Green Dot Charter and UFT Update

In case you missed it, Yoav Gonen in the NY Post wrote a piece on Green Dot and the UFT. I posted it at Norms Notes.

Some excerpts:

He's a former Democratic fund-raiser who said he founded the organization in 1999 not to advocate charter schools, but to reform public schools.

The United Federation of Teachers, which had long resisted privately operated charter schools, eventually opened two of its own. As its own boss, the union gave the teachers the same seniority rights and tenure they got from the city.

But instructors at Green Dot New York are giving up both in exchange for salaries 10 percent above what the city pays and more say in how to run the school.

They're also working longer hours and may eventually give up overtime pay.

Several national education groups gave UFT President Randi Weingarten high marks.

"The pathway to irrelevance for the unions is to continue to say, 'No,' " said Andrew Rotherham, co-founder of the think tank Education Sector.

"The way to thrive is to start embracing some of these ideas and getting in the game, and that's what she's doing."

But some rank-and-file members say Weingarten sold out.

"I think Randi is taking the path of least resistance," said Arthur Goldstein, a teacher in Francis Lewis HS in Fresh Meadows, Queens. "I don't think her priorities are to help teachers."

Ed Notes and NYC Educator did a bunch of articles on the UFT and Green Dot over the past year. Search the blogs with the "Green Dot" tag if interested in reading more.

Common Sense, Rational Education Reform

REVISED & UPDATED

What lies between the Joel Klein/Al Sharpton Education Equality Project (market based, narrow outcome oriented, punish schools and teachers) and the Bigger Bolder approach (schools can't do it alone without significant investment in support services)?

Does "Common Sense Educational Reforms" led by New York based Class Size Matters' Leonie Haimson and Julie Woestehoff's Chicago-based "Parents United for Responsible Education" (PURE) offer a 3rd way? (See the Common Sense blog.)

(Read Leonie Haimson's post at NYC Public School Parents, which fine tunes the CS position.)

Elizabeth Green of the NY Sun reports:

The parents criticize both groups. They dismiss Mr. Klein's as offering only a beefed-up version of President Bush's unpopular No Child Left Behind law. Mr. Klein's prescriptions are "NCLB on steroids," the parents' letter says.

They also reject charter schools, which are embraced by Mr. Klein and his supporters as a means of giving opportunities to poor children. The Common Sense group says charter schools actually further exacerbate income disparities by admitting only children who can do well at their schools and leaving the rest to flounder.

Admission at charter schools is regulated by strict lotteries in New York, but the parents argue that only the savvy students apply to them, and they say that the schools encourage more troubled students to leave.

The parents' statement also criticizes the Broader, Bolder Agenda's argument that schools alone cannot end the achievement gap.

"We cannot and we should not give up on schools being able to make a really transformational differencee in kids' lives," Ms. Haimson said.

Read Green's full story here. See the letter CSER has written to Obama and McCain here (after Green's piece.)


Will CSER become the third person between EEP and BB? (Okay, it's a stretch - Orson Welles forgive me.)

Is this part of a movement for rational educational reform that will unite parents with progressive teachers who have seen their union drift into limbo between competing reform movements? (NYC Educator promoted it as did Ed Notes - I think I signed it.)

The UFT will jump on board - why not? It won't cost them anything but in terms of actually doing something about reform, don't expect much. After all, in addition to the BB, they also signed on to many of the aspects of the EEP - longer days, evaluations of schools based on narrow agendas, various merit pay schemes, charter schools and whatever crap is thrown against the wall and shows signs of sticking. Most of these concepts are criticized by CSER.

Bigger, Bolder does not claim schools cannot be improved at all and also seems to sign on to some of the accountability themes of EEP, though calling for an expansion beyond narrow test scores of how schools are held accountable. Bigger, Bolder's main themes are:

• Continue to pursue school improvement efforts (with a big component being reducing class size.
• Increase investment in developmentally appropriate and high-quality early childhood, pre-school, and kindergarten education.

So it is not clear exactly how different Common Sense is from Bigger, Bolder?

Philissa and Kelly at Gotham Schools called the school wars between EEP and BB a "false choice." Kelly raised the common sense concept:

As a policymaker evaluating schools, it makes no sense to ignore context. Set a high bar for everyone, of course - but recognize that it will take a lot more resources for some schools to achieve that than for others. If you don’t provide those resources - I’m talking small classes, rigorous, proven curriculum, recruitment, development, and retention of the best teachers, and it’s all going to take money - then you’re just setting up schools to fail.

And as a society, it makes no sense to put the whole burden on schools. I will know that our nation really wants to leave no child behind when I see a complete package of funded legislation that takes on health care (physical and mental), housing, environmental justice, early childhood education, and a host of other issues that affect the development and opportunities of our kids. “Our schools are failing,” is nothing but an excuse when the rest is left unaddressed.

To me, it looks like common sense: no excuses schools in a no excuses society.

I believe that most teachers who see the full consequences of how education in urban areas is given short shrift compared to places they send their own children to school do not take an approach to their jobs that things are hopeless. Teachers see real progress in many kids every day and put out their best. The real accountability they feel is to their students.

What they do see is the shame of what could be. What could be if only they didn't have 5 classes with over 30 kids in each, etc. (You know the drill.) There are kids who just don't make progress and they don't know what to do about it in the context of the resources they have at hand. Frustration, yes. But give up? No. The job becomes just too much heavy lifting when you do that. But when you add this market based competitive accountability thing to the equation then a job that was manageable to live with can become oppressive as the years go by.

What many, if not most, teachers who don't leave end up doing is finding ways to get out of doing a full schedule (comp time, dean, etc) or a gig that is less intensive teaching wise - there are a hell of a lot of non-classroom or part-time stuff that could be used to reduce class size. (We'll get into this aspect another time.) Finding teachers who do the blood and guts full schedule teaching for a very long time will be an increasingly rare thing.

