those few bad apples. And in order to do that we have to eliminate the unions - or at the very least take away their collective bargaining rights and maybe even their ability to recruit new members (wink, wink: so we can weaken the ability of the only organize any opposition to turning the billions of dollars of public school funding over to private hands).

And we need school choice (charters) since only competition and free enterprise can work. Hey, maybe we can do the same with the police and fire departments - set up competing agencies in some higher crime and higher fire neighborhoods - so that when there is a fire people can decide whether to call 911 or 912.

Of course the only way we can accomplish any of the above is by turning over entire school systems into the hands of one person – usually the mayor – and thus removing any vestige of democratic governing or control over the billions of dollars that go into the education budget. Even better if he happens to be a billionaire who can buy the press, politicians (see Christine Quinn, et al.), and many local community organizations that might put up opposition.

And there's another big lie. That the above is a Republican attack on the public education when in fact just about every Democratic politician, led by the Commander-in-Chief and his Education Secretary attack dog, Arne Duncan who was appointed after 7 years of failure leading the Chicago school system down the road to failure following the very same ed deform policies. Did Obama, who has out-Bushed Bush on ed deform, live in Chicago, which led the way with ed deform starting in 1994, with blinders on? My answer is NOT. In fact, Obama has proven himself to be corporate all the way in so many ways that the charges he is a socialist is absurd.

So where does our local Congressman Bob Turner stand on ed deform? As I pointed out in my Nov. 25 column, Turner is a free enterprise guy. You know the type. If Eva Moskowitz' Success Charter spends $1.5 million in advertising – $1300 per child they manage to recruit and then complain that the public money they get and the free space in pubic schools is not enough – while the local public school may not even have a working copy machine – that is the free enterprise system. When the day comes that the most capable students are lured out of the local public school, leaving an underfinanced hulk with struggling students and the poorest parents, thus leading to that school being closed and parents having only a Moskowitz-run school to go to – unless they are special ed or from non-English speaking families which Eva doesn't take into her schools – there is the free enterprise system at work for you with a privately controlled monopoly replacing the supposed monopoly that had been under public control.

And speaking of Turner, he wrote a piece in The Nov. 18 edition of The Wave extolling his support for veterans. Paul Krugman wrote a column in the Times on November 13 about a proposal from Mitt Romney (whom Turner will support if he is the Republican nominee) to privatize the Veteran's Health Administration (VHA) by offering vouchers.

Krugman writes:

American health care is remarkably diverse. In terms of how care is paid for and delivered, many of us effectively live in Canada, some live in Switzerland, some live in Britain, and some live in the unregulated market of conservative dreams. One result of this diversity is that we have plenty of home-grown evidence about what works and what doesn’t. Naturally, then, politicians — Republicans in particular — are determined to scrap what works and promote what doesn’t. And that brings me to Mitt Romney’s latest really bad idea, unveiled on Veterans Day: to partially privatize the Veterans Health Administration (V.H.A.). What Mr. Romney and everyone else should know is that the V.H.A. is a huge policy success story, which offers important lessons for future health reform. Many people still have an image of veterans’ health care based on the terrible state of the system two decades ago. Under the Clinton administration, however, the V.H.A. was overhauled, and achieved a remarkable combination of rising quality and successful cost control. Multiple surveys have found the V.H.A. providing better care than most Americans receive, even as the agency has held cost increases well below those facing Medicare and private insurers. Furthermore, the V.H.A. has led the way in cost-saving innovation, especially the use of electronic medical records.

I say this all the time about politicians and union leaders: watch what they do, not what they say.
Norm blogs at: http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/

Hebrew Language charter School in Brooklyn

For the record, we are now opposed to the concept of all charter schools, no matter how well-intentioned, because they are part of the fabric of the undermining of public education. Fix what's wrong with the public schools without the bogus distractions of setting up phony competitive models. That the UFT chooses to join the chorus is beyond the pale.

Remember the attacks on Debbie Almontaser who tried to start the Khalil Gibran school which was branded a Madrassa and a Jihad school by the NY Sun and the NY Post and by groups like Militant Islam Monitor? Remember how the UFT's Randi Weingarten dropped Debbie like a hot potato after Debbie was ambushed by the Post?

"I write as a White, Jewish anti-racist educator who is heartsick over the role his union played in this sordid affair." - Steve's full letter is here.

How will the Sun and the Post cover the proposed Brooklyn Hebrew language charter school which will teach Hebrew and the Israeli culture to which it is tied and will cost the NYCDOE $200,000 in start-up costs and will be filled with what could be the best guess (no matter the disclaimers), a slightly homogeneous population?

It reminds me of the bi-lingual Yiddish schools in Williamnsburg that were set up by the District 14 school board as a sop to the Hassidic community, which held 3 out of 9 seats and the balance of power.

Brooklyn's District 22 is an area running from central Flatbush south to Sheepshead Bay. The central/south end of the district is generally white with the north-end and parts of Sheepshead Bay black. There's a high number of Orthodox Jews in the area who do not use the public schools. But there are also a number of secular Jews of Russian and Israeli background. The organizers of the school claim that they hope to attract all ethnic backgrounds, just as the organizers of the Khalil Gibran school did. There will be just a slight difference in coverage.

