Rocking The Rock

These back to back columns appeared in The Wave in April 2005 as a response to the reorganization of Far Rockway HS. It obviously was a failure if they are closing it now. Who was responsible if not the DOE? Why are they allowed to get away with blaming everyone and everything but themselves? They are always talking about "no excuses" [read eduwonkette this week exploding that myth] yet they are the biggest excuse-makers there are.

School Scope Column
by Norman Scott
April 2005

As reported on page one of last week’s Wave, Far Rockaway HS has been put on a fast track to be reorganized by September which could lead to the creation of four mini-schools, including a vocational ed track, and the replacement of up to 50% of the teachers. Teachers who want to stay will have to apply for jobs. You know the story – if it’s a failing school it’s got to be the fault of the teachers. Their resistance to change must be the reason the school is perceived as failing; probably not willing enough to drink the Workshop model Kool-aid.

There is no word as to whether Region 5 Superintendent Kathleen Cashin or anyone else on her staff will in any way be held responsible for anything that went on at the school. (Is Far Rock really in Region 5?) Phyllis Marino, the Local Instructional Supervisor for the school, apparently bears no responsibility. (Exactly what does she do again?) She did get the honor of interrupting the “extremely important” 100-minute staff development time on April 4 to make the announcement. The attitude at the Region is, “Who, me? We are only responsible for schools considered successful— clearly due to our leadership where teachers barely played a role. But in failing schools, aha, we have nothing to do with them. It’s got to be the fault of the teachers, so let’s just get rid of them and things will be just fine.”

Yeah! The A train is just backed up with teachers trying to get into the school. As a Far Rockaway teacher emails, “Many people are looking to leave.... and an exodus only serves (it seems in the near future) to hurt Far Rock. We have trouble getting subs and have often had vacancies open for MONTHS, not weeks, mind you. A Guidance Counselor position (a coveted job most places) was open for 9 MONTHS... but the teachers are the problem, I s'pose...”

Here are some basic questions. Did the Region 5 management and Phyllis Marino, the LIS, know there were problems at the school or did they have to wait for the state report to tell them? If they did not know then maybe 50% of them should be replaced instead of the teachers. If they knew and did nothing, 100% of them should be replaced. After all, what stopped them from coming up with a plan to redesign the school to make improvements before the state report was issued? If they couldn’t do anything up to this point, what makes anyone think they can do it now? Their answer will probably be: we needed the state report to be issued before we could move because without it we couldn’t remove all those pesky teachers without considering seniority. You mean the Region 5 bigwigs couldn’t come up with the idea for four schools in a building with the vocational ed track before the state report was issued? The real question is: Was there any attempt to place more resources into the school to improve it before the state report?

Far Rock was declared an Impact School last year, one of the dirty dozen most violent schools and the place was inundated with police. Chancellor Klein and UFT President Randi Weingarten came to the school to celebrate the event. The school had reached the point of needing police because there just weren’t enough teachers, guidance counselors, social workers, etc. to meet the needs of the school community. When there was crime on the streets, the city threw police at the problem. When there is educational crime in the schools they never seem to think throwing teachers at the problem is a solution. It is interesting that both Klein, the “educational” leader of the schools and Weingarten, the “educational” leader of the teachers union, rarely seem to make this point.

Some people think the whole redesign process is a sham to get rid of seniority and get rid of kids who will be pushed into the few large comprehensive high schools left, as they will be sent riding the subways searching for a high school, joined by their teachers.

Let’s not pretend that Far Rock is a school without problems. As one teacher said when I visited there recently, “Exactly what are we saving?” Some people do think that Far Rock could be saved with an infusion of resources and teacher input instead of imposing a top-down model that will still end up failing in the endless shell game of school shuffling. (See David Herzenhorn’s article in the NY Times on Apr. 18 on how the wonders at Region 5 helped reorganize Thomas Jefferson HS (my alma mata) so that now four schools are failing instead of one.)

I was asked to come to the school by a teacher as a representative of ICE (Independent Community of Educators), a UFT caucus critical of the Unity Caucus/UFT leadership, because teachers are extremely frustrated with the process and the response of the UFT. The following stream of consciousness email to me from the teacher best expresses this frustration:

Where’s Waldo – er – the union at Far Rock?
Apr. 4:

Today our 100 minutes professional development was interrupted for a staff meeting in the auditorium for the Region 5 LIS to tell us the school had officially been put on the reorganization track under a “Fast Track” title...though no one truly knows what this means. As usual the rhetoric was that the Region and everyone really cares for us at Far Rockaway (HS) and now it is the “big, bad state” that has come in to ruin and reorg and mess this whole mess up even worse....

MORE appalling was the union meeting after this brief interruption by two UFTr and UFT Queens borough reps, claiming the DOE doesn’t know anything and blah, blah, blah about our rights and how they are here for us.... a seasoned teacher asked what the union had done for us.... and where they had been and what about the past year and what about now.... needless to say they got a tad bit defensive and had the NERVE to say they had been at our school a b’zillion times.... (last time was the very beginning of last year (Sept/Oct 2003!!!)....I said loudly “I never see you!!”... another colleague said we have felt abandoned.... I reiterated my plea for some help and questioned Randi’s absence (“Where’s Randi? as in “Where’s Waldo”?).... we have been wondering where she has been the past 2 years... not this week... last she was at Far Rock she posed for a photo op and said that she and Joel Klein were working together to make Far Rock a safer place.... the union reps were trying to make us feel as if we owed Randi and them a thank you for contract provision 18-G allowing for some type of rights when a school is reorg’d in the city.....THAT'S THEIR JOB!!!!....

Well.... since I had asked these “reps” or whatever they should be called...about supporting us with press releases, ads in local papers, and some media exposure)... they responded “The Mayor has control of all the papers”... I mean the audacity to insult my intelligence--- as if they can’t get something printed either locally or regionally or nationally...really!!!!!.... Hold a press conference, be proactive...anything!!!

We need parents attention and even a bit of support and they dismissed the parents of Far Rock as ever possibly voicing concern or support over losing such #’s of staff at our school.... however to give up with no attempt is like me saying my kids can’t read, so why bother. The twilight zone continues....

That the anger seems as much directed at the union as at the DOE is a product of the ineffectiveness of the UFT Chapter at Far Rock. I’ll go into the minimal role the UFT plays at the chapter, borough and central level in schools undergoing reorganization in a follow-up column. I’ll also comment on the reaction of UFT reps when the comments above were published in Education Notes, the newsletter I distribute at the UFT Delegate Assembly and online. I offered to tell their side of the story for this article but the only comment was that they came to the school to tell teachers their rights. Ahhh! That’s the point. They come with no sense of fighting back. After teachers are told they must all reapply for their jobs that’s like telling a man on the gallows he has a choice of a slipknot or a square knot. The UFT playing defense, as usual.

More important is the constant harassment the teacher has undergone in the last two weeks after inviting me to the school to talk to a group of teachers about the way the union has been dealing with the issues facing Far Rock. He has been called for disciplinary meetings with principal Denise Hallett at least three times. I’ll report on details of these surreal meetings in my next column titled “Entering the twilight zone.”

Part 2
Entering the twilight zone
The teacher asks me to come to the school to speak to a group of teachers on Monday, April 11 after the faculty conference. He puts out a leaflet that day asking people to stay after the conference. I tell him I do not have any real solutions but would talk about how UFT policy aids and abets a process that blames teachers.