My problem with one way accountability - hold teachers, schools, kids responsible while the people who hold the keys to the money escape - is that the fight for proper allocation of resources to close the equality gap between wealthy and poor schools gets lost in distraction over issues like teacher quality and accountability. Spend a fortune on monitoring, weeding out (isn't it cheaper to just find other useful things for people to do if there's a feeling they are not the best teachers), etc. instead of funneling all money into the classroom.

More from Kelly

How could two-way accountability actually work? If a school fails, but other services aren’t in place, schools are underfunded, and so forth, should the school still be held accountable? How could parents and educators in that school hold the government accountable for doing its part?

Let’s move beyond the “false choice” and explore what two-way accountability could look like in practice. Anyone?

I've been wrestling with Kelly's challenge and cannot see how 2-way accountability can work without a mass movement. Such a mass movement can never get moving with a progressive teachers union that bridges the gap between various elements and organizes and mobilizes its membership. That is why I have put a lot of my energies over the past 40 years into trying to spark a movement for progressive change in the UFT (with little success, I might add.) The UFT has bought into one way accountability and only pays lip service to holding political forces accountable - just look at their endorsement list (Pataki and worse.)

Class size is the bell weather issue that defines the separation of quality schools and the work Leonie has done for the past decade has been a focal point in the call for 2 way accountability. She has become one of the most vocal parent leaders in the city and beyond while attracting a lot of support from progressive teachers (as opposed to the UFT which also supports her - but you know the view from the anti-union right wing- they are only interested in class size so they can add members and dues.)

Parents organizations are difficult to sustain as they are mostly in the struggle for the years their kids spend in schools. Can create a movement without allying very strongly with teachers, who unless they are the new "peace corps" temporary teachers, are in it for decades and even if looked at from narrow self-interest, still have enormous incentives to see schools work well? That is why class size is such a unifying issue for all.

Gary Stager in his article in Good Magazine "School Wars" says, "Politicians, billionaires, and mavericks all want to fix public schools. They won’t. Parents will." Okay, I don't agree that parents will - alone. But these points focuses on the lack of accountability when it comes to the funders of the EEP approach are worth closing with:

Traditionally, corporate philanthropy in education consisted of a speaker on career day or sponsorship of a softball team. I’m all for generosity, but I’m also for accountability. And I wonder, to whom are the Gateses and the Broads of the world accountable? They were not elected or even appointed, but their money is changing the ways public schools operate. They may do this for altruistic reasons, but what is a citizen’s recourse if their ideology harms children? And, worse, what happens if a billionaire finally throws up his or her hands and publicly exclaims, “Even I can’t fix the public schools”? Our schools may not be able to survive the sudden cash withdrawal—or the backlash.

One way to navigate this new era of “giving” is by asking a simple question: Would these folks send their own children or grandchildren to their “reinvented” schools? Is a steady diet of memorization, work sheets, and testing the sort of education the children they love receive? Of course not. If affluent children enjoy beautiful campuses, arts programs, interesting literature, modern technology, field trips, carefree recess, and teachers who know them, I suggest that we create such schools for all children. What’s good for the sons and daughters of the billionaires should be good enough the rest of the children, too.

Bailing Out the Fannies & Freddies

Well what can you say about today's bailouts? Didn't McCain say the other day there is TOO MUCH REGULATION? Which planet is he living on? My generation had to read Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" in high school, a book about abuses in the meat industry that one shouldn't read before lunch, especially a school lunch. With the corporate de-reg agenda pushed by Republican/business we are heading to the point where I would boil all my meat for 24 hours - which means we will all be eating flanken which my mother used to cook for 2 weeks. Even Ebola was afraid to go near it.

My usual rant on class size
How many times to we have to be told that reducing class size is not cost effective? Skoolboy at 'Wonkette's place raised the issue recently and we hear a few things repeated when class size comes up:

• quality teachers
• what the research shows

and the dreaded

• COST

Matthew Tabor left a comment that included these points:

As a parent who pays the taxes to fund the class size reduction I'm as skeptical as the next person about CSR becoming a full employment act for the UFT. At the same time I know that Tweed has its own agenda, and isn’t always interested in acknowledging the grains of truth that may be contained in its opponents’ claims.

and

...the truth probably lies in the middle. Yet none of the actors in the debate seem interested in finding that middle. Just scoring points against each other, once again leaving parents in the middle.

So hear, hear for real research, like the City appears to be undertaking with the ED Hirsch curriculum in ten schools starting this fall. Let’s stop shouting at each other, get some facts on the table and then have a real debate about the cost implications. [Read his entire comment here.]

I guess I get ticked off how class size costs are always put on the table as employment for the UFT while ignoring the larger issue of how much money is wasted in this society in the corporate welfare system. Hey, then try it in a right to work state if you are all so hot and bothered by the union.

Let's try some research, not that I think we need it but we want to make people comfortable.
So let's say we hire scads of teachers - I mean take the 10 most failing schools and literally double the staffs. Inundate the schools with services no matter what the cost. Just throw cash at them. Hey, rename the schools "Fannie and Freddie" if that will make you feel better.
Say you get some teacher clunkers in the batch. So what? Find something useful they can do in the school if their strongest suit is not teaching.

What can it cost to do this with 10 schools? I even suggested this to Chris Cerf at a Manhattan Institute meeting to try it with one school when he said it's been proven throwing cash at the problem doesn't solve it. I said, "You NEVER throw cash. Why not try it with Tilden HS in Brooklyn instead of closing it"?

Skoolboy in his post threw down the gauntlet challenging the DOE to do an experiment on reducing class size. I left this comment:

I'm glad to see you revisit the class size issue but I'm afraid your gauntlet will lie in the gutter untouched by the hands of a Tweed official.

The NYC DOE had many opportunities over the last 6 years to do a study of class size. For instance, instead of closing so many large schools, why didn't they try to reduce class size in one or two schools as a control and compare the impact to other schools?

