CAPE In Action: PS 15/PAVE Redux, UPDATED

UPDATED Jan. 20, 9am:

CAPE Communique:

Oh what a feeling...

Juan Gonzalez on PS 15/PAVE in Daily News:

Nothing Schools Chancellor Joel Klein can say will calm the furor and sense of betrayal parents and teachers at Public School 15 in Brooklyn have felt for the past few weeks.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2010/01/20/2010-01-20_paveing_way_over_bklyn_school.html


Jan. 19, 11pm

Just back from taping a rigorous debate at the meeting tonight at PS 15 over the extension of PAVE at the school, with an overwhelming majority of people urging the PEP to vote down the PAVE extension. Even the local politicians broke new ground tonight in supporting PS 15 and urging a rejection of the extension. I have 2 hours of video with some very good speeches. Jim Devor was such an amazing prosecutor I was ready to plead guilty. To anything.

A bunch of GEMers (who are also ICEers) showed up to show support and speak, along with parent activists CEC13 Pres. Khem Irby and CEC1 Pres. Lisa Donlan, along Brooklyn College Professor David Bloomfield, who heads the Educational Leadership school that trains principals (we assume in a slightly different manner than the notorious Joel Klein Leadership Academy.) As a retiree, I never cease to be amazed at the working teachers in GEM/ICE/CAPE who show up to meetings and events all the time.

CAPEers sent these notes:
THANK YOU!!! WOW!
You all are an amazing group! What a great GEMTASTIC bunch of people. I am so glad to have met all of you and to be working with you! Thank you for your time, energy and support, you rule!

We want to thank you so much for coming tonight, especially out to isolated, little Red Hook, to support us and 'the cause'. It means so much to all of us to have such amazing people in our lives and behind us. Regardless of what happens in the coming days, it is comforting to know that we have what is just on all of our sides and that we are all committed to fighting the destructive educational policies of this Mayor together. You are all in our fondest thoughts.


A GEMer responded:
The energy, information and commitment that you and your colleagues in CAPE put forth have motivated us to continue on with our united struggle. Thanks to all of YOU.

Press Release

Media Contact: John Battis: JBattis@chpnet.org ,

Lydia Bellahcene: lillytigre@yahoo.com,

Brooklyn, New York
January 19, 2010

Parents and Teachers Fight to Protect Their Community Public School:

Red Hook, Brooklyn’s AAA School, PS 15, The Patrick F. Daly School at the Center of New York City’s Charter School Invasion Struggle

---

When and Where:

· Rally and Public Hearing: 1/19/10, Rally, 4:30 on the corner of Richards and Sullivan Street in Red Hook, Public Hearing, 6:00 at PS 15, 71 Sullivan Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn

Upcoming Events:

· Citywide Rally and March on the Mayor’s Block: 1/21/10, Rally begins at 4:00 on the corner of 5^th Avenue and 79^th Street, the park side, Manhattan.

· Rally and PEP Meeting: 1/26/10, Rally begins at 4:00 across the street from Brooklyn Tech High School; PEP meeting begins at 6:00.

Today concerned parents, students, teachers and community members rallied and made public comment in opposition to a DOE proposal that would continue the placement of PAVE charter school in their public school building, PS 15, beyond the two year agreement made in 2008. The proposal would allow PAVE to remain in PS 15 until 2015, which would cause irreparable harm to the services and programs provided to Red Hook’s students. Assemblyman Felix Ortiz and Councilwoman Sara Gonzales both made statements on PS 15’s behalf noting the destructive and less than transparent actions by the DOE that have promoted the division of the Red Hook community at the expense of our children’s successful public school.

“Expanding PAVE within our school is unfair and detrimental. It does not promote “choice” or “reform”. The EIS is a “cut and paste” job void of any meaningful information about the real impact on our community. We demand an honest and public assessment that dares to identify the real and obvious problems with this proposal.” John Battis, Parent, PS 15

“What the DOE is proposing will hurt my three children who attend PS 15, and in particular our special needs population. Children should not have to receive services in closets and hallways. The DOE should not be treating our children like they can be thrown away like garbage.” Lydia Bellahcene, Parent, PS 15. “The DOE says that special education services, science rooms, art rooms, and intervention are luxuries, parents disagree. PS 15 is an AAA school, and the Mayor and Chancellor should not be setting policies to divide, shrink, and undermine our great school.”

“I have seen PS 15 grow dramatically over the last nine years and know firsthand the valuable services and programs we provide to the Red Hook Community. The proposal to extend PAVE’s stay beyond the two year agreement is an outrage and devastating to our community. It will destroy Red Hook’s AAA public school.” Marie Sirotniak, Teacher, PS 15.

“The policies being put forth by the DOE are a clear attempt to privilege charters at the expense of our public schools. No one at PS 15 questions a charter’s right to exist, but we seriously question the destruction of public education, particularly successful public schools, to benefit charters. It is clear now, that from the beginning PAVE and the DOE intended this stay to be longer. It is also clear they are very connected, as the DOE has just allocated 26 Million dollars to PAVE for a building, which at the earliest would be completed in 2013. This while our school budgets have been slashed and students and families are going without. The implementation of these policies robs Peter to pay Paul; this is not what our education system should be reduced to.” Julie Cavanagh, Teacher, PS 15.

Please find below an open letter from concerned parents of PS 15K:

January 19, 2010
Dear Chancellor Klein, Mayor Bloomberg, Panel for Educational Policy Members, and the Office of Portfolio Development,

We, the parents of PS 15, The Patrick F. Daly School in Red Hook, Brooklyn, respectfully demand that the Educational Impact Statement regarding the extension of the co-location of PAVE Academy in PS 15K be withdrawn. Simply put, the EIS is wrong and cannot be the basis on which PEP members decide the fate of our school. The most glaring and galling error is in the assessment of the building's current utilization percentage. The assessment does not reflect reality. For example, many of our school's rooms are serving children with special needs and current regulations do not allow these rooms to have higher occupancy. Also, the EIS anticipates that PAVE Academy will continue to exponentially expand its enrollment over the next 5 years while our school will be compelled to cut enrollment. Yet the EIS states that no child will be displaced and that there will be "no impact on PS-15." The EIS is contradicting itself! The fact is that the co-location of a charter school within our school's building has already had negative repercussions for our children who attend PS 15.