"[I]s a religion-free Hebrew-language school possible," Jewish Week asks?

The Forward says,
"In a sense, Hebrew charter schools reflect a very old model of religious groups educating their own... [They] have emerged as a new potential strategy for building Jewish identity, as they are both cheaper and less parochial than day schools. But some have argued that this strategy is, if not illegal, then at least inappropriate."

Neither the Forward (run by the same people who run The NY Sun) or the Jewish Week article mention the controversy over the Arab language school.

Will the Sun and the Post look for nefarious and hidden agendas?

Here is a report from a parent with links to the Forward and JW articles:

I attended the public hearing on the proposed Hebrew language charter school in district 22 tonight. It was an interesting experience. Although this has been in the works for months now, the district only recently learned of its plans via Internet recently and started asking questions. Although the turnout wasn't particularly good, considering this is the middle of graduations and many parents have too much going on, the people that were there did ask some very valid questions

Aside from my personal opinion that any type of school that insulates a group rather than causing them to become part of the diverse population and part of the "melting pot" that is America is the wrong way to go this in particular smacked of an attempt to create religious oriented schools albeit within the confines of the law with tax payer dollars. If I did not believe that to start with, the two attached websites with interviews with the sponsors of this school as much as come out and say that.

Jewish week: Steinhardt Seeks Hebrew Charter School Here

The Forward: Charter School Effort Opens Rift on Civic Values

However, our biggest objection is that the charter mandate is to go in and try to help at risk students that cannot obtain a proper education via their public schools. However, District 22 is one of the highest performing districts in the city and the at risk students we do have, would most likely not embrace a Hebrew language school. Therefore, why place this school in D-22 at all and how does the DOE accept that they are fulfilling their charter mandate? Also the startup costs for this school even with the private funding would cost over $200,000 from the DOE based on the actual paperwork the DOE gave out at the meeting and this at a time when other schools in the district are being forced to cut art/music, after school, etc. How can they justify this expense right now?

How Regressive Ed Reform Robs Neighborhood Schools of Their Base

(Revised)

Education Notes has maintained that the small schools movement and alternative parental choice undermines neighborhood schools by robbing them of their base of students who are succeeding.

To the regressive education reformers, the BloomKlein "reforms" are a wonderful thing. But on the ground in the schools, there is a different view. PS 3, in the heart of Bedford-Stuyvesant, has been viewed as a fairly successful school, with a somewhat middle class base that brings stability.

At a Manhattan Institute breakfast a few months ago starring Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee and others, one of the themes was the "success" of the implementation of charter and small schools.
When some of us talked about the creaming of the top students by these schools, I remember panelist Joe Williams claiming that if kids are successful (those who score 3's and 4's on the tests) in a neighborhood school, why would they move to a charter?

I went up to him afterwards and told him that the kids who are succeeding are the ones that move because their parents are more proactive and are looking for a school without kids who score ones and twos on the tests, special ed, ELA's, discipline problems, high class sizes (even if the actual number looks small on paper the level of difficulty of working with an at-risk population is impacted). In other words, they themselves want to get their kids away from the most at-risk kids, the local form of what used to be called "white flight."

Thus, the neighborhood public schools - from elementary through high school – become drained of the very kids that provide the school a somewhat stable environment by shunting the top students to places like KIPP. And by the way, do not underestimate the positive impact these kids have on teacher morale, which is affected by seeing kids succeed.

If one wanted to design the perfect program to accomplish the destruction of the neighborhood school by shunting higher performing students into a semi-privatized environment BloomKlein and their high-priced consultants have designed such a program.

The latest attacks on elementary schools go after the youngest kids by the modifications in the gifted and talented programs and in the registration process for pre-kindergarten. (We always found that the students whose parents rush to register, turn out to have the highest level of success over the following years.) By moving this registration from the school to some central office one more obstacle is added to the process.

Chapter Leader Lisa North expresses the frustration being felt in the schools as she nails all of these issues in this email to the NYCEducationNews listserve:

My school, PS 3 in Brooklyn, has had 3 pre-k classes for the last 2 years. Parents would come to the school to register. Now they have to go downtown Brooklyn first. Our parents DO NOT do that! At this time we only have enough students for ONE class. Why can't parents register directly in the school?

We are also in danger of losing our "gifted and talented" program – one of the few in Bedford-Stuyvesant, because of the new DOE testing.

On top of that, the charter schools are beginning to take a number of our level 3/4 students (as well as some of the others), but especially students whose families are more involved with their education. The DOE is wreaking havoc with our school!

Chaos at Ross Charter at Tweed

There's a lot more of this stuff as reported by Elizabeth Green in the NY Sun going on in a lot more schools around the city. But in their own building? Tweedles can't manage their way out of a paper bag.