The answer is class size reduction is not part of the fabric of the ed reform movement. It is much easier - and cheaper - to blame ed failures on lack of quality teaching.

When there's a need for more police, firemen, soldiers, doctors - is the quality issue raised? We know that "qualifications" in the medical field are never related to performance and hospitals in need scrounge for doctors where they can get them as long as they are certified. In these fields people actually die if mistakes are made.

The quality teacher before class size issue is a red herring to support an ideological, not an educational solution, that accomplishes the political goals of privatizing many elements of the public schools while diminishing the impact teacher unions might have. (I say might because of the role the AFT/UFT plays in supporting so much of this ideology.)

Sarah Palin: Thank God for Jesus so she didn't have to be Jewish (spoof)

....and dinosaurs were around 4000 years ago.


She didn't actually say these things which were made up by Bob. These "quotes" have circulated the internet with many people believing them. Which just goes to show what 8 years of W can do to our brains. But it also shows how close to the edge some people are about Palin's supposed views (time to hold off till we hear from the horse's mouth, though I doubt there will be all that much opportunity - can she be worse than Agnew and Quale?)

In Her Own Words
Actual quotes by Governor Palin during a series of interviews by the Anchorage Daily News in 2006 when she was running for Governor...

On Creationism:

The simple yet elegantly awkward moose proves God's creation and not evolution is the source of all life. How could something as oddly shaped and silly looking as a moose evolve through so-called "natural selection?" Is evolution a committee? There is nothing natural about a dorky moose! Only God could have made a moose and given it huge
antlers to fight off his predatory enemies. God has a well known sense of humor, I mean He made the platypus too.

On oil exploration and drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve:

God made dinosaurs 4,000 years ago as ultimately flawed creatures, lizards of Satan really, so when they died and became petroleum products we, made in his perfect image, could use them in our pickup trucks, snow machines and fishing boats.

Now, as to the ANWR, Todd and I often enjoying caribou hunting and one year we shot up a herd big time, I mean I personally slaughtered around 40 of them with my new, at the time, custom Austrian hunting rifle. And guess what? That caribou herd is still around and even bigger than ever. Caribou herds actually need culling, be it by rifles or wolves, or Exxon-Mobil oil rigs, they do just great!

On Alaskans serving overseas in Iraq:

Well, God bless them, and I mean God and Jesus because without Jesus we'd be Muslims too or Jewish, which would be a little better because of the superior Israeli Air Force.


Bob blogs at http://unbearablebobness.typepad.com

The Broads Breed

ENN is reporting the Eli and Edyth Broad (pronounced Brood) Foundation, the source of so much funding in undermining the urban public school systems (BloomKlein won the Broad prize for education "improvement" last year), has just given a whopping $400 million to a genetic institute, a joint venture by Harvard and MIT.

The money will be used to study the type of genetics that would produce teachers capable of eliminating the achievement gap.

"This is the cutting area of research. There is no more important issue the world faces than finding quality teachers and that will never happen without some genetic intervention," said a spokesperson.

Genetic manipulation of pre-determined embryos is expected to produce teachers who will:

• work 14 hour days without interruption
• teach class sizes of 40 and up without complaining
• never join a union

All candidates will be sterilized to assure they never have their own children who might interfere with the primary mission- to create millions of super human quality teachers.

Read the NY Times article here.

And if they can't agree on parking?

Chapter leaders and principals to assign parking placards: The UFT reached an agreement with the city on Aug. 26 that preserves all on-street and off-street parking spots for schools, but limits the number of permits available to a school to the number of available spots designated for parking by DOE personnel. In each school, the chapter leader and principal must agree on how those placards will be used. The story and the agreement are at uft.org. If you as chapter leader have any questions, please contact your district rep.- UFT Weekly Update

Hmmm. Let's see how this works. My principal and I don't agree. So I call my District Rep. Three days later I still haven't received a response. The principal has given out all the permits. Now I read somewhere that when there's a dispute, the issue is taken to the UFT president. Isn't she somewhere racing around the country for the presidential election? No, I forgot. Hillary didn't make it so she has a lot more time to drop everything and deal with my parking issue. I'm still waiting.

In the meantime, I am all of a sudden being observed every half hour and getting U ratings even though I have a perfect record for 15 years. Ok, I'll grieve. Ooops! I forgot. I can't grieve letters in my file. I call the district rep. After a week, he calls me back. "Keep a careful log." After 3 months and 40 U observations, I call him back. "Not enough yet. Keep logging. Maybe we'll file a harassment grievance at the end of the year."

I'm in the rubber room though I don't know why. Rumor is that I verbally abused a kid for telling him he's a bad boy for not doing his homework. I call the District rep. "Don't worry, after all you're getting paid. Sit back and relax and enjoy. It's out of our hands now but you'll have a NYSUT attorney."

If you are having these problems, download Park Anywhere.

The Republican Platform: The Palin Planks

1. Schools shall be obliged to teach the Intelligent Design Theory in all history and anthropology courses, and The Stork Theory of Human Reproduction in all biology classes.

2. The Spanish Inquisition shall be incorporated into the Department of Homeland Security.

3. Abortion, birth control, and jerking off shall be proscribed by awarding legal personhood to embryos, ova, and sperms.

4. The U.S. Government shall implement an immigration policy modeled on that of Cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros and Friar Tomás de Torquemada in 15^th century Spain.

5. A domestic crusade shall be forged against American infidels inspired by Pope Innocent III’s campaign against the Cathars (Albigensians) in southern France in the 12^th century.

6. All citizens with IQs of three digits shall be sent to re-education camps.

7. Galileo shall be re-indicted.

--
Louis Bedrock
Per alta vade spatia sublimi aethere; testare nullos qua veheris, deos.

Ed Note:
I'll add one more - All schools will be required to teach both theories on whether the earth is round or flat.

Election 2012: Clinton vs. Palin

You read it here first - I think.

UPDATE: No, you didn't read it here first. This is all over the internet - Google clinton, palin, 2012 and get a load of stuff.