The Educational Impact Statement posted in December of 2009, for a 45 day comment period leading to a January 26th PEP vote should be deemed invalid. This document simply does not represent the true educational impact of the change in utilization the document supports. Once the EIS is amended, our community will ask for the proper 45 day review period, as required by law. Therefore, we ask that the vote on this proposal be withdrawn from the 26th PEP meeting date so that the Department of Education can not only re-examine the contents of the current EIS, but we also ask the DOE re-evaluate the desire to force a continued co-location on our school community. Our community was promised a 2 year limit on this arrangement. We have already seen the negative impact the co-location has had on scheduling, program offerings, and related service providers. We currently have no empty or underutilized rooms in our school building - should the EIS authors actually visit our school this would be evident to them.

PS 15 is a thriving, successful school. Its great improvement in every realm, over the past decade, has been based on many things: teachers, parent involvement, community support, and a properly sized facility to house all of 15's excellent programs. Cutting our building in half will set back all of our efforts which have resulted in the only successful public school serving Red Hook.
We respectfully ask the DOE to withdraw the EIS, remove the PAVE extension issue from the January 26th PEP meeting, and fully re-evaluate the policy and the ramifications of this proposed change in utilization. We stand united in fully supporting the original two year agreement and ask that PAVE Academy vacate PS 15 in June of 2010. We do not accept further sacrifices at the expense of our children.

A copy of the School Leadership Team’s public hearing presentation is attached to this release.

Norman Siegel Talks to Parent Meeting About the Protest at Bloomberg's Residence

Norman Siegel tells a parent conference sponsored by Class Size Matters in NYC on January 16 about the recent court victory that gives protesters over Mayor Bloomberg's education policies the right to hold a protest on the side of the street (17 East 79th St) where he lives. Amongst a sea of objections, this protest focuses on the unfair and arbitrary closing of schools, the imposition of charter schools into public school buildings and the unfair treatment of public schools by the BloomKlein administration vis a vis charter schools. He lays out the conditions the protesters will be under. If you intend to attend, heed what Siegel says.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fF_QyyTYxA

Metropolitan Corporate Academy Rally, January 14, 2010

Metropolitan Corporate Academy students, parents, educators, and alumni came together in powerful unity on Thursday, January 14, 2010, speaking passionately and courageously about their school.

While the building doesn't present itself as much from the outside, we instantly felt the sense of community and family upon entering the door. Testimonies focused on students and staff's love for their school, despite its many challenges. The school's debate team proudly held their first place trophies in front of John White and presented him with a large stack of student signed petitions. The video not only captures the passion and spirit of the Metropolitan Corporate Academy, but it clearly demonstrates how far off course the New York City Department of Education has gone.

Click below:

http://grassrootseducationmovement.blogspot.com/2010/01/metropolitan-corporate-academy-high.html

Who owns the media, even the “public” media? A Teacher in Bed-Stuy Posts to Beth Fertig's Blog

A teacher posted this today on Beth Fertig's News Blog on WNYC's website:

When will the press expose the “distraction”, to use Obama’s term, that charter schools provide for a system that is truly unwilling to reform itself? I am a teacher with 30 years in the DOE. My elementary school in Bedford-Stuyvesant experienced reform in the early 1990s, sponsored by the Office of School Reform and the UFT. It worked and transformed us in meaningful ways.

Twenty years later we are reaping the benefits of that initiative and are expanding our enrollment while all neighboring schools are losing theirs and subsequently having to share their building with a second or third school, sometimes a charter school. We benefited from funding opportunities then that no longer exist for us now, because funders are putting their money into charter schools.

We have devastating midyear budget cuts that they don’t have. Who will expose the fact that while they may have a lottery for their students, ultimately they get to pick and choose them and their parents? They cap their numbers by the late October head count and begin to weed out the troublesome and academically low-performing students from then on in time for the state exams.

Of course, they are going to look like they are doing a great job. We have to take those students back and work with the students they don’t want. In the end this exclusive private system within the public system is being supported by cuts to our budgets. The majority of public school children, who will never attend a charted school, will lose out in overcrowded classrooms in schools that have had to drop arts-in-education partnerships and after school programs, the services that made us great and helped to bolster their achievement and love of learning.

Who in the media is going to question a system that won’t spread reform to every school in order to benefit every child? Who wants to understands what is really happening in our midst, in the name of “school reform”? There is a travesty going on and they get away with it, because no one will report it.

Begs the question: Who owns the media, even the “public” media?

Origins and Purpose of "No Child Left Behind" and AFT/UFT Complicity

Susan Crawford wrote on the NYC Ed News listserve:

In looking up the site reference for Kathy Emery's dissertation on the Business Roundtable's 1989 conference on education (which I sent to these lists last June, and for to there is link below), I came upon this speech which she gave a few years later, but which gives a short, concise version of the material she explored in her dissertation and subsequent book.

I suggest we each forward this to every member of the state legislature before they vote on the charter school cap on Tuesday ... or anything else they are contemplating related to how our children are being educated or miseducated.

It's all here -- right down to the bifurcation-by-charter-school of the college-bound versus drop-out track, replacing the previous college versus vocational tracks. Closing this next batch of schools would seal the deal here in NYC. Anyone who wants to pursue a vocational track after that can go to a for-profit tech school and wrack up obscene student loans.

Re the testing mania cited, it would be interesting to see, if the PEP votes to close these schools, what would happen if HS students decided to sit out Regents week as a result. And the Acuity tests. And if lower grade students sat out the upcoming state tests. And Regents week in June. What exactly will it take to restore our educational system to the people who actually use it?

Susan Crawford

Kathy Emery was a participant - along with Bill Cala (read his current piece: COMMENTARY: Mayoral control doesn't work and is wrong) and Susan Ohanian and 20 others- at the meeting John Lawhead and I attended in Birmingham Al (thanks John for getting me to go) in March 2003 that helped open up my eyes to the "agenda." Boy I wish people had listened to what they had to say then. I put Emery's piece up at Norms Notes:

Origins and Purpose of "No Child Left Behind"

Note this point by Emery:

No Child Left Behind represents only the latest manifestation of a bipartisan bandwagon of standards based advocates – a bandwagon built in the summer of 1989 by the top 300 CEOs in our country. At this meeting, the Business Roundtable CEOs agreed that each state legislature needed to adopt legislation that would impose “outcome-based education,” “high expectations for all children,” “rewards and penalties for individual schools,” “greater school-based decision making” and align staff development with these action items.