I arrive while the faculty conference is going on. I sign in, go through the metal detector and the security guard directs me to the auditorium. I sit outside at a desk waiting for the conference to end. At least ten people pass by. People barely look at me. The meeting ends and a number of people file out. Again, I am not noticed.

UFT chapter leader Ray Taruskin, who is a member of Unity Caucus and has to tow the official UFT line, is asked to say a few words. I remain outside so as not to interrupt Ray, but finally enter. People are starting to leave. Ray said, “I’ll leave now and let Norm and [the teacher] talk.”

About 25 teachers are left and we talk about how the UFT isn’t proactive and doesn’t really fight any of these reorganization schemes, in essence surreptitiously giving up seniority as it does in the SBO process in so many schools. Basically, the UFT takes the role of “We’re here to tell you your rights.” After teachers are told they must all reapply for their jobs that’s like telling a man on the gallows he has a choice of a slipknot or a square knot.

Two days later, the teacher receives a letter calling him to principal Denise Hallett’s office. He is facing disciplinary action for violating school safety procedures for inviting me into the school and is told to bring a union rep. Hallet claims that I was sent to a certain room and wandered around the school instead. Since the only wandering I did was going from the sign-in desk to the auditorium, this is clearly a trumped up charge. Didn’t practically the entire staff, including possibly Hallett herself, see me sitting there? Did Ray Taruskin violate safety procedures when he asked Rona Freiser and Harilyn Fritz to the school? Do teachers at a school have the basic democratic right to invite a speaker from an official UFT caucus with another point of view than Unity? Apparently not, according to Hallett.

When the teacher goes into Hallett’s office, Ray Taruskin is there at Hallett’s request. he says he does not want Taruskin to represent him and wants either me or ICE HS Executive Board member Jeff Kaufman, chapter leader at the school at Rikers Island, who is also a labor lawyer, to represent him. Hallett refuses, saying he only has the right to a rep from the school.

Hallett tries to pin my imaginary wandering in the building on his shoulders. Teacher defends himself, rigorously, but talking to a wall can be exasperating. Teacher takes the letter and writes on it with a magic marker “THIS IS AN ATTEMPT TO INTIMIDATE. IT WILL NOT WORK” and posts it over the time clock. It is removed. He reposts it. He gets another letter ordering him to meet in Hallett’s office on Monday April 18 for possible disciplinary action. He has violated school rules by posting something over the time clock without Hallett’s permission. Have all the notices for births, engagements and upcoming Happy Hours been passed through her hands before posting? No wonder she hasn’t had time to come up with a plan to improve the school.

This meeting consists of Hallett, Taruskin and a special guest. Phylllis Marino, the LIS, has taken time out of her busy schedule to attend a meeting over the issue of posting something over the time clock. Shouldn’t she be busy writing a plan to improve the school? But this is obviously more important. Again teacher is denied a union rep of his choice.

He is shown a list of school rules affirming permission is supposed to be asked before posting an item over the time clock. The list also says permission must be received before material is placed in teacher mail boxes, a clear violation of long-standing procedures (Baizerman vs. Board of Education.) Is a visit from the Civil Liberties Union in Hallett’s future?

Marino brands teacher’s posting the letter as acting unprofessional. He requests her to give him a definition of professional. She can’t seem to come up with an answer other than to say that children come into the room where the time clock is located. Michael points to the list of rules that say, “No children are allowed in that room.” Marino goes “humph – they are monitors.” Teacher facetiously says, “A rule it a rule.”

At this point we should digress to point out that back in October Teacher was parking his car and slightly tapped the luxury car parked behind him. As he got out there was a woman he did not know sitting in the car. She called to him and chewed him out for tapping her car. “I am the Local Superintendent and am going to tell the principal on you,” she said. Thus Teacher’s introduction to her LISNESS, Phyllis Marino.

Two hours after the meeting there is another letter in Teacher’s mailbox calling him for another meeting with Hallett regarding a charge he spoke abusively to a child. We will report on that meeting in the future.

Teacher should be commended for standing up for his rights, rare in a young, third year, untenured teacher. As one teacher told me, “He’s a nice boy; he really cares.” But Teacher is clearly being set up for a U-rating. Does anyone in Far Rockaway High School think this teacher is an unsatisfactory teacher? No. Teacher is a royal pain in the ass to the administration and will be drummed out of the school and possibly teaching for inviting a guest speaker from ICE to a union meeting, tapping the car of a LIS, putting a note over the time clock, complaining about how he was treated as the wrestling coach (as reported in The Wave last fall) and other “political” charges that have nothing to do with his performance as a teacher.

The fact that he is charged with verbal abuse just two hours after the April 11 meeting is a joke and I will bet that every single teacher in the history of the NYC school system has done no different. These charges are used every day to harass teachers who do not meet the approval of their supervisors. Teacher is the poster boy for why teachers need tenure and the protection of a strong union contract. If Teacher had bowed and scraped, pleaded for mercy and shown humility the charges would disappear. For those looking to interview at Far Rock, these are the kinds of ideal teachers Marino, Cashin, Hallett and the DOE are looking for. Maybe applicants should enter crawling in on their knees. This Teacher has chosen a different course.

PostScript, Dec. 2007
Teacher was u-rated and forced from the NYC school system. He moved abroad but returned for his U-rating joke of a hearing before going back. He called me from Israel a while back to say hello and reaffirm his feelings that the UFT was a bigger joke than the DOE.

Leonie on grades and closing schools

NOTE: Before you read Leonie's piece she sent in an email to her listserve, check the updated post from earlier in the day on the closing of EBC/ENY HS for Public Safety and Law.

Leonie writes:
* Some important events are happening next week, including on Monday, December 5, starting at 9:30 AM, City Council hearings on the new school grades.

Please come if you can; in any event, please sign our petition, calling for a halt to the new school grades and for redirecting the effort, time and resources they’re putting into more testing of our kids, and more grading of our schools, into reducing class size and building more schools instead. And leave comments on the petition – I will incorporate some of the best ones in my testimony. http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/schoolgradenoclasssizeyes

* Also on Tuesday evening, there will be a forum on the new school grades and high stakes testing, hosted by Central Park East I and II. I will be among the speakers, as well as Debbie Meier and others. If you’ve never heard Debbie, or even if you have, you really should come!

Where: 106 St., between Park and Madison, (take the #6 to 103rd or 110th St.)

When: Tues. Dec. 11 from 6-8 PM.

· The issue of the school grades has become even more urgent, since Tweed announced yesterday that six schools will be closed, based primarily on their “D” or “F” grades. The list of schools to be closed is here. Here is what it says on the DOE website about the “consequences” of getting a low grade:

Schools that receive an overall grade of D or F will be subject to school improvement measures and target setting and, if no progress is made over time, possible leadership change (subject to contractual obligations), restructuring, or closure. The same is true for schools receiving a C for three years in a row. Decisions about the consequences a school will face will be based on:

* Whether the school’s Progress Report grade is an F, D, or C (for several years running);
* The school’s Quality Review score of Well Developed, Proficient, or Undeveloped; and,
* Whether the school’s Progress Report grade or Quality Review score has improved or declined recently.

Over time, school organizations receiving an overall grade of F are likely to be closed.

Doesn’t seem like they waited this long. Meanwhile, there were 50 schools that earned F’s, and 100 that received D’s. So how were these particular six schools chosen?

According to Garth Harries from DOE who spoke to the NY Times, “We certainly started asking the question of all D and F schools in the system, but other layers of information quickly were brought to bear.” Like what? He doesn’t say.

This is just the beginning --14 and 20 schools are expected to close this year. As the NY Sun points out, closing twenty schools is not unusual for NYC, but usually the ones slated to closure have been on the state or federal failing list for several years.

