Tweed Power to the Parents: Hand out a button

A major part of the Ed Deform neo-liberal program is to totally disenfranchise the major stakeholders - parents and teachers. For teacher readers of this blog, I am posting some parent reactions so you know you are not alone in facing Tweedle takedowns.

In the light of the Tweedie position of "Deputy Chancellor for Community Engagement" the following question was asked on the NYCEd listserve:

What the implications for the currently existing parent involvement/engagements structures and staff?

Some responses:

That they neither engage or involve parents. Have you been made aware of the current elections for the Citywide Council on Special Education or the Citywide Coouncil on English Language Learners? Do you realize that only 4 candidates for the CCSE positon showed up at the Brooklyn hearing and no one for the CCELL? Are you aware of the fact that there were only a few people in the audience and only one person was from a Presidents Council? The cost of this fiasco is 25,000.00 dollars. It may be a pittance in the scheme of things but it would pay for an aide in some school that needs one.
Another use of the position would be to quell any dissent from the community...but that is too Machiavellian. heaven help this poor son of a gun.

Power to the Parents my eye!

Another parent says:
The reason for this fiasco is that “Power to the Parents” is a contractor. They’re a bunch of recent Ivy-league grads who know nothing about the communities they’re supposed to recruit from and even less about how to find and engage public school parents as they’re recently out of diapers themselves. Their only virtue is that—when they were initially hired at least—they cost less than KPMG.

A few of us from the Manhattan High Schools Presidents’ Council dealt with them extensively when they were first hired (for the 2008 CEC elections); they came in totally clueless and, even with lots of hand-holding, were almost comically ineffective. Suffice it to say that a big part of their communication plan was the distribution of “Power to the Parents” buttons.

I have a file on all this, which I intended to dig up anyway in advance of Thursday’s WNYC forum on education coverage, which I will attend. I first got ticked off at WNYC—and specifically Beth Fertig—for her fawning, uncritical coverage of “the first online election” even in the face of emails from actual parents detailing how DOE perpetrated a fraud on the system.

Paola de Kock

MORE COMMENTS:

The NY Times, parroting DOE spin, says: “[t]he moves are intended to give principals more power to determine what kind of instruction they use at individual schools, rather than using only suggestions developed in central offices.”

Without a trace of irony, the article goes on: “The changes underscore a substantial shift that the department has made under Mr. Klein, who early in his tenure focused on centralizing control of the system and developing a uniform citywide curriculum.”—or, more succinctly, much to-ing and fro-ing at DOE.

DOE is also doubling the number of Deputy Chancellors (from four to eight), and “spending nearly $500,000 more, although it is possible other positions will be eliminated.“ Not exactly chump change in a system where PAs must chip in to buy paper and lab supplies. And, in the world of education, the number of administrative positions does not get reduced—ever. That’s the lesson of every RIF that’s ever taken place in higher education and it won’t work any differently here because the people who do the actual teaching—be they professors or teachers—are at the bottom of the educational industrial complex food chain. Back to DOE. The most interesting question to me is what exactly will Santi Taveras be doing as Deputy Chancellor for Community Engagement beside providing some color to DOE’s top echelons? (where, the Times notes, there are no African-Americans and only one other Hispanic). I was hoping—partly because Mr. Taveras is a genuinely nice guy—that he’ll be supervising OFEA, but it looks like Martine will continue as mistress of her domain. Instead, we learn from Klein’s “Dear Colleague” letter that “Santi will work closely with the Panel for Educational Policy and other external-facing offices to engage and work with stakeholders.” It sounds like he’ll be trying to convince parents DOE really cares—a job at which the current “engagement” officer evidently failed.

Paola

(Revised) Organizing Parents: Harder Than Herding Cats (Much)

Updated Aug. 18, 10 PM

I was chastised on a number of issues related to my earlier posting of this piece and number one was my confusion regarding the exact position vis a vis mayoral control of the Parent Commission. A lot of information floating around was conjecture and rumor and it took a few comments, emails and phone calls to clarify some things. But that has been done before and I just plain forgot. And probably will again. The arteries are hardening faster than I thought. Pretty scary when my almost 92 year old dad remembers lots more than I do.

What's a CPAC?*

This was a question asked by teacher Nicola DeMarco on the NYC Education Listserve, where NYC parent activists weigh in (the listserve is carefully monitored by Tweedles).

Parent commenter Benita, who has a vision for parent resistance, tell her story:

Officially, CPAC parents selected from the President Councils are there to represent the interests and concerns of parents' citywide to the Chancellor-- who in turn, is supposed to seek out and listen to their collective advice.

But Nick-- you are so ON POINT to question what CPAC really is.

The majority of parents and residents in NYC don't have a clue about it, or what purpose it really serves. In schools, many, many parents don't even know (or much care) that there are "Presidents" Councils and that as hierarchies go, they feed into CPAC.