I can't put my hands on it the Kahlenberg book right now but I remember reading just how embedded Shanker and the AFT/UFT were with the Business Rountable agenda and how Shanker participated in either their meetings or the national governors meeting that endorsed a lot of what turned into today's nightmare. So those who were surprised at the UFT/AFT capitulation to the ed deform plans, look to the roots.


Susan Ohanian wrote last year on just this issue:

A Nation at Risk, Al Shanker, and the ‘Accountability’ Movement

“If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”

With this introduction, the publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983 is a good starting point, not because there weren’t other corporate screeds attacking public schools before then, but because it provided such a powerful rallying point, and it really is the grandfather of NCLB.

Incoming American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten confirmed this in her presidential remarks. Embracing A Nation at Risk, Weingarten claimed it “affirmed that we should accept nothing less than universal attainment.” Weingartem continued, “We believed in high standards — and we still do.”

Democratic (small “d”) educational theorist David Gabbard has observed that we should consider A Nation At Risk as the greatest lie that the state has ever produced regarding America’s public schools.

In that same piece she wrote:

The mantra is everyone should go to college. But the facts have always been clear that the number of jobs requiring a college degree have not increased nor are they projected to do so. Read Richard Rothstein. Go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics website. In The Shell Game, Clinton Boutwell postulates that Corporate America wants to increase the number of college educated engineers and computer programmers to increase the supply of college educated workers well beyond the need for them, thereby paying them less. I set up my website against NCLB — www.susanohanian.org — in 2002, a couple of months after it was signed into law. By now, I feel rather like a reverse of Dickens’ Mme. Defarge, keeping track of what’s going on, knitting a register of outrage.


Susan's full piece "How the Educational Testing Industrial Complex Was Created" is at http://d2route.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/how-the-educational-testing-industrial-complex-was-created/

She also wrote about it at Substance: Read Susan Ohanian's piece at Substance:

http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?section=Article&page=552

The predicted results are now coming in from Chicago where so much of this mayhem all began - materials from George Schmidt I started distributing in ed notes at every delegate assembly as far back as 2001,

See the Chicago Trib report out yesterday.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/chi-renaissance-2010-17-jan17,0,3877012.story

ICE Petition Signing Event at Murray Bergtraum HS, Jan. 29, 3-7 PM

NOTE: YOU MUST SIGN UP IN ADVANCE FOR THIS EVENT SO YOUR INFO CAN BE PREPRINTED ON PETITIONS TO SAVE YOU LOTS OF TIME

From Ellen Fox, ICE Election Committee

Help ICE-TJC get on the ballot, so it can launch a campaign against a Unity leadership that seems lost in a moment of crisis that it helped to create.

We really, really need everybody to pitch in for this important activity, so that a strong ICE-TJC slate can stand up against a UFT "leadership" that has allowed a situation of true crisis to develop.

Before our eyes, the threats continue to proliferate, as we watch more and more schools slated for closing; charters siphoning off students, space and resources that once belonged to neighborhood public schools; seasoned teachers turned to ATR's; others relegated to TRC's (aka Rubber Rooms). Now the corporate voices of Bloomberg, Klein, Arne Duncan, Weingarten and their ilk are calling for teacher ratings, and perhaps tenure, to be tied to student performance on standardized tests. Remember when our biggest problem was what to do with the 37 1/2 minutes?

In the face of all of this, Unity leadership looks more and more like a deer caught in the headlights, shifting the burden of defense increasingly to individual schools, without any effective and unified plan to ward off the threats.

We need your agreement to sign ICE petitions on Friday, January 29, as well as your personal data, including your complete name, file number, and the school where you are working, so that we can prepare petitions in advance for you to sign. You'll enjoy congenial company, perhaps a pizza or two, and the knowledge that you've taken a step to help us get on the ballot.

If you can attend email your name, school (or where you work) and file number or last 4 digits of SS to ellenunion@yahoo.com

J-E-T-S

Friday Night Fights! from CAPE

Our pals at CAPE have been monitoring communications between Joel Klein, PEP member extraordinaire Patrick Sullivan, and parent activists - CEC 1 president Lisa Donlan and CEC 15's Jim Devor. Both were at the fantastic parent conference sponsored by Leonie Haimson's Class Size Matters yesterday (Sat.) I have 3 hours of delicious tape. Norman Siegel wowed them all, as did all the others.

I also want to say a few words about the amazing people at CAPE, who are holding a rally in Red Hook on Tuesday at 4:30 on the corner of Richards and Sullivan followed by the Public Hearing (same day 1/19) which begins at 6, sign ups to speak begins at 5:30. If you can make it show them your love for they are standing up for all. I will be there to tape it.

CAPEers have been willing to put themselves on the line. Amazing when we hear about the fear teachers have. Julie, a CAPEer, was one of the signers of the document that led to the court ruling that gave us the right to walk a picket line this Thursday at Bloomberg's residence. It was wonderful to hear Norman Siegel tell her at a meeting Thursday night, "You have me for life for doing this. If there is one hint of retaliation I will be there for you."

I can't tell you how many people contact me with complaints about the union and the DOE but are paralyzed by fear. What does it mean for a 10 year teacher with a long career ahead to take such action? It means the kind of guts and moxie that has been missing from all too many of our colleagues and certainly from our union.

Also, kudos to GEM and ICE member and 11 year teacher Seung Ok for signing on as a contact person for the rally. It was Seung who followed a parent at Maxwell's lead and proposed the demo at Bloomberg's in the first place. Ironic since the Unity Caucus slugs at Maxwell are urging administrators there to "go after" Seung. (Mark my words. Mulgrew will turn out to be as big a thug as any leader in the past.) Whenever I offer to keep Seung's name out of it, he says, "I'm not afraid." There are times his passion causes him to "lose it" at the DA, but there are few people I've met in the last few years who I have more respect for. He is running on the ICE/TJC slate for VP of Vocational Schools (Mulgrew's old position).

The emergence of Julie and the other CAPEers and people like Seung has provided strongly needed rank and file leadership to THE RESISTANCE. Give us even a hundred people like them and we have a game changer.