While there are over 300 NYC schools on the state or federal SURR or SINI (failing) schools, several of the schools that were just announced are not among them, but instead, are schools in good standing -- even if they received Ds or Fs from DOE, including PS 79 in D10, PS 101 in D4, and the Academy of Environmental Sciences. PS 79 and PS 101 also received “Proficient” on their quality reviews

Why should one trust the state or federal failing list more than the grades given out by DOE this fall? Because most of the schools on these lists have demonstrated low levels of achievement for many years, whereas the DOE grades were based primarily on one year’s rise or fall in test scores, which in turn, was compared to the gains made by “peer” schools, many of which had more selective admission policies and/or very different populations. This means the grades are statistically unreliable and in some cases, laughable.

While the example of several excellent schools have been highlighted that got Ds or Fs, including Center School in D3, IS 89 in D2, PS 35 in Staten Island, and Muscota in D6, there were also many terrible schools that got high grades.

In fact, 55% of SURR or SINI schools got As or Bs, whereas only 14% got Ds or Fs – not much different from the overall distribution of these grades as a whole.

The News article does the best job in showing how seemingly arbitrary these judgments are: “ At Public School 79 in the Bronx, about 50% of students scored proficient or higher on state math and English exams. And EBC/East New York High School for Public Safety and Law outperforms about a quarter of city high schools in graduation rate, with 48.2% graduating in four years.”

According to the News, while the middle and high schools will be phased out slowly, “Elementary schools on the list will close next year and reopen under new names and changed administrations.”

I suspect that the elementary schools are being closed so that charter schools can be given their buildings next fall. After all, DOE needs to find homes for new charters quickly since the cap was lifted, and it has become more problematic over time to push them into buildings w/ existing schools.

Certainly, there are always alternatives to closing low-performing schools, and the entire theory of improvement is unclear to me. If there is a problem with leadership, the principals could have been replaced; if there was a problem of persistently poor achievement, they could have reduced class size instead – several of these schools had class sizes in some grades of 30 or more. I imagine that if charter schools are put in their place, these schools will be allowed to cap class size at much lower levels. But it appears that the DOE would apparently rather schools fail, and then close them down, rather than help them improve.

Please sign our petition here, calling a halt to the school grading system and asking that the resources and focus on testing and grading be redirected towards reducing class size and expanding the capital plan. Whether your school got an A, a B, or a D or an F – the system is patently unfair, and any school could be unjustly closed on the basis of one year’s test scores alone.

I keep meaning to offer a deconstruction of the Mayor’s comments on class size last week on his radio show—but this will have to wait for a later email.

Thanks

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011
leonie@att.net
www.classsizematters.org

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/

Please contribute to Class Size Matters by making a tax-deductible donation now!

Closing Schools, Shucking Responsibility

Updated Thurs Dec. 6 12am

When BloomKlein announce they are closing schools, there are shock waves, part of their "shock and awe" strategy in "reforming" the educational system. But when they close a school they are announcing their failure to fix it, while absolving themselves of responsibility. After all, they control the administrators and most of the teachers who are there. So what will change when they close a school? New admins, new teachers and mostly, new kids. Where will the ones denied entry into the new school go? To the next school to be destabilized?

The response of the UFT was tepid, at best. You see, they agree with the closing of schools. ICE tried to make resolutions calling for the UFT to take a stand on the closing of schools, but nada. You never see any sign of protest. All they say is they will protect the interests of teachers. Ha. ATRdom, here you come.

EBC/ENY HS for Public Safety and Law
EBC has had a rocky history and no one would ever accuse it of being a successful school. A few years back the school was placed on the SURR list, changed principals and worked its way off of the list. Last year it actually made AYP in English and math. The Quality Review showed some deficiencies but they were being addressed. The school received a D on the progress report. But just because the state said it was doing better didn't stop Tweed from closing it.

The school serves about 530 inner city minority youth with an improving graduation rate. They recently restarted the school newspaper and entered a Moot Court competition, for the first time in school history, where they were defeated by Madison High School in what the judges called a very close match. The students are excited about entering the Mock Trial Statewide competition and the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. The climate seemed to be changing as the school started to fulfill its mission, as suggested in the Quality Review.

A major factor in the decision to close the school may be that they are operating in leased space. The building is not maintained by the landlord. The roof is in bad shape. There was a major flood over the summer and one of the boilers is not working, leaving many classrooms so cold that the students called 311 to complain about the lack of heat. The lease expires next year.

To allow a school to exist in these conditions and then close it is part of the fabric of distortions of public education policy by Tweed/DOE/BloomKlein.

If you can't fix what's wrong without closing the school, then you have failed. Yet they get kudos for their failure. When will the press start telling the full story and call the DOE into full accountability for its actions?

Late breaking news:
Far Rockaway HS will close, thus putting pressure on the next target, Beach Channel HS.
I wrote a few column in The Wave when an attempt was made to reorganize Far Rock in 2005 which could have meant new leadership and did mean the replacement of most of the staff. It obviously was a failure if they are closing it now. Who was responsible if not the DOE? Why are they allowed to get away with blaming everyone and everything but themselves?
They are always talking about "no excuses" [read eduwonkette this week exploding that myth] yet they are the biggest excuse-makers there are. Again, SHAME ON THE PRESS IF THEY CONTINUE TO IGNORE THIS SHELL GAME GOING ON.

Francis Lewis HS, already severely overcrowded, recently got 50 over the counter registrations from Jamaica HS, itself a target for closing.

Were you invited? Randi Turns 50 today...

...with a cast of a thousand plus maybe a few more.

A present for Randi from the construction workers.
Click on it to enlarge.

The NY Sun's Elizabeth Greene is reporting (here) that

"A clash between two city unions could erupt today as construction laborers threaten to send thousands of protesters to a 50th birthday celebration for the president of the city teachers union, Randi Weingarten.
"Organizers for the construction laborers said their union, the New York City District Council of Carpenters, is furious over an affordable housing complex for teachers that is being built by non-union laborers.
"Representatives of both unions are meeting now in an effort to avert a protest, Ms. Spicer said. But until an agreement is reached, organizers said, thousands of construction laborers are set to converge onto the site of Ms. Weingarten's birthday party, the headquarters of the United Federation of Teachers.
"Ms. Weingarten said the city comptroller and city housing officials had given a solid promise to trustees of the teacher pension fund that the project would be built by union laborers. She said she realized last week she had been the victim of a 'material misrepresentation.
"After failing to convince the city to renegotiate its contract with the developer, Ms. Weingarten said she had no option but to ask the pension fund to sell the bonds that are paying for the construction. The arrangement would not kill the project, but would take teacher pension money away from it.
"Ms. Spicer criticized Ms. Weingarten for failing to recognize that non-union laborers were building the complex."

Let's see now. The city comptroller is Bill Thompson has been the UFT's unofficial mayoral candidate - think he was a bad boy and tried to fool the UFT or is it possible Randi and Bill were trying to sneak one by? Anthony Weiner could lay down in front of a non-union construction truck being driven by Thompson and the UFT will find a way to support Thompson.

Greene's article also posted at Norms Notes.

Click here for the Flier by Construction Workers Criticizing the UFT (jpeg)

Ira comments on ICE-mail:

It is interesting that on the UFT website she does not make this claim [that union labor had to be used] and in fact seems to be somewhat backing away from it if you read the wording carefully about the 3 pillars--Here's what she says:

From our perspective, development of this project rests on three pillars:

• The creation of housing that would be affordable to educators.
• From the financing standpoint, the investment has to be fiduciary sound.
• Construction labor costs had to be based on prevailing wage.