Leonie Haimson posted this on her listserve:

Here is an excerpt [complete email at Norm's Notes] from an email that Garth Harries of DOE sent to Patrick Sullivan of the PEP on April 16 of this year– and copied to Mary Silver of CEC D2 and Lisa Donlan of CEC D1;

Ross School Quality: it is absolutely true that last spring, Ross was a struggling school – as authorizers committed to school quality, through our Charter office we explicitly called that struggle out to ensure that the school took appropriate action. The oversight played out exactly the way that it should – the school has stabilized, and made substantial improvements. That progress is documented in the same place as the original report, and is evidenced by continued strong parental interest and support from the Lower East Side, around Manhattan , and the City. (As an aside, we have been frustrated by the various aspersions cast about the school, insofar as they cherry picked the original report, and not the more recent review noting the improvements.) Certainly, Ross has work to do to continue to improve, as we note in our more recent report – but so do all schools, and Ross has done a good job recovering from their first year difficulties.

This clearly contradicts the information in today’s NY Sun, at http://www.nysun.com/new-york/charter-school-at-tweed-being-probed/79083/
The Sun article reports on continued loss of teachers, letters of protest from parents, hand delivered to Tweed, and a cheating scandal, which they first learned about last spring, and has now led to the fifth principal in two years departing in a cloud.
The article specifically says that “Before Ms. Clagnaz's abrupt departure in May, eight staff members had left by the middle of this school year.” And 10 more out of 37 do not intend to return next year.

Please see that Harries’ email is copied to Michael Duffy, head of charter schools for DOE, who now says that the school is “on probation” and may even be closed.

Yet their actions show the opposite: that DOE is determined to keep the school open at any cost. By giving them new space in the School of the Physical City, the DOE is enabling the school to expand into new grade levels and in overall enrollment – which the Bd of Directors of Ross admitted in a letter to parents at the school was necessary to ensure its financial stability.

Mismanagement had led to a real fiscal crisis at the school. As DOE pointed out in January, http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/3A42B137-91F8-4243-A5B4-75148DD7CD03/31248/RGAFollowUpVisit_12208.pdf

”The school spent only 56% (excludes start-up costs) of its funds on educational programs, 41% on administrative expenses, and 2.68% on fundraising…”


In letter sent to parents on March 17, the Board of the Ross school said that they were canceling their summer program and their mandatory Sat. program and had to focus on expanding the middle school in order to be financially viable. http://www.rossglobalacademy.org/home/pdf/Summer_Program_RGA_Board.PDF

“It is clear that the focus of our faculty and administration this summer needs to be on middle school, planning for the expansion of grades for next year and on the continued development of the curriculum and professional development of our faculty. Additionally, this expansion is necessary to ensure the continued financial sustainability of the school.”

Only by expanding enrollment could they reap more taxpayer funds through increased per capita payments.

Interesting that DOE seems determined to allow a school to expand by means of taxpayer funding in the midst of a cheating scandal and continued serious problems at the school.

"Scarsdale Success" To Give Parents Choice - Finally

EDNN News Reports:

Tired at being barricaded inside their zoned schools, a group of Scarsdale residents have asked some Harlem African-American ministers to open a charter school in Scarsdale, NY. They will urge space be found to cram it in to a current public school. The school will be called "Scarsdale Success" and will be modeled on former NYC City Council member Eva Moskowitz' "Harlem Success" school.

"It is not fair to the people in that community that charter schools are only being opened by white people for black residents in Harlem," said a spokesperson. "Free choice of schools should be open to white folks too. Why should the good people in Scarsdale have to send their children to a conscripted public school without having the freedom to choose alternatives? Our individual rights are being subverted in favor of some misguided notion of collectivism that favors the status quo."

"But they aren't they wealthy enough to send their kids to private schools if they are not happy with the public schools," we asked?

The spokesperson said:
"Do you know what they pay in taxes to support the public schools? A portion of that money should go to open a variety of charter schools so they can have a choice. What if a parent is not happy with the progressive curriculum and wants their kids to have a test-prep-all-day education like the kids in Harlem? What if a parent is sick of all the trips and excursions their kids go on and prefer they stay in school all day and work to close the achievement gap with Shaker Heights, Ohio? What if you are a minority in the community and you don't want to go to the school with the majority-chosen principal? The only model that avoids the tyranny of the majority and respects the individual rights of parents and students is the school choice model."

Won't cramming a charter school into an existing public school cause class sizes to rise? "Class size is overrated. Better to have a class of 50 with a good teacher than a class of 10 with a low quality teacher," said the spokesperson.

"I'm sick of having to elect school boards and having a say in running our schools," said a Scarsdale supporter of the plan. "We want what the residents of Harlem have – no say at all in how their schools are run. Liek them, we want outsiders to come in and take the burden off our hands by telling us how to run our schools. I've noticed too many of our kids do not look at the teachers and nod on cue." We want some Kipp of our own.

Some Scarsdale residents plan to petition Mayor Bloomberg and Joel Klein to come in and take over their schools. "Better yet," said a parent leader, "we hope Eva Moskowitz gets off her missionary kick and comes on down."

Scarsdale middle school will have to make room for a charter school, causing a rise in class size.

Another Tweed Screwing of Public Schools...