CAPE says:

What were you doing on Friday night? PEP member Patrick Sullivan, Joel Klein, CAPE members from PS 15, Lisa Donlan from CEC 1 and Jim Devor from CEC 15 were having a lively discussion regarding the forced co-locations and extensions of charter schools in our public schools beyond the agreements made to their respective communities while knowingly, over crowding, shrinking, and undermining, successful community schools. Please take note as to how Mr. Klein completely ignores the parent letters and voice in this discussion. His narrow view of the issue, and lack of attention to any real substance, only highlights the Orwellian nature of the destructive school policies he and his boss propagate across our great city. The public, Borough Presidents and PEP members should take note of the Chancellor's disregard of stakeholder voices. We should all question BloomKlein and their policies, particularly the school closures-charter invasions-drive to privatize movement that they blindly seek to implement. The time is now! Enough is Enough! We must fight to protect public education, the pillar of our democracy. WE are in this for ALL children.
The full transcript is below.
Friday Night Fights!

Parent, Student, and Teacher Protesters Win Right to Rally on Bloomberg’s Block

This is all over the internet already (ICE, CAPE, NYC Parents) but I might as well put it up for those too lazy to hit the links. Ed Notes was in the [court] house today trying to take notes as the case proceeded but the brain works faster than the hand and Julie really is becoming an expert press release writer.

I was pretty fascinated by the case preceding ours where a minor Madoff character named Anderson was sentenced to 90 months. He looked sort of old and pathetic and suffers from all kinds of stuff. When his lawyer said he was 64 I got the willies since I'm just 6 weeks shy of turning 65 (gulp). But I do get my half fare card. And senior citizen access to every movie theater. And social security. And hardening of the arteries.

Well, this thing is building, with even some politicians coming (we won't tell the UFT which ones since they would call and try to dissuade them.)

Knock, knock, UFT. Are you home? Ignoring this protest because it's at your buddy Bloomberg's place? That old sham you've been pulling that somehow it's all Klein's fault and Bloomberg is the good guy is wearing a bit thin. Mismanagement my ass. These "mismanagers" have run rings around you. Look within for the true mismanagers.

All along, I thought we were organizing a protest at Bloomberg's place in Bermuda. Had my shorts all ready. Next time.

Oh, and at the meeting at Norman Siegel's office Thursday night, he told the teachers involved they have a lifetime guarantee of his support if the BloomKlein admin makes any attempt at retaliation. Not knowing I was retired, he turned to me and said, "you too." Almost makes me want to go back to work. Almost, I said.

For Immediate Release

January 15, 2010

Contact: Julie Cavanagh, 917-836-6465, juliereed15@hotmail.com

Norman Siegel: 347-907-0867

Herbert Teitelbaum: 518-441-9412

Parent, Student, and Teacher Protesters Win Right to Rally on Bloomberg’s Block

Victory for the first amendment and for those struggling to protect public schools from closures and charter school invasions!

Today, Judge Alvin Hellerstein delivered a ruling granting parent, student, and teacher protesters, who are members of The Emergency Coalition to Stop School Closures, the right to protest on Mayor Bloomberg’s block in New York City. Judge Hellerstein ruled that we live in a democracy, and to the greatest extent possible, we have to find ways to protect our citizens, while not compromising the constitutional rights of others, to demonstrate and express their views. He went on to say that in assessing those values, he found that First Amendment rights support the kind of orderly and peaceful protest the plaintiffs sought to organize. Judge Hellerstein also added that the plaintiffs have the right to a peaceful picket to express their views in relation to important educational policies, particularly the increase in charter schools in the city. Attorneys Norman Siegel and Herbert Tietelbaum successfully argued the case.

“We are very pleased with the Judge’s decision. It is a major win for the right of New Yorkers to peacefully protest including on East 79^th Street where the Mayor resides,” attorney Norman Siegel.

“This is a victory not only for the plaintiffs, but for all who want to express their views to elected representatives,” attorney Herbert Tietelbaum.

“I am proud our efforts were successful and that we can take a stand in front of the city and the mayor to prevent the closing and phasing out of our school. Most of all I am happy we can voice our opinion on the city pushing out students in need in order to make room for charter schools and small schools that are very selective,” Khalilah , student, Maxwell High School.

“I am humbled that a homemaker from Red Hook, Brooklyn can take a stand against City Hall and win. The struggle to save our schools and public education is just beginning. Please join us on January 21^st on the Mayor’s block to send a message that says no, to the expansion of charter schools in schools like my children’s, P.S. 15 in Red Hook, Brooklyn. We also say no, to the ill defined school closings that pave the way for more charter schools and continue the dismantling of public education,” Lydia Bellahcene, parent, P.S. 15.

“Today is historic for protesting in the City of New York. I am so proud to stand with the parents and students I serve as we fight not only for our right to organize, but as we advocate to protect and preserve public education in our great city. It is not lost on me as an educator that this decision was made on Martin Luther King’s birthday. His legacy of peaceful and loving activism captures the culture of our school, P.S. 15. It is in this spirit that we bring our voices and concerns to the Mayor’s block in the hopes that there, we will be heard,” Julie Cavanagh, teacher, P.S. 15, “We want to thank, with much admiration and respect, Mr. Siegel, Mr. Tittelbaum and their staff, for their tremendous hard work and their dedication to protecting not only our rights, but the rights of all New Yorkers. I also want to thank the amazing parents and students I am so proud to stand behind and support.”

“The decision reaffirms the rights of citizens to protest on a city sidewalk, and prevents the mayor from turning a public city street into his own private front yard. Furthermore, it will allow parents, students, teachers, and members of the 22 communities affected by school closures to have their voices of discontent heard by the Mayor,” Seung Ok, Teacher, Maxwell High School.

“The right to demonstrate is not a given, it must be fought for, and we must be vigilant,” Gustavo Medina, retired teacher, Jamaica High School.

Parents, students, and teachers will hold their peaceful protest on both the North and South side of Mayor Bloomberg's block; East 79st, between 5th and Madison Avenue on Thursday, January 21st, between 4-6:30 pm. Protesters will meet at 5th avenue, on the southwest park side of the block, which will be the staging area and starting point of the protest. In the event of an appeal from The City of New York, the protest will continue on January 21^st, in compliance with the NYPD.