The way the project was shaped, the Teachers’ Retirement System would purchase $28.2 million 2007 Series D bonds issued by the New York City Housing Development Corporation bearing a market rate of interest to finance the construction and permanent mortgage loans for two residential buildings in the Melrose section of the Bronx that will contain 234 residential units.

Although we have been enthusiastic cheerleaders for the project, neither the UFT nor the TRS is party to its construction.

On Wednesday, November 28, I learned that one of these pillars was violated: the agreement between HDC and the developer does not guarantee prevailing wage.

Note that nowhere does it state that there was an agreement about using union labor!

LA Teachers Want More Control

This is a very interesting article posted by John Lawhead on ICE-mail and contrasts markedly in the way the LA union approaches things with the UFT approach, which has always been geared to a highly centralized system. There is also a difference between growing the power of a centralized union vs empowering teachers at the school level, something the UFT has done very little.

With governance on the table here, I think there are some very pertinent ideas.
I'll comment with more later with an update, but in the meantime, read this and draw your own conclusions.

From the Los Angeles Times

Teachers draft reform plan
latimes.com

Union's proposal calls for local, grass roots control over schools and gives instructors more breathing room to formulate curricula.

By Howard Blume
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

December 3, 2007

In this education nirvana, teachers would decide what to teach and when. Teachers and parents would hire and fire principals. No supervisors from downtown would tell anyone -- neither teachers nor students -- what to wear.

These are among the ideas a delegation of teachers and their union officers are urging L.A. schools Supt. David L. Brewer to include in the school reform plan he will present to the school board Tuesday.

If Brewer passes on the delegation's proposals, the union can go directly to the seven-member Board of Education. Employee unions recently have had success in getting the board to overrule the superintendent on health benefits for some part-time workers and on school staffing.

At stake now is the Los Angeles Unified School District's effort to turn around its 34 most troubled middle and high schools. The data suggests the urgency: As many as three-quarters of the students in these "high priority schools" scored well below grade level across multiple subjects on last year's California Standards Tests.

Whatever remedy emerges is likely to become a blueprint for widespread reform efforts. Brewer and his team are working on their 11th draft; the drafts have evolved significantly since September because of resistance inside and outside the school system.

At a meeting Friday between the district and the delegation from the United Teachers Los Angeles, union leaders were pointedly clear about what they want -- local, grass roots control over schools.

"This is what we think makes for a good education," said Joel Jordan, the union's director of special projects, who took part in the meeting. "We don't want to continue what hasn't worked and has demoralized teachers and students."

Rhetorically, Brewer has endorsed local control, but elements of his proposal cut both ways.

The separate plans of the union and the superintendent, as well as a "Schoolhouse" framework offered in January by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, all cobble together widely accepted strategies, such as smaller classes and schools, and better teacher training.

But union leaders said they felt compelled to take on some elements in Brewer's plan. One sticking point is Brewer's intention to use, in upper grades, an approach to instruction similar to the one used for teaching reading to 6-year-olds: emphasizing a unified, paced curriculum that includes periodic tests to make sure students are learning. The goal is to give all students exposure to rigorous academics.

With that approach, under previous Supt. Roy Romer, elementary test scores soared in most schools. But across the district, many English learners and African American students still struggled.

From Brewer's perspective, the problem at middle and high schools is that curriculum directives haven't been consistently followed. To the teacher delegation, the directives themselves are the problem.

"Narrowing the curriculum, top-down management, teaching to the test, expanding pacing plans and periodic assessments -- we think that has been a detriment to education," Jordan said. "The idea of uniformity when trying to meet the needs of individual students is a contradiction."

The union acknowledges that instructors must teach the skills and facts the state requires. But they believe a school's staff and individual teachers should decide how to accomplish that.

The district's view is that its curriculum guides specify "what is to be taught versus how it is to be taught," leaving ample room for teacher creativity, said Michelle King, interim chief instructional officer for secondary schools.

The union's ethos of local control extends to hiring and firing principals, which the union wants handled by a school site council made up of parents, teachers and older students.

Brewer's plan doesn't speak to hiring principals, which is currently the purview of the regional senior administrator.

As for dress codes, the union's six-page treatise states: "There is no research that indicates that teacher attire has any effect on student learning or respect for adults," and "uniforms for students should not be required but decided upon by the school's governing bodies with input from each constituency."

Participants from both sides said they expect no brutal fight over dress codes, but key differences remain over who controls what happens at schools.

Brewer has had difficulty developing a plan with broad support. This fall, he backed away entirely from placing the lowest-performing schools into a separate, mini-school system. That plan was opposed by the union and also encountered resistance from top administrators and from schools principals, who felt their campuses were being labeled "failed" schools.

The superintendent's reform effort was treated dismissively last week by Villaraigosa, who was addressing a faculty gathering at Roosevelt High School on the Eastside. Villaraigosa was urging staff to vote to enter his reform "partnership," which, he said, would be under his stewardship but led by teachers and parents. The lesser alternative, he said, was Brewer's plan.

"In the high-priority program, you're not going to have a say," he told the teachers. "It will be status quo."

Brewer, for his part, has embraced the mayor's partnership as an element in a package of reforms.

Sitting near the mayor at Roosevelt was school board president Monica Garcia, a Villaraigosa ally who, with the other board members, will have ultimate say over Brewer's approach.

In an interview, Garcia suggested that the mayor's statement was not intended to be derogatory: "If by status quo, he means that the provider of the reform is the district, that description is fair."

Garcia said she needed to see more details on how Brewer would find and use money for his reforms. She also said that no single reform style would fit every school.

Local control takes vastly different forms in different places, said UCLA professor Bill Ouchi, a school-reform researcher and management expert who has examined the issue for decades. Ouchi favors the system being tried in New York City, which gives principals near total say over their budgets. These principals sign a five-year performance agreement, on which they must deliver to keep their jobs.

"In none of these schools is there a required school site council," Ouchi said. "A principal might establish an advisory council but it has no governance or negotiating powers." And, he added, there's good reason why: "There's no practical way to hold parents or community members accountable. And there is no way outside of the teachers contract to hold teachers accountable."

Yet Ouchi doesn't fault teachers for wanting control: "They've observed for 30 years the failure of the management of the LAUSD. You can understand why the teachers say, 'Those people have amply demonstrated that they are incapable of running a school, so let us run it.' "

howard.blume@latimes.com

Important Chapter Leader Election

Marjorie Stamberg is running for Chapter leader against a Unity Clone/hack Michael Friedman who has supported every act of the union leadership and has engaged in personal attacks on Marjorie. I think he is the same guy who opposed just about anything I ever proposed at the Delegate Assembly. Unity is desperate to keep Marjorie from representing the interests of the teachers. That should be a good enough reason to get anyone you know in that chapter to support her.

Jeff Kaufman has posted Marjorie's full statement on the ICE blog, which I urge you to read.

Here are a few excerpts:

Underlying the current election for chapter officers in GED-Plus are some important issues of broader significance. A crisis was opened by the “reorganization” of District 79, announced last May, in which more than 300 teaching positions were eliminated. The fact that hundreds of teachers were then thrown into Absent Teacher Reserve, instead of having the right to transfer to other positions, is a direct result of the union leadership’s giving up of seniority transfers in the 2005 contract.