...while favoring charters set up by rich people (Courtney Sales Ross, the trophy wife head of deceased Time-Warner head, Steve Ross, now turned savior of the poor and undeducated. (I mean Courtney, not Steve.) It looks like they're sick of having the Ross Global Charter School at Tweed, so let's dump them into a prime, overcrowded public school. Too bad. When I attend press conferences at Tweed and go to the bathroom, I get a glimpse of the school in action. And I love watching the kids at recess playing in the garden next to Tweed. Real children in proximity to the lawyers and MBA's. Ugh! But unless Klein is willing to give up his cubicle, I guess there's no more room for the much-needed expansion. So, shove them into some public school in one of the most crowded areas of Manhattan. What's the matter, no room in East New York? Maybe have them share space with the UFT Charter. Or with Green Dot in the Bronx.

Read the letter Ross Chater sent to the parents:

Expansion of charter school is ”necessary to ensure the continued financial sustainability of the school” here at Norm's Notes.

Leonie Haimson reports:

Parent Protest

What: parent meeting and protests about proposed move of Ross global charter school into a public school space– in one of the most overcrowded areas of District 2.

When: Wed., April 16 at 6 PM.

Where: 55 E. 25 between Madison and Park Ave South

For the DOE’s own highly negative assessments of the Ross school, see http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/exeres/3A42B137-91F8-4243-A5B4-75148DD7CD03.htm

For negative comments from former parents and teachers at the school, see

InsideSchools and the Great schools website.

SUNY Approves UFT/Green Dot Charter

http://www.uft.org/news/issues/press/greendot_approved/

For Immediate Release (from the UFT)

SUNY Trustees approve Green Dot charter school for South Bronx

The State University of New York Board of Trustees on Oct. 26 approved the application for the Green Dot New YorkCharter School founded in partnership by Green DotPublic Schools, the most prominent charter school operator in Southern California, and the United Federation of Teachers, the labor union representing New York City’s 110,000 public school educators.

The approval by the SUNY trustees, coming just eight days after a District 7 Community Education Council hearing on the plans, sets the stage for final consideration by the State Board of Regents in coming months. If approved by the Regents, Green Dot will operate a high school in the South Bronx beginning with 100 students in grade nine and eventually expanding to include all high school grades through grade twelve. Class size will be capped at 25 students.

Ed Note: No matter how one phrases this, deals like this go hand in hand with the abandonment of public education as money is funneled into these schools. Search this blog with the label Green Dot for articles and also check NYC educator for articles there.

Competition and Education

The idea that making the public schools more competitive will somehow improve education is as ridiculous as saying having public fire, police and sanitation departments compete with private competitors will lead to better service.

It's like saying that if we allocated public money to send a competing army over to Iraq, led by, say, Haliburton or Blackstone, the war would have run smoother. Oh, yea, been there, done that. See how well it worked out?

Yet that is exactly what has become the national mantra in what should loosely be termed "education reform" – very loosely. When the voucher idea didn't get enough traction, the charter school idea was seized upon. What is behind all of this is the opportunity for a lot of people to shake loose a lot of public ed money and divert it into the private sphere. And that means the undermining public schools.

Richard Kahlenberg makes the point many times in his book, Tough Liberal, how often Al Shanker spoke about the support of rigorous public schools as being essential to the maintenance of a democratic society, ironically, not to be applied to the idea of a democratic union. Doubly ironic, since Shanker was the father of the concept of Charter Schools. I'm not up to that chapter yet, but I will assume at this point that Shanker did not mean them in today's incarnation. What would he think of the 2 UFT charter schools draining public and private money (Broad foundation, etc.)

This post inpired by:
"We seem to live in an era of privatization. Here in NYC the mayor believes in privatizing and so does Joel Klein. There is this mantra that private is better. I think that the Iraq war is the first privatized war. I think that history will show that it was one of the most inefficient corrupt wars ever conducted..," says blogger Life After the Rubber Room.

Tweed's Trojan Horse

Bloomberg/Klein Intentions Revealed

The Department of Education is pledging to help solve a charter school space crunch, pointing to an aggressive campaign to close a slew of city-run schools in the next two years.

A new accountability plan slated to begin in September will place about 70 schools under consideration for closure in 2008, creating potentially dozens of abandoned school buildings for charter schools to take over. Chancellor Joel Klein's Office of New Schools is touting the possibility to charter operators desperate to find new facilities as their schools grow."

Thus begins "School Closures May Open Way For New Charters," an article by Elizabeth Green in the NY Sun that exposes in one of the clearest ways we've read the true intentions of BloomKlein: To turn over as much of the school system to private operators as possible and to facilitate this by manipulating school closings so they can turn over entire school buildings where there will be no public oversight and little or no union presence. (Oh, sorry! That's already the situation in most schools.)

Phew! For a while we thought they were going to sell off all schools in hot neighborhoods to condos developers and adopt our idea to build stadiums where 50,000 kids at a time can be taught. Shhhhh!

Actually, when you tie all the building of housing without asking developers to account for where kids will be going to schools, it all begins to make sense. Drive people with children who can not afford to live in NYC out by turning over local schools to charters which will never be able to handle the large numbers of students. What will be left are overcrowded schools with high class sizes (note how the Ross Charter based at Tweed just had their class size capped at 20) loaded with the most at-risk students who will be doomed to fail.

The insertion of charters into school buildings targeted for failure could be compared to Trojan Horses. Well, at least Troy didn't abandon their experienced warriors. The invading forces of BloomKlein will ultimately find their Achilles heel as in the post BloomKlein tight lips will become unsealed.