Media Contacts:

Lydia Bellahcene: lillytigre@yahoo.com, 347-463-9809, PTA PS 15- 718-330-9280

Julie Cavanagh: juliereed15@hotmail.com, 917-836-6465

Seung Ok: possitivelypessimist@gmail.com, 646-244-4468

Norman Siegel: 347-907-0867

Herbert Teitelbaum: 518-441-9412

Khalilah Dickerson- 347-264-4527/lilahmissco@hotmail.com

Richard McDonald- 347-445-3927/mcdonald_richie@yahoo.com

More School Closing Events

Choir Academy of Harlem School Closure Forum Part 1

At the Choir Academy of Harlem on Friday, January 8th, 2010, John White, the Deputy Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education attempted to talk over a local citizen who was attempting to clarify a point of order. The Choir Academy of Harlem community let him know who they wanted to hear from and it wasn't Mr. White. - GEM


Nathaniel Thayer Wright sends an update on AE Smith HS

We're in the New York Times! Click here to see the complete Jan 15th, 2010 article in the New York Times that includes our AES-Smalls Electrical Construction music video collaboration, "Can't Stop Us," written by Mark Noakes.

Please forward the below to anyone / everyone.

Nate

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/using-music-to-fight-the-school-closings/#more-122167

Excerpt:

“Once we start, we ain’t gonna stop achieving, Smith is here, and DoE, we ain’t leaving,” go the lyrics, set over the song “Can’t Stop Me” by Jadakiss. (The DoE is the Department of Education. The music is set over accelerated video of students learning carpentry, automotive and other trades in the high school.

Mark Noakes, 23, the rapper and lyricist, is a project manager at Smalls Electrical Construction Inc. in Brooklyn. Four of his colleagues at the electrical company are Smith High alumni, and when he got word the school was proposed to be among 20 city schools closing for poor performance, he decided to help spread the word about what would be lost.

“I graduated from a technical college, and I know firsthand what a technical school can offer in today’s society,” he said. “The education propels them into the corporate world, where they earn decent money.”

His boss, Jeffrey Smalls, organized a petition with 3,000 signatures and got 90 alumni and employers to write letters of support. “Smith is the only school left that teaches the full range of trades, and it would be a tragedy to lose it,” he said. “When students graduate, they understand not just how things work, but why things work, and they have a much better performance in the field.”

Nathaniel Thayer Wight

MS CCC-SLP, Speech & Language Pathologist

Green Science Club Coordinator / Teacher

Alfred E. Smith Career & Technical Education High School

Picketing a fight with Mike

I'm off to the court house now. Updates later.

By BRUCE GOLDING
January 13, 2010

A group opposed to Mayor Bloomberg's plan for more charter schools filed suit yesterday for permission to protest in front of his Upper East Side townhouse next week.

The Manhattan federal court filing says police from the Manhattan North Precinct refused to grant four protesters -- a parent, two students and a teacher -- a permit to march and chant on the East 79th Street sidewalk directly outside Bloomberg's swanky home.

Lawyer Norman Siegel, who filed the suit, said the NYPD yesterday told him that the demonstrators could use the south-side sidewalk, but not the north side, where the mayor lives.

The suit notes that protesters fighting the closure of city firehouses were allowed to use both sides of the block during the summer of 2003.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/picketing_fight_with_mike_D4IqFdMeWkCesn2FGOC0wJ#ixzz0cVCh47gf

Does the UFT REALLY Oppose the Concept of School Closings?

There's lots of sturm and drang about the UFT reaction to the massive closing of schools and what appears to be a much stronger response from Mulgrew than we saw from Weingarten, who when Lafayette HS closing was announced said it should be closed.

People have short memories.

When Tilden, which was announced at the same time, showed signs of fighting back (partly because of the actions of John Lawhead, a strong ICE person at the school - and if you want to connect the dots, the presence of an activist from ICE at these schools is a factor in the fightback) Weingarten raced in to put out the fire.

The UFT has been forced into responding by the outrage coming from the schools - mostly high schools who still vote in the upcoming UFT election (ballots go out in March).

And never forget that one of the prime goals of Unity and New Action is to keep those 6 high school Ex Bd seats out of the hands of ICE-TJC, a fabulous list of candidates, by the way: Francis Lewis HS CL and noted commentator Arthur Goldstein, Tilden CL John Lawhead and the famed commentator from Newcomers HS, Michael Fiorillo from ICE. And Goldstein HS CL Kit Wainer, Bronx High CL Peter Lamphere and FDR longtime activist Marian Swedlow from TJC.

You have to tie in the Weingarten recent sellout speech to the fact that the UFT/AFT (they are one and the same and controlled by Unity and if you need a treatise on this just ask). They adhere to the basic ed deform agenda and closing schools is part of that agenda.

Now they are calling for some kind of rally at the PEP on Jan. 26, while ignoring the protest at Bloomberg's on Jan. 21.

Marjorie Stamberg picked this up:

In case you haven't seen the official union leaflet for the January 26th rally, here it is. Note that it does NOT call to stop school closings, only to "protest the closings." What's in a word?

Plenty. They're not fighting to stop the closings; only to protest them after the fact. I've heard this line from Unity caucus people several times, that they want the DOE to know next time they try it, that they'll pay a high price for the closings.


There's no next time. This is crunch time. There should be a fight about this at the D.A., and a new leaflet issued.

Other key issues for the D.A. -- Randi's speech in Washington, calling to link teacher tenure to test scores, calling for more teacher observations and more teacher firings. I was going to title my posting "Randi's gone over to the dark side," as if she was ever somewhere else.

David Bellel picked up on our concept of just putting schools on trains and moving trucks. I also asked him for a graphic showing Mulgrew's face on Bush after flying in and declaring "mission accomplished" if a few school closings are reversed. And I bet they would make a whole lot of back room deals with BloomKlein to be able to make that statement, maybe even before the election ballots go out.

NOTE: Be sure to see the side panel posting from ICE's Ellen Fox calling for volunteers to show up on Jan. 29 at Bergtraum HS to help ICE sign a batch of petitions to help get on the ballot.

Weingarten Ally, Detroit Teacher Union Leader Recalled After Disastrous Contract, updated

See comment 2 by Mike Antonucci of the EIA who checked the Detroit Fed of T web site which says the recall was illegal. Read on to where I say that Randi and the AFT would not allow this to happen.

With urban unions under severe attack in Washington, LA, Chicago, New Haven and New York, the Detroit teacher contract may be the most severe. And of course, Randi Weingarten and the AFT were handmaidens. (And for those of you who are impressed by Michael Mulgrew's rhetoric as somehow making him different than Randi, come back and talk to me in a year or two.)

Detroit teachers union activist Steve Conn sent this out.