"Mr. Friedman has waged a vindictive personal attack on me, releasing a stream of frantic e-mails in which he accuses me of being “ignorant,” “angry,” “negative”, a “demagogue,” someone who “rants” and “raves.” (Where have we heard that before?) He wrote: “Her platform is anger and negativism…” “Do we want to be represented by someone so negative and angry…” “a one note, negative campaign; a call to just say no.” “Ms. Stamberg, like so many demagogues who want to rant…” “angry people who rant and rave…” Ask yourselves, who is ranting and raving here?"

Israeli Teacher Strike

It's not easy to find much info on the almost 2 month long Israeli teachers strike of secondary school teachers. Last week, I posted some stuff from the Jerusalem Post on Norm's Notes, where, remarkably, a 100,000 people rallied to their support in Tel Aviv. The strike has fomented lots of discussion about education reform that echoes some of the stuff over here.

Photo from Jerusalem Post website

Some teachers say they will not go back even if ordered to by an injunction. They should look at the 2005 contract our UFT leaders arranged with the NYCDOE as a model NOT to follow.

I emailed a teacher who moved to Israel after being railroaded out of Far Rockaway HS. (One of the charges was his asking me to come to speak to a union meeting after school and he wrote a scathing indictment of the UFT hierarchy, focusing on then Queens district HS and now Queens borough rep Rona Freiser, but that's a story for another day.) Hopefully we can get some first hand info back from him.

George Schmidt is working on an article for Substance and sent the following request:

Looking for JPG photos from Israeli teachers' strike, Tel Aviv rally
We are trying to do a decent story on the high school teachers strike in Israel either for December (currently on deadline) or January (shamefully, but that's the best we might be able to do). The last time we had a major strike that had been virtually blacked out in the US media was Vancouver, which we covered in November 2005 (still available in back issues on our old website, www.substancenews.com). I assume there are thousands of teachers here in Chicago, in New York, and elsewhere, who have friends who've been on strike in Israel and who have access to photographs and other stories about that strike.

George Schmidt
Csubstance@aol.com

LeoGate

The gang over at NYC Educator have been doing a bang-up job of exposing Leo Casey's ruminations and paranoia - it will destroya, Leo! They're calling it LeoGate. Mike Antonucci's Educational Intelligence Agency has been part of the mix. (When Mike cited some of my stuff once, Leo attacked ME for being cited by EIA, which is definitively anti-teacher union. But when you look at the outcomes of the policies Leo's Unity Caucus have supported, their actions have been much more harmful to teachers than Mike's.)

I'll say no more but it has something to do with Leo getting dissed by a mouse. I'll let you read the delicious details at NYC Educator.

Woodlass at Under Assault has chipped in with a strong post on censorship at Edwize, the UFT blog where Leo spews forth miles of words justifying every wrong turn of UFT policy. At least I think he does since I don't waste my time over there.

Unity Caucus Bait and Switch
It is worth mentioning the Unity "bait and switch" policy when it came to electing Casey the high school vice-president.

With it being clear that former high school VP Frank Volpicella was going to retire in the fall and Casey was going to replace him, Unity still ran Frank in the March 2007 election.

Why? So the not as popular Casey could be voted in by a special election of the Executive Board upon Volpicella's election in October, where Unity and their New Action cohorts control all 89 seats. (New Action ran a token candidate against him for show.)

Now don't get me wrong. Casey would have won anyway since Unity doesn't allow the high school teachers to elect their own VP. The entire membership including retirees, nurses, elementary school teachers (and soon to be voting home care workers) have the honor of voting for all the divisional VPs.

High school teachers used to be able to vote for their own VP - until the opposition won in 1985. Unity went to court to protest that there were irregularities - in an election they themselves had run. There was another election and they lost - again.

They bided their time until 1994 when there was no opposition at all on the Executive Board and they changed the rules to assure there would never again be a victory by the opposition at the VP level by having the entire union vote (at-large voting.)

But Unity continued to lose the vote in the high schools and that allowed the opposition to win the 6 high school Ex. Bd seats, a drop in the bucket when compared to the 83 Unity seats. Then they got real cute in the 2004 elections, making a deal with New Action to hand them the 6 seats (they had been behaving real nice) for them not running against Weingarten for president (she was afraid she might not get 90% of the vote.) To both New Action's and Unity's surprise, TJC and the new kids on the block, ICE, won the seats - if Unity HAD run they would have won.

In the 2007 elections they learned their lesson and ran a cross endorsement strategy. ICE/TJC 36%, Unity got 52%, and New Action 12%, thus leaving no opposition on the Ex Bd. The raw totals were so low that even a few hundred more votes for ICE could have turned the election. Check these results at the high schools:

Unity: 2,183 votes - 51.6%
New Action: 521 votes - 12.3%
ICE/TJC: 1,524 votes - 36%

New Action and Unity shared the 6 seats. ICE/TJC got none.

Democracy, UFT style.

There were 19,799 ballots mailed to high school teachers and 4,568 returned, 23.1%. Just shows you how relevant the union is to rank and file teachers. When people tell me democracy in the UFT is a crucial issue, I say – Yes, to us activists. To the rank and file it means beans - until they face the Unity machine head on at some point.

Back to Leo. If Unity had run Casey their percentage would have been lower. How much lower? Hard to tell - a swing of 300 votes would have given the seats to ICE/TJC. Or maybe more teachers seeing Casey on the ballot would have decided to vote for the ICE/TJC slate. It is still unlikely ICE/TJC would have won the 6 Ex bd seats if Casey headed the Unity HS ticket but the election would have been closer. But Unity wasn't taking any chances.

We expect there will be a hell of a lot more Leo Gates to come.

Eli's Bold New Play - from Ohanian

(No, not the Giant QB)
REVISED: Note comment #2

Eli Broad is an ally of Joel Klein and Michael Bloomberg - the Broad Foundation gave them the Boobie - er - Broad Prize.
Eli Broad is also an ally of the UFT and Randi Weingarten - he gave their charter school $1 million.
Eli Broad and his brood have spent money attacking teacher unions - see San Diego conflicts where his surrogates Anthony Alvarado (yes, that Alvarado) and Alan Bersin attacked teacher unions.
Eli Broad spends lots of money on school reform related to high stakes tests - hmmm, hasn't the UFT task force been critical of high stakes tests - maybe on another planet.
Eli Broad is a pro-business, anti-union education "reformer."

Lots of people have been saying the standards and accountability education reform movement is all about making every school seem a failure so they can be privatized.

From Susan Ohanian's Daily Digest comes this satirical piece by Tauna Rogers
Press Release
2007-12-01

Billionaire philanthropist, entrepreneur, and public education expert Eli Broad has teamed up with the International Star Registry to promote a provocative plan of action to raise individual student achievement (as measured by standardized test scores) and overall achievement in Title I schools across the nation.

"Asked about public schools which fail to meet the much prized 2014 standard, Broad said they should probably lower their flags to half-mast and be taken over by private companies."

Read it in full:
http://susanohanian.org/show_nclb_news.html?id=696

Waxing Poetic About FIRST

Yesterday we had our weekly FLL planning committee meeting/conference call at one of the Credit Suisse conference rooms. With the NYC robotics tournament season beginning - check norms robotics blog for full details - things are getting busy.

Who was involved? Students from Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech, NYC public and private school teachers from elementary to high school, parents, teachers and administrators at the University level, students from Columbia U and Polytechnic U, corporate level engineers from Credit Suisse and SIAC, and a few retired NYC teachers.