And by the way, where it the UFT on this? Jumping right in and trying to get a piece of the gravy by setting up its own charter schools in public space.

Green's full article is posted on Norm's Notes.

Lisa Donlan from the District 1 (lower east side) Parent's Council, who blogs here, commented on the NYC Education News Listserve:

In a mailer from Saint Ann's School I found an article by the founder of the charter school Girls Prep, class of '84, who writes:

" To introduce choice and accountability into the system, Bloomberg and Klein encouraged the creation of 45 charter schools with in the city... Intrigued by this I met in the fall of 2002 with Chancellor Klein to ask whether he was serious about letting private citizens run public schools. "Serious?" he asked at our first meeting. "We need public charter schools to show the other public schools how accountability works. Would it be easier for you to start if I gave you free space in a public school building?"

Of course the article fails to describe the PS where the charter has been "incubating," other than pointing to its location in a "tough neighborhood, right next to the housing projects that line the East River." No mention of the 250 kids who are 98% minority, 89% of whom are eligible for free or reduced lunch that attend this NYSED designated School In Need of Improvement. Rather than support the high needs children served by this community pre-K - 5th grade school, the charter school set prefers to use " free space," pushing out a District 75 school in the process, to serve another set of almost just as poor and nearly as highly concentrated group of minority children, half of whom commute an hour to attend the school.

Why? According to the author, it is because " our lack of overhead means that we can pay our teachers more. In exchange, our teachers work longer hours and a longer school year, and can be fired if their students do not show progress. We find that this deal- better pay for better performance- attracts talented teachers." As a result, there are 200 applicants for 4 new teaching positions next year, he boasts.

If the PS gets an F next year, Girls Prep can start rolling out their plans for expansion, maybe even a Boys Prep to boot, with all that "free space" up for grabs.

Connecting the Green Dots

(Links to full articles posted on the Norm's Notes blog)

Why Weingarten's deal with Green Dot dovetails with the general attack on public education

Following up on her Screw ball toss at the Brooklyn Cyclones game, Randi Weingarten has taken the screwing metaphor to a new level in today's announced deal with Green Dot charters. It is not just teachers the deal screws, but with all other the news today about Charter schools, her actions aid and abet the screwing of public education.

First we have a link to the LA Times version of the story where LA teacher's union president AJ Duffy rejected a deal with Green Dot. But not Randi. Watch the Leo Casey and crew at Edwize justify this one. As the NY Times version says "but their contract would be simpler than the citywide contract." Let's see how simple: "Rather than dictating the number of hours and minutes teachers must spend at the schools, it would just call for a “professional workday,” they said. The contract could also eliminate tenure, but would set guidelines for when a teacher can be dismissed."

Heard of fuzzy math? Child play compared to fuzzy contracts. NYC Educator goes into much greater detail on the contract so let's focus on other aspects. I won't even go into the issue of union democracy, where if the UFT weren't run like the Roman Empire under Augustus, there would actually be a serious discussion taking place. But the mandate given Weingarten by the 78% of working teachers who did not vote will have a long-lasting impact. By the way, has anyone seen a word mentioned about class size in this contract?

“We have never been against increasing charters, but we were against the anti-union animus in some charter schools,” Ms. Weingarten said. The Times says, "Green Dot is heavily financed by the billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad."

If one looks at Broad's agenda in San Diego (and many other places) where Anthony Alvarado got to do his magic, which was almost totally replicated in NYC by Bloomberg and Klein, which Weingarten was supposedly so critical of - and you understand why I see her as such a duplicitous collaborator whose interests dovetail more with the BloomKleins, Broads, Gates, etc. When she criticizes them it is mere rhetoric. Always follow the mantra uncle Normie lays down: Watch what Weingarten does, not what she says.

Pay attention to the very relevant David Herzenhorn piece "Patrons' Sway Leads to Friction in Charter School," also running in today's Times.

This article points to the pitfalls of the benefactor model of charter schools. While the rich Reiches gave a lot of money to Beginnings With Children school, Pfizer (across the street) donated the building. But I bet most money still comes from the public sector. Should the Reiches have such total control? What about parent and teacher roles?

Herzenhorn writes:

"The clash has exposed fault lines of wealth and class that are perhaps inevitable as philanthropists, in New York and nationwide, increasingly invest in public education, providing new schools to children in poor neighborhoods while making communities dependent on their generosity.

"And for those lucky to have such benefactors, the situation raises core questions: Who ultimately controls charter schools, which are financed by taxpayers but often rely heavily on charitable donations? Do the schools, which operate outside the control of the local school district, answer to parents, or to their wealthy founders?

"At Beginning With Children, many parents and teachers say that the Reiches’ main interest is to burnish their reputation as advocates for charter schools, and that the school’s original purpose, of catering to each child’s individual needs, is now secondary to drilling for exams in an effort to elevate scores and the Reichs’ credibility.

"The Reichs said the problem was that the board was “constituency-based”...... Among those told to quit were five parent and faculty representatives."

Well, there you have it in a nutshell. We no want constituency-based input. Sound familiar?

I have a little background with the school, which is located in District 14 in Williamsburg and was once a public school but not under control of the district (a good thing). But it did function under the UFT contract. The chapter leader used to attend the district CL meetings.