This is some reasonably accurate tv reporting on our fight in Detroit to defend public education and reclaim our union: http://www.clickondetroit.com/video/22177639/index.html

Detroit Federation of Teachers (AFT 231) members voted overwhelmingly tonight to relieve Keith Johnson from his duties as DFT President until a recall vote is taken at the February 11th membership meeting. The membership also voted for the DFT to join the lawsuit against the $250 TIP "loan", and urge all members to immediately file State of Michigan Employment Wage Complaint Forms.

Early in the meeting, Johnson declared all efforts to recall him or support the lawsuit "out of order," in spite of a clear majority vote that these questions be placed on the meeting's agenda. When members refused to allow him to continue the meeting undemocratically, he walked out of the room, later returning to try to adjourn the meeting. Refusing to adjourn, the members passed three motions: (1) supporting the lawsuit against the $250 TIP; (2) setting the recall vote for the February 11th General Membership Meeting; and (3) relieving Johnson of "his duties and obligations as DFT President pending the recall vote."

DFT members are determined that the question of Keith Johnson's recall be decided by democratic membership vote and in accordance with the DFT Constitution.

The recall of DFT president Kevin Johnson, a Weingarten ally, is an early warning sign for the AFT and Weingarten, who praised the contract and was involved in the negotiations.

One report says:

"In a paid advertisement in the Sunday New York Times, Randi Weingarten, the president of AFT, praised the Detroit contract, saying it was “much more than a collective bargaining agreement; it is a covenant between educators and administrators…”

Weingarten makes clear that the AFT and DFT want to be full partners in Obama’s school restructuring plans. She boasts that the agreement includes “several reforms that will drive the enhancement of student achievement, including school based bonuses, peer assistance and review and a new, comprehensive teacher evaluation system.”

At the same time, the AFT president said, “both parties recognized the severe financial conditions of the district and sought innovative approaches to save money,” including the pay and health care cuts “that will save the district millions.”

In a separate press release, Weingarten said the educational provisions in the deal “would make it one of the most progressive big-city teacher contracts of our day.”

Given past oppressive actions by the AFT and Weingarten in Portland.

See ed notes exclusive reports:
Education Notes Online: AFT Hack Attack

Randi Goes to Portland

Education Notes Online: Randi In Portland (OR)

I wouldn't be surprised to see some kind of similar attempt by AFT goons to subvert the anti Johnson movement. A complete takeover of the union is not inconceivable. These people don't give up power easily.

With Nathan Saunders running for President in Washington DC and CORE challenging in Chicago some trees might be shaking at the AFT convention in Seattle this summer. Some activist groups from around the nation are talking about attending to force the AFT and Weingarten to confront the assault on public schools.

Steve sent this a few days ago:

Please email or call me about what is happening in your city or AFT local!

I will be reporting to our regular weekly citywide teachers' meeting.

We need to communicate and coordinate!!

Steve Conn

313.645.9340

AFT Local 231

P.S. Our latest plan is to run for delegates to this summer's AFT Convention: We must do everything we can to get the convention to turn around the AFT and begin a national fight to defend public education!

Interested in, or planning to be, a delegate to the convention?

Here are a few videos about Alfred E. Smith (AES) Career & Technical Education High School and the proposed phase-out

AES Shop Classes, put to music by Mark Noakes, click here

AES Student Interviews, click here

AES Science Club, click here

Also:

To learn more about our Alfred E. Smith Career & Technical Education High School and our situation, click here

To see the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) Notice & Agenda, click here

Choir Academy Closing Meeting Reports

Report from Choir Academy

You may wish to know that Choir had a large rally outside of the school made up of staff, students and parents opposing the closing.

At the public hearing last night a staff member interrupted John White to challenge the announcement that no one could yield their time to anyone else.

John White ignored him. The staff member continued to challenge him from the audience and the entire auditorium erupted in a loud chorus of "let him speak!"

This shut the entire hearing down for 15-20 minutes while the staff member and John White got into each other's faces.

Finally, John White had to agree to take the question from the member.

City Councilwoman Inez Dickens sent a representative who read a letter she had sent to Joel Klein opposing the closing of Choir, challenging the "statistics" that the DOE uses as being dubious at best and perhaps fraudulent.

Also, Choir has had 5 principals in the past 6 years.

A teacher from another school there to show support:

Went to the meeting to protest the closing of Harlem Choir Academy last night. Chris Petrillo was there- speaking to the student body to form an alliance with them as well as the schools he has gone to. He is truly an amazing young man!

Once again- JOHN WHITE was caught on his blackberry in the middle of the meeting and repeatedly went back to it even after the crowd pointed it out and demanded he put it away. He never once commented or apologized for his inappropriate and disrespectful actions! He should be ashamed of himself- it should be noted as part of public record that these meetings are a sham- the DOE has no intention of hearing anything these communities have to say- just going through the motions so they can claim they did it and then do what they want to do- shut these schools down and give the space to charter schools with the ultimate goal of destroying our public education system, destroying our unions- you see they are now going after the School safety officers and trying to get them out from under NYPD so they too can be privatized!!! Who is next???? Cafeteria workers, custodial workers, secretaries- everyone who works in the system will be out of jobs and the whole process will be privatized!!! Why can't the citizens of this great city see this???? When will we see the masses rise up and speak out??? Why not lay down in the middle of streets- students, parents, educators- EVERYONE- and shut down traffic- (Bloomberg might actually pay attention since he has a specific attachment to traffic flow problems). Call the FOREIGN PRESS- our press could care less- call the foreign press in - they would love to carry it and let's embarrass the current administration and shame them into stopping this onslaught- this attack on our children, our communities, our society as we know it! Now that would be a Rally!!!!!!!!

Jan. 21 Rally at Bloomberg Home Update

A recently activated teacher organizing for the Jan. 21 protest at Bloomberg home writes:

Hey Everyone,

I made it to three schools yesterday and put flyers out on several blocks in. But today, at a workshop, [ x] and I spoke to the teachers at the end. Some knew, some did not about what is going on. Everyone left with the web address. A couple said they are alarmed and their schools will be at the mayors' block rally. It felt good to know the message is growing.

Please if you can stop at a school on your way to work and give them the message and the flyer! Momentum is slowly catching on.

Wake up all the schools and teachers you cross.