I was amazed at the total level of egalitarianism. The kids, as young as 15, were equal partners and their level of commitment and responsibility is the most impressive thing about it all. We have all worked together since June to make these events meaningful for thousands of students, their teachers and parents throughout the NYC area. Most teams are from schools, but we also have community organizations, a NYC Parks Dept team and a home-schooled team.

The first official event will be this Sunday, Dec. 2, at PACE U downtown Manhattan campus where kids from 6-14 will be taking part. This event comes out of the unique partnerships forged through FIRST. The senior FIRST Robotics Team from Stuyvesant have with the support of the parents and alumni have teamed with people at PACE U to coordinate the activities.

Next week, Sat Dec. 8, there will be events at Lehman HS in the Bronx and at Brooklyn Tech.
The week after, Sat. Dec 15, we will hold the Queens tournament at Aviation HS and the Staten Island tournament at Staten Island Tech.

Over 80 teams from the 160 entered will go on to the citywide at Riverbank State Park on Jan. 26.

Check it out.

UFT and NYCDOE Announce Agreement on Class size

EdNotesOnline News (EDNON) is reporting that the UFT and the Department of Education have come to an historic agreement on class size "that will be equitable for all, while at the same time putting some well-deserved money into the pockets of teachers," said a UFT spokesperson. "After trying the class size reduction petition gimmick (twice), lots of public relations and all other methods other than trying to negotiate lower class sizes in the contract, something we are philosophically opposed to doing, we have decided to at least use the current spirit of collaboration with Joel Klein and Mayor Bloomberg to make some money.

While not reducing class size across the board, there will be some reductions in certain areas.

Teachers will be allowed to voluntarily accept up to 10 extra children above the UFT contract in each of their classes as long as the number does not climb above 60. For each of those extra children, the teacher will be paid a dollar bonus a day as long as they show up at school.

An average class under the new agreement.

"This will give teachers an incentive to get the kids to come school," said a spokesperson for Tweed. "Those dollars can add up."

Rumors that an alternative plan has been floated to use the gross weight of all the children in the class to calculate bonuses have not been confirmed.

What of teachers who choose not to participate in the program?

"They are losers," said the DOE spokesperson. "They are scum. Clearly people who are not competent to teach. We feel the ability to teach a class of 60 effortlessly is a sign of minimum competency for any of our teachers and the message will go out hard and fast: be ready for a visit from our new multi-million dollar attorneys."

The UFT will hold a candlelight vigil to celebrate the new agreement.

Klein & Weingarten Announce.....

"Thank a retired teacher, an ATR or a Rubber Room Denizen campaign."

updated Thurs, 7:30 am

The much heralded "Thank a Teacher Campaign" announced today in a joint statement by Joel Klein and Randi Weingarten had a secret component, rooted out by the crack investigative reporters at Ed Notes Online (seen in the picture above on Monday night outside Tweed.)

A member from each Rubber Room will be chosen by lottery to be given a chair to sit on as a thank-you for being there for the DOE to be able to use scapegoated teachers to deflect criticism of BloomKlein's policies. Randi Weingarten went along, saying "I wasn't happy with this part of the plan since a hundred people still have to stand all day, but at least one person gets to sit. It is a start and we're hoping this collaboration will lead to another chair in each rubber room by next year."

Both Klein and Weingarten aides will write anonymous letters thanking a retiree for leaving their higher salaried job for a newcomer so the the DOE can hire 2 for the price of one.

ATR's who swear a blood oath to leave the system immediately will be nominated for a raffle to receive a free cell phone programmed with one number on it - the DOE sub hiring office. "Why pay them full salaries when we can get them as subs for no more than $150 a day," said a spokesman in the Tweed PR department? "But will teachers work for such a small amount when they could just stay on for over double that salary," an Ed Notes reporter asked? "Ve, er - we have our methods," she said. "Besides, we know incentives work."

The agreement was hammered out as Weingarten and Klein held a secret meeting in the dark recesses outside the Tweed Courthouse under a rain-soaked umbrella in the short time between the end of Monday's UFT candlelight vigil and the beginning of Klein's PEP meeting.


Joel Klein and Randi Weingarten working out the secret agreement on Monday


Chancellor Klein said. “I’ve said many times that I owe a great deal to my physics teacher at Bryant High School in Queens, who encouraged me not to set any limits when I thought about my future." The young Klein, was told, "Don't be crazy and become a teacher. Don't you know we make shit and have lousy working conditions? You don't want to have to do idiotic bulletin boards. " Instead he urged Klein to skip the drudge stuff of teaching and aim straight for Chancellor of the schools. "Remember, Sonny. NEVER BE TEMPTED TO TEACH, NO MATTER WHAT."

Weingarten, when asked to name her favorite teachers, did her usual straddling the fence wide stance and said all her teachers inspired her to aim high and do the minimal amount of teaching necessary to become head of the largest local in the world. "6 months full time ought to be enough," said Ms. Dumbledee, her 1st grade teacher. "But always make sure to tell people it was 6 years. If you say it often enough, it becomes true. NEVER FORGET: GOOD PR IS WORTH MORE THAN KNOWLEDGE."

Note: The actual DOE press release is at Norms Notes.

Running PEP Meetings Using the Workshop Model

After watching some mind-numbing presentations by Joel Klein's staff at the November Panel for Educational Policy meeting, I suggest an alternative way of running the meetings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0wrouvzgVo

UFT Candlelight Vigil Snuffed While PEP Meets

Update2: Fri. Nov. 30, 10 am
Norm's School Scope column appears biweekly in The Wave
www.rockawave.com
This is a rewrite of what I wrote after little sleep, hopefully making it more literate.

Upadated Weds, Nov. 28
This is mostly a new post that includes the column I just submitted to The Wave for this Friday's publication, which goes into more of the history of the PEP and a rewrite some of the UFT stuff. I'll add a video link later to my statement about using the Workshop model for PEP meetings. Hear Klein cut me off on the 2 minute button. I also have video of how Betsy Combier pushed Klein's buttons and got an angry response.

The Panel SAYS

The Panel for Educational Policy replaced the old Board of Education when the state legislature gave the Mayor control over the schools in 2002, which will sunset in 2009 – thankfully. Now we all know about the disfunctionality of the old BoE. But the PEP is non-functional, being only an advisory body with Klein himself being a member and 7 members appointed by the Mayor, serving at his pleasure.

We found out what “his pleasure” meant at the famous Monday Night Massacre, chronicled in our March 26, 2004 column (“Beware The Ides Of March – You’re Fired”) where Bloomberg, that Julius Caesar pretender, fired 3 members of the PEP for opposing BloomKlein’s 3rd grade retention policy on March 15. Not that we are wishing the same fate for the Mayor that Julie suffered, though the thought probably has passed through the minds of more than one classroom teacher as they spent useless hours working solely for the purpose of “let’s show outside visitors how we follow Tweed dictums” on their word walls, flow of the day, bulletin boards, et al, often into the late afternoon, long after the kids have gone home.

I often go to monthly PEP meetings as penance for my sins. These events are required by law (not my penance) as a minimal attempt to keep the public informed, which Bloomberg and his hand-picked “I know about education because I once went to school” Chancellor, Joel Klein, do their utmost to keep minimally informed. The members of the panel are basically somnambulant and the meetings are often deathly, other than the 2 minutes allotted to members of the public who get the chance to “lay one on.” I use this time to avail myself of the opportunity to educate the Panel and Klein as to what constitutes a quality teacher. Doing this, 2 minutes at a time, I figure I’ll be in the nursing home before I finish. But there’s always Access-a-Ride.