I visited a couple of times and was impressed. They were adding a grade a year and had a very progressive model of education.

But the Reich's have the same agenda as so many other"benefactors" like Broad – to take public schools away from the public – and the school became a charter school. In order to further their political agenda the school moves away from the progressive model and towards test prep.

Note in the Herzenhorn piece how quietly we find out that the Courtney Sales Ross' charter school relocated at Tweed after they failed to force their way into the NEST school and has had 4 principals in a year. In the belly of the beast with all the Tweedles running around. We don't get any Tweed press releases telling us about that. Hey, I have an idea. Instead of running around the city telling everyone how to run schools, let Klein or Chris Cerf become the principal of the school and show how it should be done. Deck chairs on the Titanic, indeed.

If we connect the Green Dots to Weingarten's deal with Steve Barr, she is treading in dangerous territory with the future of public education. When a major union spokesperson basically accepts the philanthropic model (Broad gave the UFT $1 million,) it seriously weakens the case calling for full funding of public education and gives enormous power and sway to people with a narrow agenda that goes beyond the interests of the kids.

"If you really actually believe in kids and believe in their success, those of us in education, we really shouldn't be in the sandbox fighting with each other. We should be … trying to figure out how to work together," Weingarten said.

Does she really believe this stuff? People behind Green Dot have had so many negative effects (witness the DOE/Tweedles) and she wants to sit down in the sandbox with them? I'm sure that if she taught just a bit longer than 6 months she would have a slightly different perspective. Are they sitting down in the sandbox in Long Island schools or Scarsdale, where there are no charters but schools are fully funded, as NYC Educator has pointed out numerous times about the suburban school system his daughter attends?

That Weingarten will soon be spouting this stuff nationally as AFT President is a scary prospect indeed for the future of public education. Luckily, at this point, the NEA has taken a stronger stand and this issue may pop up in merger talks when Weingarten will hope to one day lead the entire national teacher movement into oblivion. Though AFT member AJ Duffy in LA took a politically correct stand when commenting on Weingarten's deal with Green Dot, the hope is that the LA Teachers Union will lead some kind of national resistance to Weingarten's turning the AFT into a shill for the attack on public schools by wealthy benefactors with narrow agendas.

As one of the first people in the UFT to advocate for Charters as a way for teachers to take over and run schools, I had conversations with Weingarten almost 10 years ago (Tom Pappas told me "You lost 50% of your support because you favor charters.") At one point in the conversation when I was pushing the idea from the point of view of teacher power, Weingarten made a rare, but revealing, slip, saying something like, "How can we trust these people" – meaning the teachers. Realizing what she said, she shut up and said no more. But it was a rare slip, my first inkling as to which side Weingarten is really on.

(Thanks to DB for the picture.)

ICE Strikes Back at the Evil Empire

Based on some input, the post below this on Diane Ravitch has been slightly revised. Check it out.

Over at the ICE blog check out James Eterno's excellent response to the Unity attack leaflet over Jeff Kaufman's comments about the UFT and Green Dot charter schools. Also my post on the June DA where Unity bragged about their overwhelming support and how they got ICE out of the Executive Board. As James points out, the vote actually made the point that to almost 80% of the teachers, the UFT is irrelevant. And now that New Action has replaced the ICE-TJC members on the Executive Board, it will be a complete rubber stamp Executive Board and even more irrelevant, if that is possible. For some time, I have felt that the ICE people were wasting their time and energies at Exec. Bd. meetings where the entire board is on the union payroll. But we did get to eat and schmooze, for all that was worth. And after so many years of Delegate Assemblies, I am getting the feel the same about them. Under Weingarten, whatever shards of institutional democracy there were have been shredded. Hmmm! Shredded shards - a new theme for the UFT.

The WeinKlein combo has turned the UFT into something that reminds me of the Roman ruins I recently visited, with more life in the 2000 year old Roman Forum than in the UFT Delegate Assembly and Executive Board. Attila the Klein and Rhondalia the First have made a devastating team in the sack of the UFT.

Attila and Rhondalia celebrate victory

A few choice excepts from James:
Yesterday's Unity leaflet quotes ICE's Jeff Kaufman in the Sun article saying, "This is the end of the Union." Unity neglected to mention Jeff's next line where he says referring to Randi: "She's going to leave in her wake now a real change in terms of what teachers unions are."

[the] Unity piece reverts to boasts about Randi's election victory saying how Unity's election victory was a "tremendous vote of support from all our UFT members." All of them? What about the almost 78% of teachers who didn't bother to vote? In Chicago recently, close to 2/3 of their teachers voted in their union election. I brought this fact up at the last Executive Board meeting. The UFT is a weak irrelevancy in numerous schools in NYC .

Michael Fiorillo posted this on ICE-mail:

Many good points made in your your blog posting, James.

I'd just like to add that at Wednesday's DA I had hoped to ask Randi about the Green Dot issue, but of course that was not possible, since she filibustered for well over an hour, to the point where questions and other business were an afterthought.