I am a perfect example. I was at the end of my personal battle with the DoE, and graduating out as the PA president when I learned that there was even such a body as CPAC. I only learned about it when there was "in-fighting" between its representative panel members-- apparently, political/ego power plays pitting them against one another, were at hand. Not unusual. The co-President of the Manhattan High School Presidents Council (MHSPC) was appointed as "interim" Chair or temporary president of CPAC, and although I knew her well, I never ventured to one of CPAC's meetings. Participating in the MHSPC every month was enough of a waste of time for me. I got nothing from them that could be filtered down to positively affect, or help in any way, the parents in the failing high school I diligently went there to represent.

This last Spring when CPAC either could not, or would not come out in support of the Parent Commission on School Governance and Mayoral Control's written report of recommendations, and when they did NOT join the fight to end mayoral control, I dismissed this body as another useless waste of energy and time. It is just one more vehicle the DoE uses to point to "Parent Involvement" and claim it's alive and well.

Sometimes, I think a total boycott of every single DoE-designed parent involvement group, CEC, CDEC, District Leadership Team, Special Education Council, Citywide High School Council, SLT, parent committee and association ought to be enacted. Imagine what a planned citywide walk-out by parents-- joined by community protests of every different kind of education related council meeting-- would say to the DoE and the legislators who think we're satisfied with the "new" bill on school governance.

I think it would scare the superior pants off them. At some point, parents have to recognize their power. At some point, parents have to decide they've had enough and just STOP being the political pawns of an autocratic system who continues to wind them up, dictate the regulations they are to follow, and constantly sends them into a maze of endless meetings and time-spent-talking (and also reporting), that ultimately, has little to NO effect on improving public schools, children's learning, or stemming the government's push for privatization.

Having said that-- I am also now an outsider; a parent without a child currently in the system to protect, so being a radical is easier for me. I recognize it is not so easy for others and thus, sincerely applaud Muba and like-minded parent leaders, for their dedication to the process. Maybe the purpose of CPAC is to keep abreast of the "beast" from within. Maybe knowing the moves of the DoE from the inside, and then adding that knowledge to the community pressure from the outside, will eventually result in change.

Unless there is concerted effort to assume radical, non-violent actions as taught by those freedom fighters around the world who have successfully resisted dictators--- for our children and city's sake-- we can only hope that change will come.

- Benita

I like Benita's fighting spirit. But she does touch on the problem with trying to get parents organized into a force. They age out as their kids leave the school they go to and eventually the school system.

That is why I have always believed that over the long run a progressive movement of career teachers, who have the longest view (mine was 35 years) of the system, can have the most impact. But never without an alliance with parent activists. The problem in NYC has been that there has been no consistent parent group to work with. The Parent Commission did seem to be a start, but their mission was to lobby for changes in the governance bill, not to build a potent and sustained parent movement, something for which I and others have (unfairly) criticized them.

BloomKlein bought off many parents in their initial charge into the system.

Historical diversion
Search the ed notes blog for stories on "Martine Guerrier" as example #1. Martine was the former Brooklyn rep on the PEP (which replaced the old central board) appointed by Boro pres Mary Markowitz and I admired her for her willingness to question many of the early policies. We had numerous conversations and she seemed to be an ideal parent leader. But I could see her turning before my very eyes as Markowitz became more and more of a Bloomberg hack.

Then came the day of the famous anti BloomKlein rally at St. Vartan's church on Feb. 28, 2007 (see videos here and here) where every anti-BloomKlein activist in the city gathered, including some leaders of the CPACs.

It was the first time I met Patrick Sullivan and Diane Ravitch. Leonie Haimson and her listserve played an extremely active role in getting people out. After pressing Leonie to start a blog for quite some time, she informed me that night the NYC Parent blog was a "go"- see Leonie's report in one of her first blog posts: Rally to Put the Public Back into Public Education. The idea that came out of that event was to organize a massive rally on May 1, 2007 to show the world, which had been praising BloomKlein, there was serious opposition.

But the UFT organized the Feb 28 event, which could have turned into a major springboard to oppose the mayor. The threat the May 1 rally threat brought Tweed to the table. But both Tweed and the UFT are never to be trusted and the rally was cancelled in exchange for crumbs and even these agreements were violated.

One of the shocks of that Feb. night was the announcement earlier in the day that BloomKlein had appointed Martine to a $150,000 a year post as "chief parent engagement officer." HELLO! Tweed had come up with what they hoped would make it seem they were listening to parents. (See my report Say It Ain't So Martine which led to a nasty email from NY Times ed reporter at the time, David Herzenhorn, who objected to my critique of his coverage of the appointment where he termed her "a persistent critic" to make it appear this appointment was a sign of BloomKlein's willingness to appoint critics.)
End historical diversion

The Grassroots Education Movement has the potential to work with parents and has begun doing so recently, especially in the black and Latin communities. GEM differs from ICE and TJC in the sense that, even though a group of progressive teachers, it is not a caucus in the UFT but is attempting to build a movement beyond the UFT by allying with parent and community groups. And student activists too. But GEM, only six months old, is still too new to judge. Human resources in terms of teacher/activists are in short supply, but GEM has attracted some new people to the work. And there's an awful lot of that to do. Come to the next GEM meeting on August 25 and join in the festivities (see the GEM blog for details).