A scriptwriter couldn't fashion a better scenario.

The Clintons never believed Obama could win and therefore were positioning Hillary to pick up the pieces for a 2012 run against McCain? Who would be 76?

Palin is the new wild card and if she doesn't self-destruct, a very likely Republican candidate in 2012, win or lose. But if she and McCain win... oh what a delicious scenario.

Clinton does pick up the pieces and would waltz into the nomination, thus setting up the dream match-up and the sure bet guarantee of a woman president in 2012.

From a Wasilla, Alaska Housewife: The Real Deal on Sarah Palin

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team.


In a fascinating piece by a neighbor of Sarah Palin, I found the above selection the scariest of all. A commentator compared Palin to Reese Witherspoon's Tracy Flick character in the 1999 movie "Election." If you haven't seen it do so. And then be scared. Very scared. The author herself says, "this is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future." Don't bet it won't.

UPDATES:
Check out The Ballad of Sarah Palin at psuedo-intellectualism.
And this report on the librarian who Palin attempted to fire over a loyalty test.
Looks to me Palin will make George Bush Pale In comparison when it comes to partisan politics.

ABOUT SARAH PALIN

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she's like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because she is a "babe".

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months.

She is "pro-life". She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby.

She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.

Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin's kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything like that of native Alaskans.

Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.

She's smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative". During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren't enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn't even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later--to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit- generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.

She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the "old boy's club" when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys". Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal--loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State's top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla's Police Chief because he "intimidated" her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't fire her sister's ex- husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in- law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn't like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the "old boys' club" when she dramatically quit, exposing this man's ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects--which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance-- but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork".

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as "AGIA" that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. She campaigned "as a private citizen" against a state initiative that would have either a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State's lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior's decision to list polar bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President.

There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she.

However, there's a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.

CLAIM VS FACT

*"Hockey mom": true for a few years

*"PTA mom": true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since

*"NRA supporter": absolutely true

*social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships (said she did this because it was unconstitutional) .

*pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor to promote it.

*"Pro-life": mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby BUT declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation

*"Experienced": Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska. No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.

*political maverick: not at all

*gutsy: absolutely!

*open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.

*has a developed philosophy of public policy: no

*"a Greenie": no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro- drilling off-shore and in ANWR.

*fiscal conservative: not by my definition!

*pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.

*pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on residents

*pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla's history.

*pro-labor/pro- union. No. Just because her husband works union doesn't make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro- union.

WHY AM I WRITING THIS?

First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny + Alaska), you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I've always operated in the belief that "Bad things happen when good people stay silent". Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don't have a job she can bump me out of. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that's life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah's attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

CAVEATS

I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor) from information supplied to me by the Finance Director of the City of Wasilla, and I can't recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust for inflation? for population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of City Hall--they are swamped. So I can't verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my "about 5,000", up to 9,000. The day Palin's selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90's.

Anne Kilkenny

Boston Herald on Kilkenny

BloomKlein Model in the Land of Oz

I received an email from Trevor Cobbold, a parent activist, who is based in Canberra, Australia's capital and is involved with Save Our Schools Canberra.

He wrote an article for the Canberra Times addressing the situation in New York in terms of school reporting:

Ideology win in school reporting

The Rudd Government's ''education revolution'' is looking more and more like an extension of the Howard government's school policies. All the same elements are there choice and competition, reliance on markets, and now public reporting of school results.

The model for the new school reporting scheme comes direct from New York. Julia Gillard has been enthusing about the New York system ever since her audience with the New York schools chancellor, Joe Klein. She says she is ''inspired'' and ''impressed'' by Klein's model.

If Gillard had looked more closely, she would have seen major flaws.

The New York system produces unreliable and misleading comparisons of school performance and student progress. It is incoherent, can be used to produce league table,fails to compare like with like and is statistically flawed.

He goes on to cite Diane Ravitch and Jennifer Jennings (Eduwonkette) and concludes with:

Australia and Finland are two of the highest-achieving countries in the world in school outcomes according to the PISA surveys conducted by the OECD. Neither country got there by reporting school results.

Why the Rudd Government is choosing to emulate the reporting policies of much lower-performing countries such as the United States and United Kingdom can be explained only as a triumph of ideology over evidence.

Read the entire piece here.

Trevor also sent this blog site for reference.

http://www.futuredforum.blogspot.com/

I have disagreements on an article he wrote on class size at Save Our Schools where he talks about cost effectiveness and teacher quality as excuses not to jump into class size reduction across the board. While praising the STAR project, he also cites research on teacher quality, which no one seems to be able to define:

There is evidence that improving teacher quality contributes more to increasing student outcomes than class size reductions. Recent studies by Doug Harris and David Plank at Michigan State University and by Dylan Wiliam, Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, show larger improvements from increasing teacher ability and skills than by class size reductions.

Too many researchers have agendas based on where their funding is coming from and the TQ people have a lot more money than advocates for class size. I find it interesting that the "quality" issue is not raised when it comes to putting more police on the street to reduce crime or firemen on the job to cut down fires or doctors in emergency rooms.

I have to ask him what he thinks about all those Aussies Klein hired (at up to $1000 a day) to run around schools in NYC as consultants.


Personal Aussie Note
We visited Canberra in the early 90's to attend the Scherr scion's Bar Mitzvah. We had to smuggle in the yarmulkes - apparently it's tough to get them engraved in Canberra but I did manage to get them through customs despite the yarmulke sniffing dogs. The Scherrs, now living in Perth/Freemantle, stayed with us for 3 weeks last summer (and we're still talking.) Their son Sam is now 30 and a founding member of Capital City, a rock band in Australia. Dan Scherr, a native of the TenEyk housing project in Williamsburg in Brooklyn, keeps me informed of ed events in Western Australia.