Had I been able to ask her, my question would have been,

"Randi, you've spoken about how "aggressively pro-union" the founder of Green Dot schools is, and that the teachers there are represented by a union. However, in the next breath you said that they are speaking with UTLA (United Teachers of Los Angeles, the AFT local) about signing a contract. If there's a union at a Los Angeles public/charter school that is not represented by UTLA, then isn't that a COMPANY UNION, illegal under the NLRA, and thought to have been eliminated back in the 1930's? What are you doing meeting with the boss of a charter school that has a company union - inevitably dominated by management - when the practical result is the undermining of a fellow AFT local?

Just thought I'd try to ask, but silly me.

Location for future UFT Delegate Assemblies and Executive Board meetings. The Emperor's box will be renovated but no new seats will be added.

Green Dot, Randi - Jeff Kaufman Comments

There's been much ado about Green Dot charters and possible collaboration between the UFT and Green Dot. Today's NY Sun addresses the issue below as does a follow-up article in the LA Daily News which I posted at Norm's Notes.

Weingarten and UFT ideologue Leo Casey (who will find a way to justify just about any UFT policy) repreesnt the "new union" movement, which means to me they are not old-line trade union leaders. Instead they look to be partners with management. (There's a lot more to analyze on the implications - another time.)

What to make of the flirtations between Weingarten and possibly LA's teacher union head AJ Duffy will also take some analysis. Jeff Kaufman's quotes below represent a mainstream view of many unionists that the underbelly of the charter movement - remember, the brainchild of Albert Shanker - is really an attack on public education and on teacher unions. Like, let's build reform on the backs of young, committed, low-salaried teachers who burn out and get replaced - like who needs tenure if you don't last long enough to gain it.)

Many young teachers who want to make a difference often enter the system with an anti-union bias, partly as a result of the general anti-union attack going on in the mass media. Meeting union hacks in schools does not help.

Being far away from the scenes in Chicago and NY I may be wrong. With Chicago and Debbie Lynch, who I initially saw as a real contrast to Weingarten (despite emails from Weingarten - where in a weird convoluted argument she attacked me for being anti woman - and Leo Casey claiming I was wrong and saying "Debbie is one of us") I was part right in terms of Lynch's attempts to make the union more democratic (I base this on reports from George Schmidt.)

I was questioned by one correspondent based on yesterday's post "LA Dreamin" where I posted that comment. My response as to how I see a comparison between AJ Duffy and Weingarten was this:

"There is a different dynamic going on based on the politics of the leadership which has a more radical bent than the UFT plus the mayor's history of being a union activist.

"Maybe a lot more trust than one would have in Bloomberg plus I believe from other stuff way more of a commitment to building a more democratic union with an activist rank and file, the total opposite to what Randi wants to do. They also come from a place of running as part of a reform in the union and in the system - not like Unity which has been part of the system as collaborators (and still is I firmly believe) for 45 years.

"These people did win -- sort of like what if ICE/TJC should ever win. We would probably have to tread carefully too given what happened to Debbie Lynch.

"It is a minefield but I could be wrong but also have a better sense of trust as to where these guys are going and their willingness to admit mistakes and backtrack.

"I know where Randi is going and it's deal making all around and no move to democratize the union. When one person makes all the decisions like Weingarten does there is always a bad result. As bad a result as when BloomKlein make all the decisions. We need checks and balances all around and when the entire UFT Ex Bd is on the payroll..."

Those in NYC who like to look at the ability of reformist movements in the unions in LA and Chicago to win an election as some kind of hope are barking up the wrong tree as the Unity Caucus equivalents in those towns had nowhere near the power and money and machine as Unity does in NYC.

End of the UFT Is Talk, After a Parley in L.A.

BY ELIZABETH GREEN - Staff Reporter of the Sun

June 11, 2007
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/56244

A possible deal with a Los Angeles charter school group has infuriated opponents of the teachers union president, Randi Weingarten, with one opposition leader decrying "the end of the union." The charter group, known as Green Dot, has been battling its local teachers union over how much to protect teachers.

Ms. Weingarten last month visited Los Angeles and held friendly meetings with each side — and left open the possibility of a partnership with the charter group. "We'd like to build a relationship," her special representative for high schools, Leo Casey, said.

Leaders of the New York City union's opposition caucus, the Independent Community of Educators, learned about the trip from a Los Angeles Times editorial, and lashed back in angry blog posts. Green Dot teachers are unionized, but not through the city union, and they lack protections such as traditional tenure or privileges for senior teachers. ICE leaders called Green Dot's contract anti-teacher.

Ms. Weingarten defended her visit with Green Dot's founder, Steve Barr, during a meeting of her union's executive committee, but she failed to satisfy some. "This is the end of the union," an ICE leader who sits on the executive committee, Jeff Kaufman, said. "She's going to leave in her wake now a real change in terms of what teachers unions are."

Mr. Kaufman's caucus won 10% of the vote in a recent UFT leadership election, but lost all its seats on the executive committee. Mr. Kaufman admitted the blow would dampen the caucus's power, but vowed to keep up pressure via blog posts.

Some education experts praised Ms. Weingarten's outreach as a rare display of leadership from a union head, contrasting it with her West Coast counterpart, A.J. Duffy, the president of United Teachers Los Angeles.