Postscript
In my hurry to post the earlier version of this piece, I also confused CPACs and CECs and Lisa Donlan and Leonie Haimson took me to task for this fundamental error. Blame it on the hot Rockaway sun. Or just plain carelessness and stupidity if you don't buy that excuse. Or those darn arteries again.

*CPAC Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council

On the DOE web site: The Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council (CPAC) is comprised of presidents of the district presidents’ councils or their designees. CPAC consults with the district presidents’ councils to identify concerns, trends, and policy issues, and it advises the Chancellor on DOE policies. [and have all such concerns, trends, policy issues and advice given ignored and disparaged].

CECs replaced the elected district school boards abolished when the mayor was given control. Now they are known as advisory panels. (Lisa Donlan, an Ed Notes favorite, is president of CEC District One – Lower East Side.) Emphasis on "advisory." Meaning, no power. But that is mayor for life Michael Bloomberg's mantra: No power to anyone other than him. If you don't like what he is doing, then don't elect him – if you can come up with a few billion dollars of your own.

UPDATED: Do Charter School Parents Get Same Rights as Public School Parents ?

Coming soon:
The Next Civil Rights Struggle of Our Times – Give Charter School Parents Equal Rights.

On second thought, equal rights to whom? Urban public school parents? Well, at least they can have a PA or PTA, though their influence has also been limited under BloomKlein. Certainly not equal civil rights to suburban - read: white - parents who don't need dictatorial mayors. Or superintendents who have no educational background.

We haven't been doing much on the Community Education Council Elections that took place recently in NYC where BloomKlein spent a fortune to try to make it look like they were interested in parent outreach whereas they had basically eliminated any role the CEC's played. One of their goals was to top the low turnout in the local school board elections from what they term the bad old days of community control between 1969 and Bloomberg's takeover in 2002. The gang that couldn't shoot straight couldn't even manage that. They'll have to find another way to show the state legislature which is ruling on mayoral control other ways they show their love for parents.

[By the way, Ed Notes pats itself on the back for predicting years ago that no matter how everyone postures, especially the UFT, a continuation of mayoral control with possibly a few tweaks was a done deal.]

What people haven't been exploring is the total shut down of parents' role (other than to volunteer to clean up after the kids or being forced by Eva Moskowitz to attend rallies) in charters even beyond what has happened to public school parents in NYC. But when corporations and the wealthy own the school even though using public monies, what can you expect?

From current debate on the NYC Education News listserve:

Basic question:

Can parents of students in Charter Schools serve on CDECs? My guess is that BPs can appoint them but can they also be elected? Do Charters have any parent representation comparable to PAs or a President’s Council?

Lisa Donlon replied

In D one we have tried to get one of the three charters located in our community school buildings elected or appointed to the CEC, ever since Michael Duffy, head of the OCS, attempted to pit charter parents against district parents in a local hearing.

Martine [Guerrier] and DoE have made clear that they object to our attempt to build this bridge. They claim that since the law (the one that sunsets in June!) describes the jurisdiction of the CEC's as limited to the district's pre-K through 8th grade schools, they felt that a charter parent could not, by law, serve on a CEC.

We did put out a call to charter parents and nominated one to the MBP for appointment.
We never heard back from the MBP on that suggestion, although the seat has been empty for a year now.

Even if Charter school parents do have seats on an inside Parent Board of some kind, they are not eligible for district representation at the CDEC or Presidents Council, or at the citywide level (CPAC). Given that the centralized DoE churns out policy and procedures for 1.1 million students citywide, it is inequitable and structurally unfair to limit charter parent representation to school level at best.

Is this another divide and conquer strategy, or just one more dropped stitch in the crazy quilt of the badly written and constantly broken laws that lent the mayor control of the NYC schools 7 years ago?

Lisa Donlan
CEC One

Lisa North chipped in with:

There is a parent on the District 13 CEC who has children in both public and charter schools. In one of the charter schools, she tried to start a parent association. When she was not allowed to, she filed a lawsuit. She lost the lawsuit. It seems that there is no provision for requiring parent associations in charter schools. Lisa N.