The Battle Over Mayoral Control? Sorry Yogi, It's Over

It's down to a battle of twicks and tweaks

There's been a lot of sturm and drang over whether mayoral control will be renewed in 2009. If it isn't will force us back to the much derided old system of local elected school board control over grades K-8 (32 districts) with central control over high schools and various special services along with a central board of education.

Much has been made this week over the enormous sums being spent by Bloomberg and his corporate buddies to steam roller the politicians (the corrupt and useless state legislature has the power to decide) and the public. They might as well have saved the money. Or maybe even put it into classrooms by buying school supplies (teachers and parents are funding an awful lot of this stuff while money flies to political manipulation.

While many of us were critics of the old system, there was never any attempt to fix those flaws as the baby was thrown out with the bath water when the mayor gained total control over the school system.

Other than a few groups like ICOPE, my colleagues in the Independent Community of Educators and some independent activists out there who still believe the same system of parent and community input should be given to urban parents just as it is in the surburbs, even the severest critics of the Bloomberg and Klein administration (Ravitch, Stern, and even Leonie Haimson) think there is a need for some centralized control in the hands of a politician (who controls the money.)

The UFT? They were the first out of the box to support mayoral control in 2001 (which was one of the issues that pushed me into opposition mode) and no matter the rhetoric coming out of 52 Broadway, we always predicted they would never waiver from that position and instead call for minor changes that would still leave the mayor in control. Tey even had a committee spend a year or more holding meetings and listening to all sides. We even had some ICE'ers involved and they have the people running the committee good grades for listening. But the results are predetermined no matter what people said and I think they were wasting their time.

What will happen is report will be issue with all the criticisms included but no real call for an end to mayoral control and a reversion to some improved version of neighborhood control which the UFT has opposed since the mid-60's.

Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, who has been perceived as a thorn in Bloomberg's side, formed a commission to study the issue. Today the report was released.

What it amounts to is a joke with recommendations so inconsequential as to make us wonder if the money couldn't have been better used for school supplies. Like we need a 4 year term of office for the un-peppy PEP so they can't be fired by the mayor who appoints them anyway. Duhhhhh! Like now he'll make sure to appoint total robot nincompoops so he will not have to fire them. Read it here.

Nothing they do will make a difference unless there is radical change. The first step is to get politicians out of education, which by the way was the main flaw in the old decentralized system that existed from 1968 - 2002. All they did with mayoral control and their twicks and tweats is to shift the flow of influence (and patronage - the major interest of politicians) from one set of politicians to another.

Today's NY Times story

Separate and Unequal in Good 'Ole New York

UPDATE:
Leonie's piece also posted at NYC Public School Parent blog

In these days of phony ed reform, where there is a claim by so-called reformers they are engaging in the "civil rights movement of our time," is it time for another Supreme Court Brown vs, Board of Education case?

Ooops! Not with this Court. Maybe in another generation when we find progress has been marking time. When the results are examined in detail, it will be found that the BloomKlein administration have set back civil rights by 50 years. (Check 2 blog posts by Chaz School Daze on the increase in the need for remedial programs for NYC high school grads under BloomKlein and the deteriorating SAT score situation under Kleinberg.)

And follow the events in the Chicago boycott and civil rights march after 13 years of mayoral control and Phony Ed Reform Politics (which we are now referring to as PERP and "reformers" as PERPS) in the ed notes sidebar where you can also find a link to Fred Klonsky's Prea Prez which is covering the story. His brother Mike also has a story today. Chicago is a great model to see how this all plays out over time and how it will play out in New York in the next half dozen years.

My ICE colleague James Eterno has been writing about Academic Apartheid at Jamaica High School on the ICE blog and in letters to useless NY State Ed Commisioner.

Leonie Haimson chronicled this wonderful story and interchange betweem Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and Joel Klein on a tour of a charter school. Poor Marty, lamenting the severe differences in resources allocated to public and charter schools in one of the poorest areas of Brooklyn. You see, Marty has been a total suckup and supporter of BloomKlein, so these are only crocodile tears. (And I remember a different Marty in his Brooklyn College and tenant activist days when he held a meeting in my building lobby to fight our landlord.)

Here's Leonie's superb post:

Jenny Medina of the NY Times captured the following exchange during the usual dog and pony show of yesterday’s media tour of the first day of school:

In a kindergarten classroom — its door designating the students inside as members of the Class of 2025 — Mr. Markowitz cornered Mr. Klein. “Why can’t our public schools have a place like this?” he asked a bit testily. “Do you know the resources it takes for a place like this?

Elizabeth Green of the NY Sun also observed this conversation:

On a visit to the Excellence School, which is housed in a sparkling new 90,000-square-foot school building in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the president of Brooklyn, Marty Markowitz, became visibly agitated.

"Listen to me," he said to the schools chancellor, Joel Klein, as the two toured a classroom, "we have some public schools that are starving for these kinds of resources." Mr. Klein replied that some schools are doing as well as Excellence with more modest budgets. Mr. Markowitz was not convinced; he said that while he supports charter schools, he is "conflicted" about the extra resources they sometimes receive from private donors.
"I really believe the jury is out on this whole thing," Mr. Markowitz said, walking out the door.


Is it all a matter of private donors? According to the school’s website:

Excellence is housed in a 90,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art facility with a 10,000-volume library, a 500-seat auditorium, music and art studios, a gymnasium, a climbing wall, a rooftop turf field, and sufficient classroom space to house Excellence as it grows into a K-8 school.

According to InsideSchools, the building was renovated from a former DOE public school (PS 70):
In the new facility, students will enjoy amenities that rival deeply-endowed private schools. Designed by Yale School of Architecture Dean Robert A.M. Stern, the renovated building includes an AstroTurfed roof garden/play yard with sweeping city and harbor views, secluded and inviting book nooks on every floor, double-sized science labs, a giant gymnasium complete with climbing wall, a spacious school library, and a state-of-the-art auditorium. Sawicki lives around the corner from the new building.