Mayor’s Critics Sue to Protest Outside His Home

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/critics-of-mayors-school-policies-sue-for-right-to-protest-outside-his-house/

January 13, 2010, 2:03 pm  Updated: 4:24 pm --

By SHARON OTTERMAN
NYTimes CityRoom Blog

A group that opposes charter schools and school closings filed a lawsuit against the city on Tuesday for “unconstitutionally and without any legal basis” denying its request to protest on the sidewalk outside the Upper East Side town house of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

The plaintiffs are two students from William H. Maxwell High School in Brooklyn, which is slated to close for poor performance, and a parent and teacher from Public School 15 in Red Hook, Brooklyn, an elementary school that shares space with the PAVE Academy Charter School. The city has proposed to allow PAVE to remain in the school for five more years, as it grows to include kindergarten through eighth grade, and teachers and parents at P.S. 15 have been furious.

“Our voices haven’t been heard, so we thought that the best way for the mayor to hear us would be for us to take our voices to his block,” said Julie Cavanagh, a special education teacher at P.S. 15. “There have been rallies at Tweed, and the individual schools, and its been a complete deaf ear.” (The former Tweed courthouse is where the Department of Education’s main offices are located.)

The protesters want to march back and forth along both sides of 79th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues, in single file, on Jan. 21, from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Mr. Bloomberg lives on the north side of the street. While the New York City police have frequently turned down permits to protest on the north side, in 2003, they allowed a group protesting the closure of firehouses to march on both sides.

The plaintiffs decided to press the issue as a civil rights matter. The suit, filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District, argues that just as protesters are able to march outside Gracie Mansion, where mayors normally live, so too should they be able to protest outside Mr. Bloomberg’s house, where he conducts political activities like receptions and fund-raisers.

On Tuesday, the Police Department offered a compromise: the protest could proceed on the south side of 79th street, Ms. Cavanagh said. The plaintiffs turned down the offer, saying the city should not be able to pick who protests on the north side.

A lawyer for the city, Gabriel Taussig, said in an e-mailed statement, “The Police Department’s refusal to agree to a demonstration procession on the sidewalk in front of the mayor’s residence and its proposal that the event take place on the street and sidewalk across from the mayor’s residence was a lawful and appropriate accommodation to the protesters’ desire to exercise their First Amendment rights while at the same time assuring that safety and necessary access can be maintained at the mayor’s residence.”

Norman Siegel, the former executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, is representing the protesters, along with Herbert Teitelbaum, the former executive director of the Commission on Public Integrity.

“The larger issue is clear: Can a public sidewalk be transformed into a private enclave because the mayor of New York lives there?” Mr. Siegel said. “The answer is no.”

Mr. Siegel said he expected a ruling from Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein on Friday.

Brooklyn College Professor in Passionate Defense of Maxwell

Dr. Wayne Reed talks about the remarkable collaboration between Brooklyn College and Maxwell HS and how closing it will destroy many years of work.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x-YlbUV8UY

Parents, Students, and Teachers Fight for the Right to Protest on the Mayor’s Block

Tuesday, January 12, 2010
NYC

Parents, Students, and Teachers Fight for the Right to Protest on the Mayor’s Block

Today, attorneys Norman Siegel and Herbert Teiteleaum filed papers in United States District Court, Southern District, on behalf of a parent, two students and a teacher who are members of The Emergency Coalition to Stop School Closings, to hold a protest on the Mayor’s block on the Upper East Side on January 21st.

The Emergency Coalition intends to hold a city-wide protest on the Mayor’s block, on January 21, 2010 from 4:00-6:30. Parents, students, and teachers view this as their First Amendment right and vital to have their voices heard regarding the unfair and destructive educational policies being proposed by the NYC Department of Education.

“The Bloomberg Administration is undermining our schools, without any compassion or understanding of how these policies will affect our children. It’s time for parents to stand up and say no! We refuse to take it anymore. Our schools are the lifeblood of our communities, and we will take our voices and our struggle to the Mayor’s block in the hope that there, we will finally be heard,” Lydia Bellahcene, Parent, PS 15, The Patrick F. Daly School, Red Hook, Brooklyn.

“ My school, as well as many of the others that the city wants to close, are doing as well as we can given the continued budget cuts, overcrowding, and the other challenges we face. What we need is more support, smaller classes, and more programs to engage us, not to be closed down and replaced by small schools or charter schools which will make us travel many miles away or exclude us from attending,” Khalilah Dickerson, student, Maxwell High School.

"I feel it's important to rally on the mayor's block, because he needs to hear how students and the community really feels about school closures. Our school has been making progress, so it is wrong to close a school that is improving. The mayor seems to be making decisions without listening to us, the ones he claims to be helping. This is why we want to march on the Mayor’s block - so he can hear our voices loud and clear, " Richard McDonald, student, Maxwell High School.

“The Bloomberg Administration’s current policy of school closings and charter school invasions highlight a clear intent to dismantle public education. Stakeholders from the affected school communities, insist we have the right to protest on the Mayor’s block to prevent our communities from being divided and disenfranchised.” Julie Cavanagh, Teacher PS 15K, Representative from CAPE, Concerned Advocates for Public Education, a parent and teacher coalition at PS 15K.

“The average New Yorker believes that the Mayor has been enacting reforms that better the education of the 1.1 million students in our public school system. By protesting, we want to expose the fact that school closures and the threat of closure have done immense harm to these students' education. Closures have caused the flight of quality teachers from high needs areas, stripped curriculums of all but mindless drilling for high stakes testing, brought corruption in the form of credit recovery and social promotion, and set the way for a two tiered system under charter school disparity.” Seung Ok, Teacher Maxwell High School.

James Eterno, chapter leader at Jamaica HS says: "This administration is closing schools down like they are franchises whose revenue is declining. What they don't realize is that Jamaica HS, like many of these other schools, is an integral part of its community, has had a long tradition of success before Klein was made chancellor, and despite his negative policies, is improving rapidly -- with a 15% increase in graduation rate in recent years. We will advocate for its survival even if we have to take the message to the Mayor's front door."

The Emergency Coalition to Stop School Closings is comprised of dedicated parents, students, and teachers who seek to protect and support NYC public schools from the detrimental policies of the Bloomberg Administration and are demanding that the Department of Education halt school closures and the charter school invasions that are undermining the health of our public education system.

No matter what the court decides, the Coalition intends to go ahead with their plan to protest in Bloomberg’s neighborhood on January 21st, whether on the Mayor’s block or in a nearby location. Protesters will be meeting at 4:00 at 5th Avenue and 79th street on the park side.