Steve Koss said:

No local community in the country would tolerate a schools superintendent who is so dismissive of his/her constituency. As I've stated many times before, having lived for over twenty years in Westchester County, I don't know of a single town or village in Westchester that wouldn't have run a superintendent of Joel Klein's ilk out on the rails within the first year or two. What New Yorkers blithely accept as normal would never be tolerated by cities towns in Long Island or Westchester or New Jersey -- in those places, it'd be torches and pitchforks as the townsfolk marched angrily to the school district office to rid themselves of the mad doctor and his monstrous creation.

So much for that parent choice thing.

NEWS UPDATE:

LA Teachers: Shame on our NYC UFT backward bureaucrats!

Please forward. Support the militancy of teachers, students & community of LA!

End the complacency and complicity of our AFT/UFT local.

We have yet to receive one message of information or solidarity from our UFT officials about what is going on with our brothers and sisters struggling in Los Angeles.

NYC Parents Protest School Overcrowding at City Hall, May 6

Including comments from parent activists Leonie Haimson, Patrick Sullivan and ICE/GEM's Michael Fiorillo and Angel Gonzalez.





David Bellel has a clip from ABC
http://dbellel.blogspot.com/2009/05/angry-parents-with-bone-to-pick.html

Shtupping in the Charters: Bait and Switch

Some Upper West Side Parents Fit to Be Tied Over Tweed Manipulation

It's not all about horror stories for NYC teachers.
Want to see how the Joel Klein team operates with parent communities?

Here are some excerpts from Bijou Miller, Co-President of District 3 President Council, followed by Leonie Haimson.
Click on the link below to read it all.

For those of you who did not make the joint Pres. Council/CEC meeting at PS 241, I wanted to post this because, in my opinion, what happened tonight was the DOE at its worst- In point of fact, I thought I had seen its worst, until tonight.

this "hearing" was being held under the auspices of the Charter School Institute of the State University of New York. I also found out that someone had bused in a busload of children who were given caps blazoned with the Harlem Success Academy logo.

John White, the Office of Portfolio Development, who is running this show stated that the feeling was that 241 families would not put their kids into another public school-that the DOE felt a charter would attract more families. Let me also say that the DLT was told there were at least two viable options for 241, one a charter and one a public. The DLT was never ever given any information on the public option. We asked for info but he put it off or changed the subject at least twice. It was quite obvious that a charter was the DOE's choice and that Harlem Success was the specific choice. At the second meeting, White had even invited Harlem Success parents to come and "testify" about how great their school was. So the deck was definitely stacked

Leonie Haimson:

I agree with Bijou that this is one of the most outrageous things that the DOE has ever tried to do -- and they have done alot.

To close a zoned school w/out the CEC's approval -- essentially eliminating the zone -- and putting a charter school in its place is blatantly illegal: state law and chancellor's regs require that all changes in zoning must be approved by the CEC.

Privatizing the system and turning the best schools into charters, which then excluded the neediest students, is what they did in New Orleans but it took a nearly unprecedented national disaster to do it. here we only have Hurricane Bloomberg/Klein.

The full posts at:
District 3 (Upper West Side) Meeting and Comments

More from Bijou on charters and PS 241 at the NYC Parent blog.

Separate and Unequal: When Parents Hire the Teachers

Recent articles (NY Post) have pointed to the enormous disparity in the amount of money raised between Parent Associations in wealthy and poor areas of NYC. Read Leonie's full comments at the NYC PSP blog.

I talked to the Post reporter at length who was researching this practice, and pointed out to her that it was DOE's failure to provide reasonable class sizes that put NYC parents in this impossible situation- having to decide whether to raise money to hire assistant teachers, or move to the suburbs or transfer their kids to private schools, in an effort to ensure that their children do not suffer in substandard conditions of classes of 25, 30 or more.

Unfortunately, the editors cut my quote from the final article.

Manhattan PEP rep Patrick Sullivan wrote a blog pointing to how much higher per pupil spending was at charter schools. On the first day of school Leonie pointed to these differences in spending.

So what does it all amount to for those sterling advocates of the civil rights issue of our time (see John McCain say same in a major education policy speech today)?

SEPARATE AND UNEQUAL FOR THE KIDS MOST IN NEED



A NYC parent activist responded on the parent listserve:

...so much for the "Fair Student Funding formula" which we all know is anything but.

If these guys cared about equitable funding then the hard fought for CFE funds would be used to improve the conditions and resources of the schools with the historically most disadvantaged kids.

Instead the politically arrived at (by special interests) budget formula is aimed at union busting and punishing schools for hiring ands retaining experienced teachers.

PTA's in the wealthiest zip codes fund raise to supplant school staffing budgets because this administration only thinks charter schools should get to cap class size at reasonable numbers, leaving budget decisions (such as spending on art, music, phys ed and after school) totally up to individual principals.

This emperor has no clothes- only rhetoric.
Catchy buzz words and tons of PR do not accountability or transparency make.