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/BES/BED027.htm has wonderful before and after photos:

And where did all the money for this incredible facility come from?

See this 2006 article from Fortune magazine, about the Robin Hood foundation and its founder, “hedge fund maestro Paul Tudor Jones” :

“The school is the product of a pooling of dollars by the New York City Board of Education, Robin Hood, and Jones personally, plus contributions from a variety of corporations. The school's physical plant, including a fabulous AstroTurf roof, would be the envy of any $30,000-a-year private school. Inside, groups of energized young teachers and little boys, kindergarten through second grade (and 100% minority), in white shirts and ties, ready themselves for the coming school year. Principal Jabali Sawicki tells me there is a 170-student waiting list. Just a few years ago this building was a neighborhood eyesore, a symbol of all that had gone wrong in Bed-Stuy. Originally constructed in the 1880s as PS 70, and later used as a yeshiva, it became a home to drug dealers and prostitutes after a fire in the 1970s - even a venue for illegal cock fights. Then, in 2004, another organization that Jones supports, Uncommon Schools, committed $30 million ($6 million from Jones personally) to buy and renovate the property. David Saltzman, the executive director of Robin Hood, persuaded Robert A.M. Stern, dean of the Yale School of Architecture, to design the facility, which was completed this spring. Signs throughout the school were done gratis by renowned design firm Pentagram. And Robin Hood sent a check for $150,000 for the school's operating budget. Books were donated by Scholastic and HarperCollins, which have given a collective two million volumes to Robin Hood…”

This 2006 article notes how the Robin Hood Foundation raises hundreds of millions per year; from charity concerts of the Rolling Stones (take: $11 million); benefit dinners hosted by Jon Stewart w/ Beyonce performing, and auctioning off naming rights to charter school buildings going for $1 million:

Most charity dinners in New York are considered a smash if they bring in $1 million. Here success is measured in tens of millions. "If you are on Wall Street, particularly in hedge funds, you have to be here," says one of my tablemates. The final tally? In a single night Robin Hood hauls in $48 million. Some $20 million is earmarked for the new school - which will be matched by the board, $2.25 for each $1. And New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein, who at one point during the gala, at Jones's urging, stands and takes a bow, has said the city, in turn, will match the combined sum (as well as the amount of a tax credit). Overall, the $20 million for the school will grow to $180 million. The cost to put on the dinner? Around $5.6 million.

And the cost to taxpayers: $90 million. In answer to the Fortune reporter’s question: Don't charter schools draw precious resources away from other public schools?

Jones makes no apologies:

"Charter schools are the best thing that ever happened to education in New York City because they provide competition to regular public schools and raise the bar that everyone is trying to attain. They provide thought leadership for other schools, so again there's a multiplicative impact."

This is Klein’s usual response as well. Wonder why so many other schools in Brooklyn and citywide still have substandard conditions. How does that competition thing work again?

Leonie Haimson
Class Size Matters
classsizematters@gmail.com
www.classsizematters.org
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/

Welcome to the hut, Steven!

"People generally believe that education is what you make of it … Well, I don't know about you but if I were to ask you to cook your Thanksgiving dinner and all I gave you to make your feast was $5, a kitchen-less hut, and a granola bar you'd be pretty screwed. That's the same situation society puts me in."


A new beginning for public education?
By: Steven Lee
NYC Teaching Fellow
Posted: 9/3/08

New York City teachers reported to their schools this week to start professional development in preparation for the upcoming school year. Our school was hit hard by recent city-wide budget cuts and our principal, who is a very resourceful and competent leader, revealed some bureaucratic "baggage" that can only be attributed to the failed policies of the current Bush administration and their optimistic No Child Left Behind legislation.

Our principal educated us on the statistics of our small school in the past year. Our graduation rate was approximately 74 percent, but the Department of Education calculated our statistics at an abysmal 38 percent. Where's this discrepancy coming from you might ask?

Well, upon further investigation, we found that the source of these additional students came from sudden transfers from a district 79, from a non-existent school numbered 510. When I say non-existent, I mean the building itself doesn't exist and that there's no teachers and the students most likely don't even know they're attending that institution. To look up a school by the number 510 in a district 79 would be impossible on the schools.nyc.gov Web site.

These students have supposedly "transferred" have been circulating the computer systems of the Department of Education, and in the attempt to cover-up the outstanding failures or omissions on the register, they've transferred these names onto the rosters of unsuspecting schools that actually perform their duties. So our report card grade suffers because children are in fact being left behind in schools that don't exist.

This is the illusion that I call urban education. Society believes that it's a null issue or that there's nothing really wrong with education since test scores keep rising, right? Data doesn't lie, right? Well to let you guys know, test scores are scaled to boost student averages. The passing score on the standardized science exam is a 39, which is scaled to a 65.

In all my discussions with fellow pedagogues and administrators, there seems to be a sort of settled attitude about these things. We know that there's really nothing that we can do to change these things. What bother me are the stories I hear of incompetent administrators and principals where teachers wonder how they even became administrators. There's a serious lack of competent leadership in education. I couldn't imagine how long I would be teaching at my school if my principal was as incompetent as some of the others that I have heard about.

This coming election is America's chance to turn the tide on the failed legacy of foreign policy and to kick start America's economy by starting an educational revolution. The lack of in depth educational policy between the Obama and McCain presidential campaigns is pretty terrifying to me. They seem content on either somehow modifying or tweaking No Child Left Behind and aren't really too keen on listening to the suggestion of those who work on the front lines. But then again, I recall through the stories of bad principals how sometimes you don't have to be the most competent to earn the title of decision-maker …

Summer vacation has been a time of reflection for me. Finishing my first-year teaching high school science in the South Bronx has opened my eyes to a new level of social neglect that I didn't think existed. Many people ask if this is what I really want in life or if this is something I want to do for a long period of time, but I usually tell them that I couldn't imagine another place where I'm so desperately needed.