Let’s not accuse our state legislators, members of one of the most corrupt political bodies in the nation, if not the world, from doing the wrong thing in handing over the largest school system in the nation with no oversight, to the whims of one man. They did provide that each borough president could appoint one PEP member, five people that would still be a minority on the Panel. The mayor could appoint anyone, his entire family or his dog, while the borough people must have children in the public schools. I think the dog must also have puppies.

Even if these five were appointed to represent the interests of parents, the relationship of the borough president to Bloomberg must be factored in. The Staten Island borough president fired his rep when she said she was going to vote against Bloomberg at the Monday Night Massacre. Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz supported his appointee Martine Guerrier when she voted NO. As he cemented his relationship to Bloomberg, her criticisms of Klein began to wane. She was eventually appointed by Klein to the 150K a year job as Chief Parent Muck-a-Muck in February 2007, and she had to leave the PEP, which is considered so inconsequential, Markowitz didn’t even bother to appoint a replacement until recently.

This summer, Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer appointed Patrick Sullivan to the PEP. Sullivan has been active with Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters in putting issues of true educational import on the table, so his appointment was a pleasant surprise and a tribute to Stringer’s agenda of putting his constituents ahead of Bloomberg.

Sullivan, who comes from the corporate world, which gives him a credibility educators don’t receive in this business-oriented educational environment, has galvanized the PEP meetings as he questions Klein and his minions in depth on their policies. I’ve videotaped some of these encounters and you can view them on my blog where there are also videos of teachers and parents doing their 2 minutes, including my own.

I remember meeting Queens borough president Helen Marshall at the Monday Night Massacre. She expressed dismay at the firings. So one would have hoped the Queens PEP reps since then would express even a modicum of independence and oversight. Not much, so far.

But Michael Flowers, who had shown some promise, has resigned as Queens PEP rep. The last time I saw him he voted with Sullivan against Klein on the DOE’s military recruitment policies. Did the long arm of BloomKlein reach out to Marshall and snuff Flowers? I hope not.

Marshall has the opportunity to make an appointment that will result in the same kind of kudos Scott Stringer has received and at the same time provide an accomplice to Sullivan in challenging Klein. There are Queens parents who are very knowledgeable about the schools and hopefully Marshall will do the right thing by putting someone on the panel who will stand up for the parents, who have been so marginalized (or bought off) by Bloomberg. There are some top-notch candidates emerging, so…

Go Helen!


UFT Candlelight Vigil Snuffed

School Scope wrote about David Pakter back in June 2006 (All Psyched Up With No Place To Go). He has been in and out of the rubber room for things like buying a plant for his school or making a videotape of a music class in is school building. Recently, he proposed taking an idea that was brewing among rubber room people and ATR's (mostly senior teachers forced to become subs from schools that have closed or from positions that have been cut) to use the steps of Tweed as a rallying point on a regular basis on the evenings of PEP meetings before going in and speaking (which people have been doing sporadically over the past few years) and turning it into a larger "Thousand Points of Light" event. At one point, David said, "I will be there with my candle even if I am the only one."

If it had happened that way, the one-man rally would have had more impact than what took place at the UFT rally on Monday night, November 26.

David asked Randi Weingarten to jump on board, but soon after sent out an email that the UFT would not support such a rally. This was in early November. So, what happened to make Weingarten change her mind a few weeks later (Nov. 16 to be exact) and jump on board? The utter outrage coming out of the schools after Joel Klein announced a witch-hunt to go after teachers as an excuse to shift the blame from his own failures. There was a need to put on some kind of show for the members.

The rally was filled with the usual suspects – Randi’s Unity Caucus/union employees, members of the opposition and some rank and file teachers who came out. Plus some rubber room people. Very similar to the idiotic John Stoessel protest at ABC a few years ago. Maybe a thousand people in all. With no press coverage at all. Basically, a ZERO. The Weingarten act is wearing very thin.

All this was predictable, as the UFT did not want too big a protest, intending to use this as a photo op/PR move to make the members feel something is being done. And to deflect what would have had an anti-UFT tinge from people who have felt the UFT has left them in this position in the first place.

Deflection and Dilution – Deflection of militancy and Dilution of the UFT critics in a sea of Unity Caucus.

The idea of holding an event at Tweed on this particular day (which has been a consistent theme of some of us over the years) was the opportunity to make a statement at the PEP meeting at 6pm where BloomKlein's rubber stamps – other than Patrick Sullivan – endorse anything Klein puts forth. Thus, I was more interested in the PEP meeting than the rally.

Why bother? Because the BloomKlein machine has made it look like they are doing wonderful things and the national press have jumped on the bandwagon. When parents and teachers get up publicly to expose the sham, it is one way to fight back. Certainly with the UFT not fighting back, there is a need to make a stand.

On Monday, Patrick Sullivan raised questions on the school report cards and the NAEP test results that were turned from straw into gold by Tweed spinners. Leonie Haimson was there and spoke about how the DOE has violated state law in refusing to post a viable class size reduction plan.

It is noteworthy that with a rally outside, the UFT totally ignored the fact that there was a meeting taking place and had no presence at all. If Weingarten was so upset at the witch-hunt for teachers, why not inundate the PEP meeting with people speaking against it publicly? It was left to teachers from TAG, Teachers Advocacy Group – which sprang up this summer to counter the lack of UFT protection – to play take that role. And don’t think that hasn’t has an impact on activating the UFT – to some extent.

At the meeting, after watching mind-numbing presentations from Klein’s Chief Accountability Officer James Liebman and Marcia Lyles - who read us 12 pages of a PowerPoint presentation - this from the chief teaching and learning person at the DOE, who replaced Andres Alonso who was even more mind numbing – (these people were teachers?) – I got my 2 minutes.

I suggested they use the Workshop model for PEP meetings, where each presenter gets 7 minutes; the audience breaks into groups and does "turn and talk.” A test should be given at the end of the meeting. If the audience didn't learn the material, the presenter gets fired. Or sent to an internal rubber room for Tweedles – maybe to serve as an aid at the Ross Charter School in the basement.

Even Klein smiled at that one. No one knows better than he the absurdity of it all.


To get a much better analysis than I can give, check out Reality-Based Educator's post at the NYC Educator blog and make sure to check the comments where our theme of "the UFT as collaborator with BloomKlein" is being echoed.

But I did get a UFT poncho and a light stick out of it before I went into Tweed for the meeting to keep my video camera from getting wet, though I did get some sound bites from some of the non-Unity people. (I'll post the video later this week.) And I met NY Sun reporter Elizabeth Green for the first time. It's nice to know someone who could pass for a high school student can have such an impact.

One of the ralliers who also attended the meeting sent this response to the rally:

Norm,

I never, ever, ever will attend a unity coordinated event again. What did Randy prove:

1) That she could jump on other people's ideas and initiatives and would not let herself be upstaged.

2) That she round up a small hoard of people and wax at will. In other words, line up a group of people and get them to make their own small fire as they marched. Not my favorite kind of image, thank you, as I try to train myself never to be lined up and avoid fire, gas and all small chambers where to which any crowds are being led.

3) That she could take signature songs of the civil rights movement in vain. This is especially awful as, by right, we should have much more power and money than the folks in Selma, did. Perhaps a little less money on the sound system and on the glow sticks.

But Unity will never round me up again for one of their Nazi pep rallies.
No way, no how. Not ever.

Videos from Panel for Educational Policy

I finally got to cut up all the parts of the tape I made at the Sept. PEP and post them as individual videos (all less than 10 minutes) on you tube. Here are the direct links.

Speakers from the public get 2 minutes to make their point.