Where is the data driving these decisions?
Where is the evidence that any of this never ending re-tooling and experimentation is effective?
Are graduation rates and college readiness, or any other meaningful measure of learning, actually improving?

How has mayoral control removed corruption, cronyism, political agendas or special interests?

It has only magnified the power of a very narrow ideological force by removing all mechanisms for dissent or even dialogue.

Essential public services like education are too important to be left in the hands of technocrats and lawyers.

We can not afford a winners and losers free market based approach to public education.

Use your vote today, if your are a registered Democrat, to support any candidate that is opposed to continuing mayoral control and the neo-liberal ideology that has driven " education reform" for our one million children for the past 7 years.

Lisa Donlan
CEC One ( LES/ East Village)

---

PTA of PS 84K Protest on Wed at noon- I spent 5 years at this school and this is beyond outrage

P.T.A. of P.S. 84, The José de Diego School
A Magnet School for the Visual Arts
250 Berry Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211

MEDIA ADVISORY FOR JANUARY 30 at 12 PM:

Contact: Jaime Estades 347.446.5786

CHANCELLOR KLEIN JOINS GENTRIFICATION PROCESS
IN WILLIAMSBURG IN A SECRET ‘SEPARATE BUT EQUAL’ POLICY

At the January 24, 2008 meeting of the PTA of P.S. 84, more than 350 incredulous parents and teachers heard District 14 Superintendent Quail confirm that the Department of Education plans to place a separate elementary school within the building of P.S. 84, an existing elementary school serving minority children within the same grades as the proposed school. Quail stated that the new school is in response to the demands of a group of overwhelmingly white parents who have recently moved into the Williamsburg community and who have demanded their own school to provide them with additional “options and choices” -- by eliminating the “options and choices” of the predominantly Latino and African American children of P.S. 84.

This is a clearly discriminatory decision with no policy or social justification, and in which P.S. 84’s school administration and families were not consulted or notified. P.S. 84 children will be over-crowded in fewer classrooms, teachers will lose their jobs, the school will lose many enriching educational programs, students will have less access to its computer lab and other resources and the children will suffer the effects of negative stigma as a result of this segregation which will send our City back 120 years! P.S. 84 welcomes the integration of newcomers’ children into our school, without the creation of a separate school. This plan endangers our children’s education, safety and self esteem!

WHO: PTA and Community of P.S. 84

WHAT: Press Conference to Protect the Children of P.S. 84

WHEN: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 (12:00 P.M.)

WHERE: 250 Berry Street (corner of South 1st Street) Brooklyn

I watched the neighborhood gentrify but PS 84 is still mostly an Hispanic school with some special ed classes. Over time we expected that some new parents would start sending their kids to the school but this sounds like pure segregation.

Reminds me of the time a Hasidim group of kids were put into PS 16 (not that far away on Bedford) about 30 years ago and the Superintendent ordered a wall to be built to keep the 2 populations from coming into contact with each other. It led to a boycott of some kind by the Hispanic community and the wall was taken down.

I will try to be at PS 84 on Wed. maybe with a video camera. If anyone wants to come, take the L to Bedford Ave. Walk north a few blocks to Grand St. trying to avoid becoming overly hip as this is the epicenter of hipsterdom in The Burg. Go left for one block to Grand and Berry. School is on the corner. Walk one block on Berry to South 1st.

Ten reasons to distrust the new accountability system

... now appearing on the NYC Public School Parents Blog

Compiled by Leonie Haimson who also sent along the following back to school greeting to her NYC Education News Listserv:

Welcome back to all of you! I hope you had a great summer and enjoyed the break. I wish I had great news for you, but we are still waiting for a word from the State Education Dept. about whether NYC’s class size reduction proposal will be approved or rejected, even though the final decision was supposed to be announced by Aug. 15.

But the news is not all bad. As mentioned in yesterday’s Times, the state is still arguing with the city over the adequacy of its submission, which failed on at least two grounds: the so-called “Fair student funding” system by which the city allocated the additional state funds did not properly distribute resources to our lowest-performing and overcrowded schools, as the law required; and when it came to class size, there was no “there” there – no real class size reduction plan in the numerous pieces of paper submitted by the city .

Instead, in an exceedingly clumsy fashion, the DOE merely attempted to shoe-horn its existing initiatives– including interim assessments, radical decentralization, and the so-called “fair student funding” system -- into its “Contract for Excellence” proposal.

To their credit, State Education officials heeded the criticisms made by many of you -- the 900 plus parents, teachers, and stakeholders who came out to testify in the middle of the summer – with less than two weeks notice – as well as the letter we faxed to SED with over 200 signatures of parent leaders and advocates, asking them to withhold funding until and unless DOE came up with a real class size plan.

Rather than significantly smaller classes, then, the new school year begins with the DOE’s main priorities intact: a seriously flawed accountability system that is likely to unfairly punish our lowest-performing and most overcrowded schools and put our neediest students at even more risk. (For more on this, see below.)