Media Contacts:
Lydia Bellahcene: lillytigre@yahoo.com, 347-463-9809, PTA PS 15- 718-330-9280

Khalilah Dickerson- 347-264-4527/lilahmissco@hotmail.com
Richard McDonald- 347-445-3927/mcdonald_richie@yahoo.com
Julie Cavanagh: juliereed15@hotmail.com, 917-836-6465
Seung Ok: possitivelypessimist@gmail.com, 646-244-4468
James Eterno: jeterno@nyc.rr.com , 718-268-0788

Norman Siegel: 347-907-0867

Herberet Teiteleaum: 518-441-9412

###

Randi Races to the Bottom: Don't Expect the UFT to Rise Above

Here is another in our "UFT/AFT as Vichy collaborators" series:

I hope no one was surprised that Randi Weingarten today made it clearer than ever that she was an education deformer. Now some people have been fooled by her successor's phony militancy - there is a UFT election coming - and Mike Mulgrew has to look more militant than Weingarten. Well, it wouldn't take much.

What people must understand is that the AFT and UFT are one - the UFT totally controls the AFT and Unity Caucus controls both organizations. And both Weingarten and Mulgrew are creatures of the caucus. So do not expect Mulgrew to distance himself too far from Weingarten's statements today, though the dance he will make around it should be fun to watch.

Some reactions to the speech from teacher Marjorie Stamberg and parent Leonie Haimson:

Randi Weingarten is slated to give a speech in Washington today, accompanied by Obama's education secretary Arne Dunacan, where she will "unveil new approaches to teacher evaluation and labor-management relationships, and discuss a fresh approach to due process."

Meanwhile, a column by Bob Herbert in today's New York Times reports on an interview he had with the AFT president over the weekend in which she reportedly said "standardized test scores and other measures of student performance should be an integral part of the evaluation process." She also reportedly "is urging school administrators to observe teachers more closely and more frequently," and if teachers "did not measure up, they would be fired, whether tenured or not."

I don't usually comment on individuals, because the real problem with the labor movement is not this or that misleader but a union bureaucracy that is beholden to the Democratic Party and more generally to the interests of capital. But I'll say flat out, this is a crass betrayal of the teachers Weingarten claims to represent and an attack on the students we educate. Instead of fighting the teacher union bashers she is outrageously joining them.

Hooking teacher evals to student test scores is wrong -- for kids, for teachers, for everybody EXCEPT the privatizers, corporatizers and union-busters. This opens the door to massive victimization of teachers, as we are already seeing in Chicago and Washington, D.C.

We can't be surprised by this, since the union has had an experimental "voluntary" program on this for the past year, and since they tried to shove it down our throats with the so-called "bonus pay." I also expect this is one of Bloomberg's demands in the current contract bargaining that the union leadership is most likely to cave on. The UFT bureaucracy has been opening the sluice gates on this for some time, as with the introduction of school-based "merit pay.".

How is linking teacher evaluation to student scores on standardized tests wrong? Let me count the ways:

1) Teachers are already pressured into doing endless "test prep" which is a different animal than teaching. Can you fill in the bubble sheet or can you think? Endless test prep is bad for kids -- stressful, repetitive, and what does it teach?

2) Teachers are not responsible for how kids come into the classroom, their past learning experiences, their personalities, their diverse and amazing lives. We are dedicated, tireless and do our best to teach every student, using multiple methods, reaching every child. However, we must not be scapegoated for how this translates on bubble sheets!

3) For example, English language learners and special needs students may learn at a different rate, taking longer to process the information. That's a good thing; they are learning.

4) Hooking teacher evals to test scores necessarily means the low performing students will be pushed out of schools. Why? You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure it out. Even the most dedicated, tireless teachers will feel pressured to find positions in schools where kids get the highest scores --- it will be an economic reality if their jobs and raises depend on it.

5) Ergo --- the student dropout rate will increase, as it already is doing despite the attempts by the DOE to mask this by taking them off the roles as "transfers." Public education for all will continue to be whittled away; we will go to a system of higher education for the "elite" and McJobs for everybody else.

6) Am I making this up? The National Center for Education and the Economy, a Clinton-era think tank which Mayor Bloomberg says inspired his education program, published a 2006 report (financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) that said that in order to meet the manpower needs of businesses, public education for all should only go up to the 10th grade.

7) This is racist, it is segregationist, and along with the push for charter schools it is "educational colonialism." It is of a piece of the program to close 20 schools in our city to make room for the charters. Jonathan Kozol has written powerfully that our schools today (50 + years after Brown v. Board of Education) are "American Apartheid) are more segregated than ever.

8) Corporatization, privatization, turning the schools into test prep academies; treating education like a business, not a process of teaching and learning. This program is designed to meet the needs of capitalism, not kids.

9) This program is coming from the top; not just Bloomberg/Klein, but Arne Duncan and Barack Obama. Thus, just to stand up for the democratic program of public education for all, integration of schools and "equal opportunity" we need a break from the Democrats and Republicans and a struggle for an independent class struggle workers party. It can't be done "piecemeal."

10) More information on this viewpoint can be read in "Class Struggle Education Workers." I invite you to check it out

--Marjorie


Leonie writes to her listserve

Randi Weingarten announced that linking test scores to teacher evaluation is acceptable to the AFT.

I just learned that she will be on "To the PoInt" today, a nationally syndicated call-in radio show about these proposals. In fact, I was due to be on the show to give the parent perspective on this show, about the Race To the Top grant program coming out of the Obama administration, and just learned I was bumped off by her.

No surprise there. When are any parents listened to at the national level -- or even locally?

The program will be aired live from California, starting 3 PM our time; to hear this live and call in, go to http://www.kcrw.com/schedule and click on listen live.

The show will be aired later tonight on WNYC at 10 PM..

Articles about Randi's announcement are here; (USA Today, Washington Post) and here (Times) . The WaPost article is below.

FYI, the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences have said in their comments on Race to the Top that the research on tying value-added test scores to teacher evaluation is too unreliable to be used at this point, and that:

At present, the best use of VAM techniques is in closely studied pilot projects. Even in pilot projects, VAM estimates of teacher effectiveness should not be used as the sole or primary basis for making operational decisions because the extent to which the measures reflectthe contribution of teachers themselves, rather than other factors, is not understood.

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12780

If you want to know what we think of the Race to the Top, you can check out my posting here or Patrick's (Sullivan) here.

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2009/08/comments-on-race-to-top-proposal.html and

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2009/08/susan-neumans-comments-on-race-to-top.html