TAGNYC (Teacher Advocacy Group) Speak out to Klein.
3 members do a continuous statement lasting over 6 minutes and they make their point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2LGTWXaPr0

Norm Scott on Teacher Quality at the Sept. PEP
I go over so often to talk about this issue which everyone, especially our union leaders, seems to feel is the key ingredient. Not so - teachers will fit the usual bell curve of quality, just as doctors and lawyers and all other jobs do. Lowering class size will result in an immediate uptick on teacher quality in many cases.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwsO-zoA7o0

Staten Island CEC 31 rep critiques Tweed on SLT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExhZPELoolk

Betsy Combier and Polo Colon have been regulars at the PEP and follow up here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jHY_PPNvx0


Patrick Sullivan is the Manhattan rep on the PEP (one of 5 borough appointees - the rest are appointed by Bloomberg) and can go into questioning in depth.

Patrick Sullivan and Chris Cerf on teacher turnover
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuT0ePlToR8

Patrick Sullivan and James Leibman on parent surveys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11q3uZtePCE

Patrick Sullivan at PEP on Military recruitment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI9CT8bbEtg

Today's Quick Links

Check out Reality Based Educator's fabulous analysis of the BloomKlein era at the NYC Educator blog. They talk about Jack Welch in the comment section and I reminded people to check out my former colleague Mary Hoffman's wonderful piece on the ICE web site on Welch and how her elementary school was impacted by his "Get rid of negative people" philosophy. Most of the experienced teachers who had spent their careers in the school despite it being in a tough neighborhood in Williamsburg have left the school. Even their replacements have started to leave. But, hey, it did get an A. Teacher turnover is a positive thing in the world of BloomKlein.

With the candlelight vigil set for tonight at 5pm at Tweed, rush over to Under Assault where Randi Weingarten is taken to task once again (The Lady Doth Protest, but for real). Why take her to task when it appears the UFT is doing something? There's a story behind this vigil and we'll get it out there in due time, and you may even be reading some things about in in the papers today - see NY Sun where I'm quoted briefly in a story that tells only part of the story.
The Sun story says:
Whitney Tilson, the co-founder of an education advocacy group, Democrats for Education Reform, characterized the vigil as an attempt by Ms. Weingarten to pacify her members, not a serious challenge. "Let them have their vigil, and then sanity will return," he said.

The gist of Weingarten's strategy: something is brewing, get a hold of it before it gets out of control, use it for your own PR, then go away till next time.

Some people will be there today calling for this vigil not to be the end all but an opening salvo in a concerted response to the BloomKlein teacher bashing.

Also, check out James Eterno's post on the ICE blog on the increase in U ratings - as if they were going after incompetent teachers and not "negative" people.

I may be there with my camera to share some of the vigil festivities and the action at the PEP meeting afterwards. I'll bring an extra candle.

Since David Pakter played so much of a part in the events of tomorrow you should read the fabulous speech (FLICKERING FLAMES - BURNING WORDS) he prepared that I posted on Norms Notes. I hope he gets to deliver it, if not at the rally, then 2 minutes of it at the open public speaking time at the PEP meeting.

John-Claude Brizard in line to become Rochester Superintendent

We need your help if you have experience with Brizard - the good, the bad and the ugly.

A friend in the Rochester area sent this email today:

The shit has hit the fan in Rochester. The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle quoted John Lawhead. He basically pegs Brizard as a Klein flunkie. What is the real story on Brizard? He gets appointed on Thursday and then there is no turning back. http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071124/NEWS01/711240343/1002/NEWS


Brizard is a long-time DOE official (and he's only 44), being shuffled around under BloomKlein. His was a principal, I think head of high schools, the Region 6 (Brooklyn) Superintendent - Tilden, South Shore closing and the removal of Canarsie principal David Harris at the very end of the school year a day or so before Region 6 closed down - but maybe that wasn't his decision. John Lawhead claims the closing of Tilden was not really his decision, which Brizard disputes.

Education Notes has had posts on these events, most notably by Tilden's John Lawhead who put Brizard on the spot when he came to talk about the closing. (Search this bog for related articles if you are interested in reading more.)

Rochester schools are a bit behind the times.


While at last week's ICE meeting, I received a call from a Gary McLendon, a reporter in Rochester asking if I could get him touch with John Lawhead, as he was doing a story on Brizard's possible appointment as the Rochester Superintendent of schools and came across John's story mentioning Brizard in relationship to the closing of Tilden HS on this blog. Magic - I handed the phone to John. McLendon's story (also at Norms Notes) is the result. A lesson to bureaucrats – control your arrogance towards teachers. You never know who may end up blogging. And kudos to John for a rare willingness among teachers to speak his mind publicly.

Good work in not jumping on the bandwagon by McLendon, who writes,
Among [Brizard's] strongest supporters is Tim Quinn, managing director for The Broad Academy, a national superintendent training program. Quinn said Brizard was easily in the top 10 percent of the academy's hundreds of graduates.

Having Broad Academy support gives me confidence – that Brizard will move to turn over as much of the Rochester school system to private hands as possible - ASAP.

Our loser NY State Education Commissioner, Richard Mills, is also a strong Brizard supporter: STRIKE TWO.

Now here comes an interesting part of the story. The current interim acting Rochester superintendent is William Cala, whom John Lawhead and I met in Birmingham in 2003 at the ACT Now high stakes testing conference. The meetings were held at The WOO run by the late Steve Orel and attended by Susan Ohanian, Gloria Pipkin and so many other prominent educators from around the nation in addition to Bill, and his wife Joanne, also an educator. (One more tribute to the amazing Steve Orel and his ability to bring people together. I've written about Steve, but since he died this summer, I've had writer's block when trying to talk about him.)

Bill Cala and I hit it off immediately and I remember laughing a hell of a lot in the midst of some serious discussions on how to fight NCLB, though I had to keep reminding myself that a guy that I could see coming to ICE meetings actually runs an entire school district. We all had fun with the idea of creating a phony election to run someone against Richard Mills and figured John Lawhead would make a much better State Ed Commissioner.

I won't go into the details of Bill Cala's background, but it should be noted he was one of the few - if not THE ONLY - school superintendent to battle Richard Mills over his horrendous testing policies (and his entire stewardship of the NYS ed dept - remember, Mills gave Klein the waiver.) Comparing Bill Cala to Joel Klein would be paralleled by comparing FDR to George Bush.

It was Bill who took me to a meeting where I met both Urban Academy's Ann Cook and Time out for Testing's Jane Hirschman for the first time. Not bad company to hang out with.

Bill retired as the Fairport schools superintendent and was asked to temporarily take over the Rochester job (while continuing to do fabulous work in Kenya where he and his wife Joanne started an organization to help AIDS orphans (www.joiningheartshands.org). (HINT: Donations are accepted.) If Bill hadn't gotten so involved with the Africa project it is hard to imagine him not being offered the Rochester job permanently, though I can't imagine the Broad people (looking to capture the public schools) and other interests (ie., Mills) would be happy.

So I shudder to think of the very idea that someone who worked for Joel Klein would be stepping into Bill Cala's shoes.

I would go back to teaching if Bill Cala ever became chancellor of the NYC schools system. But he is more likely to fix all the problems in Africa before that day comes.

In the meantime, is it possible Brizard is not a Klein Klone? Let us know what you think and we'll funnel the info to Rochester, where your voice can possibly help prevent the BloomKlein/Broad roller coaster from taking over yet another urban school system with Kleinites, as has been done in Washington and Baltimore.