The union's battle with Green Dot escalated last month when teachers at an L.A. high school voted to abandon the public district and join Mr. Barr's group. United Teachers Los Angeles had fought previous expansion attempts by Green Dot, and a teacher wrote in the Los Angeles Times last week that the union also managed to squash teachers' push for change. (In an interview, Mr. Duffy denied that any bullying took place.)

Ms. Weingarten's visit, when she met with Messrs. Barr and Duffy, was an attempt at peacemaking, Mr. Casey said. But he said the trip also continued an ongoing conversation between Ms. Weingarten and Mr. Barr. It had been on Ms. Weingarten's schedule for two weeks — well before tensions escalated, a union spokesman said.

Ms. Weingarten said she wanted to visit the Green Dot schools, whose union status is unique among charter schools and which boast an 81% graduation rate, in order to see them for herself. After visiting two, she said she was impressed. "They are very teacher-centered," she said. "It's obvious, the teacher professionalism and collaboration that is the center of these schools."

Several sources said Green Dot's founder has been looking to expand his network into cities beyond Los Angeles. Ms. Weingarten would not say what her next step would be with Green Dot, and Mr. Barr declined to comment for this article. Mr. Casey said the relationship is part of a broader United Federation of Teachers plan to organize what he called the "progressive pole" of the charter school movement, citing groups in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Many union leaders strongly oppose charter schools, which are privately run but publicly funded. Ms. Weingarten has taken a softer stance, even opening two charter schools of her own.

"She gets that choice is coming to public education, so she's out in the front, instead of just waiting to get run over by it like some of her colleagues," Andrew Rotherham, the co-director of an education think tank, Education Sector, said.

During her trip, Ms. Weingarten also met with the philanthropist Eli Broad, who gave Green Dot $10.5 million last year.

Ed. Note: Broad also gave UFT Charters $1 million.

Parents Against Charter Cap Being Lifted

The pro charter school, anti public education, anti union movement always claims it is teachers who are opposed to lifting the charter school cap of 100 schools in New York State. Of course, the union has a problem addressing this issue since it runs 2 of the 100 schools. The UFT says it will compromise if it is easier for charter school teachers to join a union. There are even back door rumors that the union would even make a political deal in exchange for who knows what.

If you subscribe to Leonie Haimson's listserve, which serves a large group of parents, you will notice that there is a lot of sentiment to oppose charters because they draw resources from public schools. Here are 2 emails posted today (12/14).



Assembly woman Sylvia Friedman:

Please Ms. Friedman. Vote against this charter school amendment, which proposes, among other things, to raise the cap on charter schools excluding New York City from a cap altogether. Besides the fact that this bill is designed to gentrify certain neighborhoods, including Harlem, there are problems with this bill and maybe the law itself. How can a charter school share a regular public school building with a regular public school and be granted smaller sized classes, but the other school has to over crowd its classes? I know this is in certain situations but still it can happen. However, even if a charter school took over a building altogether or moved into a new one, why would it not be considered that the charter school is underutilizing the building space, but under the same circumstances a regular public school would be considered? In other words, why does one school get to have 17 students per class, mas or menos, and the other school 30-35, or whatever the cap is?

I understand that the new amendment allows for the chancellor to place schools as he sees fit, unlike the current law which only allows him to place schools with one another only upon the grounds that such school is underutilizing the school building space or failing. But I have problems with that too. Under our Education law he is supposed to provide for an equal opportunity for all students in the city schools. One public school cannot have the benefits of a smaller class size by enforcement and the other not, also by enforcement. So you see where this is going to lead us? I would think in court. Parents are not going to stand for this.

The assembly will get their raises from the next governor. But the assembly should not violate the trust of the people for a raise. That will lead us in court too.

Yours truly,

Edward Dixson


The legislature did not raise the charter school cap and the Senate has been dismissed, supposedly until next year. But Spizer was quoted as being disappointed about charters:
"Civil commitment and charter schools are important issues that need to be addressed, either in the current special session or early next year. Other measures, such as lucrative early retirement proposals, should not be rushed through before they are fully analyzed and debated."
Here's a link to the Times Union blog for an account of the events: http://blogs.timesunion.com/capitol/?p=3008
If Spitzer supports an increase in charters, the pressure to remove the cap will be much greater. With the cap on charters removed and the CFE money provided with no accountability or strings attached, the Mayor has the elements in place needed to create his parallel system of schools. Our overcrowded schools will be left to wither.
If there was ever a time to reach out to our elected representatives and demand resources be applied to our public schools, this is surely it.

Patrick Sullivan

Comment on UFT Charter School

From the NY Times - Nov. 2, 2006

"Mr. Spitzer, on the other hand, has the unions’ support and recently toured a charter school in Brooklyn run by the city union, the United Federation of Teachers. The union president, Randi Weingarten, boasted of creating a model school with no more than 25 students per class and two teachers in each room."

The UFT argued when pushing for the charter school that they would show they would make a model school with the same funds that regular schools are working under. What is needed is the numbers to show how you could have 2 teachers in a room with 25 children. We do know that Eli Broad, one of the leaders of the corporate onslaught on the public schools, gave $1 million towards the UFT charter school. Does Randi's "boast" help or hurt the cause of public education?