There will also be a new series of interim standardized tests at all schools, given five to six times a year, which are supposed to help lead to “differentiated instruction” but which will simply take more valuable time – and joy -- out of learning.

If the administration were really interested in creating conditions that would lead to differentiated instruction, they would of course reduce class size – which is a precondition to making individualized learning and teaching possible. Instead, the DOE insists on stubbornly ignoring the research, the priorities of parents and teachers, and now, even the new state law that required them to come up with an actual class size reduction plan, and our classes remain the largest in the state by far.

Rather than bend to the will of the state, the city appears to be stubbornly putting at risk $250 million of valuable CFE funds by refusing to revamp its proposal. Let’s hope the State stands firm.

2. Meanwhile, please let me know as soon what your child’s class sizes are this year – and especially if they are unusually large and/or went up since last year. You should also let me know if your child has a smaller class size – as DOE claims many schools have done with the extra state funds, without disclosing in which schools smaller classes are supposed to occur and what actual reductions are supposed to result.

Also, please let me know if a new school in your building has caused class sizes to swell – as the DOE explicitly promised that it would not allow this to occur in any school this year, as opposed to years past.

Since schools are now free to do pretty much whatever they want in terms of class size – and everything else – except for exceeding the union contractual limits, we need to keep an even closer eye on them than ever before. (Already, I have heard of several cases of schools that are using this new freedom to close at lunch on Wed. for more professional development – which may or may not be legal.)

In case you need to refresh yourself as to the UFT limits and other class size rules, see my website here:

http://www.classsizematters.org/classsizerulesfunding2007-8.html

3. Finally, check out Erin Einhorn’s scoop in the Daily News today about how the 2005 test scores were inflated – just in time for Mayor Bloomberg’s re-election. With 85% of every school’s grade based purely on test scores, and every principal in jeopardy of losing his or her job based on these grades, we need to remind ourselves what an in imperfect instrument test scores are, in providing a complete picture of a school’s quality.

Please remember to let me know what your child’s class size was today – whether good or bad -- and please forward this message to every parent who cares.

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.

Video: PEP rubber stamps CFE

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

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

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

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

Anyway....

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

A Smoking Bush

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

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

New Appointee on Panel for Educational Policy a Noted Klein Critic

Special to The Wave
by Norm Scott

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Meet Martine

In response to the Feb. 28th '07 anti BloomKlein rally, on that very day, the cynics at Tweed appointed Martine Guerrier, former PEP (the phony replacement for the old DOE) rep from Brooklyn, who had been billed as a critic of BloomKlein (way, way overrated in that characterization) as the CEO of Parent Engagement at $150,000 a year. No, this does not mean she runs parties when parents get engaged. But she might as well.

We predicted Martine, who we've always thought very highly of, would disappear into the jaws of the Tweed PR machine in our "Say It Ain't So, Martine" post back in March. And so she has. Her coming out party took place at Brooklyn Tech HS Saturday in a "Meet Martine" event. Parent Eugene Falik, a Rockaway resident, posted this report on the nyceducationnews listserv.

Well, it was a standard Education Department show.

Department employees flagrantly violated the "no cell phone" policy which prohibits faculty and staff, as well as students, from bringing such contraband as cell phones and iPods into school buildings.

Parent Engagement staff allowed the police ("School Safety") people and custodian staff to run the show.

Questions were censored, by requiring them to be submitted on index cards.

Brooklyn Tech, as usual, had a host of fire code violations. Requests to Parent Engagement staff as well as Deputy Chancellor Grimm to correct the violations, and render the building safe for the invited public, were met with stony indifference.

Attempts to warn potential attendees of the danger were blocked and shouted down by the NYPD employees. It's easy to see how students confronted with this behavior would lose their cool. It's also a good justification for cell phones because requests to Ed Department staff for assistance, and compliance with the laws requiring the owner of a telephone to make it available for assistance calls had no result; only threats of punishment, including arrest, and assault.

The one good thing that came of the day is that there is now a paper trail that will require the SED to close the school until it is brought into compliance with the fire code.

Eugene Falik

Leonie Haimson Blasts Mayor/Tweed on Parent Survey

Yesterday, those of who participated in the focus groups asked other parents to return the new parent survey, due to be distributed this week, with its questions crossed out and a suggested statement on the top saying “We want real parent input – as well as smaller classes, less testing, and new priorities at Tweed to deal with the real problems in our schools.” (You should of course feel free to substitute whatever sentence you like about what our schools really need to improve.)

In response, the Mayor said at his news conference yesterday that those of those of us who are calling for real parent input into our schools only want to “subvert the system and sit around and complain and not make it any better.”