I have literally killed myself this past year taking graduate school classes, lesson planning, sleeping less than four hours every night, neglecting friends and family, and paying upwards of $1,000 out of my own pocket on class materials for a generation of students who are not only looked down upon, but are neglected or ignored by those who are in a position of power and privilege. Politicians don't send their sons and daughters to urban public schools. I wonder why? The educators seem pretty dedicated, right?

People generally believe that education is what you make of it … Well, I don't know about you but if I were to ask you to cook your Thanksgiving dinner and all I gave you to make your feast was $5, a kitchen-less hut, and a granola bar you'd be pretty screwed. That's the same situation society puts me in. And all I can do is write angry blog entries or letters to the Targum.

Steven Lee is a Rutgers College Class of 2007 alumnus. He is currently working as a teaching fellow in New York City.

Posted at The Daily Targum, "serving the Rutgers Community since 1869"


Welcome to the hut, Steven!
School report cards and grades are part of the distraction to undercut such a movement by making natural allies fight and compete with each other - you know, each school is an island and we have to beat the other guys.

Of course, you will be accused by the "ed reformers" of making excuses. Yes, do the best you can. But it doesn't stop at writing letters. True ed reform will require teachers to go beyond the classroom into political action to create a movement for change that will shift money from bailouts and corporate welfare so we can tear down that hut and build an education system that will serve children, parents and teachers instead of politicians and Walmart, Gates, Broad and the other privatizers.

I suggest you begin with a movement to reform the UFT, a union that all too often lines up with the phony reformers while going along with the corporate agenda. Without a strong, progressive union willing to fight back on all levels instead of undercutting and coopting progressives, there is little chance that the hut will go away soon.

A tale of the UFT and non-union building

Need to Run a Chapter Leader Election?

Some teachers have returned to school to find their chapter leader has resigned, been excessed, hung. Sometimes they contact the union to find out what to do. It's sort of left to someone conscious enough to take action. Sometimes, since there is no one in charge, they don't and the principal can just give out those parking permits as they wish. And do some other crap too.

Now one would think the UFT machinery would provide schools with an automatic method of handing this situation. An election for chapter leader should be held immediately but the UFT is so missing in action at this crucial moment in the school year. I guess they have other fish to fry (hint - look for a large green dot) than worrying about schools being left hanging without a union rep.

frying fish at the UFT

Some district reps take some initiative and set up a load of info.

Others respond with: "They are out of the kits and have ordered more. When it arrives, I will mail it to you."

Now this is one dumb (or lazy) district rep. (Why worry if a school has no union rep?) Maybe he thinks the kit comes in a box.

The ICE web site (not the blog) has the scanned "kit" downloadable in a pdf. (6th item on left hand panel.)

Maybe I missed it but I wish the UFT web site had the elusive "kit." If anyone wants to go on a scavenger hunt to find it, let us know.

Diane Ravitch on How Dems Match Republicans on School Reform

Dems say

Diane Ravitch began a new season on her blog with some points on how Dems are aping the elephants on ed reform.

We used to see a partisan divide about the big issues in education policy. The Democratic party advocated more funding for disadvantaged students and policies that promoted equity. The Republican party advocated choice, privatization, merit pay, and accountability, and criticized the teachers’ unions as the main obstacles to reform.

In this election cycle, that familiar divide has changed dramatically. The Republicans still advocate choice, privatization, merit pay, and accountability and are still critical of the teachers’ unions. But now there is a significant movement within the Democratic party that advocates the same positions as the Republicans.

The “reforms” of the Klein-Sharpton-Rhee group are not at all new. They attack the teachers’ union, bash teachers, demand merit pay, promote charter schools and private management, and laud testing, lots more testing. They love NCLB, and they want it toughened. At bottom, they would like to see the public school system of the United States run like a business, with employees hired and fired at will. They are ready to privatize and outsource whatever they can, trusting private managers to succeed where the public sector (with themselves as leaders) has failed.

Read it all at Bridging Differences, her dialogue with Debbie Meier here.

As one of the major players and founders in the standards movement, is Diane playing the role of Dr. Frankenstein as she sees what has become of her monster?

Follow events in Chicago going on right now with a student boycott over a failed schools system. Need I remind you that Mayor Daly is a Dem? That city has had mayoral control and all the "goodies" of the ed reform movement since 1995 - and Paul Vallas to get it all started. He went on to Philly to create a mess and is not running New Orleans. Hate to say we told you so, but we did - starting with pleas to the UFT back in 2001 to resist mayoral control when reports out of Chicago started surfacing compliments of George Schmidt and Substance.

Rather than look at ways to continue mayoral control with checks or independent commissions to evaluate results (a good thing) as all too many critics like Diane seem to line up, better to seek ways to remove education from the control of politicians who, no matter what the controls, will engage in tactics to override them.

Justice-Not-Just-Tests: First meeting of the year! Mon. Sept, 8 5:30 Cuny grad center

Sent from the NYCoRE working group that addresses high-stakes and standardized tests in our schools.

When: Mon., Sept, 8, 5:30
Where: Cuny grad. center. room 5414 (directions below, bring ID)

We are going to be getting ready for our campaign to resist merit pay in our schools. We will also be thinking about the up-coming year and mapping out our plans. So, please come if you are interested in fighting against high-stakes and standardized tests in our schools and fighting for justice. We need to be loud this election season!

If you have been thinking about getting involved in this fight, now is a great time! The merit pay issue is a big one and has been popping up a lot in the national debates about education. Now is the time to let the candidates know how actual educators feel! (Here is a link to an article in rethinking schools about merit pay in NYC: http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/22_04/meri224.shtml)

Same goes for high-stakes and standardized tests. We all know that, at best, they simply don't work and are bad pedagogy. At worst, they are racist, thinly veiled attacks on public education and working class children of children of color. Why don't the candidates know?
(Link to nycore's position statement on testing http://www.nycore.org/PDF/testingposition.pdf)

We are always looking for fresh faces and new energy so make this the year you stand up for what you believe in!