I want to make it perfectly clear that none of us who participated in the focus groups were ever out to “subvert the system.” We volunteered in good faith and spent many hours over two days, to provide realistic and relevant suggestions so that this $25 million survey could be meaningful and useful. We were explicitly told that our suggestions would determine the questions asked. Instead, most of the issues we cared about were censored, for no apparent reason.

Moreover, those who signed our letter include members of CECs, President’s councils and other active, engaged parents who work hard every day, for no pay and little recognition to try to make this system work better for our kids. Not one of them can be called a slacker or a complainer. We were all extremely disappointed that our input was ignored – and that specific questions were omitted about class size, overcrowding, the amount of testing and test prep in our schools, the curriculum, the principal’s attitude towards parent input and involvement, and/or whether there is a functional School Leadership Team in the school.

Read Leonie's full report with links at:
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/

Why is the UFT promoting BloomKlein's survey....

... while parent groups are urging a boycott...

Was a question asked by a middle school Chapter Leader who received this from the UFT hierarchy:

Dear Colleagues:

Today at a press conference the mayor and chancellor announced that School Learning Environment Surveys will be distributed this week to all teachers, to all parents and all secondary schools students.
According to the Department of Education, the surveys “are designed to reflect the experiences, attitudes and perceptions of members of our school communities and to provide information each school can use to improve its learning environment. Survey results will be reported to schools this summer and factored into the new school progress report in the fall.” The survey is anonymous and voluntary.

UFT President Randi Weingarten said these surveys “are an important first step in engaging parents, educators and students in the most important conversation we can have:
How to improve our children’s education. There was a good process for drafting the survey and we had a lot of good input., particularly in the area of protecting confidentiality.
“The information that will be gathered is extremely important – but it must be valued and addressed. Listening is good; we have to make sure our voices are heard.”

Therefore, we urge you to tell the teachers in your school that it is very important to take the time to complete the survey.

Michael Mendel
Director of Staff

A high school Chapter Leader just called upset that the survey is going to be used to gather negative information about schools to be used against them.

Remember Weingarten's own words about the Tweedledees:
"They are assholes not to be trusted." So why trust them and support them on this? Especially when parent groups have said that important questions like those related to class size were deliberately left off the survey. I have always questioned whether Weingarten's commitment to class size was true or just part of a PR blitz to be used for political advantage. Why? Because she ignored the issue when we raised it in Ed. Notes and at the DA until fairly recently. True commitment to class size would mean when it is left off the survey, you do not tell people to cooperate.

Parents speak out....

Emails from the NYCEducationNews List:

noel@aitools.org writes

The ironic thing is that neither Martine Guerrier, nor her employer the DoE, have, or ought to have, any say on who's included in that coalition. It does appear, though, that the majority of the coalition members ceded control of the makeup of the coalition to the DoE.

The "compromises" reached here are a collective failure by the DoE-aligned groups to adequately represent their constituents. Even to suggest that the immigration groups "got a lot" is probably wrong, since
the immigration constituency and the special ed constituency overlap with each other as much as with any other constituency.

It appears to me that the leaders of the larger groups are attempting to score symbolic points for political usage. The leaders of the smaller groups have been suckered into thinking they're going to advance their
causes with "a seat at the table". It's all very pathetic.

Fair Student Funding is fundamentally flawed. A renegotiation of weights for different needs groups doesn't address the core problem one bit.

The cogent and critical arguments against the impoverished brand of standardized test - based "accountability" have been cast aside; our students will continue to be trained as test takers.

The concessions on teacher salary do not address the essential problem that principals will still have an incentive to give unduly high priority to cost cutting.

There are no substantive gains on the issue of class size -- the DoE will work hard to water down the regulations currently awaited from the state, and has only committed to "develop[ing] a ... set of
recommendations on how best to implement the regulations" recommendation Frog has more teeth than that.

Members of the organizations who betrayed the coalition need to understand that their breach of trust will make forming the next coalition far more difficult. The way this was conducted is a gross insult to the people who showed up at rallies, who wrote letters and sent faxes, who campaigned personally and got the word out in communities, with the understanding that a broad coalition had our backs.




Richard Barr, VP of District 3 (PTA) Presidents Council writes:

Much has been written on these lists in the aftermath of the press conference earlier this week announcing an "agreement" among the administration, UFT and others about modifications to the planned reorganization of the school system.

In my opinion, public school parents, who themselves don't always speak with one voice on schools issues, are sometimes on the same page with other entities, sometimes partially so, and sometimes not at all. So although gatherings, press conferences, demonstrations and "agreements" attract more attention when they bring together coalitions of forces, an event peopled primarily by parents and, perhaps, their schoolchildren is a more accurate rendition of what we really think and want to see happen (or not happen) with the school system.

I agree with others who have written that we should go ahead with the previously planned City Hall demo about putting the reorganization on hold, whether it's on May 9 or another day. Many of us have been passing resolutions in our schools and districts asking that the reorganization be placed on hold until it can be properly vetted. Instead, we were informed that it was the demo that had been put "on hold", by not-specifically-named others, and soon after, a press conference with the Mayor, Chancellor, other officials, the Union, and other groups convened to announce an "agreement" to modify parts of the reorganization and move forward.

No one was speaking specifically for, or was authorized to speak specifically for, the bulk of the parents at that press conference, although, again, it's near impossible to characterize precisely what the bulk of the parents want from issue to issue, or who can really speak for them.

So let's have an event where we speak for ourselves, even if that isn't in one neat voice. Mixed gatherings have previously been spun by the disgraceful right-wing tabloid editorialists, and the columnists, op-ed commentators, and think-tankers on the same page with them (as well as, lamentably, some of the elected and appointed officials who control the schools) as puppet shows where one entity (the Union) is pulling everyone else's strings.

If sympathetic public officials wish to stand with us, that would be nice, but we need to make clear that we, on our own, have real issues and that the idea wasn't just put into our heads by others with their own agendas. And we don't need to be co-opted, picked off one-by-one, or to have others claim to be speaking for us if they are primarily speaking for themselves.

So let's just do it, even if organizing it and getting attention paid to it will be more difficult without the weight of the P.R. apparatuses of others behind us.

Richard Barr

V.P., District 3 Presidents' Council

from Leonie Haimson:

People have asked me about the history of these negotiations – which I was only peripherally involved in. This is what I know:

A week ago last Friday, there were several hours of negotiations at City Hall between the City and the UFT, ACORN, and some other advocacy and parent groups in the loose association that had formed. I was not invited and did not participate. I found out about this only after the fact, on late Friday, when I was told that some sort of deal had been worked out, but was not told the details. I did learn that some sort of concession had been made on the part of the DOE that they would try to work with the UFT and our coalition, NYers for Smaller Classes, as well as other stakeholders, to draw up the city’s class size reduction plan. There were also concessions made to the various groups who were more directly involved in the negotiations. On Saturday morning, there was supposed to be a meeting at the UFT office to go over the details, w/ a possible press conference to follow.

Sat. morning before I left home, the whole deal was called off, apparently by the city.

Switch to Thursday afternoon. I participated along with many other groups, including CPAC, in a conference call, where elements of the agreement were discussed in more detail. It was clear that the city had agreed not to cut the budgets for any school for at least two years – a big concession as far as I was concerned. The Immigration Coalition had the city’s agreement to raise the weights of ELL students; there were also separate agreements that DOE would work w/ CEJ on middle school reform, the Urban Youth Collaborative on their Student Success Centers, and some other points. At 3:15 Pm, I heard that a press conference was set for 3:30 PM at City Hall. I rushed down to City Hall. The main reason I went was I wanted to see exactly what the Mayor and the Chancellor would say about class size. (which turned out to be little.)

I felt then and feel now that the city made major concessions – and received few in return. The City agreed not to cut school budgets (which is a very big deal for my son’s school and many other schools throughout the city – which justly feared losing millions of dollars.) I also felt and still feel that in good conscience I could not reject the opportunity to talk directly to DOE and test their willingness to collaborate on their class size reduction plan – however this process turns out.

Among those at the press conference, standing behind the Mayor, next to Randi and the other groups who were there, were Robert Jackson and Luis Reyes – two men whose integrity and commitment to the cause of public schools no one could possibly question. I don’t feel as though any of us sold anyone else out. I certainly don’t accept that any of us “used…our children as pawns in some elaborate power-driven chess game.”

I think that if parents want to hold the rally on their own on May 9 that’s great. We can help publicize it on the list servs and the blog and elsewhere. I also feel that the most important thing now is to continue working so that our schools can be fundamentally reformed, to make all the changes that our children really need. Clearly this agreement is only one modest step, to forestall some but not all the destructive aspects of the reorganization. The outcome of the process of talking directly w/ DOE is uncertain and there is so much work to be done. I know I will continue to fight for real change, and I hope others will be there too.

Leonie Haimson

Class Size Matters

124 Waverly Pl.

New York, NY 10011

212-674-7320

leonie@att.net

www.classsizematters.org

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/

Anti-Klein Demonstrations in Tajikistan

Dushanbe, Tajikistan, March 30 (GBN News):
Numerous protests erupted around the country of Tajikistan today over the report that outgoing NY City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein would shortly be assuming the presidency of that country. As reported yesterday by GBN News, the Tajik President, Emomali Rakhmon, will become Schools Chancellor in New York, while Mr. Klein takes over the position of Tajik strongman. While reaction in New York remained muted, the Tajik people were not hesitant to make their feelings known.

Read the rest at: NYC Parent blog.

(Another gem from the hand of Gary Babad.)

"Children First" Game

Check out the "Children First" game at the NYC Public School Parent blog.

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