If you have questions, comments, you want to come but can't, are planning to come, or are just friendly. . .

email us at jnjt@nycore.org

Grad Center
Located on Fifth Avenue between 34th and 35th Streets, the building is two blocks east of Penn Station, one block east of Herald Square, and two blocks west of the 33rd Street and Park Avenue station. The closest subway station, located at 34th Street and Avenue of the Americas, is served by the B, D, F, N, R, and Q trains.

Today....

...I toast all NYC teachers as they meet their kids for the first time.

Today used to be the first official day teachers reported and for most of my career we had 4 days to get ready for the Monday following Labor Day when the kids reported. I never minded those 4 days - except for the stupid 2 hour faculty conference which was repeated word for word every year. Hey, there are 2 new teachers that have to hear about the school philosophy - which is to get high scores - do what you have to - so make 40 other people sit through it again - and again - and again. But most people hadn't seen each other for 2 months and we had long lunches and chats and bitching galore. But you know what? I was ready to go back by then. The main bitch for me was the loss of free time to think about doing all the things I didn't get to do - and never would.

The night before the kids showed was always the finals of the US Open and I would watch while finishing up whatever, nervous as all hell - no matter how long you teach, the night before is spent trying to contain those flying insects floating around your gut.

I'm talking about the years when I had my own classes - roughly from 1969-1985. After that I was a cluster which was one tenth the work, so I don't look at those years the same way.

Now we are in a different landscape. Today - the day after Labor Day - is THE DAY for teachers and children. Klein is racing around to all the boroughs - if I showed up at Tweed at 7 AM I might have even gotten on the press bus - but no thanks. And Randi Weingarten and City Council head Christine Quinn have their own schools to visit together, it seems. I wonder what new UFT Chief Operating Officer Mike Mulgrew will be doing today? As long as you see Randi's face on the TV screens, she is running things. I still think she digs the nitty gritty UFT stuff more than the AFT statesperson role. But who else was there to take on that role.

Well, here's to all the NYC teachers - wishing you the best year possible - and hoping this year many of you see there is a need for some level of activism on your parts to take back this union, which is the first step in attacking the true problems facing education today.

Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now Arrested at RNC

You tube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
www.democracynow.org

Amy Goodman and Two Democracy Now! Producers Unlawfully Arrested At the RNC

September 1, 2008

Contact:
Denis Moynihan 917-549-5000
Mike Burke 646-552-5107, mike@democracynow.org

ST. PAUL, MN—Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was unlawfully arrested in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota at approximately 5 p.m. local time. Police violently manhandled Goodman, yanking her arm, as they arrested her. Video of her arrest can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ

Goodman was arrested while attempting to free two Democracy Now! producers who were being unlawfully detained. They are Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. Kouddous and Salazar were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. Goodman's crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press.

Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and Salazar were being arrested on suspicion of rioting. They are currently being held at the Ramsey County jail in St. Paul.

Democracy Now! is calling on all journalists and concerned citizens to call the office of Mayor Chris Coleman and the Ramsey County Jail and demand the immediate release of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar. These calls can be directed to: Chris Rider from Mayor Coleman's office at 651-266-8535 and the Ramsey County Jail at 651-266-9350 (press extension 0).

Democracy Now! stands by Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar and condemns this action by Twin Cities law enforcement as a clear violation of the freedom of the press and the First Amendment rights of these journalists.

During the demonstration in which they were arrested law enforcement office used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and excessive force. Several dozen others were also arrested during this action.

Amy Goodman is one of the most well-known and well-respected journalists in the United States. She has received journalism's top honors for her reporting and has a distinguished reputation of bravery and courage. The arrest of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar is a transparent attempt to intimidate journalists from the nation's leading independent news outlet.

Democracy Now! is a nationally syndicated public TV and radio program that airs on over 700 radio and TV stations across the US and the globe.

Video of Amy Goodman's Arrest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ

##
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ABOUT DEMOCRACY NOW!
Democracy Now! airs on over 650 radio and TV stations, including Pacifica, NPR, community, and college radio stations; on public access, PBS, satellite TV stations (DISH network: Free Speech TV ch. 9415 and Link TV ch. 9410; DIRECTV: Link TV ch. 375); on the World Radio Network's European Service and on the Community Broacasting
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Ed Reformers Urge Vow of Celibacy for New Army of Teachers (spoof)

In a new initiative, new teachers would be required to renounce marriage in order to devote themselves more fully to the task of preparing each and every child to excel in standardized test-taking.

Another brilliant parody. Already there are some Socrates-like idiot comments on this Eggplant post from Tauna at This Little Blog. How dare someone parody KIPP - boo, hoo. Have you ever been in a KIPP school - sniff, sniff! Susan O also has it up on her site.

Tauna is not far from reality as we are seeing in NYC where young urban dwellers without family commitments are preferred over parents who might actually have to leave school on time (often to a suburb with a long commute where they can afford a house) to go home and care for their children. Any stats on how many KIPP teachers have children of their own?

Save Now

Must See Video: You Are Surrounded - Put Down Those Video Cameras

UPDATE: Read a full account of the raid here.

Thus saith the FBI and police in St. Paul as they surround a house rented by a New York based journalist team from I-Witness Video Collective in a further demonstration of democracy inaction as prep for the Republican convention. We had our own joys with the NYC police at the Republican convention 4 years ago when they arrested numerous people illegally and ended up dropping most of the charges (the law suits still coming up.) BUT THESE ARE JOURNALISTS. You see that happen in Central American tin-horn dictatorships. Well, now that I think of it.... What next, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove death squads in the middle of the night? I'm locking my screen door.

But having journalists report on their own situation is a priceless ad for American democracy as a woman in handcuffs (for walking out of the house) is interviewed and the police break in though the attic (without a proper warrant), point guns at people and handcuff them.




Here is the direct link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi1eluuDGss&eurl

Thanks to Fred Klonsky at Prea Prez for putting this up.